Question 1: State’s role in the globalization era is changing’. Discuss State’s role in globalization era is quite different from what it was in traditional times. In the traditional face state role was provider and protector of nation state interest and welfare with focused attention to marginalized and under privileged groups of society; this gave state maximum power and role to practice. But 21st century brought about lots of new incredible discoveries that not only eased and benefited human race interaction but brought them close together in economic and political spheres.
Those states in western world that were influenced by liberalism achieved high efficiency while contracting out some of government services to private sector. And transformed from central based system to open market based competition. While jumping the private sector in implementation and service provision technology revolution and cross border trading concepts supported the process. Now weaker states around the globe are adjusting themselves and tasting private sector depending on the capacity they hold.
Some critics say in the globalization era state’s role has become an agent, promoting private sector enrichment through the sale of state owned companies and institutions. Some critics also say while adjusting to globalization, state may or may be not reaching to perfect ideal situation of governance and democracy it looks for and stresses on a correct mixture of state, private sector and society.
In positive aspect, globalization will provide room for greater freedom of choice for states to obtain goods and services and engage in specialization and exchange , comparative advantages in the world business, higher incomes to those employed in jobs for international labor markers, lower prices and greater availability of goods and services , opportunities to diversity risks, access to capital at lower costs, more efficient and productive allocations of resources, inward transfer of knowledge and know-how.
Globalization process is not reversible and there is no alternative with it. According to Ali Farazmand; globalization process never puts an end to the state and public administration. New global challenger widens the public administration scope of research, practice and teaching. Public administration is entering in to new human civilization, with a positive or negative future by globalization process. Development strategies are required to enhance greater openness for enjoying positive aspects of globalization.
The State remains central as before for ensuring social and economic development. It should adopt policies that facilitate greater economic integration, and recently as globalization process exposes more to states, it makes it more resilient and less vulnerable in size and power, The State would have to create an environment that is able to encourage the involvement of regional organizations in distribution of benefits and management of human rights.
By the conclusion, retreating of state in many countries of the third world has not mainly been an outcome of state failure of policies and goals but, rolling back of the state seems to be global compulsion. World Bank is providing structural adjustment loans on the condition that the recipients liberalize, privatize and decentralize and deregulate. State in no way retreating in these countries but has only taken a new role of facilitating these. In shorter words; state role is expanding and transforming from implementer to policy maker or from decision maker to decision taker.
Question 2: Elucidate the Marxist Perspective of the State Marxism is a structural theory which argues that we are all controlled by society , Marxism is a conflict theory which argues that society is characterized by disagreement and conflict between social groups, Conflict particularly between rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless. Marxists argue that the way societies produce the goods they need ( mode of production) affects how a society treats its people.
Marxists argue our society is capitalist, where a small number of people own the forces of production; factories, tools etc The majority of people work for the rich The wealthy owners ( RULING CLASS) make loads of money (profit) while the workers (SUBJECT CLASS) live in relative poverty. This capitalist system, argue Marxist is unfair. Capitalism is unfair because the social relations of production ( relationship between bosses and workers) is exploitative. Marx wanted capitalism to end in a revolution by the subject class and be replaced by communism where everyone is equal. Because the capitalist nfrastructure is so unfair, something has to exist to convince the masses that it is fair and right. This system is called the superstructure. The superstructure includes law, education, family, religion and media… … all types of IDEOLOGY (system of ideas) that con us all into thinking that CAPITALISM is fair and to prevent revolution. Rebellion and revolution would hurt the RULING CLASS so they control the SUPERSTRUCTURE and make it work to protect them. According to Marx, social change occurs in a REVOLUTIONARY way… When the exploited masses (SUBJECT CLASS) react violently against their oppression by the rich RULING CLASS.
Some modern Marxists called new-marxists argue that the capitalist state forces the masses to accept exploitation in two ways. 1. IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARTUS: using SUPERSTRUCTURE, like religion and media, to distract us from our exploitation. 2. And control our thinking Using media they call ; you need new clothes, you need a new sofa, you are inadequate, buy ;lt;BUY, BUY!!! The ideological state apparatus works to make us unaware of our exploitation – FALSE CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS. 2. REPRESSIVE STATE APPARATUS: using physical force to control the masses and protect CAPITALISM and therefore the RULING CLASS.
Marxist perspective is also known as the class theory of the state, where the state is executive committee of the ruling class and always serves the economic interest of the ruling class. This perspective of the state was first translated from writing of Karl Marx, Frederick Engle. It is difficult to interpret a unitary definition of the state from the different writings of Marx and Engels, because in they insist on understanding state and define it as a result of a more fundamental reality.
The state according to Marx writings is economic in character rather than constitutional or institutional. This according to Marx is a theory responding state events and issues immediately. Marx tries his best to figure a systematic treatment to the state. It is intrinsic to Marxist perspective that the state is seen as a universal but temporary phenomenon which ultimately has to be done away with. According to Marx writings the ultimate end of history and class struggle is Communism, where the state role is diminished.
