Problems And Prospects Public Administration Education In Thialand

  • Uploaded by: hundee
  • 0
  • 0
  • December 2019
  • PDF

This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the permission to share it. If you are author or own the copyright of this book, please report to us by using this DMCA report form. Report DMCA


Overview

Download & View Problems And Prospects Public Administration Education In Thialand as PDF for free.

More details

  • Words: 5,936
  • Pages: 15
ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

THE PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION EDUCATION IN THAILAND Uthai Laohavichien For more than two decades, Thailand has given top priority to the development of the country. The government has paid attention to the Following goals: eradication of poverty and unemployment; a more equitable distribution of income; improvement in the quality of life; equity in a political system that encourages popular participation; and defence against internal and external threats. The above objectives and goals must inevitably call for government officials equipped with desirable developmental attributes which can be put into practice. Thus, a public administration education programme in line with these specifications is needed. As in most less developed countries (LDCs), public administration education in Thailand has confronted several problems. Aside from the inadequacies of qualified teaching staff, indigenous materials, and teaching technologies, most curricula of public administration are not conducive to the values, needs and the resources of the country. As can be seen in the later part of this paper, most current curricula are patterned on Western or American public administration models which are largely irrelevant to Thailand. In addition, in order to transfer a public administiation education programme from a more advanced country to a LDC, one must be aware of many problems such as the question of universality, value neutrality, and the serious consideration of what can be transferred and what cannot be transferred. Moreover, scholars in many LDCs, including those in Thailand, are increasingly interested in the development of public administration education programmes which are suited to the needs and values of each country instead of merely adopting or importing an entire programme from the West. This paper is therefore an attempt to point out the problems of contemporary public administration education in Thailand and its future direction. Accordingly, effort will be made to describe public administration education in Thailand tracing back from the time of King Chulalongkom who ruled in the late 1890's to the present time. This treatment of the historical development of Thai public administration education will serve as a basis for the discussion of its problems and prospects. Uthai Laohavichien is Associate Professor at the National Institute Development Administration, Bangkok, Thailand.

46

of

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The Development of Public Administration Education in Thailand

The development of public administration education in Thailand can be treated in five stages. 1.

The combination of Public Law and the British Tradition

Public administration education in Thailand dates back to the time of King Chulalongkorn who, in 1899, instigated the establishment of various educational institutions to train Thais and to meet the increasing demands of the public service. They are the Civil Servant School, the Royal Pages School, the Civil Servant School of King Chulalongkorn, and the Faculty of Public Administration and Law of Chulalongkorn University. All of these higher educational institutions were designed primarily to train young men to serve in the public service. In 1899, the Civil Servant School was founded to train middle-level and clerical personnel for the public service. It was later replaced by the Royal Pages School which was designed to familiarize government officials with court customs before they were assigned to posts in the provinces. The school also trained its students to behave as gentlemen, to learn Thai customs and good manners.1 Students had to spend a period working under the direct supervision of the King, which enabled him to form judgments on his men before they were assigned to posts in the provinces.2 In 1910 the Royal Pages School was renamed the Civil Servant School of King Chulalongkorn and was later transformed into Chulalongkorn University in 1917.3 At the outset, Chulalongkorn University established four new faculties with the Faculty of Public Administration and Law as one of them.4 The primary objective of this faculty was to train government officials as deputy district officers, a starting position in a hierarchy which included such posts as governor and directors-general and culminated with the position of undersecretary of the ministry. The curricula of these schools were a combination of general administration, field training, humanities, policy, law, local government, political science and other social science courses. The courses offered in these schools were broad and general in nature. The teaching of public administration, however, reflected a legalistic bias. The prevailing notion was that a competent government official must have a good background in law because law was regarded as essential to the understanding of public administration. Besides, a good government official, it was believed, must be a broad-minded person. This is in line

