Public administration is a profession that entails analyzing information, monitoring expenditure, drafting and implementing governmental policies. Public administrators also have a role in managing people and resources; they conduct a safety inspection and have the responsibility of investigating suspected criminal activity. They are approached for consultation, and they are described to be stewards of public interests.
Public interest can be described as the activities that government undertakes to ensure that it wins the faith and trust of the people, such activities need to be best for the people’s welfare and survival. Public interest can be achieved in mere activities on a micro level like cleaning up the streets and maintaining local roads. Public administrators have the role to ensure that the best public interests are achieved. Sometimes the public administrators have been criticized for failing to deliver on such interest, but rather they end up sidelining the public at the expense of their political parties, the government or some private corporations. This essay aims to highlight the issues and dilemmas of contemporary public administration in the US.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Administrative Responsibility
Administrative responsibility is a quality that public administrators use to describe a situation where ethical norms are followed in totality no matter the situation at hand. Sometimes the public administrators work in pressure and fail to follow the ethics and regulation as expected, and they also fail to conduct themselves with behaviors that are ideal for their career ( Milakovich, & Gordon, 2013) . In such a situation, the administrators can be said to be irresponsible and cannot be trusted with their respective roles. Therefore public administrators should meet expectation and requirements of their employers, subjects and the society as a whole.
Issues Confronting Public Administrators
One of the major issues affecting public administrations today is the bureaucracy and its related complexities. Bureaucracy is a means of organizing principles that are intended to achieve coordination of work in a large organization or government structures. Public administration is bound by bureaucratic setting to continue performing despite the change of political leaders. All public official fall under the bureaucracy, system and they may occur in varying capabilities ( Milakovich, & Gordon, 2013).
The fact that bureaucracy is sophisticated and it detaches itself from an individual to deal with an office makes it hard for public administrators to deliver on their roles. Most of the structure and operations that these servants follow are written down in a formal procedure. This makes their work to be hard. The bureaucracy has also been criticized for being impersonal and dehumanizing, as the performance of an individual is not assessed on its own, but the bureaucrats judge the performance of the whole department or organization.
Moreover, it is hard to decide if the public administrators should be ethnocentric or universal. These servants are in a dilemma if they should be guided by the theories and principles or should they be left to adapt to environmental pressures and therefore have a chance to come up with new approaches for responding the challenges that occur. If these administrators are left to follow the ethnocentric approach, it means they will be limited to their structure, which has been preset for them, and they will not be flexible ( Milakovich, & Gordon, 2013) . In such a scenario, they will find it difficult to deliver public interest in an environment harbored by social, economic and political changes and demands. This also makes it had to adopt innovation like technology, which has the capability of making life better, and bringing convenience.
Other major issues affecting public administration in The US toady include management of the economy considering there has been debt problems and economic crisis. A suitable public administration that can deliver on public interest should be considerate of productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, accountability despite budgetary deficits and unstable economy. Such an administration should solve issue relating to poverty, social injustice and disproportionate distribution of goods and services to the society. It should also work hard to solve the inequality in the society and the organizations they serve ( Demone & Gibelman, 2013).
Privatizing Government Functions
Privatizing of government functions is often done when a government is plagued by the deficit, and it has to outsource most of its departments and functions. A good example is a case of Maywood, Los Angeles where its government was in massive debts and economic deficits. The city was unable to handle most of its operations and was forced to outsource all its departments and operations. According to observers, this was precedented by years of corruption, mismanagement leading the city to be unmanageable and unsustainable. Moreover, there was a loss of commercial liabilities, insurance and worker’s compensation. This local government was also facing multiple lawsuits and was deemed incapable of function on its own ( Demone & Gibelman, 2013) . Such are instances that call for privatization of government functions.
Consequently privatizing government functions is complex, as it does not allow the administrators to evaluate and check if there is an opportunity of saving money through it. There are not possible metrics put in place to measure the benefits that can be achieved by outsourcing functions. The privatization may lead to shoddy contracting that would lead to corruption and profiteering. Therefore privatizing government functions is a bad decision that poses a dilemma in public interest delivery and administration. It does not provide for accountability or transparency. The contractor can exploit the available resources to their benefits ( Demone & Gibelman, 2013) .
In conclusion, public administrators are experts who are tasked with ensuring the best interests of the society are served by the corporates, organization and the government. When privatization happens, the administrators are barred from doing their responsibilities. This leads to corruption and unethical practices in the society and government offices. There is need to provide resources for this administrators to perform in a good environment.
References
Milakovich, M. E., & Gordon, G. J. (2013). Public administration in America . Cengage Learning.
Demone, H. W., & Gibelman, M. (2013). The privatization of human services: Policy and practice issues (Vol. 1). Springer.
