Administration and Management

The words ‘management’ and ‘administration’ are close in meaning, but a brief foray into semantics allows a case to be made that the terms ‘management’ and ‘administration’ are significantly different and that a manager performs a different role from an administrator.

The Oxford Dictionary defines administration as: ‘an act of administering’, which is then ‘to manage the affairs of’ or ‘to direct or superintend the execution, use or conduct of’, while management is: ‘to conduct, to control the course of affairs by one’s own action, to take charge of’. The Latin origins of the two words also show significant differences. Administration comes from minor then ministrare, meaning: ‘to serve, and hence later, to govern’. Management comes from manus, meaning: ‘to control by hand’. The essential difference in meaning is between ‘to serve’ and ‘to control or gain results’.

From these various definitions it is argued that administration essentially involves following instructions and service, while management involves: first, the achievement of results, and secondly, personal responsibility by the manager for results being achieved. The terms administration and management are not synonymous, neither is their application to the public sector. Public administration is an activity serving the public, and public servants carry out policies derived from others. It is concerned with procedures, with translating policies into action and with office management. Management does include administration, but also involves organization to achieve objectives with maximum efficiency, as well as genuine responsibility for results.

It follows that a public service based on administrative concepts will be different from one based on management and there are continuing and unresolved tensions between the two views.

Source: condensed from http://do.gendocs.ru/docs/index-206555.html

Ex.6. Skim the text below to find out

· when Public administration as both theory and practice began

· what Public administration used to be

Find the words in bold italics marked by reference figures in the Key Terms and Common Collocations section. Study their meanings and the word collocations they form.

Public Administration as Theory and Practice

What is here called the traditional model of public administration ₁ was once a major reform movement. Where previously amateurs bound by personal loyalties to leaders carried out public administration, the task became a professional occupation which was carried out by a distinct merit-based public service ₂. Serving the public at the time was a high calling, one that required the best people available to form a distinct administrative elite and to act always according to the law and established precedents. Politicians might come and go but, while the apparatus of government was in the hands of permanent officials ₃, the transition between regimes could be handled smoothly. Public administration as both theory and practice began in the late nineteenth century, became formalized somewhere between 1900 and 1920, and lasted in most Western countries largely unchanged until the last quarter of the twentieth century.

The traditional model can be characterized as: an administration under the formal control of the political leadership, based on a strictly hierarchical model of bureaucracy ₄, staffed by permanent, neutral and anonymous officials, motivated only by the public interest ₅, serving any government party equally, and not contributing to policy ₆ but merely administrating ₁ those policies ₆ decided by the politicians. Its theoretical foundations mainly derive from Woodrow Wilson¹ and Frederic Taylor in the United States, Max Weber² in Germany, and the Northcote-Trevelyan Report³ of 1854 in the United Kingdom.

Notes

[ 1 ] Wilson, (Thomas) Woodrow – (1856-1924) Уилсон (Вильсон), (Томас) Вудро – 28-йпрезидентСША (в 1913-21). С 1885 по 1910 преподавал историю и политическую экономию в Колледже Брин Мор (BrynMawrCollege), в Уэслианском (методистском) университете (WesleyanUniversity) и в Принстонском университете (PrincetonUniversity) (курсы права и политической экономии), в 1902-1910 президент последнего. Автор ряда работ по истории и политологии (около 10 крупных трудов). В 1910-1912 губернатор штата Нью-Джерси. В. Уилсону была присуждена Нобелевская премия мира (1919), а в 1950 он был избран в национальную Галерею славы (HallofFame).

[ 2 ] MaxWeber – Эми́льМаксимилиа́нВе́бер, Макс Ве́бер, нем. Max Weber (1864-1920) – немецкий социолог, историк и экономист. В 1892 – 1894 годах приват-доцент, а затем экстраординарный профессор в Берлине, в 1894 – 1896 годах – профессор национальной экономии во Фрейбургском, с 1896 – в Гейдельбергском, с 1919 – в Мюнхенском университете. Вебер внёс существенный вклад в такие области социального знания, как общая социология, методология социального познания, политическая социология, социология права, социология религии, экономическая социология, теориякапитализма.

 [ 3 ] Northcote - TrevelyanReport – доклад Норткота и Тревельяна «Гражданская служба», представленный парламенту 23 ноября 1853 года и опубликованный в 1854 году, положил начало длительному периоду реформ.