47

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

with the British tradition which favoured persons with a liberal arts education background rather than with a management background. In 1948 and 1949, two new B.A. degrees in political science were offered at Chulalongkom and Thammasat Universities respectively.5 Similar to their predecessors, the primary purpose of both programmes was to train graduates who would serve in the Ministry of Interior as deputy district officers. Both programmes offered a combination of courses in political science, law, public administration, and other social sciences. Again the major emphasis was on law and hence the legalistic bias persisted. From the above description, it might be suggested that public administration education in Thailand in its initial stages followed the "public law" tradition, as manifested in France, Germany and other countries on the continent, as well as the "broad-based or general education" approach of Britain. Such curricula combined political science, public administration, law, and other social sciences and the main approach of public administration was legalistic, philosophical, and historical. Needless to say, the "administrative science" and "social science" perspectives on the study of public administration were yet to make an impact. Consequently, Thai graduates in public administration in that era were well-versed in law, but had narrow perspectives of administrative problems and tended to rely on their legalistic training to cope with such problems. The prevailing belief in that generation was that administrative problems could be remedied by drafting proper laws and regulations. 2.

The "Core Beliefs" Tradition

After World War II, with the rise of behaviouralism and the increasing involvement of the United States in many LDCs, public administration education in Thailand in turn underwent a shift in emphasis to follow the American line of thinking. It must be noted here that the state of the art of American public administration at this period was in a state of confusion. The "politics/ administration dichotomy" and "principles of administration" paradigms came under severe attack from, among others, Herbert Simon, Dwight Waldo and Robert A. Dahl. For instance, Simon pointed out that the "principles" of administration advanced by the classical theorists were merely "proverbs" both in that they were only loosely worded maxims or admonitions and in that if they were placed in pairs, they would contradict each other.6 Thus, these "principles of administration" could not be treated as a scientific study of administration. Simon's approach to

48

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

the study of administration was accordingly based on the principles of logical positivism and a distinction between fact and value. Waldo, in contrast, aimed primarily at destroying certain dogmas in administrative science, while at the same time rejecting classical theories which claimed to be "scientific" perspectives on public administration in terms of neutrality and efficiency.7 Waldo proposed, rather, to relate public administration to democratic values and the political context. In other words, Waldo was dissatisfied with the "politics/administration dichotomy" and the "principles of administration" which focussed mainly on internal administration. Public administration, if it was to be meaningful, must take place within a governmental context.8 Another critic of classical theories was Robert A. Dahl who identified three obstacles which hindered the establishment of a scientific basis for the study of public administration. These three obstacles were values, the individual personality, and the social framework.9 Dahl, like Waldo, was dissatisfied with the focus of the classical theories on internal administration. Instead, he related public administration to the social context which subsequently brought about the rise of the comparative public administration movement.10 In any event, Dahl emphasized the scientific study of public administration based on comparative analysis. After the critiques of Simon, Waldo, and Dahl, public administration became confused in its direction and since then has undergone a crisis of identity.11 As Martin Landau observes, public administration lacked a common centre, for there was a lack of consensus as to the meaning of the term among its teachers and practitioners.12 During this period of stagnation, most universities in the United States taught public administration with an emphasis on three core courses: organization and management, public personnel administration, and public financial administration. The belief was that these core courses would provide students with an overall appreciation of the field of public administration, as well as providing them with an appropriate set of tools and techniques. An underlying assumption of the so-called "core beliefs tradition", derived in part from the politics/administration dichotomy, was that administration was to be treated as an instrument rather than an end in itself. Accordingly, the primary purpose of schools of public administration was to train students to serve in staff agencies as personnel officers, budget officers, organization and method specialists, training officers, and so forth. While American public administration was facing a crisis of identity, the United States began its technical assistance programme to transfer advanced American technology to the less developed countries, with the

