POLS 331-2: Intro to Public Administration
Spring 2006
Instructor: LeAnn Beaty Email: lbeaty1@niu.edu
Class Times: Tuesday and Thursday: 12:30-1:45 pm, DuSable 246
Office Hours: Tuesday and Wednesday: 11:00-12:00, or by appointment
Office Room No. Dusable 476
Office Phone: (815)
753-1818
This course serves as an introduction to public administration, and is designed to provide the student with an understanding of the major theories and periods of reform influencing the discipline.
During the semester we will review topics generally associated with the study of public administration such as organization theory and behavior, human resources, public policy formation and decision-making, social equity, intergovernmental relations, and administrative reforms. Through class lecture, reading, group work, discussion, and current event assignments, students will become familiar with the primary issues and challenges facing public administrators today at the local, state, and national levels.
Letter grades will be based on the standard 100
percent scale (e.g. 90% - 100% = A; 80% - 89% = B; 70% - 79% = C, etc.). The following components are the criteria for
calculating course grades.
|
Interview |
100 |
|
|
|
Case Studies (5) |
50* |
360-400 |
A |
|
Book Analysis/Presentation |
50* |
320-359 |
B |
|
Midterm Examination |
100 |
280-319 |
C |
|
Final Examination |
100 |
240-279 |
D |
|
|
400 pts. |
Below 240 |
F |
*Grade based on “Fail, Meet or Exceed Criteria.”
Interview
Interview a public administrator. Locate a person who works as a manager or
analyst in a public or nonprofit organization and interview them. The interviewees might work in a public university
(cannot be an NIU employee), a local government, a state or federal
agency, or a nonprofit organization.
They might be a city manager or department director (public works, parks
and recreation, etc.), a county official (county
clerk), a manager in state government (perhaps someone in a welfare office or
the highway department), a federal government manager (in a local office of a
department such as Social Security, Agriculture, or the FAA), or someone such
as an association executive. Ask the
person you interview to describe their job, including the range of
responsibilities they have and the knowledge, values, and skills that are
important to them in their work. The
following are some examples of questions you might want to ask:
§
Describe the work
you do and how you came to this position.
What is your educational and work background?
§
What impact does
the work you do have on the community/state/nation/etc.? What do you find different or unusual about
working in a public organization? How do
you think your job compares to work at a comparable level in business or
industry?
§
What knowledge,
values, and skills are important to your work?
For instance, if you were hiring someone to take your place, what would
you look for?
Source: Denhardt &
Grubbs, Public Administration, pp. 28-29.
Papers must be typed,
double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font with 1” margins, and include a
cover page and citation page (at least three citations, including the
interview). Papers are due at the
beginning of the class period on Tuesday, April 11. Late papers will be docked one full
letter grade per day, based on what the original grade would have been. Email attachments for this or any other
written assignment will be deleted without review.
Group Case Studies
During
the semester students will be expected to participate in assigned case studies
from the Stillman book or as provided on
Blackboard. The class will be broken
into seven working groups to analyze particular aspects of the cases. To insure that each member contributes to the
group effort, students will be required to read the cases in advance of class and
prepare a typed brief or outline (i.e. facts of the case, the key issue
or problem, stakeholders and external environment, and implications or
recommendations of the case), not to exceed 1 page. These typed outlines will accompany the
groups’ overall written position and will be collected at the conclusion of the
class discussion. Grades will be
assigned according to effort (Fail (late or absent) = 0 i.e. Exceed = 10 pts.;
Meet = 5 pts.; Late or Absent Outline = 0 pts.) No make-up briefed case studies will
be allowed.
Book Analysis
Over the course of the semester, we will be discussing
the different ideological premises that have been associated with the major
periods of Public Administration (i.e., Traditional or Classic Approach,
Behaviorists, New Public Administration, and New Public Management). Using Denhardt Denhardt’s The
New Public Service: Serving, not Steering, you will compare and contrast
two of these major periods (Traditional and New Public Management) with Denhardt’s call for a new PA paradigm: New Public Service - hence, “Serving, not
Steering.”
Using the same working groups assigned for the case
studies, each group will engage in an analysis and discussion of one
chapter of the Denhardt text, focusing on the author’s
theme and how it compares and contrasts with the different periods of PA. Each group will be responsible for providing
a concise written summary of their assigned chapter to every member of
the class (the summary should be 1 to 2 single-spaced pages, including figures
or tables), and an oral presentation to the class stating the position of the
author as well as the position of the group as to which PA period they believe
to be most relevant or feasible to the future of the discipline. These presentations (20-30 minutes maximum)
will take place the last three class periods of the semester; copies of the
written summaries for the class will be gathered and compiled for distribution
to the class on Tuesday, April 25.
