Discussion of Public Administration and the Public, Essay Sample

Public administrations refer to the process and regulations that a government of a country follows in the process of using public resources. The main aim or goal of the public administration and governance is to be able to react to the requirements and wants of the country's citizens when they want them. Numerous scholars and experts float a few ideas and concepts on the need for and ways of achieving more responsive and accountability from the side of public administrators to the public. Citizens depend on public administrators in many ways through there day to day operations. The relationship between the public and public administrators is a one-sided type, whereby citizens want to be served by the government but they do not want to give anything in return (Johnson, 2002).

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The process of public administrators depends on the citizen's perception of how their basic services should be provided to them. Experts and scholars of public administration use citizen's perceptions to get valuable information that will go a long way in helping them in the process of delivering services. The opinions of citizens are very important because when a group of citizens identifies a certain issue as problematic, this offers the public administration the time and opportunity to investigate and resolve that certain issue. This explanation shows that there is a big connection between the public and public administrators (Henry, 1975).

Ways public depends on Public Administrators

One of the ways that citizens depend on public administration is through the provision of basic services. Most citizens, however, point out that the level of public satisfaction with the level of services that they are given as unsatisfactory. Improvement of delivering services to the public is measured through courtesy, timeliness, responsiveness and availability.

The public administration serves the citizens right through ensuring proper and efficient use of resources within a country's borders. Citizens put their hopes on public administrations to take care of the resources with the hope that they will be used for the building of the nation as a whole without divisions. Hover, most of the times the public officials betray this trust and engage in corruption practices that deny the citizens benefits of effectively and efficiently using the country's resources (Johnson, 2002).

Another way that the public depends on public administrators is being enabled to participate in the processes of policy making in a country. Policy making takes many forms such as organized public forums, referendums, and constitutional reviews. The public depends on public administrators because it is the government that has the responsibility of ensuring that all these processes run smoothly and that citizens are allowed to participate in the processes.

Citizens also depend on the government to know the accountability of the government about some actions and processes that the public has entrusted them with. For example citizens of a country can entrust the public administration with the management of its economic resources. Thus, a government has to be accountable at the end of the day to the same citizens who gave them that responsibility.

Lastly, citizens expect public administrators to behave in an ethical way in undertaking all their dealings. Some evils such corruption, nepotism, and racism are some of the things that erode the confidence the citizens have in their government. All these points show how the public depends on public administrators. The relationship between the public administrators and the public is of the dependence type whereby the public depends on the government to do certain activities on its behalf (Henry, 1975).

References

Henry, N. (1975). Public administration and public affairs. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Johnson, G. (2002). Research methods for public administrators. West port: Quorum Books.