49

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

primary purpose of helping the LDCs to overcome basic problems such as poverty, ignorance, and disease. The programme assumed implicitly that current knowledge and tools could be transferred from the more advanced countries to the LDCs. In spite of the early realization that there would be problems with technology transfer, many officials and public administrators were led by their biases into thinking that such a transfer could be accomplished with minor modifications. One of the first aids of the United States for the modernization of the LDCs was to establish Institutes of Public Administration in all parts of the world. It must be pointed out that the training provided by these institutions of public administration emphasized the so-called "core beliefs", which represented the state of the art of American public administration at that time. In 1955 Indiana University entered into a contract with Thammasat University to establish an Institute of Public Administration to train graduate students for M.P.A. degrees.13 The Institute was also responsible for the in-service training of government officials at different levels. The emphasis of this M.P.A. degree was well reflected by the "core beliefs" of the curriculum.14 Personnel administration, financial administration, and organization and methods served not only to provide student with basic public administration knowledge, but also to impart tools and techniques to them. The curriculum was also drawn up with the understanding that administration was instrumental, that it was a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Accordingly, values which prevailed in the Unites States, such as economy, efficiency, effectiveness, rationality and responsibility were emphasized. But although the inculcation of some of them might have been useful from the developmental perspective, it was not possible to transplant the entire system of values from the United States to Thailand. As a result, the M.P.A. degree switched from an emphasis on law, humanities, history, and philosophy to an emphasis on management. This curriculum was designed to provide the added advantage of giving students a bird's eye view of the field. The "core" offerings could be regarded as providing "nuts and bolts" of the programme. Its weakness, however, was that it trained students to be specialists rather than to be administrators or officials engaging in line functions. The "core" offerings tended to treat public administration as the study of internal administration. In effect, the Thai bureaucracy was looked upon as a closed system. Hence, studying public administration without consideration of its context was not only boring, but also rather useless. Tools and techniques are useful only to a certain extent in the bureaucracy. When a government official is promoted to the "executive" level, he may realize that values, theories, and models are more useful in the sense that they can help the administrator to seek more relevant questions in order to

50

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

change the system. In any case, the "core" offerings equipped Thai public administrators with some degree of managerial knowhow. Public administrators in Thailand tended to cope with administrative problems in terms of the principles of administration. It was strongly believed at the time that "principles" in public administration could be developed in accordance with the rules of scientific method. Hence the treatment of administration as outside the realm of politics and policies encouraged the teaching of public administration along the line of the "core" offerings. 3.

The "Development" Tradition

During the late fiftes and early sixties, the study of public administration in the United States saw the rise of comparative and development administration. The emergence of comparative public administration was due to the explosion of behaviouralism, and development administration gained ground because of the necessity of LDCs implementing their developmental programmes. Concurrently, the Institute of Public Administration of Thammasat University was in the process of converting into the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA). After NIDA was founded, the School of Public Administration drafted a new curriculum in response to the country's need to produce graduates for national development. The concept of "development administration" is somewhat different from that of "public administration." The difference being that a "development" environment usually requires an administrative system which performs a "change" function instead of a "maintenance" function. "Maintenance" functions are those activities necessary for the smooth working of the organizational machinery. Examples include the procedures for recruitment, promotion, implementation, and the review of budgets. In fact, this function is usually known as "public administration" or "status quo management." On the other hand, the "change" function involves activities necessary to stimulate new ideas, policies, or procedures. The emphasis is on the process of change rather than on the substance of that which is changed. Therefore, instead of viewing personnel or budgeting procedures as ends in themselves, they are regarded as methods for increasing awareness of organization problems, the development of alternative suggestions for problem-solving, and the testing and evaluation of the various methods used to stimulate the desired change. This is precisely what is known as "development administration" which, in practice, keeps the ultimate goals flexible so that they can evolve with the maximum participation and involvement of those concerned. Therefore, in order to respond to these needs, NIDA proposed a new curriculum with

51

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

an emphasis on development. It must be pointed out that this curriculum, in fact, resembled that of the "core" offerings. The three core courses remained almost the same, except for some minor changes in one of them, namely, human behaviour in organizations, which used to be known as organization and methods. In any event, this curriculum added a few new courses in development and development administration. Special consideration was paid to the contextualities of the bureaucracy. On the other hand, courses such as economics and social and political systems in developing countries show that this M.P.A. degree emphasized not only internal administration but also external administration, that is, studying the interaction between the Thai bureaucracy and its environment. 4.

