"Public Administration (PA)" is generally understood as that assortment or compendium of activities undertaken by a legally and/or constitutionally established government via the public sector to ensure the delivery of public services, the making and enforcement of law, the collection and allocation of revenues and resources, the implementation of public policies in such diverse fields as economics, social welfare, education and health, and all other related programs and policies that taken together represent government at work in overseeing the social contract. At the heart of public administration (including both policy formation and the processes of policy implementation within government) is an assortment of permanent bureaucracies attached to central government departments. It is in and through these government bureaucracies, departments, and agencies that the entire set of tasks associated with governance takes place.
PA as described by Chandler is a set of practices and activities that literally as well as figuratively define what government "does" and "how it does it." From the broad development of national budgets to the allocations of financial resources at the level of towns and villages or even precincts, PA encompasses economic decision-making and programming as well as other areas of activity.
PA, therefore, is both a field of study and a set of integrated activities that represent "government at work." Policymaking as well as program and service delivery is included under the umbrella of PA in most countries. For much of the twentieth century, as noted by Michael Barzelay, policy debates about administration and management in government tended to occur within a fairly narrow set of parameters in the developed democracies. As Barzelay put it, "the once contentious political and policy questions about the role and structure of public bureaucracy were substantially settleda. Public management was gene...