“Procedure is not a unique feature of public administration. It is a concomitant of all organized activity, and many procedures are equally usable by private administration or public administration. Private as well as public "red tape" can be time-consuming and annoying to those affected, as anyone can testify who has tried to exchange a purchase without a sales slip or to cash a check without "proper identification.”

Source: "Government by Procedure", 1946, p. 381-82; As cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 595

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Dwight Waldo13

American political scientist 1913–2000

Leonard D. White (1891–1958) American historian

Source: Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, 1926, p. 3-4 (1939 edition); as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 8

“At the time of its initial publication, Public Administration helped to define this field of study and practice by introducing two major new emphases: an orientation toward human behavior and human relations in organizations, and an emphasis on the interaction between administration, politics, and policy. Without neglecting more traditional concerns with organization structure, Simon, Thompson, and Smithburg viewed administration in its behavioral and political contexts. The viewpoints they express still are at the center of public administration's concerns.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Book abstract, 1991
1940s-1950s, Public administration, 1950

“The meaning that I have given to the word administration and which has been generally adopted, broadens considerably the field of administrative science. It embraces not only the public service but enterprises of every size and description, of every form and every purpose. All undertakings require planning, organization, command, co-ordination and control, and in order to function properly, all must observe the same general principles. We are no longer confronted with several administrative sciences but with one alone, which can be applied equally well to public and to private affairs and whose principal elements are today summarized in what we term the Administrative Theory.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: The administrative theory in the state, 1923, p. 116

“Perhaps most important of the theoretical movements now influencing American administrative study is scientific management. At the level of technique or procedure, borrowing from and liaison with scientific management will undoubtedly continue. Although some doctrines, such as "pure theory of organization," have already affected public administration, how influential other theoretical aspects of scientific management will be remains to be seen. In its "democratic" or "anarchistic" doctrines, conceivably, there is enough force to reconstruct present patterns of administrative thought, at least if conditions become favorable.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Source: The Administrative State, 1948, p. 209

“It is no doubt true that in the administration of justice — whatever the context — the appearance of impartiality as well as its reality should always be our goal. Public confidence in the administration of justice necessarily depends on public understanding. All of this should virtually go without saying. Actions that create a perception of unfairness are to be avoided. But those who administer justice cannot be required to be the guarantor of the public perception of their work. Sometimes that perception is shaped largely by extraneous forces and circumstances that are beyond the control of those who administer justice. And I would suggest that it is a dangerous policy indeed to prohibit actions which the fair administration of justice in fact requires simply because some segment — however large — of the public judges those actions to be other than just. Adopting such a policy promises to reward those who seek to undermine the faithful administration of justice by false charges of unfairness.”

Charles T. Canady (1954) American politician and judge

Some Reflections on Impeachment: Remarks of Congressman Charles T. Canady to the Miami Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/some-reflections-on-impeachment-remarks-of-congressman-charles-t-canady-to-the-miami-lawyers-division-of-the-federalist-society (August 1, 1999)

“In his actions was a crude trampling of the law and of proper administrative rules, politicization of the public service, and the use of public resources to advance personal and political interests.”

Tzachi Hanegbi (1957) Israeli politician

Israeli State Comptroller and judge Eliezer Goldberg on Tzachi Hanegbi in his annual report, published September 24, 2004.

“Public administration is that part of the science of administration which has to do with government, and thus concerns itself primarily with the executive branch, where the work of government is done, though there are obviously administrative problems also in connection with the legislative and the judicial branches. Public administration is thus a division of political science, and one of the social sciences.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Science, values and public administration," 1937, p. 189

“This is a study of the public administration movement from the viewpoint of political theory and the history of ideas. It seeks to review and analyze the theoretical element in administrative writings and to present the development of the public administration movement as a chapter in the history of American political thought.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Preview; lead paragraph
The Administrative State, 1948

“Administration has to do with getting things done; with the accomplishment of defined objectives. The science of administration is thus the system of knowledge whereby men may understand relationships, predict results, and influence outcomes in any situation where men are organized at work together for a common purpose. Public administration is that part of the science of administration which has to do with government, and thus concerns itself primarily with the executive branch, where the work of government is done, though there are obviously administrative problems also in connection with the legislative and the judicial branches. Public administration is thus a division of political science, and one of the social sciences.”

Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983) British management consultant

Source: 1930s, "Science, Value and Public Administration", 1937, p. 189

“The study of public administration must include its ecology.”

John M. Gaus (1894–1969) American political scientist

Source: Reflections on public administration, 1947, p. 6
Context: The study of public administration must include its ecology. "Ecology," states the Webster Dictionary, "is the mutual relations, collectively, between organisms and their environment." J. W. Bews points out that "the word itself is derived from the Greek oikos a house or home, the same root word as occurs in economy and economics. Economics is a subject with which ecology has much in common, but ecology is much wider. It deals with all the inter-relationships of living organisms and their environment." Some social scientists have been returning to the use of the term, chiefly employed by the biologist and botanist, especially under the stimulus of studies of anthropologists, sociologists, and pioneers who defy easy classification, such as the late Sir Patrick Geddes in Britain.

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