Surprisingly, public administration does not have a universally accepted definition of what it is. As the Canadian Encyclopedia puts it: “The scope of the question is so vast and controversial that it is easier to explain than to define. Public administration is both a field of study or discipline and a field of practice or profession. “Those pursuing the MPA degree come from academic majors as diverse as art history, communication, social services, economics and political science. The MPA degree also attracts those who have pursued careers as teachers, social workers, dietitians, lawyers or paralegals and wish to develop professionally and prepare to take on leadership or administrator roles in the public sector. More recently, scholars have argued that “public administration does not have a universally accepted definition” because “the scope of the issue is so broad and controversial that it is easier to explain than to define.” [17] Public administration is a field of study (i.e., a discipline) and a profession. There is much disagreement as to whether the study of public administration can properly be called a discipline, mainly because of the debate over whether public administration is a branch of political science or a branch of administrative science,” the latter being a consequence of its roots in policy analysis and evaluation research. [17] [18] Scientist Donald Kettl is among those who consider public administration “as a branch of political science.” [19] According to Lalor, an enterprise with a public authority that provides at least one public good can be said to have a public administration, while the absence (or even more) of a public authority or the provision of at least one public good implies the absence of a public administration. He argues that public administration is the public provision of public goods, in which the demand function is more or less effectively satisfied by politics, whose main tool is rhetoric, which provides public goods, and the supply function is more or less effectively satisfied by public administration, whose main tools are speech acts that produce public goods. The moral purpose of public administration, implicit in the acceptance of its role, is to maximize the public`s ability to meet its needs. [20] The concept of public administration dates back to antiquity. As long as there were leaders, there were people who had to administer the peoples and territories that are governed. However, it is only in the last 100 years or so that it has been studied as an academic discipline.

The modern concept of public administration has its roots in the work of Max Weber and his work on the development of bureaucracy. Although things have changed and the term bureaucracy has negative associations, this is where the roots of public administration lie. If you want to work in public administration, you need the appropriate qualifications. An online search of courses for public administration shows that this is a very popular field, with a large number of qualifications for public administration. The Latin American Administration Center for Development (CLAD), based in Caracas, Venezuela, the regional network of schools of public administration established by Latin American governments, is the oldest in the region. [64] The Institute is a founding member and played a central role in organizing the Inter-American Network for Public Administration Education (INPAE). Founded in 2000, this regional network of schools is unique in that it is the only organization composed of institutions from North America, Latin America and the Caribbean engaged in public administration and policy analysis. It has more than 49 members from top research schools in various countries of the hemisphere. [65] The North American Public Administration Industry Classification System (NAICS 91) definition states that public administration.” includes entities primarily engaged in carrying out activities of a state nature, i.e. the adoption and judicial interpretation of the corresponding laws and regulations, as well as the management of programmes based thereon”. These include “legislative activities, taxation, national defence, public order and security, immigration, foreign affairs and international assistance, and the administration of government programs are activities of a purely governmental nature.” [21] Many people already have a graduate degree when they choose AMP.