CAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION COPE?

In: Australian journal of public administration, Volume 37, Issue 1, p. 47-53

Abstract

Abstract: Commonly held visions of the future may be grouped into many categories, but for the purposes of this paper three scenarios are used. The first involves a drastically worsened extension of the present situation of inflation and shortages with comprehensive government action necessary to avoid civil conflict and the breakdown of essential services and supplies. Here the experiences of the two World Wars and periods of reconstruction when public administration did, on the whole, cope are relevant to the question of whether it can do so in the future. The second scenario involves a genuine catastrophe resulting from nuclear war or terrorism leading to a breakdown of constitutional government. Our knowledge of "disaster" administration, however, is limited (fiction is perhaps as informative) and the subject should receive systematic study. The final scenario involves the problems of coping with economic growth and rising expectations in a "no‐growth" situation. As public administration is closely geared to the past rather than the future, what governments require in this climate is a continuing capacity for forecasting to revise and up‐date estimates. At the Commonwealth and State levels this could take the form of a Forecasting and Analysis Unit within government.