The idea of class is the central conception in Marxist theory of the state where the state is the condensation of t class relations, which implies a pattern of domination and oppression that are other general elements of Marxist perspective. The class interest is seen to manage the state apparatus in the interests of that class alone. This involves the exercise of power over other classes. The history of class is therefore the history of such class domination and class struggle. It is linked with human labor and a particular theory of human nature and history; however, it is class which remains the key to the state.
As Engels argues; It was Marx who had first discovered the great law of motion of history, the law according to which all historical struggles, whether they proceed in the political, religious, philosophical or some other ideological domain are , in fact, only the more or less clear expression of struggles of social classes. Marx thought the state belongs to the superstructure and in course of history; each mode of production gives rise to its own specific political organization to further the interests of the economically dominant classes.
In his manifesto he declares “the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. According to Marx and Engels, State expresses human alienation. It is an instrument of class exploitation and class oppression. He further believed that the communist society would eliminate all forms of alienation from the human individual, from nature, from society and from humanity. It will establish a true democracy with the majority ruling for all intent and purpose for the first time.
The transitional state- the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” will be at the cost of capitalism destruction and attainment of communism. Marx and Engles never mentioned “Dictatorship by Workers nor Diminishing state Power in their writings, instead they advised workers to seize the state and make it public oriented and majoritarian for and preparing basis for eventual disappearance of the state or ultimate destruction. They taught dictatorship is required to overcome the gaps of old order and create new order.
They also said one person or group should not rule for ever. But a big power during emergency for a limited period. Marx continued to advocate the revolutionary overthrow of the existing bureaucratic – military State and replace it with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat that is truly democratic and majoritarian. He wrote in the Critique of the Gotha Program emphasizing the transitional nature of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: between the capitalist society and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into another.
The State appropriated the surplus in the form of taxes and this centralized State prevented the rise of free markets, private property, guilds, and bourgeois law. Taken from youtube: Question 3. Explain the Gandhian Perspective of Modern State Gandhi, a rare repeatable legend of human history had deep understanding of modern state and after application effects in an Indian context. His professional involvement in South Africa helped him to conceptualize a deep theoretical framework of the modern state, which made him to develop a modern state which was profoundly original in its approach and analytical in its assessment.
Gandhi visualized the modern state as a machine, which has apparently no controller on it. The Gandhian Perspective of the modern state was a cooperative of people sustained by the acts of its citizens. And all were partly responsible for what the state did in their name. In Young India article wrote in 1931 Gandhi said” to me political power is not an end but one of the means of enabling people to better their condition in every department of life. Political power means capacity to regulate national life through national representatives.
If national life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary. There is then a State of enlightened anarchy. In such a State everyone is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbor. In the ideal State, therefore, there is no political power because there is no State. But the ideal is never fully realized in life. Hence the classical Statement of Thoreau that that government is best which governs the least. ”
Gandhi explained the mode of operation of modern state that its moral dimensions are not agreeable with it. That diluted personal integrity. He combated this abnegation all his life. He viewed structuring of the modern state was such that its contact with the people was obscured to make the acts of the sate impersonal yet rendering people as accomplices to its immoral acts. Gandhi’s thought , modern state was not computable with the moral values that is associated with humanity. Therefore he denied it. His comprehensive suggestions on alternative solution were stated in Hind Swaraj. SELF RULING) Swaraj is a narrative article. It is an imaginative reconstruction of lived experience. It reflects a true civilization of home rule in a strategic vision set by Gandhi. Swaraj he focused to non-violent, self-contained, grass roots level society and also Swaraj carries the context of indepenced of the country from alien rule with below distinct points. • Assertion of the political freedom of the individual • Assurance of the economic freedom of the individual, and • Attainment of spiritual freedom or autonomy of the individual.
He pointed democracy should benefit rich and poor state same opportunity. Which could happen in non-violence situation. Weapon to achieve according to him was village industries, removal of untouchablity, communal acceptance and harmony, prohibition, and non-violent organization. To summarize, Gandhi aimed was a grass-root level solution to march people and society in prosperity and welfare. In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru he wrote; he dreams about an ideal village that contained smart inhabitants, not living shit and dirty lives, but a real and conform possible live to all.
That everyone is cooperative, supportive and able to stand in the lines of strong nations and stable civilized countries. As an ordinary man I do not have a tall claim about giving any theory of State. For me the basis of a State as that of all its constituent units and ultimately the individual as the core component of the units is that it should be based on truth. I have myself been only a humble seeker of truth. Therefore the only things that I can say about it is that since truth pervades the essence of every individual it should guide all the actions of the individual.
A truthful State would therefore be a set up that would be composed of village republics, each autonomous in its working yet a part of a large circle in a group of concentric circles. The outermost circle in this scheme would wield power to strengthen all the inner circles and would derive its own strength from them. “Gandhi”, in the words of Raghavan Iyer, (1973) “seems to stand almost alone among social and political thinkers in his firm rejection of the rigid dichotomy between ends and means and in his extreme moral preoccupation with the means to the extent that they, rather than the ends, provide the standard of reference”.
