Public Administration: Meaning as a Field of Study (Pols 206)

Introduction

Public administration has become one of the most popular disciplines of study in tertiary institutions worldwide — in colleges, polytechnics, specialized institutions, and universities. As with any discipline, understanding its meaning requires understanding its distinctive subject matter, scope, key concepts, theories, and methods. However, like most disciplines in the humanities and social sciences — and, to some extent, even the natural sciences — public administration shares overlapping concerns, concepts, themes, and methods with related fields. This overlap is one of the reasons public administration has yet to attain a precise and universally accepted definition.

Banner depicting public administration

Several factors account for this lack of definitional precision.

1. The Influence of Society and Environment

Public administration concerns human society, which is always shaped by its physical and historical circumstances. Every society has its own history, culture, and values, and because public administration's institutions, structures, roles, and capacities are shaped by these societal values, they cannot be identical across societies. Public administration in the United States, Britain, China, and elsewhere therefore differs in role, structure, capacity, and underlying values. This suggests that certain elements of public administration are unique to each society.

2. Emerging Common Characteristics

Despite these variations, contemporary public administration has also developed certain common characteristics across societies. Most modern public administration systems, for example, employ salaried staff recruited on the basis of defined qualifications, operate within bureaucratic organizational structures, perform specialized and organized functions, and claim to serve the public interest. At the same time, human society is dynamic rather than static — it changes over time and space in terms of values, age, and institutions. In Nigeria, for instance, public administration during the colonial period differed markedly from that of the post-colonial period in terms of role, structure, and orientation.

3. Disagreement Among Scholars and Practitioners

There is ongoing disagreement among scholars and practitioners over whether public administration is an art or a science, and over the kind of organizational arrangements that lead to efficiency and effectiveness. This reflects a broader, longstanding tension between the theory and practice of public administration. Many scholars have observed that, unlike some other disciplines that have arrived at precise and settled definitions, public administration continues to lack a single, universally accepted understanding.

Conclusion

Taken together, the influence of society and environment, the dynamic and evolving nature of administrative practice, and unresolved debates over the discipline's theoretical and practical character explain why public administration continues to resist a single, universally accepted definition. Rather than being a weakness, this diversity reflects the discipline's responsiveness to the varied societies and historical contexts it serves.