Aspirant Academy

Public Administration

Key Points at a Glance

Comparative Administration: USA, UK, France, China

Paper III · Unit 2 Section 1 of 12 0 PYQs 25 min
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Key Points at a Glance

  1. Comparative Public Administration (CPA) studies administrative systems across nations to identify similarities, differences, and best practices. The Comparative Administration Group (CAG), founded by Fred Riggs in 1960 under the Ford Foundation, pioneered the discipline.

  2. The USA follows a federal presidential system: power is separated across Executive (President), Legislature (Congress: Senate + House of Representatives), and Judiciary (Supreme Court). The civil service is governed by the Civil Service Reform Act 1978, which created the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

  3. The UK follows the Westminster parliamentary model: the Prime Minister leads the Cabinet, which is collectively responsible to the House of Commons. The Northcote–Trevelyan Report (1854) reformed the British civil service to a merit-based, permanent, politically neutral system — the model for India's ICS/IAS.

  4. France has a semi-presidential (dual-executive) system: the President holds executive power and the Prime Minister is responsible to the National Assembly. France is notable for l'École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) (1945–2022, renamed INSP), which trained senior civil servants (énarques) — a centralised elite civil service model.

  5. China operates a single-party state under the Communist Party of China (CPC). The State Council (led by the Premier) is the highest executive organ, overseeing 26 ministries. The civil service is governed by the Civil Servant Law 2005 (revised 2018), with recruitment through the National Examination (国考).

  6. Spoils System (USA historical): Appointing party loyalists to government posts after an election victory — practiced until the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (1883) introduced merit-based appointments.

  7. Fred Riggs' Prismatic Theory: Riggs proposed three ideal types of administrative systems — Fused (traditional/agrarian, undifferentiated), Prismatic (transitional/developing — mix of modern and traditional features), and Diffracted (modern, fully differentiated). Most developing countries, including India, show prismatic features (e.g., 'sala' model).

  8. The UK Cabinet Secretary (Head of the Civil Service) is the UK's equivalent of India's Cabinet Secretary. The Senior Executive Service (SES) in the USA and Grade A civil service in France are equivalent to India's IAS.

  9. Principle of Ministerial Responsibility is strongest in the UK: individual ministers resign for departmental failures; collective responsibility means all ministers defend Cabinet decisions publicly. In the USA, Cabinet secretaries serve at the President's pleasure and have no parliamentary accountability.

  10. China's danwei (单位) system — the historical work unit that controlled housing, food, employment, and social welfare for workers under communist rule. Though weakened post-1978 Deng Xiaoping reforms, it illustrates the total administrative reach of the state in a command economy.

  11. New Public Management (NPM) reforms affected all four systems: UK's Next Steps Initiative (1988) created executive agencies; USA's National Performance Review (1993) under Al Gore; France's LOLF (2001) — performance-based budget law; China's administrative restructuring (2018) reduced State Council ministries from 27 to 26.

  12. France's Prefect System (Préfet): Each of France's 101 departments is headed by a Prefect — a centrally appointed representative of the national government. This is analogous to India's District Collector system. France is a unitary state, making the Prefect more powerful than UK's local authorities.