There will be one class meeting -Tuesday, April
4 - set aside for the groups to meet.
Each member is responsible for having read the Denhardt
book by that date, and in particular their chapter (briefed outlines for the
assigned chapter will be due from each student). Groups wishing to meet more than once are
responsible for arranging a time and meeting place; groups may request the
Instructor to join them if schedules are conducive. Group grades will be based on participation
and effort (Fail = 25 points; Meet = 35 points; Exceed = 45 points). Full
credit (50 points) will be given only for demonstrable understanding of Public
Service, to be determined at the discretion of each group.
Midterm
and Final Examination
There
will be a midterm and a final exam, comprised of any combination of multiple
choice questions, short answer or essay.
The midterm is scheduled for March 9 and the final exam is
scheduled for May 11. The final
examination will not be cumulative. Make-up exams will not be given except
in cases of extreme emergency, subject to written verification and approval.
Week
1 (01/17-01/19): Introductions
Tuesday: Course Introduction
Thursday: Introduction to the Discipline of Public
Administration
§
Stillman, Ch. 1, pp. 1-5
Week
2 (01/24-01/26): Rise of the
Administrative State
Tuesday: Evolution of Civil Service
§
Denhardt & Denhardt, Ch. 1&2
Thursday: Bureaucratic State
§
Stillman, Chapter
2: Bureaucracy & Max Weber, pp.
54-58
§
Merton, Robert
K. (1940), “Bureaucratic Structure and Personality,” pp. 560-561 [on-line]
Tuesday: Defining the Politics-Administration (PA
Dichotomy)
Stillman, Ch. 1, The Study of
Administration by Woodrow Wilson, pp. 6-15
§
Goodnow, F. (1900), “Politics and
Administration: A Study of government” pgs. 1-22 [on-line]
Thursday: Revisionists
Debate
§
Read: Martin, D. (1988), “The Fading Legacy of Woodrow Wilson” pgs.
631-636 [on-line]
§
Svara, J. (1985), “Dichotomy and Duality: Reconceptualizing the Relationship between Policy and
Administration in Council-Manager Cities” pgs. 221-232 [on-line]
Week 4 (02/07-02/09): Politics-Dichotomy,
cont’d
Tuesday: Street-Level Bureaucrat, Guest Speaker
§
Michael Lipsky (1980), “Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Critical Role
of Street-Level Bureaucrats,” In Classics [on-line]
Thursday: A CASE STUDY: The Blast in Centralia
§
Stillman: Case
Study 1: pp. 30-44
Week
5 (02/14-02/16): Organization Theory
(classical)
Tuesday: Scientific
Management
§
Frederick W.
Taylor, (1912).“Scientific Management” pp. 43-45
[on-line]
Thursday: Hierarchical Bureaucracy
§
Luther Gulick, (1937) Notes on the Theory of Organization
[on-line]
Week
6 (02/21-02/23): Organization Theory
(modern)
Tuesday: Informal Organizations
§
Stillman, Ch. 6, pp. 154-177:
Hawthorne Experiments
Thursday: A CASE STUDY:
Unbuilding the World Trade Center
§
Stillman: Case Study 6: pp. 166-177
Week
7 (02/28-03/02): Organizational Behavior
Tuesday: Motivation Theories
§
A.H. Maslow, (1943), “A
Theory of Human Motivation” [on-line]
§
Douglas
McGregor, (1957), “The Human Side of
Enterprise” [on-line]
Thursday: Evolution of
Civil Service, Guest Speaker
Week
8 (03/07-03/09) Managing Human Resources
Tuesday:
Compensation Theory, cont’d, Guest Speaker
Thursday: MIDTERM
EXAM – Bring Blue Book
SPRING BREAK – No Classes 03/14 & 03/16
Week
9 (03/21-03/23): Decision-Making
Tuesday: NIU’s Masters of
Public Administration (MPA) Program, Guest Speaker
Thursday: Herbert Simon and Rational Decision-Making
§
Herbert Simon
(1946), “The Proverbs of Administration” pp. 136-141[on-line]
Week 10 (03/28-03/30): Decision-Making,
cont’d
Tuesday: Core
Decision-Making Models
§
Charles E. Lindblom (1959), “ The
Science of “Muddling Through” (1959)
Thursday: A CASE STUDY:
The Columbia Accident
§
Stillman, Case Study 4, pp. 111-121
Week
11 (04/04-04/06): Social Equity
Tuesday: Optional Class for group meetings: The
New Public Service
§
H. George
Frederickson, (1980), New Public Administration
Thursday: Social Equity
§
A CASE STUDY: Anita
Hill and Clarence Thomas Controversy – [on-line]
Week
12 (04/11-04/13): Intergovernmental
Relations
Tuesday: Federalism vs. Intergovernmental Relations
(IGA)
§
Stillman, Ch. 5,
pp. 126-140
Thursday: Fiscal Federalism
Week
13 (04/18-04/20): The New Public
Management
Tuesday: Public Choice Theory
§
Graham T.
