Deck 3: What Is Public Administration?

Question 1

Public organizations administer law, which makes them different from ______.

A) nonprofits
B) public bureaucracies
C) public administration
D) private organizations

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Each of the following makes public organizations distinct from private organizations EXCEPT ______.

A) career service
B) publicity
C) performance measures
D) public scrutiny

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What is administrative responsibility?

A) the process of holding only cabinet members ultimately responsible within the bureaucracy for specific actions
B) the process of holding specific individuals ultimately responsible within the bureaucracy for specific actions
C) the process of holding agencies responsible within the bureaucracy for specific actions
D) the process of pursuing the goals that public organizations are charged with seeking

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Dwight Waldo coined the term the administrative state in ______.

A) 1958
B) 1948
C) 1978
D) 1968

Question 5

Public administration involves ______.

A) policy formulation and policy execution
B) policy formulation, but not policy execution
C) policy execution, but not policy formulation
D) neither policy formation nor policy execution

Question 6

American citizens began to demand far more of government ______.

A) since World War II
B) since World War I
C) since the time of Woodrow Wilson
D) since the time of The Federalist Papers

Question 7

The most fundamental difference between public and private organizations, more than oversight and performance measurement, is ______.

A) public scrutiny
B) rule of law
C) long-term staff
D) emphasis on good for society

Question 8

Which of the following is considered too inefficient to accomplish much of anything but at the same time so powerful that decisions can be made arbitrarily without due process?

A) international organizations
B) private organizations
C) bureaucracy
D) public charities

Question 9

What term describes public organizations by the formal, rational system of relations among persons entrusted with administrative authority to carry out public programs?

A) oversight
B) multinational agencies
C) bureaucracy
D) performance measurements

Question 10

What scholar coined the concept of public administration neutrality?

A) Paul Light
B) Dwight Waldo
C) Steven Kelman
D) Woodrow Wilson

Question 11

What term best describes the process of translating public policies into results?

A) public administration
B) policy execution
C) policymaking
D) policy formation

Question 12

Unlike the private sector, the public sector is accountable to each of the following EXCEPT ______.

A) international organizations
B) legislators
C) courts
D) the public

Question 13

All of the following are complicating factors that must be taken into account when studying large-scale organizations EXCEPT ______.

A) simple models
B) top-down and bottom-up
C) coordination
D) relationship and power

Question 14

Government's role in society is so pervasive that it was termed the administrative state by ______ in 1948.

A) Barry Bozeman
B) Woodrow Wilson
C) Frank J. Goodnow
D) Dwight Waldo

Question 15

Since WWII, citizens' demands have resulted in each of the following EXCEPT ______.

A) less entitlement spending
B) more administrative agencies
C) more government workers
D) more government spending

Question 16

To American citizens, the term bureaucracy most often means something ______.

A) efficient
B) positive
C) negative
D) simple

Question 17

One of the core issues of public administration is the inevitably fuzzy line between ______.

A) public and private organizations
B) national versus international government
C) power and inefficiency
D) politics and administration

Question 18

Each of the following explains increased administrative action in policy formation EXCEPT ______.

A) the specialized competence of agency staff
B) the increased technicality of public policy
C) the decreased role of legislative involvement
D) the growth of chief executive's role as policy agenda setter

Question 19

Although elected officials authorize, direct and provide resources toward policy, what reality-making activity is entrusted to administrators?

A) oversight
B) policy execution
C) nonprofit management
D) public scrutiny

Question 20

All of the following are categories of the different processes that distinguish public organizations from private organizations EXCEPT ______.

A) measures of performance
B) public scrutiny
C) policy formation
D) persuasion

Question 21

Gortner, Mahler, and Nicholson distinguish managerial discretion in the public sector from that in the private sector mainly on the basis of what?

A) unlimited funds
B) relationship to Congress
C) specific grants of authority
D) access to OMB

Question 22

Briefly describe what Dwight Waldo meant when he suggested that the lines between public and private sectors were becoming blurry.

