Comparative Public Administration

Answer : Comparative public administration is the first major development in the post war evolution of public administration. It aims at the development of a more scientific public administration by building and strengthening theory in public administration. The quest for theory building in administrative studies with special focus on study of newly emerged third world countries was the hallmark of Riggsian studies.

For Riggs, any study of Public Studies cannot be confined to any particular society or culture. It has to be able to study the cross-cultural behaviour of administration. Since the Comparative Administrative Group (CAG), itself was represented by scholars, administrators, students and all other intellectuals, it has to be diverse and special.

The Riggsian approach to study the problems of third-world countries emphasises upon scientific skills to administration, moreover, to seek practical applications of administrative theories were essentially looked for making administration more broad in vision and outlook.

Therefore, the Riggs worked hard to refrain administrative studies from getting parochial and narrow. For this to happen, the studies of Public Administration has to be comparative.

Answer : Comparative public administration is the first major development in the post war evolution of public administration. It aims at the development of a more scientific public administration by building and strengthening theory in public administration.

Comparative public administration stands for cross-cultural and cross-national public administration. It has two basic motivational concerns: (1) Theory building and (ii) administrative problems of the developing countries. Ferrell Heady describes the period of the late 1960’s as the heyday of the comparative administration movement.

While highlighting the significance of comparative public administration, Riggs asserted that American public administration should be viewed as a sub-field because public administration is global in scope. To quote Riggs: “The new paradigms for public administration must be comparative i.e. global since the solution of the problem to which it addresses itself will require increasing communication between scholars and practioners in all countries.”

The importance of the study of Comparative Public Administration (CPA) is well accepted today. There are two factors that make comparative studies significant. The first factor relates to the academic study of public administration. It is believed that through comparative public administration hypotheses, generalisations, models and theories can be constructed which can collectively help in the scientific study of public administration. The old orthodoxy of principles of administration is not considered valid any more and therefore now it is believed that generalization relating to administration structures and behaviour emerging out of comparative studies in different nations and cultures can help in formulating theoretical constructs which can provide a scientific basis to the study of public administration.

The study of public administration also contributes to a greater understanding of the individual characteristics of administrative systems functioning in different nations and cultures. Besides, comparative studies also help in explaining factors responsible for cross-national and cross-cultural similarities as well as differences in the administrative systems.

Models of Comparative Public Administration: Fred Riggs is the foremost model-builder in comparative public administration. Riggs employed three analytical tools to explain his administrative theories. These are (i) ecological approach (ii) structural-functional approach and (iii) ideal models.

Ecological approach studies the dynamics of interaction between administrative system and its environment consisting of political, social, cultural and economic dimensions. It assumes that administrative system is one of the various sub-system of society and is influenced by other sub-system and in turn, also influences them.

Riggs in his book ‘The Ecology of Public Administration’ explored the dynamics of interaction between public administration and its external environment. He adopted the structural-functional approach in explaining the administrative system from ecological perspective. The adoption of this approach in the field of public administrative was first suggested in 1955 by Waldo.

According to the Structural-Functional Approach, every society has various structures, which perform specific functions. Riggs identified five functions, which are performed in each society. They are political, social, symbolic and communicational functions. He stated that, same set of functional requisites apply to an administrative sub-system.

Based on the structural functional approach, F. W. Riggs, has constructed two ‘ideals models’ to explain the administrative system in a comparative context. These are (i) Agraria-industria model and (ii) Fused-prismatic model.

Riggs was mainly interested in analyzing the interaction between the administrative system and its environment in prismatic societies. For this purpose he constructed the ‘prismatic-sala’ model in which ‘prismatic’ represents the prismatic society and ‘sala’ represents the administrative sub-system of a prismatic society.

Comparative approach has become an integral part of the social science inquiry. No exercise of systematic social science research can be complete without a comparative focus.

Answer : Administration does not function in isolation from its environment. It influences it and is influenced by it. The understanding of the dynamics of this process of interaction between the two is necessary for the understanding of the administration. The approach adopted is known as the ecological approach. This approach was purely developed by F.W. Riggs.