Question 4. Explain the concept of Globalization and its impact of Public Administration? Globalization affects many dynamics of social life, in the nation state. On the one hand the state sovereignty has been limited and on the other hand its functions, while applying privatization and deregulation, state’s role for production, growth and distribution was weakened and its regulatory role came is more emerging, this change is namely from integrationist to regulator which re defines states administration on public.
That means not only socio-economic functions changes, but also institutional organization and its functions will change, and conceptualization of public services will transform gradually, this shift can be names from public administration to new public administration (NPM). New public management points public sector can be managed as in private sector and the all successful concepts and operational effectiveness can be adapted in public sector. Which public administration in the modern phase will start to treat citizens like its customers and claiming governments are a type of business in the market.
Globalization era erodes state sovereignty within the national borders; which brought transnational interactions between states, means, judiciary, political and economic roles are all transformed subjected to international and cross border powers and interventions. Where the nation states are forced to share its existing authority with the other actors, which can be summarized shortly that as a result of globalization not only loss of states power but also change of ways and methods of using the remainder of its power.
This transformation is defined through the concepts of governance and new public management. Public administration has redefined the use of public competence and suggests the joint use of this authority not only by the official actors but also by the unofficial actors and it gives importance to the role of non-governmental organizations. New public management considers the delivery of public services as a technical issue and instead of the concepts like public interest, conformity to the law; it substitutes the management-related concepts such as profitability, productivity and the customer preferences.
The change of state’s role lies beneath the transformation resulting from globalization process. While the sovereignty is eroded, the nation state itself becomes the actor materializing the transformations that is appropriate to the demands of globalization. Shortly, Globalization expanded some scope of public administration like trade, finance and investment supported by technological revolutions and high level of consumer demands and expectation. One scholar points below changes in public administration; A growing need for negotiation skills among sovereign States • Changed role of bureaucracy from managing to facilitating economic activities • An organizational, managerial culture which stresses performance and result-oriented management (There is a demand for managerial skills of adaptability, cooperation and creativity) • Focus on managerial leadership and expertise which has been necessitated by the demands of negotiations, mediation, and sensitivity to human rights and diversity • Emergence of e-government, where all countries have been executing major initiatives to tap the vast potential of the Internet for improving and perfecting the governing process • Need for a comparative perspective wherein, in response to the new global reality, in short , globalization forced public dministration to respond governance at international or cross border levels and change its role from implementer to policy maker or regulator of state. Question5. Bring out the characteristics of Good Governance Good governance measures are a management tool that enables state to promote its efficiency and effectiveness in order to achieve well-being and successful public agenda implementation. It defines steps that help to cure weakness and foster development and tailor basic needs of society according the available resources. Researchers , policy makers , and global institutions like UNDP has described the characteristics of good governance in below: Participation: Public participation and involvement in local governance is must and enables other measures that promote public welfare.
Because decisions taken by government should reflect public interests and policies should be acceptable and favorable by implementing enabled environment. Rule of Law: a legal rational framework is basic requirement for a government to survive. This should be backed by independent judiciary system. This in the long run will help to disregard the gap between public and government. Transparency: public should know what government is doing, this can happen with wider outreach programs and free flow of information , that is easy to access by people and make them aware of what is happening in their area and reasons behind shortfalls if any. Responsiveness: This is another important approach in good governance.
This characteristic held responsible those institutions that are responsible for implementing taken decisions that affect the group by their intervention. Equity: is another characteristic of good governance which ensures fair and equal treat of public by government, this enables government to ensure all the members are benefited equally and are not excluded in any relevant activity conducted by government. Effectiveness and Efficiency: to achieve maximum results with limited resources is ensuring efficiency, and effectiveness is to respond the societal needs timely and performance measurement and center focus result orientation. Accountability: it is the centerpiece for good governance.
In this approach, every single expenditure or government action should be discussed in wide with public or people as beneficiaries. Not only government institutions but also civil society and private implementing partners are subjected to provide accountable reports or public hearing sessions to make sure the stakeholders are full in the picture of what is happening around them. All these characteristics are interrelated and interlocked one to another. And governments in the developing countries are trying their best to reform their systems based on the characteristics of good governances promoted by worldwide institutions and organizations fighting for change and its long run management.
According to world bank “ governance is a continuum and not necessarily unidirectional, it will not improve by time passing, but it requires the citizen to demand good governance. This comes through enhanced education and employment opportunity. And government should feel responsive to those raised demands and reply in positive. Adjusting to good governance stage requires concrete action steps to be taken by state government in order to reach to that satisfactory level of excellence in its day to day operations. Sometime transformation from classical management to newly erected results based management seems stubborn and hard to accomplish. it holds challenges that is possible by educated responsible citizen and sufficient government institutions to carry those scenario’s ahead for the welfare and well-being of all.
