Introduction
The relationship between public administration and the citizens would have been fully established if only numbers were use as the single unit of measuring success. This is because several studies have been carried out to investigate the relationship between the two entities. However, close analyses of the progress suggest that there are quite few studies that have addressed how the citizens’ perception on public administration would impact on their political view. This paper is meant to assess as well as review different concepts and measures of public administration/ citizens linkages as far as political perception and orientation is concerned. The assessment and evaluation is to be carried out in two phases; theoretical and empirical approaches.
Justification
The specific research insufficiency notwithstanding, it must be noted that numerous kinds of specific theories and operational measures of the public administration- citizen linkage as defined by political environment may act as hindrance to exhaustive research progress (Caputo 63). One of the most obvious consequences of insufficient research progress is that any prescriptions on how to apply work that can contend with public political perception are continuously drawn from “anecdotal and impressionistic accounts” (Caputo 64). But this should not be the case as taking time to closely scrutinize the available concepts as well as measures will help us separate the points of consensus from those of unending disagreements. Furthermore, closely examining and clarifying the link between conceptual view and operational perspective can present a good opportunity to augment any zone of disagreement. Consequently, it’ll most likely lead to developing of a workable framework for public administration operations acceptable to a wider dimension of the political society.
Dependent Variables
The evaluation of citizens’ perceptions will rely on such variable questions as: does every citizen who form part of the political unit has a right to make any observation about public administration? And how are these observations received among the concerned, the public administration and the political class? Is it obvious that every perception the citizens express towards public administration will cause problems in decision making process due its wide scope and complexity in organization of any subsequent policy implementations. Notably, these questions are dependent to each other an analysis is expected to give a clear picture of the value of political view, as defined by public administration operations, in enhancing efficient service delivery.
In addition, there is another area that has brought concern to the citizens’ involvement in decision making process in the public administration duties. It is observed that the entire citizens’ view is difficult to incorporate in the policy making or amendment process, regardless of the persons doing the analysis (Miller & Yang 39). Furthermore, many critics observe that the contention is developed in the subjective nature of human beings, coupled with selfish human interests as far as public utility is concerned (Miller & Yang 39). These are motivated by the increased concerns that objectivity and rationality in public administrative duties are difficult and in more often than not mislead public administrators in enforcing their duties.
Independent variables
Considering the literature available, it is critical to focus on the analysis of the some independent variables that are likely to affect the process of information acquisition. Basically, the research relies on both dependent and independent variables, based on how they are likely to be controlled by other external variables as the study is carried out. It is noted that one of the objectives of this paper is to establish a model in which evaluation of citizens’ perception can help improve the service delivery process.
What must be taken into consideration is the aspect of appropriateness of the modern systems of organizational theories, combined with evaluation research methodology as applied in process undertaken to formulate the specific model of public administration (Pandey & Scott 1112). Thus, effectiveness of the process in reflected in terms of the kind of value that is laid on what sort of recommendations the study will produce. The independent variables will therefore be hinged on questions as related to: how visible is the public administration’s activities? How are the citizens’ views legitimate to the process of policy implementation? What community resources are used in the management of public affairs? How the internal organization of the public administration as a unit does affects its successful operations and to what extend is this viewed by the public?
Control Variables
The first question we would ask is: do different measures of operations of public administration have the same outlined reality as well as the level in which they are discerned from concepts like formalizing the citizens’ view? It is recognized that comparing theories systematically is important in the establishment of the relationship between independent and dependent variables (Pandey & Scott 1113). It is thus critical to observe that these variables are themselves not islands, and thus found in theoretical networks of interrelationships, that are supported by linkages of theoretical ideas. From this analysis of the study, my expectation is that different measures of perspectives are linked together to each other with the help of control variables in order to develop cognate approach such as public administration formalization in this case.
Works Cited
Caputo, David. The Citizen Component of Policy Evaluation. Chicago. Chicago University Press, 2001.
Miller, Gerald & Yang, Kaifen. Hnadbook of Research Methods in Public Administration. New York. CRC Press, 2007.
Pandey, Sanjay & Scott, Patrick. Red Tape: A Review and Assessment of Concepts and Measures. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol.12, 2002.