Public Administration: Preparation Strategy for UPSC

DISCLAIMER: I write this NOT because I know the flawless approach to score good marks in Public Administration Optional. I write this because I feel I have spent quite a substantial time with the subject and all that I have understood and experienced can be of some help to those who are just at the beginning of their UPSC preparation and have dared to chose "Public Administration".

Okay, let us begin. I would be dealing with the very many aspects of the optional preparation one by one and try to answer them to the best of my knowledge and ability. The points I miss can be mentioned as comments to this post and would be subsequently answered and updated. Now, personally I feel that the first question you should ask is that whether this is the right optional for you? And believe you me, this is the most important dilemma which you need to sort out as soon as possible. Below here I have attempted a brief description of the subject and why I developed a taste for it.

What Public Administration is all about?

When I started my preparation, the first thing I wanted to be thorough in was “What exactly Government is & How the Government functions”. As I read more and more into it, I realized that “Public Administration” is the answer to these fundamental queries. One of the definitions that you come across says “Public Administration is the What and How of the government”. And with further readings, I was sure that I had an inclination for it and can read at length when it came to this subject. And in my opinion, this is precisely what is required for deciding your optional. Laying down some ground rules for choosing optional:

1.   The number of people taking that optional DOES NOT mean anything.

2.   The range of marks obtained the previous year DOES NOT mean anything.

3.   DO NOT choose an optional just because it’s cool to do so.

4.   DO NOT choose an optional only because there is a huge overlap with GS.

5.   And lastly, DO NOT choose an optional just because your best friend has taken it or just because the cute girl in your GS class is going to take it.

Coming to concrete details, Paper I is about the genesis of the discipline, the legendary administrative thinkers, their theories and applications and more importantly Organizational Behavior. Those who have studied Management would surely find it easy to comprehend. And the key to doing well in this paper is to have a deep conceptual understanding of the basics of organizational analysis. So spending more time with Paper I concepts always helps.

Paper II is based on the Institutional arrangements here in India. You get to study various types of organizations that are the founding pillars of Indian Administration. You get to know how it all started from the age of Kautilya where his treatise on state craft “Arthashashtra” is still considered legendary. From there, the story of evolution moves on to the Mughal Administration, then to the British Legacy systems and the transformations thereupon after independence. It’s a marvelous story of the various paradigms Indian Administration has been through. The overlap with the Polity syllabus from General Studies is apparent but this should not be the sole reason of you choosing this optional.

Recent Trends in the optional.

Not very long ago, just before the introduction of CSAT, this optional was doing phenomenally great. All kinds of high scores and the darling of top rankers. That led to a proliferation of Pub Ad aspirants only to later come down every other year with the 2012 doomsday. Since 2012, the trend of Public Administration has changed especially with respect to Paper I.

They have taken the language of questions to an altogether different level and they have started to get into more complex conceptual issues of Administrative Theory. Now it becomes difficult for those who only relied on notes of some Coaching institution. The new genre of questions demands thorough reading of articles, journals and books which carry the similar tone of the questions. Hence, reading books written by foreign authors would be very fruitful. Just to clarify, I have nothing against the Indian Authors. They are equally erudite and expressive. It’s just that the pattern requires us to read a different outlook.

What else has changed recently is that they have more number of questions now. There was a time when there used to be 60 markers reflecting the objective of testing the writing skills of the aspirants. But now, we have low markers, and that too, lots of them. So perhaps they have decided to test the aspirants on more topics and that too more on the argumentative front.

So it is convenient to put your arguments in form of pointers and to use various diagrams and flowcharts.

Now, you are the one who has to decide whether you want to go for some easy doing optional with no overlap with GS or for a rough and tough one like Public Administration which though has great overlaps with GS but the scores are terribly low as compared to others lately.

The Book List for Paper I

1.   S. Polinaidu

2.   Sadana and Sharma

3.   IGNOU booklets

4.   New Horizons by Mohit Bhattacharya

5.   New Perspectives on Public Administration by Mohit Bhattacharya

6.   Comparative Public Administration by R.K.Arora

7.   Public Policy by R.K.Sapru

8.   Administrative Thinkers by Prassad & Prassad

9.   IJPA Quarterly Journals.

Now, there are few things you should know about these books. Finish 1,2 & 3 to get hold of the basics of the subjects. Post that you can read the notes as provided by any of the coaching institutes. Post that, start with the two books written by Mohit Bhattacharya. They aren’t that straight forward and would require multiple readings but are totally worth or rather are quintessential for understanding the language used in Paper I questions.

And while you are reading these two, at the mention of a particular thinker, go to Prassad and Prassad and read the whole chapter on that particular thinker. This book works best when used more as a reference book. This can be ultimately followed up with the latest journals which present to you the post-modern developments in the things you have read in these books. And the way the questions are being set, reading journals regularly would only help.

