Major Types of Administrative Systems in France
There are five types of administrative systems that are often outlined in the literature as fundamental political mechanisms to control the government. In Table 1, all five types of administrative systems are briefly compared and contrasted.
Table 1. Major types of administrative systems.
Obstacles to Reorganizing Government Bureaucracies
The primary issue that has to be addressed when reforming a bureaucracy is the need to appeal to Congress and the President while maintaining a thorough connection to both branches. This means that there is no practical balance between the two, so the level of suspicion could rise significantly in the case of a divided government (Holmgren, 2018). Therefore, government bureaucracy reforms often have to be paired with resistance coming from one of the parties. A background issue that also serves as an obstacle to reorganizing government bureaucracies is the existence of a checks and balances system that does not have bipartisan support. According to Drezner (2019), bureaucratic reforms are often hindered by either the President or the Congress because of the numerous government rules (also known as the “red tape”) that overwhelm the governance process and force citizens to avoid any kind of contact with policymakers. Therefore, most benefits become unavailable to either party, taking the government one step farther from achieving a healthier bureaucracy.
Key Features of Public Administration in France
Public administration in France is represented by three unique authorities: regions, départements, and municipalities. There is a certain constitutional status assigned to each of the authorities in order to define autonomies and the principles of decentralization (Sager et al., 2018). Hence, public administration in France depends on the state representatives who oversee national interests, observe laws, and preserve administrative controls.
In the United States, there is a complex network of authorities intended to help governmental entities collaborate and support each other. The dynamic relationship between Congress and the President is compulsory (Sager et al., 2018). The biggest challenge for this public administration system is to help interconnected government entities overcome each other’s mistakes in terms of monetary expenditures.
In the UK, the Labor and the Conservative parties tend to dominate. Their relationships almost never result in a consensus, causing numerous policy reversals and manifestos that do not appeal to the general public (Andrews, 2019). Nevertheless, the UK government emphasizes participation and power-sharing attitudes to spark positive change.
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In Ireland, public administration authority is shared between the Prime Minister and the lower house of Parliament. As a highly centralized state, Ireland is used to governments that are based on coalitions and horizontal alignment (Tangney, 2020). Compared to their UK counterparts, the Parliament and the Prime Minister have more room for maneuvers due to the dual mandates of the civil service.
References
Andrews, L. (2019). Public administration, public leadership and the construction of public value in the age of the algorithm and ‘big data’. Public Administration, 97(2), 296-310. Web.
Drezner, D. W. (2019). Present at the destruction: The Trump administration and the foreign policy bureaucracy. The Journal of Politics, 81(2), 723-730. Web.
Holmgren, M. (2018). Partisan politics and institutional choice in public bureaucracies: Evidence from Sweden. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28(3), 355-370. Web.
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Sager, F., Rosser, C., Mavrot, C., & Hurni, P. Y. (2018). A transatlantic history of public administration: Analyzing the USA, Germany and France. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Tangney, P. (2020). Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t: The impact of economic rationalist imperatives on the adaptive capacity of public infrastructure in Brisbane, Australia and Cork, Ireland. Environmental Policy and Governance, 30(6), 359-372. Web.