Editing Public administration (section)

==Definitions==
[[File:FEMA - 43019 - FEMA National Advistory Council meets in Washington, DC.jpg|thumb|Public administration is both an academic discipline and a field of practice; the latter is depicted in this picture of [[Federal government of the United States|U.S. federal public servants]] at a meeting.]]
[[File:US Navy 020614-N-0552D-001 SPAWAR award winning employee.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Administrators tend to work with both paper documents and computer files: "There has been a significant shift from paper to electronic records during the past two decades. Although government institutions continue to print and maintain paper documents as 'official records,' the vast majority of records are now created and stored in electronic format."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ipc.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/Resources/up-erdms_e.pdf |title=Electronic Records and Document Management Systems: A New Tool for Enhancing the Public's Right to Access Government-Held Information? |access-date=2017-04-29}}</ref><!-- The picture illustrates a public servant with a computer and paper documents on his desk :) --> Pictured here is Stephen C. Dunn, Deputy Comptroller for the US Navy.]]

Public administration encompasses the execution, oversight, and management of government policies and the management of public affairs. The field involves the organization, operation, and strategic coordination of [[Bureaucracy|bureaucratic structures]] in the public sector. Public administrators play a significant role in devising and executing policies, managing shared resources, and ensuring the efficient functioning of government agencies and programs.
<ref>{{Cite web |title=What Is Public Administration? |url=https://onlinempa.unc.edu/academics/what-is-public-administration/ |access-date=2023-01-15 |website=UNC-MPA |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1947, [[Paul H. Appleby]] defined public administration as the "public leadership of public affairs directly responsible for executive action." In democracies, it usually has to do with such leadership and executive action in terms that respect and contribute to the dignity, worth, and potential of the citizen.<ref>Appleby, Paul 1947. "Toward Better Public Administration", ''[[Public Administration Review]]'' Vol. 7, No. 2 pp. 93–99.</ref> One year later, Gordon Clapp, then Chairman of the [[Tennessee Valley Authority]], defined public administration "as a public instrument whereby democratic society may be more completely realized." This implies that it must relate itself to concepts of justice, liberty, and fuller economic opportunity for human beings and is thus concerned with "people, with ideas, and with things".<ref>Clapp, Gordon. 1948. "Public Administration in an Advancing South", ''[[Public Administration Review]]'' Vol. 8. no. 2 pp. 169–75. Clapp attributed part of this definition to Charles Beard.</ref> James D. Carroll and Alfred M. Zuck called [[Woodrow Wilson]]'s publication of his essay, "[[The Study of Administration]]," "the beginning of public administration as a specific and influential field of study."<ref>Carroll, J.D. & Zuck, A.M. (1983). "The Study of Public Administration Revisited". ''A Report of the Centennial Agendas project of the American Society for Public Administration''. Washington, DC; American Society for Public Administration.</ref>

More recently, scholars claim that "public administration has no generally accepted definition" because the "scope of the subject is so great and so debatable that it is easier to explain than define."<ref name="thecanadianencyclopedia">{{cite web|url=https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/public-administration|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170328003943/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/public-administration/|url-status=live|archive-date=March 28, 2017|title=Public Administration &#124; the Canadian Encyclopedia|access-date=March 13, 2018}}</ref> Public administration is a field of study (i.e., a discipline) and an occupation. There is much disagreement about whether the study of public administration can properly be called a discipline, largely because of the debate over whether public administration is a sub-field of political science or a sub-field of administrative science, the latter an outgrowth of its roots in policy analysis and evaluation research.<ref name="thecanadianencyclopedia" /><ref>{{cite journal |last=Haveman |first=R. H. |year=1987 |title=Policy analysis and evaluation research after twenty years |journal=Policy Studies Journal |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=191–218|doi=10.1111/j.1541-0072.1987.tb00775.x }}</ref> Scholar Donald F. Kettl is among those who view public administration "as a sub-field within political science."<ref name="h-net">{{cite web |title=The Future of Public Administration |first=Donald F. |last=Kettl |url=http://www.h-net.org/~pubadmin/tfreport/kettl.pdf  |publisher=H-net.org |access-date=October 25, 2010}}</ref> According to Lalor, a society with a public authority that provides at least one public good can be said to have a public administration, whereas the absence of either (or ''a fortiori'' both) a public authority or the provision of at least one public good implies the absence of a public administration. He argues that public administration is the public provision of public goods in which the demand function is satisfied more or less effectively by politics, whose primary tool is rhetoric, providing for public goods, and the supply function is satisfied more or less efficiently by public management, whose primary tools are speech acts, producing public goods. The moral purpose of public administration, implicit in its acceptance of its role, is the maximization of the opportunities of the public to satisfy its wants.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lalor |first=Stephen |title=A General Theory of Public Administration |year=2014}}</ref>

The [[North American Industry Classification System]] definition of the Public Administration  sector (NAICS 91) states that public administration "... comprises establishments primarily engaged in activities of a governmental nature, that is, the enactment and judicial interpretation of laws and their pursuant regulations, and the administration of programs based on them." This includes "legislative activities, taxation, national defense, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and international assistance, and the administration of government programs are activities that are purely governmental in nature."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ic.gc.ca/cis-sic/cis-sic.nsf/IDE/cis-sic91defe.html |title=Definition Public Administration (NAICS 91) |publisher=Ic.gc.ca |access-date=October 25, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130506223436/http://www.ic.gc.ca/cis-sic/cis-sic.nsf/IDE/cis-sic91defe.html |archive-date=May 6, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>