Strategy for answering Paper I

Writing answers in optional papers is very different from the GS ones for the obvious reason. They are not just about the facts but they do intend to check your conceptual clarity and to encourage your expressive creativity. This is the paper that you CHOSE and ergo you are supposed to be good at this. Now for paper I, general reasoning would be a cake walk in a subject like Public Administration so one needs to substantiate with the help of thinkers and their proven applications.

Suppose you argue for your cause by stating a generic idea A which every other person can think of and perhaps would think of. But as you are well read, you support your idea A with applications B & C by thinkers let’s say Woodrow Wilson and Henry Fayol. And there you go, on way to getting better marks. It is even better when you can connect the applications of these thinkers to present day examples from the Indian administration. And at times, you can always go with that old saying “A flowchart is worth a thousand words”.

Booklist for Paper II

1.   Indian Administration by Fadia & Fadia

2.   All the ARC reports

3.   Yojana Magazine

4.   Newspapers and other sources

So, the thing is. For Paper II, it’s pretty straight forward. More or less it’s about factual descriptions of the institutional framework of India and hence a damn favorite paper for the Engineering Clan of civil service aspirants. But you need to keep yourself super updated with happenings around as India, the role model for a prismatic society reference is in a freaking state of flux as any developing state would be but we are the leader in that!

Strategy for answering Paper II

When I was preparing, I was told that there is this “membrane” theory wherein you should not intermix concepts from paper I and paper II. Like quoting a local institution to substantiate your viewpoint in Paper I would not make sense as the first paper requires a more global outlook. And hence quoting some global institutions would fetch you more marks.

I had my doubts over this hypothesis. Well, first of all how well really we know these global institutions? And are they really as deep and complex as the case is with our local bodies and institutions? I figured NO. So in my last mains I extensively quoted the local institutions in Paper I and bought all the thinkers to life in Paper II. I can’t assert this worked but the fact is that I did better this time.

Also, yes we have our own set of ideas and reforms when it comes to Paper II but we also need to substantiate them possibly from the pointers mentioned in the ARC reports. They are very well researched and do carry a lot of weight. Now the best way I think is to work upon these already made recommendations and to come up with something even more impressive. That would come with practice folks.

The relevance of Operative Words

Now this very section might look naïve at the first glance but has truly helped me understand the need of the questions and not just in the optional subject but also in the General Studies papers. Now with every question come these “Operative Words” like Comment, Discuss and Substantiate. Prima facie they might look the same especially to those who gave up answer writing in school and of course the beloved Engineering Clan. But at times we take the meaning of these words for granted and start writing the answer without understanding what the questions intends to ask. And hence I suggest that we must read every word carefully and read the question multiple times.

To demonstrate the point in contention, let’s take some examples here.

1.   Comment Vs Discuss – Now the former one looks for your opinion on the subject matter in the question but the later one specifically wants you to present both sides of the debate and then to come up to a conclusion. In the former as well one might include both sides of the debate if the time and word limit permits but the focus should be on presenting your opinion.

2.   Examine Vs Critically Examine – The literal meaning of the former is to find fault and this is exactly what you need to present in your analysis. You have to bring out the possible shortcomings with the proposed hypothesis. The later is a tad detailed. Critically examine calls for a three-fold approach. The first is the presentation of the hypothesis in question, the second to present the preponderant criticism and the last one to comment on the validity of the above stated criticism. In simpler terms, talk about the theme of the question, then talk of its criticism and lastly what you think of that presented criticism.

3.   Compare Vs Contrast - This one is simpler. For the former, you need to highlight the similarities of the two parties in question and for the later one you need to bring out the differences.

4.   Elucidate Vs Elaborate – Now comes the hard part and here you might realize the gravity of this Operative dilemma. The former means to explain something very lucidly i.e. in lay man terms. The simplest description possible. Whereas the later requires you to take that idea in the question to another level. Expand it, exemplify it and go in grave details.

5.   Enumerate Vs Outline – The former is used when the examiner wants you to present your ideas in a point-wise manner. Given the limited time we get in GS papers these days, this is like the default mode of answering questions.  The later has a very specific usage when the need of the question is to bring out the chronology of something. For e.g. Outline the various paradigms in the development of Public Administration as a discipline.

There are many such confusing doublets but I hope I am able to drive home the point that slight variation of the Operative word can divert the direction of your answer and hence we need to be very careful while understanding these words and in turn the actual need of the question.

One Page Notes

While the revision was undertaken by me, it was realized that with two optionals (Yes I belong to the Bronze Age!) and with such a big GS syllabus, it was always going to be difficult to remember all the points. And with the tiny time you have per question in the exam time, unless you have all the facts on your fingertips, it’s not possible to write to satisfaction. And hence I decided to create this one page notes especially for Public Administration.

So I wrote all the important keywords chapter wise and tried to fit one chapter in One page. Personally I feel this is the best way to revise last minute and the only way to remember everything unless you are some Good Will Hunting types. I intend to share these One-Page Notes with you soon on my blog.

Click Me for the One Page Notes!

That’s all folks. Hope some of you benefit from this. All the very best!