Public Administration and Political Influence
Public administration is primarily concerned with organizing governmental programs and policies, plus the behavior of officials legally accountable for their actions. Therefore, public administrators have a vital responsibility in their roles and functions within public organizations. Public administrators would be indicted for abusing the office because of public scrutiny. Such scenarios can result in different investigations to ascertain the claims and then facilitate the decision on whether the individual is fit to hold a public office. In such scenarios, power is often the best political influence to use. A public administrator can use coercive and expert powers to influence followers’ decisions. They can also affect the authorities executing the investigations, and power can help them get some support from their political parties (Johnson, 2017).
Public administrators can use expert power to influence followers’ decisions by enticing them with benefits so they can get the opportunity to misuse their office. Such administrators can also use personal powers over the followers to allow them to carry out different activities without the followers understanding the financial impact. Secondly, public administrators can use coercive power to influence authorities to investigate their conduct or abuse of office (Zahariadis, 2019). In addition, they can also use their authority or power to influence the investigation authorities, which can cause a conflict of interest and cause the investigation not to yield any positive results. Finally, public administrators can get support from their political factions to help them when accused of office abuse (Christensen & Yesilkagit, 2019). The political factions could support public administrators because of political power and influence. As such, the political party is likely to fully back up such administrators even without knowing the allegations against the member to protect the party’s name.
References
Christensen, J., & Yesilkagit, K. (2019). International public administrations: a critique. Journal of European Public Policy, 26(6), 946–961.
Johnson, C. E. (2017). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow. Sage Publications.
Zahariadis, N. (2019). The multiple streams framework: Structure, limitations, prospects. In Theories of the policy process (pp. 65-92). Routledge.
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question
Pick a situation in which a public administrator would find themselves. Describe what type of political influence is best utilized for a specific situation.