Partisan Politics In Public Administration

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The article Partisan politics 'enfeeble public administration’ contains different views and complications about electorates and how a less than perfect election system, coupled with the extreme ideological opinions of voters, increases the probability of the most popular candidate being elected. The field of Public administration is mainly concerned with the structure of government programs and the conduct of officials. The article is significant to the course because Public Administrators are charged with overseeing public policy; which is directly influenced by politics. Public administration is equivalent to election administration. Actions and choices made by public administrators affect the lives of everyone in America (Milakovich & Gordon, …show more content…

In this role, the public administrator may find themselves acting as a public manager. The managerial aspects of public administration primary focus are the internal workings of government agencies (Milakovich & Gordon, p.11). The absence of experienced leadership during a crisis may possibly have chaotic consequences. The text provides a good example of this by stating that the first President Bush administration suffered a “confidence gap” due to a delayed response and the lack of experienced leaders in regards to Hurricane Katrina (Malkovich & Gordon, p.12). Delayed and inexperienced decisions such as this can sway the opinion of one who should be voting for the best candidate. When President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, the people who voted him thought that he would be able to stimulate the economy and create jobs. However, once the voters realized that he was unable to run the country as productively as they wanted him to do, his popularity faded. This resulted in Congress and President Bush popularity votes dropping to all-time lows of 38 percent and 28 percent respectively (Milakovich & Gordon, p.8). These numbers resulted in voters believing they should vote democratic as opposed to Republican, in which added to the victory of Barack Obamas election to the