Public Administration and Public Policy - Study Guide
What this domain tests
This domain covers the machinery of government: classical administration, bureaucracy, decision-making and the policy cycle from agenda setting to evaluation, applied to Nepali institutions.
Core concepts
- POSDCORB (Luther Gulick): planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting.
- Weber's ideal bureaucracy: hierarchy, written rules, merit appointment, impersonality and a career structure.
- New Public Management: citizen-as-customer, performance contracts, decentralisation, outsourcing and results-based budgeting.
- Policy cycle: problem identification and agenda setting → formulation → adoption or legitimisation → implementation → monitoring → evaluation → revision.
- Nepal: the National Planning Commission sets plans; ministries implement; the Prime Minister's Office coordinates; the Public Service Commission recruits; the Nepal Administrative Staff College trains.
Worked example
The government announces free school meals but delays funds and does not track whether meals reach students. Identify the stage. Agenda setting, formulation and adoption through the budget are done. Implementation is failing because of financing and supply-chain delays. Monitoring is missing because there is no output tracking. Evaluation comes later. A strong answer separates implementation failure from design failure and proposes indicators such as schools receiving funds on time and meals served per week.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing monitoring (ongoing activity and output tracking) with evaluation (periodic judgement of relevance, impact and sustainability).
- Calling every administrative order a 'policy'. A policy is a deliberate course of action, not a single decision.
- Discussing only formulation when the question asks why a policy failed; implementation and monitoring usually explain more.
- Mixing up the roles of the NPC, Ministry of Finance and line ministries.