The "Programme Administration" Tradition

As mentioned above, the emphasis on "development" in the teaching of public administration had changed quite considerably from the original "core offerings." The change was a matter of adding some new courses in response to the then new field of development administration. In 1970 NIDA introduced another curriculum aimed to emphasize development administration, the "core" offerings, and added the field of programme administration — the broader version of project management,15 planning, organization design, logistics, urban studies, environmental administration, and public enterprise. Another deviation from the previous curriculum was an emphasis on management sciences manifested by the number of courses on quantitative analysis. One unusual characteristic of this curriculum was its requirement for public administration students to expose themselves to economics and business administration. In practice, public administration students have to take five common courses with other schools. This curriculum is thus more extensive when compared to the old curricula. The underlying philosophy of the new curriculum requires graduate students trained in public administration to have an interdisciplinary apporach which has three ramifications. First, as each discipline has its own methodology, it became inappropriate to teach development administration through one discipline since solving administrative problems requires a knowledge of all the social science disciplines. Second, under this curriculum, the importance of maintaining a practical rather than theoretical perspective was stressed. Third, the programme put more emphasis on recognizing public problems rather than on theories and abstraction. Since public problems have been considered the major focus of administrators, programme management as a field of concentration was therefore introduced into the new M.P.A. program. This M.P.A. degree, with an emphasis on programme administration,

52

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

has both merits as well as weaknesses. In terms of strength, this curriculum perceives the necessity for students to take courses with a contextual orientation. It also provides students with an interdisciplinary outlook. Another positive aspect is that it is an attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice, to treat public administration as a focus of study rather than as a discipline, as an applied social science rather than social science or a field of political science, as problem-oriented rather than a discipline-oriented field, and as applied research rather than pure research. It aims to produce graduates not only as staff but also as line personnel. Additionally, this curriculum provides students with what they really want to know. Most students who are preparing to become administrators need answers to questions such as: "What are we going to do?", "What can be done?" and "How can we do it?" These questions can only be answered when the study of public administration is oriented toward applied social science. Another strength of this curriculum is that it provides students with the substantive knowledge which will become increasingly relevant as they are promoted to the higher echelons of the bureaucracy when they will have to ask relevant questions and to make sound decisions. In addition, the new curriculum also equips students with some of the tools and techniques of management science. Graduates who work at the middlemanagement level or below would certainly need the techniques provided in the curriculum which include: organization design, personnel evaluation, personnel development, programme management and evaluation, and quantitative techniques. These techniques are intended as heuristic device to aid students in solving problems. In sum, this curriculum provides the necessary knowledge requirements for new supervisors up to higher executives. Although this curriculum has strengths, it also has defects in that it pays more attention to techniques than it does to purpose. It is in fact a triumph of techniques over purpose. This might have been justified at a time when public administration was regarded as merely an instrument of government. Nowadays, however, it is an admitted fact that the public administrator does not simply implement goals and policies. He is also, above all, a policy-maker. Accordingly, he must rely on theories and conceptual schemes that will enable him to specify values and ask relevant questions. The curriculum, however, provides very little in this respect. Another defect is that while the programme aims to produce qualified change agents, there is a noticeable lack of development courses in the curriculum. Students are taught how to collect, analyze, and interpret data. They are not taught how to bring a developmental perspective to bear on their findings.

53

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

5.

The Blending of all Traditions

After this curriculum had been implemented for six years, NIDA introduced another new curriculum. The aim of this new curriculum was to introduce public policy into the "programme administration" curriculum. This was perhaps due to the rise of public policy as a major field of study in public administration in the early seventies. The structure of this curriculum was therefore the blending of public policy, programme administration, organization and management science. Aside from IMIDA, Thammasat University also offers an M.P.A. degree. The programme at Thammasat is a part-time programme where classes are usually conducted after office hours and on Saturday. It has, in fact, no major fields. It aims to provide students with a broad knowledge of public administration. The following are their core courses: research design and techniques, fiscal administration, seminar on comparative administration, and the scope and development of public administration. 16 Moreover, students are required to take electives constituting from six to fifteen credits, and courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science which account for another nine credits in lieu of the thesis. A comprehensive examination is required of all students.17 From the above description, it is evident that the M.P.A. programme at NIDA is a blending of all traditions: core offerings, public policy, programme administration, organizational behaviour, and management science. The programme, however, treats public administration as an applied social science and looks to the professional stance of medical practitioners as a model for behaviour. Its fields of specialization aim at training students either as specialists or as line officers in substantive areas. For instance, the programme recognizes the necessity of the development context and how it relates to the Thai bureaucracy. Courses such as the Thai social and political system and the Thai economy provide a base for students to understand the development context. Secondly, the sub-field of public policy and project management should help public administrators in practical aspects of development administration. The M.P.A. programme at Thammasat, on the other hand, is very loosely structured. The Thammasat programme does not even place particular emphasis on public administration, let alone development administrators. Furthermore, the programme provides very few courses dealing with the "nuts and bolts" of public administration. The description of the contemporary programme of public administration education at both NIDA and Thammasat indicates that the impact of American public administration still prevails. The present state of the art of American public administration reflects the blending of three

