General Objectives
To develop students’ understanding of some of the explanatory and normative theories used in public administration and to apply these theories to specific aspects of public management. Students should have undertaken Introduction to Public Management before undertaking this course.
The course is intended to provide the theoretical and conceptual tools that will be required for the analysis of substantive areas of study to be taken at advanced level.
Specific Objectives
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
• Discuss critically the possibilities and limitations inherent in the purely private and voluntary provision of public goods.
• Defend a position on the competing views concerning the extent to which state power can be used to provide a solution to the problems of the provision of public goods.
• Explain the various approaches to making official rules and regulations, the difficulties involved in successful rule-making as well as offering a view on the reasons why rules are sometimes inefficient policy instruments and how rules can be made more effective.
• Offer an informed view on the merits and disadvantages of different strategies for enforcing regulations and be able to understand why different enforcement strategies are used in different circumstances.
• Critically discuss the different issues involved in the choice of organisational form for the direct provision of services by government as well as different theories concerning how such choices are made.
• Explain the most important features of public choice models of bureaucracy paying particular attention to Niskanen’s ‘budget maximising model’ and Patrick Dunleavy’s ‘bureau-shaping’ model, and defend a position as to the empirical realism and explanatory power of these models and their relevance to the study of public administration.
• Discuss different approaches to the problem of the control over bureaucracy and the strategies by which administrative regimes attempt to tackle corruption, sleaze and maladministration.
• Critically debate the dominant approaches to implementation theory and research in the social sciences.
Reading
Readings for each topic are divided into two sections.
Core Reading denotes reading which an essential accompaniment
to the Lectures and Classes is. Supplementary Reading
denotes materials that will assist better essay writing. You should undertake
such reading if you propose to specialise on any particular
topic and hope to answer an examination question on it. You cannot cover
all the material or the topics with equal emphasis; the Supplementary Reading
supports your choice of emphasis. In planning your reading, a good rule of
thumb is to keep reading on a topic until you begin to encounter substantial
repetition of themes and ideas. Learn to ‘skim and dip.’ Nothing
prevents you from using other sources, indeed, at this stage you are expected
to do so, but you should take care to specify such sources in your essays
and in your examination writing.
Students who wish to supplement each week’s readings with a textbook treatment
of the issues are referred to Christopher Hood (1986) Administrative Analysis:
An Introduction to Rules, Enforcement and Organisations, Brighton, Wheatsheaf
Press. Sadly, this excellent textbook is out of print. Copies are available in
the libary. Two other texts used extensively on this course is Kenneth Shepsle & Mark
Bonchek’s Analysing Politics: Rationality, Behaviour and Institutions,
(Norton, 1997) and Owen Hughes’ Public Management and Administration: An
Introduction (2nd Edition, Macmillan). Students may wish to consider these texts
for purchase.
Some of the materials, particularly that written
from a public choice perspective, may be off-putting
to students not familiar with this kind of analysis.
Don’t
Panic! Try to read through the material carefully and patiently, and try to get
the general flavour of the argument rather than concentrating on too much detail.
If you have any problems that still appear insurmountable after careful reading,
please feel free to consult your tutors or Mr Cruickshank for advice.
Lectures
There will be 11 Lectures (starting in Week 1 of Semester I), plus a Revision
session in the final week of the semester.
Ivan Cruickshank will give lectures, in the order set out in the Programme below.
The issues under topics are a guide to the central questions involved, and to
which you should direct your reading: not all of the topics will necessarily
be covered (or given equal weight) in the appropriate lecture.
Do not be surprised if your tutorial teacher disagrees with the lecturer. The
purpose of a lecture is to motivate you to explore the topic in question thoroughly,
and in an analytically informed way. A lecture is not an occasion on which you
will be ‘spoon fed’ knowledge, or a substitute for independent reading
and writing.
Work Required and Assessment
The course is assessed on the basis of course work, including formal and informal
writing, and examination as follows:
Formal writing 20 Marks
Informal Writing 20 Marks
Examination 60 Marks
Students who do not fulfil formal and informal
coursework requirements will not be allowed to sit the final examination.