Riggs analysed the relationship between administrations and economic, social, political, technological and communication factor in a larger perspective. To understand the administration in developing countries Riggs developed prismatic society has 3 important characteristics viz. (1) Heterogeneity (2) formalism and (3) overlapping. The concept of ecological approach adopts a systems approach to the understanding of the phenomena. The systems approach refers to the method of treating the phenomena as an integrated whole consisting of interdependent parts. In spite of the concentrating on one aspect of the society, the ecological approach takes the wholistic view of the organization. This is reason why Riggs has compartmentalized the broad systems at the macro level and attempted to apply those categories to the micro-system such as administration. He took the global systems as a frame of reference for his categorisation and developed three ideals models — Fused, Prismatic and Diffracted.

Fused Model: These societies had no classification of function and a single structure carried out a number of functions. These societies heavily depended upon agriculture, knowing no industrialization. Their economic system was based on the law of exchange and barter system, which was called a redistributive model by Riggs.

Ascriptive values played a predominant role in such society, and the behaviour of the people was highly traditional.

Diffracted Model: These societies are based on universalistic principles with no differentiation in treatment. There is a high degree of specialization and each structure caries out a specialized function. Ascriptive values cease to exist, giving way to attainment values in the society.

The society would be highly dynamic and diffracted. All organizations and structures in the society are crated and based on scientific rationale. The economic system is based on market mechanism. The influence of market has both direct and indirect effects on the other facets of the society. Riggs called it marketised society. Various associations discharge various functions. In this, these would be a general consensus among the people on all-basic aspects of social life.

Prismatic Model: Riggs focused on the prismatic model the focal point of his models. According to Riggs, the prismatic society is one which has achieved a certain level of differentiation; the specialization of roles necessary for dealing with modern technology, but has failed to integrate these roles. The prismatic society shares the value- patterns of both fused and diffracted societies.

Answer : F.W. Riggs has given Prismatic Sala model; he is very interested in the Administrative System of developing third world countries especially after colonialism. So, he has given Prismatic Sala model. Prismatic Stands for developing countries according to his model and Sala stands for Administrative Subsystem of developing countries.

Riggs views Administrative System or subsystem of whole system of social unit, like political subsystem, economic subsystem. He also holds view that these subsystems influence each other in whole system.

Similarly Political Subsystem or Economic Subsystem influences the Administrative Subsystem.

Riggs has given various characteristics of Prismatic Sala models, like, formalism, heterogeneity, and overlapping.

Now, if we analyse Indian Administrative System, we can easily say that it is totally reflects all the basic characteristics of Prismatic Sala model, like for instance there is formalism in Indian Administrative System; rules are present to follow and in actual practice it is modified according to the convenient of influential people. Similarly there Heterogeneity with means existence of different Subsystem side by side with in Urban Society is well established and rural areas are very remote and underdeveloped.

Answer : This statement of F.W. Riggs was given taken into account the ecological aspect of an organisation, which include political environment as well.

F. W. Riggs in his Administration Model gave various characteristics of various societies, which termed Fused, Prismatic and Diffracted.

Riggs selected imperial China and pre-revolutionary sequence Thailand as examples of to represent his concept of fused society. In such Society the royal family plays a very important role in the administration of the country.

In Prismatic society, Riggs termed administrative sub system of “Sala Model’. In prismatic Society family welfare, nepotism and favoritism play a very important role in appoints of various administrative positions and inefficiency is also its one characteristics. Similarly in diffracted society which he takes exemplar of U.S.A. In such society all administrative system are based on scientific variables.

Answer : In the field of discipline of public administration Riggs contribution is very significant. He has given a very comprehensive theoretical contribution in the development of discipline of public administration. Especially his contribution toward comparative public administration and development administration.

He viewed public administration is influenced by its environment and in return environment is also influenced by public administration. Now to understand public administration he has given certain approach to study the whole aspect of public administration, that is, ecological approach, structural functional approach and ideal models of public administration to understand the administration.

