Woman in Public Administration free essay sample

This area has experienced quite a lot of trivialization by male colleagues not only in Nigeria but also worldwide. It is important to state that any nation that ignores half of its population in the public policy process does so at its own peril. The challenge of this neglect has spurred this inaugural lecturer’s interest in the study of women and public administration. This has been zealously pursued from 1985 till date, using social sciences and feminist/gender techniques of analysis in researching issues related to women and public administration. The topic of this inaugural lecture, â€Å"Women: the Neglected Force in Public Administration,† is a product of earlier and ongoing work on issues of women’s marginalization in the public realm. The lecture is divided into six parts, namely: i) Stages of Development in Public Administration. ii) Women and Political Citizenship in Nigeria. iii) Women and the Practice of Public Administration. We will write a custom essay sample on Woman in Public Administration or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page iv) Barriers Hindering Women in the Practice of Public Administration. v) Institutional Environment and Affirmative Policy to Enhance the Status of Women in Public Administration vi) Strategies for Enhancing the Status of Women in Politics and Public Administration Stages of Development in Public Administration Universally governments exist to promote the welfare of the citizenry. Public administration is the vehicle by which governmental goals are achieved. Public administration can be broadly defined as the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. The ultimate end of public administration is to promote public good by enhancing civil society and social justice. The free encyclopedia (http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/public_ administration) provides a classification of the various stages of generational development of Public Administration. 1. Classical: Plato and Aristotle were the major classical scholars and their works provided benchmarks for subsequent generations of public administration scholars. Before the emergence of a national state, the governors placed emphasis on moral and political dimensions of human nature. Attention was also focused on the structure and organization of the governing body. For example, in Machiavelli’s â€Å"The Prince†, European princes and governors were offered advice on how to administer their governments. This piece of work is one of the major and first western expressions of the methodology of government. As the centuries progressed, scholars and governments continued to explore as well as explain how rulers governed. The development of European imperialism and its military exploits in other continents provided a stimulant for the development of conventional administrative expertise. In response to this need, King Frederick William I of Prussia, created professorates in cameralism. Prussian universities, such as the University of Frankfurt an der Oder and University Hallewere, focused on economic and social discipline, with the goal of societal reform. From western perspective, classic, medieval and enlightened scholars formed the foundation of the discipline of Public Administration. 2. The first generation: This period covered the mid-19th century. Lorenz von Stein, a German Professor is considered as the father and founder of the science of public administration. During this period, public administration was considered a form of administrative law. Lorenz von Stein opined and taught his students that public administration draws its inspiration from disciplines such as sociology, political science, administrative law and public finance. Public administration is conceived by him as an integrative science. Public administrators should be concerned with both theory and practice. Practical operations should be primary in the field, while theory should be the basis of its best practices. Finally, von Stein concludes that public administration is a science because knowledge is generated and evaluated according to the scientific method. During the same period, particularly in the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson is considered as father of public administration. His 1887 article entitled â€Å"The Study of Administration,† sets the pace for rigorous study of public administration using scientific principles. According to Woodrow Wilson, it is the object of administrative study to discover what government can properly and successfully do, and secondly, how it can do these proper things with utmost efficiency (Wilson 1887). Wilson’s influence was much more pervasive to the study of public administration than von Stein’s because of his 1887 article in which he advocated four principles: Separation of politics and administration Comparative analysis of political and private organizations. Improving efficiency with businesslike practices and attitudes toward daily operations. Improving the effectiveness of Public Service through management and by training civil servants. 