Logic and public administration. Towards a logic of administrative action

Scientific Study from the year 2014 in the subject Organisation and administration - Miscellaneous, grade: 100, , language: English, abstract: Starting from the idea that public administration is a complex phenomenon, in order to be understood, it is necessary to use an interdisciplinary approach.

Due to the complexity of this phenomenon, the science of administration has relations with several branches of science and with many scientific disciplines, among which an important role manifest: administrative law, management (in this sense emerging public management), economics (in the form of public economics), sociology (outlining a sociology of administration), psychology, theory of decision, logic (being able to discuss about a logic of the administration¿s action, a logic of the administrative norms) demographics, informatics etc.

Logical analysis, in the concept of Gheorghe Enescu, ¿represents the analysis of the logical structure of a given process of thought (expressed in a text or discourse), for the purpose of verifying the correctness of the logic. Logical analysis presupposes the following steps¿ :

1) analysis of language clarity and accuracy (manner in which the terms are defined and the sentences are formed);

2) analysis of the manner in which classifications and/or divisions are performed (if any);

3) analysis of arguments and, in general, of the logical coherence of thought;

4) analysis of consistence of thought (of non-contradiction).

¿The main condition of a process of thought is argumentation (reasoning); where there is no reasoning, there is no thought, in the exact sense of the word, but mere expression of opinion or known information. An important place in the logical analysis is played by ¿logical formalization¿.

The work paper is structured on two chapters and conclusions and aims to analyze the level of applicability of the science of logic, in general, and of the logic of norms and actions (as branches thereof) in the sciences of administration, as well as the contributions brought through the science of logic to the analysis of the public decisions and of the administrative phenomenon.

In the first chapter of the paper there were presented aspects of theoretical order connected to the logic of action, modal logic, logic of norms, decision, public decision and the method of the decisional trees.

In the second chapter there are emphasized by example: the advantages of using the method of decisional trees in the analysis of and of using the three indexes referring to the power of an actor to decide through vote.