Ecological Approach: In his ecological approach, Administration and its environment influence each other and the understanding of the dynamics of this process is necessary to understand the administration. This approach is termed ecological approach. Ecology is a term borrowed from biology. It deals with the Science concerned with interrelationship of organisms and their environment. It is concerned with the interplay of living organisms and their physical and social environment and how organisms and environment kept in balance for survival and other important objection.

Riggs analysed the relationship between the administration and economic, social, technological, political and communication factors in a larger perspective. He explained illustratively how environmental conditions influence administrative system on the basis of his studies in Thailand and Philippines.

Structural-Functional Approach: In analyzing the administrative systems from ecological point of view, Riggs mainly used structural-functional approach. Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton, Almond, etc., are the other thinkers who adopted this approach in their works. This approach envisages that in every society certain important functions have to be carried out by a number of structures with application of certain specified methods. Structures may mean the administrative mechanism or any other mechanism by which the functions are discharged. Thus, the structural-functional approach is a method of analyzing the functions that are carried out in a society. The structures that are responsible to discharge the functions, and the methods that are responsible to discharge the functions, and the methods that are adopted in undertaking the functions. According to Riggs, in every society give important types of functions are discharged viz, economic, social, communication, symbolic and political functions. The same set of functional requisites apply to an administrative sub-system in which various structures carry out a number of functions in a specified manner. A study of these structure, functions and methods to understand the phenomena is the structural-functional approach.

Ideal Models: Riggs developed certain ideal models to analyse the administrative systems of developing countries. Models are highly useful in the development of public administration as a subject from normative to an empirical study. Riggs first used much published models in 1956, by classifying the societies into Agraria and Industria, i.e. agricultural and industrial societies. These models were developed keeping in view the societies of imperial China and United of America. According to him all societies transform from Agraria to Industria at a given point.

Agraria–Industria was critisised as having many limitations. These limitations are briefly summarised as follows-

1. ‘Agraria-Industria’ typology is not helpful in studying the transit and societies, i.e., those societies which are moving from the agrarian stage towards the industrial stage;
2. The system does not provide sufficient mechanisms to analyse mixed societies, since modern societies always have some agrarian features;
3. The typology assumes a unidirectional movement from the of agrarian to the industria; and
4. The models give very little emphasis to the analysis of the administrative system perse. The major stress on the environment of the administrative system.

Responding to these limitations and criticisms, Riggs developed another set of models, discarding old ones to analyse the administrative systems in developing countries. The fused- prismatic- diffracted model is the result of this effort. The ideal models of Riggs such as fused, prismatic and diffracted are hypothetical assumptions aimed at analyzing the pre-historic, developing and developed societies.

The following are the broad characteristics of fused, prismatic and diffracted societies.

In the study of administration of different society Riggs focused his attention more on Prismatic Sala model. In this model prismatic refers to developing societies and sala is sub system of prismatic model which refers to administrative system of developing societies. In analysing prismatic societies Riggs holds the view that prismatic society reflects or have characteristics of both fused society and diffracted society. All these societies are in transitional phase, that is, they are moving towards fused to diffracted society. That is, from underdeveloped to developed society.

Prismatic society is further characterised by formalism, heterogeneity and overlapping.

Now, in analyzing the administrative system of prismatic society, which termed it as sala model. In this sala model administrative system is influenced by various exological factors like its political, economic, social and technological factors and in return all these factors are equally influenced by its administrative subsystem. In sala model of prismatic society, family welfare, nepotism and favouritism play a very important role in the appointments to various administrative positions and in performing administrative function. Universalisation of laws are disregarded. Though ‘Patrimonilism is officially prescribed, in reality it is widely prescribed and it reflects in all administrative practices.

Critical Appraisal: The extensive references made to the views of Riggs in the literature of public administration itself is an indication of his tremendous influence on the discipline of public administration and development administration without reference to the views of Riggs. But Riggs, like many other administrative theorists, was subjected to several criticisms.

