Bureaucracy and Government Quality

2021 ◽  
pp. 640-661
Author(s):  
Carl Dahlström ◽  
Victor Lapuente
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Service Systems ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
The Public ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Pros And Cons

How does the way the bureaucracy is organized affect the quality of the public policies delivered? This chapter focuses primarily on the role of human resources in the public sector and its impact on good government. We argue it is specifically important how bureaucrats are recruited, promoted, dismissed, and incentivized; what public administration scholars refer to as “civil service systems.” Building on the more than 75-year-old discussion between Carl Friedrich (1940) and Herman Finer (1941), we explore the pros and cons of having public employees who are directly accountable to their political masters vis-à-vis public employees who are politically autonomous. The review of the available evidence indicates that, all other things being equal, civil servants’ autonomy leads to less corrupt, and more effective governments in comparison with polities where civil servants owe their positions to political connections. The chapter concludes that civil servants should be directly accountable to their professional peers instead of their political superiors.

Evolution of the public administration system. The Republic of Estonia

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 82-118
Author(s):  
YANA TOOM ◽  
◽  
VALENTINA V. KOMLEVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Administration System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Republic

The article studies the main stages and features of the evolution of the public administration system in the Republic of Estonia after 1992. This paper presents brief geographical and socio-economic characteristics that largely determine the development of the country’s public administration. The evolution of the institution of the presidency, executive, and legislative powers are considered. The role of parliament and mechanisms for coordinating the interests of different groups of the population for the development of the country is especially emphasized. The authors analyze the state and administrative reforms of recent years, which were aimed at improving the quality of services provided to the population, increasing the competitiveness of different parts of Estonia, as well as optimizing public spending and management structure. The introduction of digital technologies into the sphere of public administration, healthcare, education, and the social sphere is of a notable place. Such phenomena as e-residency, e-federation, and other digital projects are considered. The development of a digital system of interstate interaction between Estonia and Finland made it possible to create the world’s first e-federation, and the digitization of all strategically important information and its transfer to cloud storage speaks of the creation of the world’s first e-residency, a special residence of data outside the country’s borders to ensure digital continuity and statehood in the event of critical malfunctions or external threats.

Humanities Backgrounds of British Civil Servants: The Use of a Common Language

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Candace Hetzner
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Industrialized Democracies

This essay undertakes an examination of the role of Oxford and Cambridge and the imparting of the humanities--or what the English call "arts"--to future civil servants. The essay begins by laying out the historical reasons for the centrality of the humanities in the recruitment of the top levels of the bureaucracy--a phenomenon unknown in other Western industrialized democracies. The author then assesses the contributions such education has made to the character of and quality of British public administration primarily in terms of its positive, but not to the exclusion of its negative, effects.

Moral and Ethical Problems of Public Service Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-22
Author(s):  
E. Il'chenko ◽  
O. Gorina
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
The Public ◽  
Separate Region ◽  
Structural Entity

The civil service is a structural entity endowed with a certain amount of competence and authority necessary for the implementation of the tasks assigned to it. An analysis of the effectiveness of the public administration sector indicates a clear relationship between the activities of civil servants and the performance of government bodies. The quality of the work of the authorities has a significant impact on the effectiveness of the implementation of government programs. Modern conditions for reforming the civil service require civil servants to have such qualities as: education, upbringing of civil servants, their professionalism, driving motives for entering and passing the civil service. It becomes obvious that the lack of these qualities among civil servants reduces the effectiveness of the implementation of government initiatives. The article presents the results of research on the moral and ethical problems of the development of the state civil service at the level of the country and a separate region.

Political connections of the boards of directors and department of defense contractorsʼ excessive profits

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chong Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fast Growing ◽  
Board Directors ◽  
Interest In Research ◽  
The Impact

Despite fast-growing interest in research on political connections, most papers on this topic belong to the economics or public administration fields. Few studies, if any, look into the role of firmsʼ political connections in the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition area. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by investigating the impact of political connections on the excessive profitability of DoD contractors. We find that, in contrast to what the “corruption hypothesis” predicts, the excessive profits are less (more) pronounced for those contractors with politically connected (non-connected) boards. Our findings suggest that those politically connected board directors may use their experience to serve a benevolent role to the public in keeping DoD contractors from opportunistic profitseeking behaviors that could reach or even cross the federal governmentʼs regulatory redline.

scholarly journals 100-year Anniversary of Charles Merriam’s Manifesto of Scientific Political Science

2021 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-182
Author(s):  
D. V. Efremenko
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
The United States ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Science ◽  
Research And Teaching

The article presents an outline of the biography and the main phases of the scientific, political and teaching activities of Charles E. Merriam (1874—1953), setting the stage for the publication of the Russian translation of his work The Present State of the Study of Politics (1921). The author examines Merriam’s contribution to the development of Political Science in the United States, primarily his New Science of Politics program, aimed at achieving a new quality of political research and teaching discipline, which should not be confined to the narrow framework of purely theoretical reflection. According to Merriam, only the update of methodological tools (in particular, widely borrowing methods from natural sciences, especially biology), productive interaction with other branches of knowledge and a general reorientation to systematic expert support of public administration can ensure the transformation of Political Science into a truly scientific discipline. The article analyzes the role of Merriam in the formation of the Chicago School of Political Studies, his participation in providing expertise to the public administration, including F.D.Roosevelt’s New Deal. The article demonstrates that, being a product of its time, the canonical text of Merriam has not lost its relevance today, stimulating a new understanding of the criteria for the scientific nature of political knowledge and touching on a number of issues that are still acute for modern political scientists.