Question 23

The term red tape refers to the ways administrators must use federal programs to more securely attach the different layers of government.

Question 24

By 1980, Waldo argued that the distinctions between "public" and "private" had become even more ______ since government entities were becoming even more involved in ______ and the private sector was taking on more ______.

A) intertwined; public; political interest
B) blurred; political interest; debt
C) blurred; private interests; public services
D) bankrupt; lawsuits with businesses; responsibility

Question 25

Describe what Gortner, Mahler, and Nicholson meant by the following: "For the private organization, it is a matter of 'go until I say stop'; but to the public manager the message is 'don't go unless I tell you to.'"

Question 26

Which concept ties all administrative action to specific authority?

A) politics-administration dichotomy
B) rule of law
C) law of unintended consequences
D) rule of antideficiency

Question 27

Congress broadly forbids "unfair methods of competition ...and unfair or deceptive acts in commerce," leaving the administrative agency and the courts to refine those vague terms ______.and ______.

A) fair; critical
B) peaceful; adjudicated
C) unfair; deceptive
D) fair; encouraging

Question 28

Which type of entity emphasizes equity, efficiency, and managing by persuasion?

A) nonprofits
B) private organizations
C) public organizations
D) small corporations

Question 29

Efficiency and equity are ____________ competing concepts that should be ___________.

A) sometimes; ignored
B) rarely; given little attention
C) sometimes; balanced
D) never; ignored

Question 30

The rule of law differentiates ______ from ______ more than oversight and performance management.

A) public organizations; private organizations
B) bureaucracy; public administration
C) national government; international government
D) policy formation; policy execution

Question 31

Policy formulation and policy execution are so similar that public administration scholars have often argued that the two concepts should be combined.

Question 32

What period of time did Nicholas Henry suggest that the politics-administration dichotomy was rejected and there was a loss of confidence in the principles of public administration?

A) 1900-1926
B) 1927-1937
C) 1938-1950
D) 1950-1970

Question 33

Public administrators must answer not only to their superiors but also to legislators and the courts.

Question 34

What forbids government officials from spending money on any purpose not explicitly authorized by law?

A) Antideficiency Act
B) neutrality doctrine
C) Pendleton Civil Service Act
D) oversight doctrine

Question 35

Briefly discuss the key difference between policy formation and policy execution.

Question 36

Woodrow Wilson's view on which of the following topics has created a lasting scholarly debate?

A) organizational theory
B) the difference between public and private management
C) policy execution and policy formation
D) the neutrality of public administration

Question 37

In writing about a politics-administration dichotomy, Woodrow Wilson was mostly arguing that public administrators were basically the same as members of Congress.

Question 38

Scholars created a common definition for public administration a century after the field's inception.

Question 39

From the choices below, which activity is the most critical to public organizations as compared to private organizations?

A) implementing the law
B) cutting costs
C) hiring minorities
D) cutting red tape

Question 40

Briefly describe why the term bureaucracy is actually a neutral term despite it sometimes being viewed negatively.

Question 41

How are public administrators accountable to other branches of government through oversight activities?

Question 42

What kind of connotation does the term bureaucracy have and why does it embody a contradiction? Do you agree or disagree with common conceptions?

Question 43

How has the administrative state changed since the coining of the term in 1948?

Question 44

Briefly describe how the Antideficiency Act limits federal administrators.

Question 45

What contradictions did Woodrow Wilson advance in his classic article "The Study of Administration" ? Do you believe that Wilson's arguments are as important today for public administration as they were more than 120 years ago?

Question 46

Over time, how have members of the field of public administration examined the subject of politics and administration?

Question 47

What role does the public administration process play in policy execution and policy formation? Do you believe that administrators play a central-enough role in contributing to the formation process?

Question 48

Explain the various ways a public organization is different from a private organization.

Question 49

Explain the internalized norms of behavior that exist in addition to external controls associated with administrative responsibility.