Raj Krishna is one of the critics of Riggs theory, directs his attention with view to examining how for Riggs’ models are useful to analyse the developmental processes and points out that his prismatic model serves no purpose to find out the stages in process of development. When change is inevitable in any society, according to Raj Krishna, Riggs’ diffracted model is impracticable and unwanted. Diffracted society represents the equilibrium state and stands for the stability and preservation of the system. Thus, in the opinion of Raj Krishna, diffracted society is not a desirable society.

Answer : The developing and developed countries are two broad regions at mesa scale, in public administration for the study of administrative system. The comparative public administration movement, led to a study of the administrative system of many developing countries and studies revealed that the administrative system, which these countries had, were not suited to the task of economic and social development upon which they had started. When the pace of development did not come up to the expectations of the donors and developing countries, a new look at development policies and administrative structures was taken.

In a developing country with problems of lack of resources, technical expertise, skilled personnel, etc. the state is the only significant social sector willing to undertake the task of bringing about change which is necessary for development. Development has become a major focus of administrative activity in the country today. Administrative development has become inevitable, since the basic concept of the role of administration has changed from that of Law and Order duties to welfare activities after independence.

Administrative capability is defined as the management capacity of government. Administrative capability involves efficiency related to the conversion of inputs to outputs, with special attention as to how the inputs are used. Effectiveness relates to the production of outputs which are intended to yield certain desired outcomes. Innovation can relate to the whole process, but its key function is to get more outputs that achieve desired outcomes.

The development administration must show adequate capacity to set the main objectives of government to ensure their consistency, define the constraints within which the major department or components part of government operate. Such as policy making machinery should also determine the basic strategies for national development and the part to be played by each of the major components of the government.

Administrative capabilities are an essential component for increasing administrative efficiency not only for the development planning but also for implementation of programmes and projects. Therefore, appraisal is considered to be an integral part of the larger effort to change, motivate and improve the administration of development systems. This ability is lacking in developing countries. Therefore in order to improve this capability, it is necessary to have programmes of training, civil service reforms, reorganization and procedural changes, etc. Administrative capabilities must ensure the mobilization of inputs and increase the productivity or efficiency of the administration.

Bureaucracy is noted for red-tapism and nepotism. It is essential that the defects of bureaucracy are removed to make it capable for development administration. Effective political control, good management, efficient personnel administration, effective organization, internal review, professional morals and non-official participation in administration can go a long way in removing many evils of bureaucracy and will improve its capability of development.

The government has changed the training policy, from being remedial, to removal of skill deficiency in a few to the developmental aims of preparing all public servants for future responsibilities. Similarly innovations need to be incorporated as it requires highly skilled human resources.

There is a wide divergence of opinion regarding the substance and scope of the work of these agencies although there appears to be a general understanding that the aim of management improvement is to bring about administrative changes that contribute in government operations.

Despite different attempts by government in several countries to improve management the results achieved have been marginal. Numerous problems have been encountered and have embraced such crucial issues as the organizational location, support and leadership, adequacy of staff, and financial resources philosophy and value systems, of the governments concerned the substance and the content of work programmes and institutional and environmental linkages.

The common approach has been to create one central agency to enhance administrative capability in different departments. A major weakness of this approach is the lack of active involvement of the client departments.

Enhancing administrative capability is a collective responsibility, without which the developing countries would not fully utilize its resources for growth and developments.

Answer : Public administration owes its present status mostly due to contributions from writers and thinkers of USA or Europe. Their thoughts were influenced by their experience in their countries. Public administration as it was cultural specific and its orientation was towards the culture of the west.

When development assistance was given to countries in Asia through UN, it was felt that a modern public administration was necessary to efficiently utilize the financial aid. The techniques of public administration taught were modern but western-oriented. No attempt was made to develop techniques of administration more suited to the unique economic or political or social conditions prevailing in developing Asian countries.

The experience was traumatic. The ‘universal principles’ valid in the west did not fit in Asia. They were almost totally useless.

Scholars in public administration in developing Asia should look inward in their own values and requirements instead of looking or copying from the west. Organization should be designed to enable co-operative decision-making and promote collaborative problem solving. Thus inward looking in their own values and requirement is essential for the success in Asia.

