Public Administration

Catalog description

A survey of the major approaches to the management of most governmental agencies. PL SC 489 Public Administration (3) Government Management is a three-credit Political Science course that teaches the role and function of bureaucracy. Although some investigation is made about state and local government functions, the primary focus of the course is on the federal bureaucracy. In particular, the course illustrates how the interrelationship between the three branches of government exists using the various federal agencies as functionaries.The course first examines the basic functions of bureaucratic agencies in the modern world; primarily their distributive, re-distributive and regulatory activities. In addition to these functions, the various external and internal political forces that form the mission of the agencies are examined. Next the internal function of a bureaucracy is examined by highlighting the various roles of the people who comprise a typical large agency. The roles of the political appointee, the career professional, the general civil servant and the union laborer are examined, with the GS system of the federal government used as a guide to show the hierarchy that exists in a large agency.By highlighting both the functions of a typical agency and examining its role in the larger government structure, and by looking inside the bureaucracy to see the various short and long term roles of the people who comprise those agencies, the student appreciates how large bureaucracies are at the same time always changing, and always staying the same.