ACCEPTING THE CHALLENGE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Now that this study towards the degree of Doctor of Public Administration is drawing to a close, it is valid to reflect upon the readings and the analyses, the historical documents and the contemporary theories to determine my credo.
It is apparent that the world of public administration of tomorrow will be increasingly technocratic (a theoretical system of government and management based on principles devised by scientists and professional technicians and also administered by them).
The technocratic movement was based on the belief that the advent of science and technology had made the traditional economic system obsolete. It offered instead a political system based on scientific and physical laws and an economic system based on units of "productive energy." The government I see for tomorrow, however, is not the classical technocracy (which sublimated people to technology) but a new technocracy in which Information Technology is used by governments to formulate public policies and conduct affairs of state.
This brings into question the role of governments. Traditionalists, and I discover that I include myself in this category, believe that governments are empowered to establish and regulate the interrelationships of the people within their territorial confines, the relations of the people with the community as a whole, and the dealings of the community with other political entities. Scholars in modern times, especially in the 20th century, have stressed the characteristics that distinguish democratic governments from dictatorships. In one classification of governments, federal states are distinguished from unitary states.
Federal states, such as the U.S. and Switzerland, comprise unions of states in which the authority of the central or national government is constitutionally limited by the legally established powers of the constituent subdivisions. Where these sc...