Allison (1980). “Public and Private
Management: Are They Fundamentally
Alike in All Unimportant Respects,” [on-line]
Thursday: Reinvention
and the National Performance Review
§
Osbourne & Gaebler, Ch. 1, pp. 25-48, [on-line]
Week 14 (04/25-04/27): Future Direction of Public Administration
Tuesday: A CASE
STUDY: Alaskan Prisons: Public vs. Private [on-line]
Thursday: Introduction
to Denhardts’ text, The New Public Service
(NPS)
§
Book Analysis Groups
1, 2
Week 15 (05/02-05/04): Future Direction,
cont’d
Tuesday: NPS, cont’d
§
Groups 3, 4
& 5
Thursday: NPS, cont’d
and Class Wrapup
§
Groups 6, 7
Final Exam: May 11 @ Noon
Important Dates
March 11-19: Spring Break - No Classes
March 9: Midterm Exam
April 11: PA Interview Due
April 25: Written Chapter Summaries of Denhardt Due (50 copies)
April 27 – May 04: Book
Analysis/Presentations
May 11: Final Exam – Noon-1:50 p.m.
Participation/Attendance/Grading Policies
Students are expected to attend all regularly
scheduled class lectures. It is also expected that students will arrive to
class on time and remain for the duration of the class period unless prior
arrangements have been made with the instructor. The instructor reserves the
right to bar any student arriving late to class without an excuse.
Students missing a scheduled guest speaker will have
five (5) points per lecture deducted from their overall score. Arriving late or leaving class early counts
as an absence.
Attendance will count towards the final grade only in
the event the final grade falls within .5 percentage points of the next letter
grade upward, and a student has no more than three unexcused absences (this
includes leaving or entering the classroom in the middle of the lecture). Excused absences require advance
notification (whenever possible) and proper written documentation.
Whenever referencing material
from the texts, supplemental readings, or lectures, students should include
appropriate citations to avoid problems of plagiarism. Students are guilty of plagiarism,
intentional or not, if they copy material from books, journals, or other
sources without identifying and acknowledging those sources or if they
paraphrase ideas from such sources without acknowledging them (NIU
Undergraduate Catalog).
NIU abides by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
that mandates that reasonable accommodations be provided for qualified students
with disabilities. If you have a disability and may require some type of
instructional and/or examination accommodation, please contact me early in the
semester so that I can provide or facilitate in providing accommodations you
may need. If you have not already done so, you will need to register with the
Center for Access-Ability Resources (CAAR), the designated office on campus to
provide services and administer exams with accommodations for students with
disabilities. The CAAR office is located on the 4th floor of the University
Health Services building (815-753-1303).
The
Department of Political Science will recognize, on an annual basis, outstanding
undergraduate papers written in conjunction with 300-400 level political
science courses or directed studies. Authors do not have to be political
science majors or have a particular class standing. Winners are expected to
attend the Department’s spring graduation ceremony where they will receive a
certificate and $50.00. Papers, which can be submitted by students or faculty,
must be supplied in triplicate to a department secretary by February 28. All
copies should have two cover pages – one with the student’s name and one
without the student’s name. Only papers written in the previous calendar
year can be considered for the award. However, papers completed in the current
spring semester are eligible for the following year’s competition even if the
student has graduated.
Undergraduates are strongly
encouraged to consult the Department of Political Science web site on a regular
basis. This up-to-date, central source of information will assist students in
contacting faculty and staff, reviewing course requirements and syllabi,
exploring graduate study, researching career options, tracking department
events, and accessing important details related to undergraduate programs and activities.
To reach the site, go to http://polisci.niu.edu
Electronic Devices and Classroom Etiquette
Turn cell phones and electronic
devices OFF prior to class. Instructor reserves the right to deduct
points or ask a student to leave the classroom for the improper use of
electronic devices, or for any other violation of classroom decorum that is
disruptive to the learning process.