Final Flashcards
(56 cards)
Merit vs. Spoils
Different systems of how to hire or recruit people to an organizations.
Spoils= highly educated, typically wealthy, which resulted in an elitist workforce. Jobs and salaries were often treated as a reward for loyalty.
Merit= The Pendleton Act was an attempt to change this culture and specified job related skills, a separation of politics and administration
Ecology of Organizations
John Gaus borrowed this idea from biological sciences to refer to the give and take between organisms and their environment.
POSDCORB
- planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting
- Machine metaphors for administrative action that came out of the industrial revolution, Taylorism, and the emphasis on industrial efficiency.
Opportunistic Federalism
A system that allows for decision making based on professional or political self-interest, rather than the public good.
Woodrow Wilson
1887 “Study of Administration” is one of the first official texts on administration as a separate field.
Has a clear separation of politics and administration. Politics is what should be done, administration is doing it
Antistatism
America was initially populated by many people escaping oppressive regimes= a weariness of centralized power such as the monarchy. This posed a unique environment for public administration to “bubble up” in the US, as well as explains its relatively late arrival as a field of study
Three steps in the communication process
initiation- the person trying to put out a message
transmission- the means and manner in which the message is sent
reception- how and who receives it, and if they interpret it as it was meant
Democracy vs. Bureaucracy
Denhardt pg. 24
Democracy focuses on the improvement of the individual, and emphasizes individual participation in decision making, while bureaucracy is the collective it takes to achieve things that no individual could. OR democracy decides what should be done, and bureaucracy does it.
Categorical Grants
AKA project grants, are for a relatively limited scope such as a sewer project or specific highway improvement
Hawthorne Studies
1920’s study that was the first to academically recognize that the paycheck is not an individual workers only, or even greatest, motivation at work. People crave meaning, group identity, and to be recognized. Conditions such as heat or cold, different lighting made little difference.
Scientific Management
Scientific management is a way of looking at the management of humans similarly to that of a machine, or or manufacturing. It was, not surprisingly, a product of the Industrial Revolution and the major focus on increased productivity. This seems obvious now, but humans aren’t machines and don’t respond to stimuli the same way.
Dillon’s Rule
A ruling that gave state’s authority over all but a few extremely local issues, with notable exceptions like large cities with “home-rule” provisions. This has, overall, been relaxed since it’s conception.
Politics/Administration Dichotomy
The idea that politics and administration are, and should be, fundamentally different processes. This idea was central to Woodrow Wilson’s early writing about public administration, and has evolved significantly since its conception. Later authors have recognized that the separation is not that distinct, and that the two are fundamentally interconnected.
Zone of Acceptance
Denhardt 301
This is the zone where a worker feels that a task is “part of their job.” things that are on the peripheral of outside of this zone will feel like asking too much or that theyre overqualified
Theory X
Traditional view of the relationship between manager and worker, where the worker is assumed to be lazy and must be coerced to work, generally by money.
Theory Y
Closely associated with the “hierarchy of needs”, this theory suggests that workers do not need to be coerced and that they are motivated by feeling like they are a part of something. Workers may be most utilized when their desires and needs are in alignment with the desires and needs of their organization or work projects.
Herbert Simon and “bounded rationality”
Humans make choices with limited resources, times, knowledge, etc. and are influenced by emotions and self-interest. Thus, even the most thoughtful decisions are only logical in realms of “bounded rationality”, and cannot comprehend 100% of the factors at play.
Administrative Man
An offshoot of the “economic man,” this attempts to look at decision making more realistically. People are making decisions not purely rationally, as they only have access to certain information and resources and are driven by self interest, emotions, etc. Administrative man will considers only a short list of alternatives and their potential outcomes.
Satisficing
This refers to the tendency to pick an alternative that’s “good enough” and slightly exceeds some bare minimum of acceptable criteria, rather than accessing all the options
Federalism
The distribution of power between federal, state, and local governments rather than complete top-down distribution of power. A somewhat uniquely US phenomenon, it came from a distrust of centralized power and made sense in a time when there was incredibly loose, wide spread state communities and governments.
Organism vs. Machine Metaphors
Early on, machine metaphors were prevalent which is not surprising as they were coming out of the Industrial Revolution and two World Wars. Military and manufacturing language were common in early administrative writings. Later on the metaphors and understanding of organizations evolved into language more akin to natural and biological sciences. The “Ecology” of administration described by John Gaus, and the give and take of organisms and their environment.
public vs. private morality
public- good of the “public” rather than family, clan, or middle range collectives such as race or religion. private morality can clash with public morality due to this difference in obligation
Public Choice Theory
The utilization of economic principles and tools to deal with political issues
Intergovernmental Relations
The idea of cooperation and collaboration between government institutions at all levels. The Commissions on Intergovernmental Relations in 1955 was a major landmark, and the focus on intergovernmental relations has evolved over the years, with some worry of the emergence of opportunistic federalism.
