Handbook of Public Administration Edited by B.

Guy Peters, Jon Pierre

This major international handbook provides a complete review and guide to past and present knowledge in the essential field of public administration. Assembling an outstanding team of scholars from around the world, it comprehensively explores the current state of the art in academic thinking and the current structures and processes for the administration of public policy following this period of rapid transformation and change. This book is parted in 14 sections. An overall review of the summary of these sections are given

bellowSection 2: Human Resource Management

Human resource management is an integrated and interrelated approach to managing human resources that fully recognizes the interdependence among the various tasks and functions that must be performed.Human resource management deals with a variety of complex and strategic issues. The basic tasks and functions of human resource management today include adopting a strategic perspective, understanding their environment context, staffing the organization, enhancing motivation and performance of the employee. Conducting the ongoing management of the existing workforce, and meeting other challenges.Line or operating managers and staff or specialized human resource managers typically share the responsibility for effective human resource management. However human resource management need a broad and through knowledge of all aspects of the organization.

Section 3: Organization Theory and Public Administration The main focus of this section is the linkage between organization theories and Public administration. The study of decision making behavior involve theory of politicaladministrative system and their internal life study such as the formal structure, recruitment policies and the rights and participation of employees which in terns shows close linkage to the primitive organizational theories. Basing on driving forces then this introductory section provides a brief overview of four main aspects of organizational theory of public administration. Thus this section includes five chapters including introductory chapter where a summary primitive discussion is given. In the second chapter, Morten Egeberg reviews the tradition of theories and research connected to the seminal work of people like Gulik, March and Simon. The third chapter focuses on the cultural-institutional perspective. According to this perspective, public organizations gradually develop into institutions, infusing and adding values to the formal framework. The fourth chapter reviews the application of formal theory to Public Administration. Formal theory is generally based on the premise of rational individual or group actors seeking to advance their own interests through utility maximizing behavior. In the final, Karen Hults chapter is revolves around the belief that the environment drives decision making behavior. These

theories can be divided into two parts. One is primarily concerned with the technical environment and the other type focuses on the institutional environment. Section 5: Implementation Implementation research is part of two sub-disciplines of political science, public policy public analysis and public administration. Implementation is a relatively young research field in public administration and public policy. The field has made an important contribution on public administration focusing on how polices are transformed during the execution process. The research has moved form explorative theory generating case studies to a second generation of more theoretically ambitious models or frame works of analysis with top down and bottom up research strategies and syntheses. Policy design is important in affecting the incentives of intermediaries while the validity of the causal theory linking instruments to objectives certainly is important. Effect of instruments on implementation is often determined by the context, including the political context. Implementation process are characterized by organizational and inter organizational behaviors representing different degree of commitment and coordination. Street level bureaucrats have significant influence on public policy. Street level bureaucrats are direct involved in policy making and there many factors that control the policy implementation. Such as political control, organizational control. Section-6: Law & Administration
Generally, The line between public & private sector institutions & hence between public & private law has become increasingly blurred. Public administration is an increasingly professionalized, largely rule based activity. Law is another professionalized activity of the same kind. Both form part of the modern bureaucratic states. Legality & respect for public rights are two important bases for the legitimacy of all governmental action & of public administration generally. The most significant contribution of law to public administration is to empower authorities to do things which would otherwise be unlawful. The doctrine of rule of law imposes standards of governmental legitimacy that the power of the state should be checked by law. It is believed that public administration should be a rule governed & legally accountable activity. The ultimate focus of law is on legality which is compatible in principle with good administration. In so far as legal standards serve to underpin the principles of good administration, law is capable of reinforcing desirable aspects of administrative practice.

Section 7: Politics and Administration

Section-7 mainly covers some important interrelated issues of politics and administration and it consists of 3 chapters. These are-Public Organizations and public policies by Gary C. Bryner, Politicization of the civil service by Luc Rouban & Interest groups and public organizations in Europe by Pierre and Patrick. From the beginning of the democratic state, relations between politics and administration have been an issue .The primary function of public

