POLITICS-ADMINISTRATION RELATIONS: THREE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

POLITICS-ADMINISTRATION RELATIONS: THREE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

The role of public administration in the political process has been of great concern since the emergence of public administration as an academic field in the late 1880s. Woodrow Wilson, in his famous article The Study of Administration (1887), outlined what later happened to be called the politics-administration dichotomy, a theoretical model that emphasizes distinct features of public administration and politics. 

With contributions from numerous scholars, Wilson’s rudimentary ideas have gradually evolved into a model of public administration that had tremendous influence on the intellectual identity of public administration until the mid-1940s. As a result of substantive critiques that followed in the post-war period, the politics-administration dichotomy lost some of its theoretical and normative appeal, and consequently, gave rise to development of alternative models. 

During the past decades, public administration scholars proposed numerous explanations and theoretical models in their attempts to understand the role of public administration in the political process. Their scholarly efforts are examined under three schools of thought, that are called separation, political, and interaction schools.

1. The Separation School

The term “separation” is used to denote this school of thought in that a group of scholars advance an agenda for separating politics from administration to the extent possible for both normative and practical reasons. The separation scholars tend to view the governmental realm as divided into two zones, that is, politics and administration. They take a functional approach to analyze the relationship between politics and administration. The function of politics is to provide guidance, or what Wilson (1887) said, “setting the task for administration.” The function of public administration, on the other hand, is to provide neutral competence to the policy process.

As understood by the separation school proponents, primary values that guide public administration include neutrality, hierarchy, and expertise, which altogether refer to a defining feature of public administration: neutral competence. The overarching goal of public administrators is to provide neutral and competent policy advice to elected officials. In Kaufman’s (1956) words, neutral competence is “the ability to do the work of government expertly and to do it according to explicit objective standards rather than to personal or party or other obligations and loyalties”. Three constitutive components of neutral competence, neutrality, expertise, and hierarchy, help public administrators maintain distance from politics while ensuring their contributions to policymaking process. Bureaucratic neutrality encompasses both political and policy neutrality. More specifically, neutrality means that “public employees and activities be non-partisan, apolitical, and void of any particular policy agenda,” “administering the affairs of the [polity] with integrity and efficiency and loyalty to the [elected leadership], without participating in or allowing their work to be affected by contending programs or partisans,” and “maintaining a neutral stand on policy issues that divide the community”. The separation school proponents rest their conclusions on the premise that public administrators are in possession of special knowledge and skills, and elected officials are eager to incorporate administrative knowledge and skills into policy process. The separation school defines clear roles for elected and administrative officials. Public administrators are linked to elected officials in subordinate position. That is, administrators look up to elected officials for policy direction, while making expert contributions to policy process by engaging in how to do questions.

2. The Political School

The political school represents a group of public administration scholars that emphasize and support a broad policy role for public administration. This school positions itself against the separation school and is characterized by outright rejection of the politics-administration distinction. The political school proponents consider public administration as an inseparable part of the political process. The political school takes administrative discretion as a point of departure to rationalize the policy role of public administrators. Of many reasons, vague and ambiguous legislations, lack of technical knowledge and resources available to elected officials, and difficulties in monitoring and controlling bureaucratic behavior are a few used to signify the critical role of public administrators in the policy process. 

The political school advocates that public administrators should not confine their domain to mere implementation of policies, but expand their role to include policy advocacy and formulation. The proponents of this school have rejected the subordinate, instrumental role of public administration in relating to elected officials. Public administrators are not just policy makers, but should also be actively involved in policy making. One of the leading proponents of this school Frederickson (1971) rejected subordination of public administration to political leadership.

Public administrators are recommended to equip themselves with these skills. Directing attention to detrimental consequences of unquestioned obedience to political masters, the political school supports that public administrators critically examine moral implications of policies prior to figuring out the most efficient and expedient means of accomplishing them.

3. The Interaction School

The interaction school is represented by a group of public administration scholars that emphasize a high degree of collaboration between elected and administrative officials while maintaining each one’s traditional roles and unique perspectives. In a sense, the interaction school seeks a middle ground between the separation and political schools. 

The interaction school acknowledges the differences between politics and administration in a number of ways such as logical and psychological differences between politics and administration, or dissimilarities in the perspectives, values, and formal positions of elected and administrative officials. Yet, what makes the interaction school somewhat different from the separation school is its emphasis on ongoing cooperation between elected and administrative officials in the process of policy making. Furthermore, the interaction school seeks an expansion of the value set of public administration.

