Public policy has been described as a process, a cycle, an interaction of decision-making and reaction-taking by governmental and non-governmental agents and agencies. Public Administration deals with properly structuring and deploying the assets given to government to achieve stated aims. Public Policy deals with deciding what assets government needs to achieve the aims the public thinks government is both capable of doing and necessary to do. Public Administration is how civil servants employ the assets entrusted to them and effectuate the processes developed by them or designed for them by political entities to achieve these purposes. Public Administration also necessarily includes evaluation of how well those aims have been achieved and those assets have been used, and what must be done to either better accomplish the task or better deploy the social and economic assets involved—that is, to change the policy or change the processes of administration. It thus is a field which is analytic and evaluative, political and administrative. It deals with public opinion and public capacity, that is, what people want and what price they are willing to pay and what they can actually do at what cost to other public values and goals. It concerns accountability and responsibility, both of governing officials and taxpaying, voting, and demanding citizens.

This course also makes special reference to the development and practice of public administration and civil services in Hong Kong and Mainland China.