Responsibilities and Convictions in Public Administration
ZHANG Kang-zhi
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Department of Administrative Management, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
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History+
Received
Published
2001-03-18
2001-05-16
Issue Date
2012-02-24
Abstract
As far as public administration is concerned, the bureaucratic structure developed in modern times is a responsibility based system. And yet, paying undue attention to the institutionalization design of administrative responsibility, and overlooking the administrative personnel's convictions and moral responsibilities built on such convictions, the bureaucratic system has practically become a synonym for bureaucracy under the principles of formal rationality and instrument rationality. In fact, there is no responsibility that is not built on any conviction. It is only with certain conviction can people generate a sense of responsibility accordingly. The modern rationality of the “rule of virtue", as emphasized in the social governance idea in ancient China, lies exactly in its highlighted bureaucratic conviction factors. Since public administration is basically aimed at serving the general public, the establishment of governmental system and the administrative act of executive personnel must be based on the public interest supremacy conviction. Only in this way can a government become a public administrative system that holds itself responsible for its people.