The interaction school allows a broader policy role for public administrators for mostly pragmatic reasons. The attention, by this school, is drawn to the increasing complexity and dynamism in the political, social, and economic environment of policymaking, a fact that makes intense interaction between elected and administrative officials an essential requirement for success.

The interaction school is less reliant on formal hierarchical structures of government that traditionally defined the relationship between elected and administrative officials in superior-subordinate terms. The interaction school makes itself distinguished from the political school, however: it clearly views the elected body of government as senior partner in the relationship, thus requiring public administrators to fully remain accountable and responsive to elected officials, and accepting the role of administrative competence for sound policy making.

The interaction school develops a number of prescriptions as to what is acceptable behavior for elected and administrative officials. Partisan type of politics is prohibited to public administrators, while elected officials are not allowed to interfere with the daily routines of management. However, when it comes to policy and administration issues, the interaction school supports overlapping roles, reciprocal influence, and mutual deference between elected and administrative officials.

Conclusion

The controversy over the proper role of public administration in the political process is far from being concluded. Despite scholars’ best efforts to garner overwhelming support in favor of a particular school, the evidence used and the arguments presented have been mixed and inconclusive, far from compelling us to adopting the perspective of one particular school. Each school of thought seems to be equally powerful, and supported by a wide array of research approaches.

Politicizing bureaucracy in Bangladesh 

Politicizing bureaucracy in democracy is not a recent development. In most South Asian countries, it has been difficult to institute the method of merit entirely due to the degree of origin and extension of politicization in Bangladesh. This old informal tradition from colonial times has never stopped challenging and resisting subsequent efforts at modernization. 

The complexity of the legislation was increasingly battered to such a degree that the laws and procedures associated with the modern meritocratic structures were corrupted or even infringed. However, whilst the degree of media, political and administration penetration and effect of politicization, two areas of study have been tackled in isolation. There are different definitions for the intensity of implementation and explanations for politics. In both nations, there are certain degrees of political participation in personal affairs.  

The patronage of other informal organizations of an eminently political type was widely matched, without significant resentments over the way this practice is flushed out, articulated and remains in public administrative power. Although, public administrations appear to be studied from the context of their interacting political structures. Therefore, the need to approach politics and administration systematically. For e.g., America has more than 4,000 federal political appointments. Also, Britain, which has a long legacy of impartial public officials, has been seen to be more politically motivated.

They see political "loyalty" instead of as the only driving concept for civil service appointment and advocacy. 

But apart from the current critique, this manuscript analyzes bureaucracy beyond these constraints, and while modern public management is a guiding principle, an analysis is possible which seeks to transcend government actions' theoretical and functional boundaries. Though developed countries politicize bureaucracy from an expressive viewpoint, governments such as Bangladesh in the developing world do not adopt in letter and spirit the concept of hypercritical politicization. There is thus now, between technical neutrality and political allegiance.

The arrangement of representatives and political officials within bureaucracies are rewarded separately from those of a private corporation. Almost all elected administrations have been politicizing the public institutions since 1991 because of their limited political ambitions. Develop bureaucracy professionalization, increase the productivity of government budgets, increase public efficiency and improve democratic processes, such as ombudsman ship and accountability instruments. more efficient accountability instruments.

Modern public administration with the principal assumption that in public organizations, the processes used by private institutions for productivity can be imitated. This pattern is being followed by concepts such as contracts and inter-organizational competition, Performance Assessments and budgeting and monitoring of outcomes. This pattern has been endlessly criticized as the authority and development of public organizations, which are distinct in political institutions than in private ones, and transparency, depending on the situation, has a different path. The representative structure and that of elected officials within bureaucracies are rewards separate that.

The first is socio-economic interests and the second is the interests of the Executive Branch whose integration is established by the legislative, multi parties and federal regulatory system in the case of Bangladesh. They are wondering what is the real extent of bureaucrat control within the administrative system and how they relate to the forces of the Union and other disparate concerns that could affect their decision-making and, as a result, public policy formulation and execution. 

The four specific controls: The Legislative Branch, the accounting Courts, the Supreme Court and the Government Ministry. Incessant public servant’s management may act as a tool to provide a more reliable operation, which decreases the possibility of wrongdoing and enhances the likelihood of effective administration. The authors argue that permanent checks and penalties are required. The authors nevertheless have a pessimistic scenario, since democratic safeguards are far from successful. 

