Relationship Between Citizens and Public Agencies

It is the principles of citizenship that provide the essence of public administration. As
the word “public” shows, the foundation of public agencies is citizenship representation. The
existence of public agencies is also made possible by the taxes that citizens pay. Thus, the
primary role of public agencies should be to fulfill the expectations and needs of the citizens.
For a long time, public agencies have taken this role of meeting the needs of citizens
seriously. Beginning in the mid-20 th century, the scope of services offered by public agencies
dramatically increased as public agencies sought to address the political rights of citizens
through actions such as promoting affirmative action to address the needs of marginalized
groups, and institutionalizing various mechanisms for citizen participation in public affairs
(Aligica, 2018). However, the past three decades have seen a marked change in the
relationship between citizens and public agencies. Thanks to neoclassical policy
recommendations that took hold in the 1980s, the relationship between citizens and public
agencies has significantly weakened. Policy recommendations such as privatization,
liberalization, deregulation, weakening of welfare state were based on the belief that public
agencies are wasteful and ineffective while private sector organizations were efficient and
effective and, therefore, public agencies should leave most of their roles to the market.
The result of this belief was strengthening of the alliance between the private sector
and public agencies while weakening the alliance between public agencies and the citizens.
Increasingly, reforms have been made to public agencies to adopt the outlook of a
“businessman” or to be more “entrepreneurial” (Aligica, 2018). As the mission of public
bureaucracy has changed so has been the scope of the services that these agencies offer to the
citizens and the quality of the services.

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Generally, the number and quality of services that citizens receive from public
agencies has reduced. Thus, the change in discourse with regard to citizens-public agencies
relationship where public agencies have sought to replicate practices of business
organizations in their running or outsourced most of their responsibilities to the private sector
has largely had negative effects on the relationship between citizens and public agencies.
That is why it is important to strengthen the relationship between citizens and public
agencies. This relationship can be supported through increasing the involvement of citizens in
policy-making and co-opting citizens in shaping public programs so that they better address
their needs. It can also be strengthened through educating citizens about their role in public-
policy making and increasing information available to them on various aspects of public
administration.

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References

Aligica, P. D. (2018). Public entrepreneurship, citizenship, and self-governance. Cambridge
University Press.