54

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

important areas namely organizational behaviour, public policy, and management science. The curriculum at NIDA clearly indicates a response to these directions. But the Thammasat programme is rather loose and ambiguous in its content. In any event, neither programme shows any clear response to the needs of the country. This is a crucial problem of public administration education in Thailand which will be analyzed in the following section. Problems and Prospects

The foregoing analytic description of the historical development of public management education programmes in Thailand calls for an analysis of the transference of American public administration to Thailand. But before proceeding to this problem, American public administration doctrine will be discussed. Generally, American public administration includes the following guiding principles: rule of law, hierarchical structures, political system maintenance, laissez-faire government and the provision of modest public services. Its supportive values are: efficiency, rationality, responsibility and effectiveness. Although the advent of postbehaviouralism has recently challenged some of the above emphasis, American public administration remains largely the same. If we were to examine dominant social value orientations of the Thai bureaucracy, we should find such elements as hierarchical status, personalism, security, and fun. According to Siffin, fun means "the enjoyment of social pleasures, the tendency to regard social and ceremonial activities as a legitimate dimension of the bureaucratic way of life, and the lack of appreciation shown to grim, earnest, manifestly serious, driving officials."18 Siffin also points out that certain values which are important to the Americans are absent in the Thai bureaucracy. These values are secular rationality, efficiency, egalitarianism, the rule of law, innovation, etc.19 Besides, Thais are highly individualistic and lack the ability to cooperate or work jointly with others. Thus, it would be hard for them to organize or participate whole-heartedly in any group activity. The above shows certain fundamental differences of the Thai and the American contexts. In addition, the demands by the urbanites on government for public services are so intense that it is sometimes far in excess of the government's administrative capabilities to cope with. Moreover, the Thai bureaucratic system does not have enough personnel with high degrees of professional skills. And furthermore, the bureaucratic polity refuses to share its power, authority and developmental activities with the private sector, which, to date, has kept a low profile. In the light of this comparison, we see two administrative

55

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

environments with different structures and value orientations. It is not difficult to visualize the problems and difficulties involved with the transference of knowledge from the United States to Thailand. The question that immediately follows is the utility and relevance of such an undertaking. Obviously, not all American public administration knowledge and techniques can be transferred. To complicate this issue further, what could be transferred may not always be what is desirable or suitable for Thailand. Let us pursue the point further and for the purpose of this discussion, the substance of public administration education will be divided into knowledge, tools, techniques, and technologies. Knowledge is inherently culture-bound. For instance, commonly known and used organization theories are largely based on an American environment of a post-industrial society. Data are mostly drawn from the American business and industrial sectors which are largely not relevant to the Thai developmental context. Thailand is still a peasant society. In spite of modernization and urbanization in its capital city, Thailand's private sector is relatively weak. Thus, it would be truthful to state that organization patterned after the "humanistic" school would be meaningless to the Thai bureaucracy because Thailand has emphasized the valueof "hierarchical status". Even the "decision-making" school might still prove to be inadequate when applied to the Thai administrative system because this school relies on the availability of data sources for effective operation. In Thailand, the system of data and statistical collection is still in its nascent stage. Other factors are also significant in terms of the transferability which is promising in sectors that are technology intensive, but difficult if not impossible in sectors that are people intensive, where differing cultures and values systems are the determinants of receptivity and adoption.20 Aside from organization theory, management principles and process are also difficult to transfer. For instance, the concept of universalism may not be entirely universalistic, as there are preconditions, socio-economic, cultural or otherwise, which inherently prevent all individuals from having an equal opportunity to participate in the universalistic norms for recruitment and promotion. The problem of coordination and control in the United States might be different from that of Thailand. Similarly, policy implementation in the United States is dissimilar to that of Thailand since communication, resources, and overall context are very different in the two settings. If Thailand needs public administration knowledge, careful attention has to be given to modifying and selecting what ought to be transferred. As an example, my own experience tells me that classical organization theory which has been

