Efficiency and Public Administration

Résumé du document

Our reflection will be based primarily on the works of both Janice Stein and Christopher Dunn. Further, other scholarly sources and personal considerations will also be accounted for our reflection on global and international relations. The first part of the reflection will focus around the definition of the concept of efficiency and its illation. Following this would be a quick dive into the effectiveness of ancient science and technology. The ancient effectiveness will be judged on the impact and reformation it has had on the present public political arena. Through this research an endorsement as to what can be accommodated as ?public good' can be considered. The second part will delve into accountability of public action, the analysis of the experiences of efficiency, research on adopted market mechanisms and finally handling the difficult question of management's performance and role in public administration.

Extraits

[...] She regrets the fact that the Latin concept is de facto, fractured, and our public conversation, by this fact, is impoverished. Paradoxically, she also deplores that, in many cases, we use the word “efficiency” in place of “effectiveness”. We could think that the best thing to do would be to use the two different concepts with their own meanings in the adequate contexts. We can note that the word “efficience” in French does not come directly from the Latin but was passed down from the English language in the twentieth century. [...]

[...] Historical introduction of Efficiency Janice Stein considers the success of the word “efficiency” as the epitome of the “marketization” of our vocabulary. In a larger context, the mechanism, logics, and vocabulary of the market are more and more plebiscited in a lot of fields far from the pure economy: for example, environmentalists use the concept of efficiency, while some managers of public radio speak of their “proportion of the market” when they want to talk about their audience rating. The hierarchical weberian bureaucracy was considered in the Industrial age as the most rational and efficient form of organization. [...]

[...] Salamon: Effectiveness, Equity, Manageability, and Political Support of the program. A public action does not make any sense if its only criterion of success is efficiency, especially if this concept is summarized as a simple cost- effectiveness or cost-benefice analysis. At least, it is necessary to check that an enforced program is really effective before asking the question of its efficiency. Equity does not have to be the victim of the pursuit of the rationalization, and political activities have to be democratically accountable to the citizens. [...]

[...] The concept of efficiency is more complex: it supposes an analysis of all the means very different in nature used to achieve the initial goals. The calculation of efficiency is the ratio between the value of the achieved goals and the quantities and the values of all the different necessary means. In other words, it is the comparison between the inputs on one hand and the outputs, outcome, and impacts on the other. It is very important to consider how the variety of means or inputs - is huge. [...]

[...] It is also necessary to analyze the effects of the actual experiences of political programs justified by the efficiency and to establish what the criteria of an effective or efficient performance management could be. Accountability and citizenship Two of the fundamental pillars of democratic principles are the government's responsibility and accountability to their citizens. Constitutional balance of powers, or more simply, the principle of universal free elections are the basis of these responsibilities. The relationship between the State and the citizens has to be considered in the context of the question of efficiency. [...]