scholarly journals The Impact of Public Administration Digitalization on the Decarbonization of the Economy

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (18) ◽  
pp. 5739
Author(s):  
Aleksander Jakimowicz ◽  
Daniel Rzeczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Full Disclosure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
The Impact

According to wikinomics, the decarbonization of the economy it is not possible without the involvement of people’s creativity and ingenuity under the form of prosumption channeled into the public administration. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to transform the existing websites of municipal offices into participation platforms that would become the local growth poles concentrating the economic forces operating in a given area. As Adam Smith, the father of economics, noted, synchronization between the economic goals of people and the preferences of local authorities are the main factors of development and the lack of them can create the highest degree of chaos in the economy. Consequently, the research began with defining prosumption and determining the degree of cooperation between society and the public administration sector in the digital sphere. Correspondence analysis was used to analyze the data collected from a survey. The issue of the quality of websites of municipal public administration offices, which in the digital economy function as growth poles and development axes, was also discussed. It was observed that society is prepared to perform the role of prosumers in the public administration sector; however, the low quality of websites constrains full disclosure of society’s prosumer potential. Under these conditions, the best ways to decarbonize the local economy are: (1) acceleration of the digitization of municipal public administration; and (2) use of the already existing infrastructural growth poles and development axes. The first postulate is related to the improvement of the existing, and the construction of new, computer networks. The second point mainly concerns the achievements of molinology, which studies the existing and partially functional infrastructure of former watermills and the location of former windmills. It is a valuable clue that facilitates the location and construction of modern renewable energy sources. The subject of the research is the Warmia and Mazury Province, which includes 116 municipalities and is the fourth largest province in Poland.

E-Projects Challenges in India – Role of Human Resource Management and Technology

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
Ramnik Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Services ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Traditional Approaches

E-governance is a paradigm shift over the traditional approaches in Public Administration which means rendering of government services and information to the public by using electronic means. In the past decades, service quality and responsiveness of the government towards the citizens were least important but with the approach of E-Government the government activities are now well dealt. This paper withdraws experiences from various studies from different countries and projects facing similar challenges which need to be consigned for the successful implementation of e-governance projects. Developing countries like India face poverty and illiteracy as a major obstacle in any form of development which makes it difficult for its government to provide e-services to its people conveniently and fast. It also suggests few suggestions to cope up with the challenges faced while implementing e-projects in India.

Public Administration at the Movies

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Holley ◽  
Rebecca K Lutte
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
The Public ◽  
Popular Films ◽  
Positive Message ◽  
American Society

This paper briefly summarizes evidence for the influence of popular films on public perception of government and on public policy.  Two films examined through the lens of public administration, and the lessons they teach about public administration, are exposed.  One film, Ghostbusters conveys a strongly negative image, and the other, A Thousand Heroes a strongly positive message.  Only Ghostbusters was and remains popular and profitable.  Public information efforts by government and the public administration community have been limited or reactive.  The authors argue for the increased support for public information initiatives such as those of the Public Employees Roundtable (PER) and  the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA).

Are They Ready for Their Close-Up? Civil Servants and Their Portrayal in Contemporary American Cinema

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle C. Pautz ◽  
Laura Roselle
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Narrative Forms

Perceptions of government and civil servants are shaped by a variety of factors including popular culture. In the public administration literature the significant role that film and other narrative forms have on citizens’ perceptions is duly noted, and there is ample research on politicians and military heroes in film, but a focus on civil servants remains largely elusive. Among the sparse literature centered on civil servants are studies that employ a case study approach or focus on a few films. In contrast, our research employs a large sample of 150 films. These films comprise the top ten box-office grossing films from 1992 through 2006; therefore we examine the films most likely to have been seen by a majority of movie-watching Americans. More than 60 percent of the films in our sample portray government as bad, inefficient, and incompetent. However, the data on more than 300 civil servants yield intriguing findings. Surprising, in light of the negative depiction of government, is the positive depiction of individual civil servants. Half of civil servants were positively portrayed, and only 40 percent were negatively depicted. Americans may view government negatively, but they see in film positive depictions of how individual civil servants can and do make a positive difference.

The transformation of the Russian notary in the new economic realities

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-97
Author(s):  
KONSTANTIN A. KORSIK ◽  
◽  
ANASTASIYA A. PARFENCHIKOVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
The State ◽  
Technological Infrastructure ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
World Development

The article is devoted to the review of current changes in the legislation on notaries related to the development of electronic civil circulation, analysis of existing digital risks and assessment of the role of notaries in combating them. In modern economic realities, a significant expansion of the sphere of competence of the notary is carried out by introducing completely new notarial actions into the scope of the notary’s terms of reference. At the same time, the notary does not just follow the general ‘digital’ trend, but independently makes significant efforts to effectively perform the tasks of the social sphere regulator assigned to it by the state. The creation of the Unified Notary Information System as part of the formation of the technological infrastructure to ensure the security and stability of legal relations in the context of electronic civil circulation takes to a new level the quality of notarial services and the security of legally relevant information. The role of notaries significantly increases in conditions when the use of digital technologies in the economy, public administration, social sphere becomes one of the main vectors of world development, and society and the state inevitably face the flip side of this process – digital risks that jeopardize the safety of participants in civil turnover and their property. In 2020, as part of the implementation of the national program ‘Digital Economy’, it is planned to introduce a number of innovations that will create the basis for a stable and secure ‘digital’ turnover.

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