56

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

characterized as simplistic, undemocratic, unscientific, is — ironically — useful in Thailand because the Thai bureaucracy with its authoritative values and hierarchical nature finds the classical theory applicable and meaningful. While knowledge is difficult to transfer, tools and techniques or the "nuts and bolts" of public administration are, on the contrary, easier to transfer. Basic tools such as statistics, records management, budgeting, and personnel administration have been transferred quite successfully both in terms of teaching and training. Students and trainees usually find it worthwhile and rewarding to learn these techniques. Other advanced analytical tools and other pedagogical techniques for management are also successfully being transferred to public administration education and training in Thailand. Such tools are network analysis, operations research, linear programming, communication skills, computer technology, to name a few. The techniques mentioned include the case study, syndicates, role-playing, group dynamics, and so on. Although tools and techniques can be transferred most readily across national and cultural boundaries, there are however, several reservations and considerations which have to be taken into account. First, tools which are efficient in one culture may not have the same consequence in another culture. For instance, Organization Development (OD), which is popular in the United States where the sociopolitical context is democratic, may become a useless or irrelevant instrument in Thailand where the political system is bureaucratic and hierarchical. Openness and confrontation as crucial techniques of OD would be paralyzed in the Thai setting where face-to-face conflict is to be avoided at all costs. Social interactions in Thailand have to be kept within the boundaries of pleasantness, harmony, and avoidance of confrontation just as Thai individuals are expected to be calm and cool-headed, which means avoiding the display of emotions. Another example would be the adoption of the system of position classification in Thailand. Among other problems this system confronts when transplanted to Thai social reality is the fact that the Thai personnel system is dominated by generalists rather than specialists. Also, some tools and techniques are too sophisticated and costly in terms of the requirements of available data, professional skills, and the resources of the country concerned. Systems analysis and cost-benefit analysis, for instance, are irrelevant since the Thai bureaucracy does not have sufficient complexity to employ these techniques. Besides, a sophisticated information system does not exist to incorporate cost-benefit analysis. Some tools and techniques are also "fads" in the sense that they may gain instant popularity and suffer just as quick a demise. Planning-programming-budgeting system (PPBS) which was very popular in

57

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

the United States in the early seventies and abandoned after one or two years was such a case in point. Ironically enough, many training programmes in Thailand still retain this topic. The foregoing discussion of the transferability of knowledge and tools and techniques is to show that American public administration is not universal and value-neutral as was once assumed by American technical assistance personnel and Thai scholars. Another problem of public administration education, which is related to the notions of universality and value neutrality, is a reification of concepts and techniques alien or inappropriate) to conditions of Thailand. Thais tend to believe that Western or American public administration is imbued with unchallenged and unquestioned sophistication. This nation inhibits Thai scholars from venturing into .their own theory and model construction. Instead, they tend to pattern their approach after the West, particularly from] the countries where they have studied. Many even believe that American public administration is the dominant so,urce of public administration, though this is an erroneous notion that undermines public administration scholarship elsewhere in the world, Such attitudes have led Thai public administration education to be a borrower and not a producer. The above thinking ultimately impMes that leality can be adjusted to fit existing knowledge when in fact it should be the other way round. The above analysis of the problems and difficulties concerning knowledge • transference from an advanced country to a LDC inevitably points to a critical conclusion; public administration education, programmes ought to be designed by one's own country. This issue has been considered, .although not too seriously, by indigenous scholars of the LDCs, particularly on the merit of designing a programme that will be conducive io the needs, values and context of the country in question. I am strongly convinced that indigenous knowledge is vital and rrju^st be sought. I am not suggesting, however, that we should embark on a campaign to disregard Western or American .public administration. To do that would be an act of shortsightedness, if not'Sheer folly- Western public administration knowledge stems from almost a century's accumulation and is therefore be • useful to Thailand, particularly when such knowledge is selectively chosen, tested and verified against the Thai context. To develop and ultimately depend on indigenous knowledge in a systematic and organized manner requires painstaking effort and patience. In the beginning, we must have a good and clear knowledge of our culture, values and beliefs before attempting to understand organizational behaviour in Thailand. Similarly, we must truly understand the existing