The Legislative Branch thus has little power over diplomatic issues, the formation of relationships and the failure to oversee government policy and the conduct of bureaucrats in the executive branch directly. With regard to the tribunals, the judiciary, Professionalization studies have been motivated by concern about political science and government efficiency of government, which aims to develop the skills, expertise and commitment of those who devote a significant part of their life to public administration. Politics and management. Governance is one of the most dynamic human practices, the standard of which becomes a human right, and it is handled by governments and their administrations equally and with dignity. 

The role of the government is reflected in the following areas: the administrative or political, the first being a specialized, bureaucratic, suitable administrative entity. The bureaucrat distinguishes himself from the technocrat, who is a technician or citizen in some areas, finance, government or other fields, exercising public services with the aim of finding efficient solutions above and over the topics of ideology and politics.

Bangladeshi bureaucracy and politics do not only address conventional public administration discussions but also examine current problems which have evolved in Bangladesh's citizenship-government ties. The aim of breaking the Wilsonian myth is to come up with a plan for how to work dynamically between politics, administration and culture, which is the core guiding principle for the public interest. Politics is related to a professionalized organized society and bureaucracy. Their principal proposal was the management model and outcome management that included budgeting for performance, not working against the rare monitoring and control mechanisms, even in the federal government. 

Their key proposal was the management of the results. For e.g., the case of selecting and encouraging politicians is not dependent on merits and their income base is a political route or, if not, nomination. Politicians do not cover any of this. This is because the scope is moved by concepts rather than bureaucracy, which are recognized with objectivity, accuracy, continuity and discretion. Politicians in Congress or in the executive portion of the power have their area of speech. In the latter case, it applies not only to the offices of the first judiciary: president, governor or municipal head but also to the first tiers of government. In the latter case, it applies not only to first-ranking magistracies: since these offices are regarded as civil and not administrative officers. These can also be termed positions of political leadership. These can be graded as administrative administrators from the third level down. This is because the first tiers of the public administrative hierarchy are more concerned with political administration and decision-making, while the middle level of hierarchy has a role of a more administrative nature. This is due to the fact that in terms of political control and decision-making at the first layers of the structure of government administration there exists a more administrative and operational position at the middle levels, and that political decisions are transferred into particular schemes and programmers, which may run on a wide range of resources. This is because in these intermediate levels managers or administrative officials occur with the objective of separating administrative appliance from the political arena and facilitating the administrative or organizational values which inspire the Wo. theoretical structure. 

The nation has already got an act for the public official after 46 years of democracy. The Civil Servants Act-2010 was drawn up, but after 11 years it has not yet come to a conclusion. Both municipal bodies, in their absolute and individual exercise of their authority, are members of the council. They take this type of authority on the grounds that, by direct voting, they are the common candidates for the municipal government. they are chosen by the public. The authorities should not be confused with the local representative, the latter should not be elected by the electorate, but should be appointed by the city council, directly or by the municipal president to fulfill municipal administrative responsibilities. A politician now is the one who, through his activities, wants to control public relations, who is well versed in public relations and staff, in the parliament and the government. It will later describe its characteristics. 

Finally, it is to be explained that the professional profile corresponds to the professional qualities intrinsic to a class in terms of education, success, appearance and commitment. Whilst the student profile includes a range of academic and curricular standards of experience, expertise, behaviors and procedural knowledge. The bureaucracy of Bangladesh should be governed by a separate regulation. The typical British bureaucracy of many years cannot give our bureaucracy the best performance. 

As we were a British colony, we have a common administrative past. Britain's administrative structure had been revised, but we stopped. In regarding the political culture of Bangladesh, the interaction school is which emphasizes a high degree of collaboration between elected and administrative officials while maintaining each one’s traditional roles and unique perspectives. However, the standard British administration structure of the ages cannot be used by our people. Bangladesh needs to pursue regulatory policies that are consistent with our own political and administrative history. The value of the regulatory policy should be understood by politicians. A strategy cannot be completed without government leaders' approval. The value of the regulatory policy should be acknowledged by policymakers. Until national officials agree, a proposal cannot be finalized. Management is a matter of narrow thought for leaders in our region. Their administrative thought horizon should expand. The management and governance structure will establish a best practice. The administrative act would bring an obstacle to bureaucracy politicization. Bureaucracy policy should be avoided in a sense, the interaction school seeks a middle ground between the separation and political schools.