It is the implementation of the public policy. Moreover, as an academic discipline it studies this implementation and trains civil servants that how to implement the written law (public policy).
Public Administration is the single most important aspect of bureaucracy. As a functionality, Public Administration is very old but as a terminology, it came into existence in 19th century. Industrial Revolution widened the scope of Public Administration. Max Weber, Fredrick Winslow Taylor and Woodrow Wilson are the founding fathers of Public Administration. Woodrow Wilson is the father of American Public Administration, who wrote an article “The Study of Administration” in 1887. He argued that Public Administration being the most important part of the Government has been little discussed.
Scope of Public Administration was increased due to:
- Industrialisation
- Globalisation
- Public Awareness
Public Administration is the executive branch among the three pillars of the government – legislative, judiciary and executive. Public administration executes the government policies made by the legislative branch of government. Woodrow Wilson outlined the Politics-Administration dichotomy, and argued that administration needs to be studied as a separate discipline. Politics (legislative) covers the policy making procedure, whereas administration (executive) implement these policies. Politics and administration are intertwined with each other. Therefore, Political Science and Public Administration are supportive to each other despite being separate disciplines.