58

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

management system in Thailand before designing a sound public administration education programme for Thailand. Although for the time being, existing knowledge is not yet adequate for the development of a public administration education that will be responsive to and congruent with the needs of our own society, we must not give up the dream of trying to realize this goal, however remote the goal may seem.

NOTES 1. William J. Siffin, The Thai Bureaucracy: Institutional Change and Development (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1966), p. 100. 2. Ibid. 3. Choompol Swasdiyakorn, The Development and Scope of Training for Administration in Thailand (Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Syracuse University, 1968), p. 67. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., p. 199 6. See Herbert Simon, "The Proverbs of Administration," Public Administration Review 6 (Winter 1946): 53-67; Simon, Administrative Behaviour: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization (New York: McMillan, 1947); see also Waldo's criticism in Dwight Waldo, "Public Administration" in Political Science: Advance of the Discipline, ed. Marian D. Irish (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 161. 7. Howard E. McCurdy, Public Administration: A Bibliography (Washington D.C.: College of Public Affairs, American University, 1972), p. 80. 8. See Waldo, The Administrative State: The Political Theory of Public Administration (New York: Ronald Press, 1948); Waldo, "The Administrative State Revisited", Public Administration Review 25 (March 1965): 5-30; Waldo, "Development of Theory of Democratic Administration", American Political Science Review 46 (March 1952). 9. See Robert A. Dahl, "The Science of Public Administration: Three Problems", Public Administration ReviewVU (Winter 1947): 1-11. 10. See James W. Fesler, "Public Administration and the Social Sciences: 1946 to 1960" in American Public Administration: Past, Present, Future, ed. Frederick C. Mosher (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1975), p. 12. 11. See Waldo, "Scope of the Theory of Public Administration," in Theory and Practices of Public Administration: Scopes, Objectives and Methods, ed. James D. Charlesworth (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1968); Vincent Ostrom, The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1973); Uthai Laohavichien, "New Public Administration": Its Origins, Concepts, and Relations to OtherSubfields of Public Administration, Monograph Series in Public Administration, School of Public Administration, National Institute of Development Administration, 1974 (in Thai). 12. See Martin Landau, "The Concept of Decision-Making in the Field of Public Administration" in Concepts and Issues in Administrative Behaviour, ed. Sidney Mailick and Edward H. Van Ness (New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs, 1962), p. 14. 13. See A Final Report on the Establishment of the Institute of Public Administration at Thammasat University (Indiana: Institute of Public Administration, Department of Government, Indiana University, 1960). 14. Ibid, pp. 21-22.

59

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

15. See Amara Raksasataya, "Programme Administration: A New Pattern of Management," Thai Journal of Development Administration 12 (April 1972): 233-257; Somporn Saengchai, "Program Administration," Public Administration Papers (Bangkok: School of Public Administration, National Institute of Development Administration), pp. 1-16 (in Thai); see also Amara Raksasataya, "Development of the Administrative Sciences in Southeast Asia and Oceania," International Review of Administrative Science 44 (1-2, 1978): 57. 16. Manual for the Master's Degree, Thammasat University, B.E. 2523 (in Thai). 17. Ibid. 18. Siffin, The Thai Bureaucracy, p. 162. 19. Ibid, pp. 162-163. 20. Laurence D. Stifel, Joseph E. Black, James S. Coleman (eds.), Education and Training for Public Sector Management in Developing Countries, Working Paper, The Rockfeller Foundation, Second Printing, 1978, p. 45.

60

Related Documents


More Documents from ""

My Best Senior
December 2019 19
Ethiopian Edu
April 2020 24
Hundee
May 2020 3
My Photo
December 2019 10