Answer : The three important characteristic features of the prismatic society are ‘formalism’, ‘heterogeneity’ and ‘overlapping’.

Formalism: It implies the extent to which a discrepancy exists between the prescriptive and descriptive, between formal and effective power, between the impression given by constitution, law and regulation, organization charts and statistics and actual practices and facts of government and society. The greater the discrepancy between the formal and effective, the more formalistic is a system.

A prismatic society is characterized by high degree of formalism. The degree of formalism increases to a maximum as one moves toward the prismatic mid-point, from eighth end of the polar scale. Actual behaviour of public official does not correspond to legal statutes, even though the public officials may insist on following some of the laws laterally.

At the administrative level appear intra-bureaucratic politics and ritualisation of procedures. This happens because bureaucrats have no clear sense of the goals and policies to be accomplished. There is no effective control over the bureaucracy. The prevalence of formalism encourages corruption.

Heterogeneity: A prismatic society is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity which means the simultaneous presence, side by side, of quite different kinds of systems, practices and view points. In contrast the ‘fused’ and ‘refracted’ models are relatively homogeneous. Heterogeneity applies not only to the society as a whole but it applies also to the public administration. The whole range from archaic to formal political structures may be formed, together with numerous paradoxes and conflicts as a result.

Overlapping: By overlapping is meant, the extent to which that is described as administrative behaviour is actually determined by non-administrative criteria, i.e. by political, economic, social, religious or other factors. Similarly what proposed to be ‘economic’ turns out to be much influenced by non-economic consideration; political structures are to a considerable extent non-political etc.

Price indeterminancy is an instance of overlapping. In such a model, besides supply and demand forces, which affect prices, other factors also affect the prices such as the social and political relationships of buyers and sellers to each other. Price indeterminancy hampers large-scale organization and impairs delegation of responsibility, a major factor in the extreme centralization of authority in all prismatic administration. The productivity is very low. The quality of administrative work declines.

Answer : Riggs’ ecological approach to the public administration was initiated by J.M. Gaus, Robert A. Dahl and Merton long before Fred Riggs. But it was Riggs who made a significant contribution to its approach. This type – approach relating toadministration with different environment sought many unanswered questions especially about Weberian’s bureaucracy and its applicability in the developing countries.

A number of critics like Peter Blau believed that Weberian model of bureaucracy cannot be applied to administrations of different places and times, especially in third world countries. Blau felt that a fresh look has to be taken at the concept of rational administration. In a changing environment “the attainment of organizational objectives depends on perpetual change in the bureaucratic structure.” That is why efficiency cannot be guaranteed by tethering the official to the set of rigid of rules. Similarly, according to the Riggs, the efficient administration is possible only when an individual is allowed to identify with the purposes of the organization and to adopt his behaviour to his perception of changing environment.

Roberts Presthus considers Weber’s bureaucracy makes implicit assumption about human motivations which are not necessarily valid in non-western environments. Similarly, critics like H.C. Creel and A.B. Spitzer took objection to Weber’s claim that rational bureaucracy is a modern phenomenon.

Answer : Comparative public administration has been described as the theory of public administration applied to diverse cultures and national setting and the body of factual data by which it can be examined and tested. F. W. Riggs opines that the term ‘Comparative’ should be used, only for empirical, nomothetic studies.

The basic contribution of the comparative study is that it has helped eliminate the narrowness of provincialism and regionalism of the subject of public administration. It has made the subject broader, deeper, and useful.

However some inadequacies have been found in comparative administration from the angle of its development. Riggs approach emphasizes the development of elaborate models that might eventually help us to understand more about administrative behaviour in different settings. The major issue is that understanding administrative behaviour is a very slow process. The ultimate purpose of the comparative public administration movement has been to hasten the emergence of a universally valid body of knowledge concerning administrative behaviour.

So, behaviourlism denotes the psychological, and mental perception of civil society in the world politics. In comparative polity, the behaviour of citizen and behaviour of administrator in different political system are the important issues of empirical observation.