3. The second generation: This level was dominated by Luther Gulick, Lyndall Urwick, Henry Fayol, Frederick Taylor, Paul Appbleby, Frank Goodnow and William Willoughby. Among the second generation scholars of public administration, the raging debate was the separation of politics and administration debate. While a group supports the politics and administration dichotomy advocated by Woodrow Wilson, other group challenged Woodrow Wilson’s advocacy for separation of politics and administration. In the 1940s, Luther Gulick contended that Wilson’s advocacy of politics/administration dichotomy was impractical. Gulick advocated a â€Å"seamless web of discretion and interaction†. Gulick is regarded as a truly unique administrative scholar who generated a comprehensive and generic theory of organization. Gulick, during his seventy years sojourn in administrative career differentiated his theories from those of his predecessors by emphasizing the scientific method, efficiency, professionalism, structural reform and executive control. Gulick summarized the duties of administrators with the acronym, POSDCORB, which means Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Co-ordinating, Reporting and Budgeting. Henry Fayol, another second generation scholar, postulated a fourteen-point agenda of professional administrative management. These are division of labour and task specialization, discipline, unity of command and direction, remuneration, order, equity, stability of tenure, initiative, hierarchy of authority span of control, unity of purpose, subordination of individual interest to general interest and espirit de corps. In general, the second generation theorists drew upon formal private management for administrative sciences. It was believed by these second generation scholars that a monolithic management theory is possible for practice between the formal private and public sector organizations. A general administrative theory operated in the formal private sector and also be focused on government organizations. 4. Third generation: Politics/administration dichotomy remains the central debate in the mid 1940s among third generation theorists. In addition to this debate on politics/administration dichotomy, government itself came under severe criticism. Government was considered ineffective and inefficient. In America, the failed government intervention in Vietnam as well as corresponding scandals at the home front such as Watergate scandal served as examples of government wastage and corruption. In Africa, scholars such as Ladipo Adamolekun, Robert Ola, M. J. Balogun, G Mutahaba, N. U. Akpan and Adebayo Adedeji focused on the institutions of administration especially the transplanted British and French traditional norms of administration in the former colonial countries. They examined the limitations of borrowed administrative institutions in the newly independent nations of British and Francophone countries. They jettisoned the universal concept of public administration in the light of varied political and socio-cultural contexts. Issues of civil and political management in Africa including Nigeria were objects of their writings. . The fourth generation: In the late 1980s, there emerged another generation of public theorists which began to propound another theory to displace the third generation. They propounded a new model of public administration entitled ‘Public Management’. Proponents are David Osborne and Ted Gaebler (Public Administration Review, 1996). I n Africa, scholars such as Dia Mamadou, Joseph Nye, Valerie Zeithama, Mathew Baird and Dele Olowu, like their American counterparts, advocated the use of private sector innovations, resources and organization ideas to improve public sector delivery. In this model, citizens are conceived as customers. This concept of seeing citizens as â€Å"customers† has come under severe criticism. Considering citizens as â€Å"customers† is subject to abuse, as â€Å"customers† are seen as means to an end, rather than an integral part of public policy-making process. In addition, the critics pointed out that citizens are more or less proprietors of government business than private like customers of a business. Under the new public management model, people are economic units and not democratic participants. 6. The fifth generation: In the 1990s the fifth generation scholars focused on citizens’ engagement in the policy process. Citizenship is not considered as an abstract definition as contained in constitutions of different countries. According to existing literature, citizenship is a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community. All who possess the status are equal with respect to rights and duties with which the status is endowed. This definition assists in the understanding of political identity but it ignores the gender dimension of citizenship where justice, entitlement and effectiveness are critical variables. Women and Political Citizenship in Nigeria This inaugural lecturer Olojede (1996) like other fifth generation scholars such as Victoria Mwaka (1996), Maria Nzomo (1996), and Sabah Chraibi (1998) asserts that in practice, women’s rights as citizens are more of denial than their realization. She also asserts that women’s experience of citizenship is treated as a devalued status in relation to men’s citizenship and therefore not feasible in the policy process. In 1986, this inaugural lecturer in an article entitled, â€Å"Women, Power and Political System† (Olojede, 1986) asserted that women’s citizenship in post-independent Nigeria is ineffective in the political sphere, contrary to pre-colonial experience. A cursory observer of Nigeria’s political history is likely to conclude that women are insignificant in the political process. Historians have contributed to this partial view through inaccurate accounts of political organization in pre-colonial societies. But women in pre-colonial Nigeria were not entirely powerless as erroneously perceived. Historical records are a testimony to this contention, although these accounts have been dismissed as mythological by men. Undoubtedly, it cannot be denied that pre-colonial Nigeria is essentially patriarchal. Women nevertheless had access to political participation through a complex and sophisticated network of relationships, rights and control of resources. Women’s political power varies from one society to another. In some societies, women shared equal power with men, while in others their roles were complementary or subordinate.