Public Choice Approach in Public Administration

During the decades of the 1960s to 1970s, it was the time when bureaucrats ran the government, and the role played by the state was highly criticised. In response to it, to know the government’s tendency and to limit governmental activities, the scholars have suggested several reforms to limit the working of the government like constitutional reforms and decentralisation of the powers.

Among all the suggested reforms, the ‘public choice approach’ was one of them which has a motive to work for the government by studying it through an economic approach. The political process, institutions, and public policy, these types of bodies were studied from an economic perspective.

Meaning of Public Choice Approach

The word public choice approach was coined in the late 1970s, and it started gaining importance as a discipline of public administration. Vincent Ostrom considered this approach the most appropriate one, which can help study political institutions, political processes, and different policies. They believed that when economic ideas are applied to something, it brings out efficiency and rationality.

The public choice approach always favoured the democratic administration, which focuses on one simple thing that fulfils the demand of the public. The study of the public choice approach always emphasises the needs and ideas of the public as they believe that by fulfilling the needs of the public, gaining economic growth becomes easy.

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Important Features of the Public Choice Approach

As we have discussed, the public choice approach always gives more importance to the individual need and requirement so that it could widen the choice of the person. It also encourages the government to provide the quasi form of the market system in the state.

Based on these, some features of the public choice approach are:

• The public choice approach sees bureaucrats as evil, so it is anti- bureaucrats
• The only reason for removing the bureaucrats is that they always look for their own interest at the expense of the public and make the best use out of the public and their interest
• It is a critique of the bureaucratic administration model as bureaucrats are considered self-seeking administrations where the politicians work for maximising their own interest rather than benefiting the local citizens of the state and this is how the collective interest of society suffers
• Providing public goods and services encourages institutional pluralism
• The public choice approach always use economic logic during the problems related to the public service distribution
• It always supports the democratic decision-making centres and popular participation in the administration

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The Public Choice Approach in Public Administration

The public choice theory assumes that public servants are always motivated by the wants to maximise the welfare of society. The public choice approach always sees bureaucracy as a critic of the public administrations and considers it as unresponsive and inefficient. These bureaucrats carry a different attitude towards all the private producers and have a rigid hierarchy structure.

Due to this rigid structure, consumers always have delays in the delivery of goods and services. People do not leave with any choice, and they have to compromise with whatever is available. When the government is centralised, it is difficult to fulfil the preferences of all the citizens.

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Public Choice Theory

The main objective of the public choice theory is to make public administration more efficient and responsible. It also aims at institutional pluralism, which helps in improving the standards of services and provides public choice with a broader range.

Following are the things on which public choice theory emphasises:

• It emphasises the replacement with the democratic administration to increase public goods and services
• It aims at popular participation of the public and decentralisation of the powers
• It also aims at freedom for all consumers and welfare for them
• The main objective is to abolish the government’s monopoly so that the role of private players increases, which further helps in the supply of goods to the consumers

Conclusion

There are several approaches to the study of public administration, out of which three main approaches are the traditional approach, Modern Approach, and contemporary approach. Under the traditional approach, we examine the philosophical, historical, and comparative types of approaches. In the modern approach, various approaches are studied, like Marxist, behavioural, and comparative approaches.

Under the public administration, the public choice approach is studied, which emphasises mainly on the consumers and their needs. According to this theory, bureaucrats restrict the demands and supply of goods and services to the people. In other words, it can be concluded that it emphasises the replacement with the democratic administration so that public goods and services increase and aims at popular participation of the public and decentralisation of the powers.