organizations is to implement the policies enacted by governments. It also implies the non-political implementation of political will expressed in statutes.The policy making process indicates that administration and politics can not be clearly delineated, because the political support is essential in every stages(formulation, implementation, evaluation etc.)of policy process. Moreover, politicization of administration is the result of the prevailing balance between the political control that governments exercise over the administrative machinery and civil servants.In this sense,all civil servants are political because they are called upon to carry out political decisions,made by the administrative heads (politicians).In the case of developing countries,the politicization of the civil service must be interpreted differently, because civil servants are often the only organized social force on which governments can rely.Different interest groups can affect on the administration of the state, especially,political interest groups.Within the sphere of politics,regional and local authorities,national associations remain powerful interest groups and have a crucial interest to consult in order to implement public policies.Today,for many developing countries,the only way to fight politicization of administration is to organise a truly professional civil service.So it is very clear that the administration is largely affected by the power of politics. . Section 8: Administration and Society Here the four articles are written by Bo Rothstein, Lois R. Wise, Steven Rathgeb Smith and Helen Margetts. Rothstein describes the importance and sources of legitimacy for public administration. he describes the sources of legitimacy through different approaches.The first and most popular approach emphasis on social capital and trust to ensure legitimacy. Another approach argues that civil society is important for the generation of social capital and where legitimacy and trustworthiness of the civil society is low it usually occurs difficulty for the implementation of many policies and it may creates distrust between citizen and administration. The chapter by Lois R. Wise of wise is a discussion about how to make the administration more legitimate. She identified various obstacle of ensuring administrative legitimacy and shows that by changing recruitment pattern, administrative legitimacy can be increased.The chapter also discusses about the meaning of active and passive representation The chapter by smith is about the importance of street level bureaucracy. Street level bureaucracy is another important mechanism to ensure administrative legitimacy. Different countries have adopted different form of system to ensure street level bureaucracy. One of them is New Public Management (NPM) approach and another is civil society approach.

The chapter of Helen Margetts briefly reviews whether electronic government system is a revolution for public administration. This chapter also reviews various approaches (hyper modernist, anti modernist, post modernist) to find out the impact of ICT on public administration. This chapter shows the gradual use of ICT in public administration and its present and future impact.

Section 10: Comparative and International Public Administration

Brans emphasized on the importance of Comparative Public Administration (CPA) to develop a new sub-field of PA. For this, CPA research is necessary to know the comparative situation among different countries. Here, nation-states should be considered as a unit. Different researches cannot develop a grand theory but from this study various concepts find their origins, such as; New Public Administration Movement, New Public Service Movement, etc. This study also find some difficulties which develop some sorts of debates, most importantly about the policy makers and the bureaucrats. The power of intergovernmental and supranational organizations over a countrys administrative status is described here. EU as an intergovernmental organization tries to ensure effective participant in policy making and the implementation of common policies for the member countries. It considers administrative reform as a formal and a functional condition for material advantages. But it creates pressure for the states in the matter of ensuring effective participation of states central government and sub national authorities. Politics administration dichotomy shows that politicians may make policies and administrators may implement that. But this discretion only brings tension. National Politics motivate the change of administrative patterns. So the overall control over the bureaucracy is handed to political concern. Administrative activities are transitional but politics remain always solely based on legitimization. So, they can change the Administrative Patterns with the policy. At last, the comparative administrations are combining with awareness of cross National Political trends and tendencies.

Chapter 13: Accountability

This chapter contains three articles written by Robert Gregory, Linda Deleon and Kavin.P. Kearns.These chapters reflect the complexities, controversies and continuing evolution of the concept of accountability and closely related ideas like responsiveness, responsibility and legitimacy. Gregory has identified two major problems of resisting accountability, these are-multiple other meaning of accountability and principal agent problem involves difficulties in ensuring truthfulness. Gregory was one of the firsts to warn of the danger of an accountability raised from the idea of New Public Management. Linda Deleon has examined the link between administrative responsibilities and personal ethics of individuals. She concluded the topic by showing the dependency of administrative behavior on committed and

collaborative ethical discourse than it depends upon multiplication and stringent enforcement of external controls. Kearns, has developed a 3 stage conceptual framework including; adaptation of a broader definition of accountability, to develop strategic and tactical approaches to accountability, develop inter organizational culture of accountability where all the stakeholders will learn from each other. He has focused on the strategic dealing of organizational leaders in complicated environment.

Conclusion
This handbook examines the major areas in public administration including public budgeting and financial management, human resource management, decision making, public law and regulation, and political economy. Providing a strong platform for further research and advancement in the field, this book is a necessity for anyone involved in public administration, policy, and management.