The Public Interest and Public Administration

Abstract

Ever since ancient Greece, philosophers have assumed the existence of a public interest that is more than the sum of the interests of the individuals that make up a polity. However, the utilitarians and more recently the theorists of the ‘New Right’ have argued that the public interest consists simply of individual interests summed together, with the result that the related notion that public servants have a special duty to protect and promote the collective public interest has been subjected to sustained attack. However, the collective public interest remains in the form of four values that public servants are required to promote: accountability, legality, integrity and responsiveness. In consequence, public sector management is essentially different from business management and can only be subsumed within the latter to a limited extent when considering the education pf public servants.

A Survey on the Use of Benchmarking as a Continuous Improvement Tool for Ministry of Agriculture Parastatals in Kenya

“…Benchmarking entails comparing one's business process with "best practices" which are documented strategies and tactics employed by highly admired companies. These are companies which are most profitable and are the strongest competitors in their businesses [3].…”

“…Benchmarking is a multifaceted technique that can be utilized to identify operational and strategic gaps and to search for best practices aimed at eliminating such gaps. Of importance is having proper framework of mind of receiving the lessons of benchmarking [3]. The authors further observe that benchmarking is one of the most effective means to identify improvements, which can make a significant difference to an organization.…”

“…Benchmarking entails comparing one's business process with "best practices" which are documented strategies and tactics employed by highly admired companies. These are companies, which are most profitable and are the strongest competitors in their businesses [3]. Benchmarking is a multifaceted technique that can be utilized to identify operational and strategic gaps and to search for best practices aimed at eliminating such gaps.…”

Examining Frank J. Goodnow’s Hegelian Heritage

“…However, some kind of common good or public interest seems to be necessarily connected with the existence of public values” (Tijsterman & Overeem, 2008, p. 84; cf. Elcock, 2006; Rutgers, 2008, p. 352). Hegel’s work is relevant today, especially for administrative ethics, because it recognizes “mutual recognition as a key element of moral judgment and ethical life” (Macaulay, 2009, p. 27).…”

“…The tension between the public interest and private freedom is one of the fundamental issues of Public Administration. 1 The question of how to define—let alone act on—the public interest has become increasingly complicated, and civil servants are facing potentially conflicting ethical obligations in responding to the public interest (Bryer, 2006; Elcock, 2006). To cope with this problem, scholars of Public Administration may want to read the history of their field backward, as a “greater inclusion of historical research offers the field a better sense of what it is, why it exists, and what its fundamental human and societal purposes are” (Stillman, 2001, p. 252; see Spicer, 2004a, 2008).…”