Question

Throughout the history of the field of public administration there has been an on-going debate regarding the separation go politics and administration. Is it essential to have such a separation? How does this influence the role of the public administrator/?

Answer 1

Answer: No, I feel that it is not essential to have a separation between politics and administration. It is true that administration should be based purely on merit and efficiency but in public administration, the will of the people also matters. The politics is a representation of the people’s opinion no matter whether the opinion is merit based or efficient. Public administration is for the general public and not for shareholders of a company who are only interested in merit and efficiency. Often social concerns are reflected in the politics and hence in public administration, there should not essentially be a separation between the politics and administration. Yes, there is a need to have some degree of separation as administration and politics are different in nature. This influences the role of a public administrator in a big way. This means that the public administrator cannot work independently but he or she needs to take into account the influence and interference of politics in his or her job and mould it accordingly.