Role and Function of Government (From Public Administration Point of view)

People expect services from government from "Cradle to Grave" or from "Womb to Tomb". In any type of country either developed or least developed, people need some kind of disciplinary mechanism to run the society smoothly. This mechanism is the government. 

Defining Government

From the political dimension government is the political institution or organization consisting people and institutions that are authorized to formulate public policy and to manage public affairs. There is always game of power gaining in the political system and another name of power game is government in very narrow sense. From the point of view of social dimension, government is a social institution empowered to make decision for the benefit of the society and welfare of the people. Government is the old concept and the new form which should replace the government is the "governance". Government formulates policy, makes rules, make decisions and regulate the people on the basis of these rules and customs. 

Why and How the Government Forms?

As stated government is the political and social institution working for the welfare of the people. When people are out to disciplinary track, there is need of binding them into rules. The first aim of the government is to make society disciplined. Some basic reasons of forming government are:-

• Greed and Oppression: People are selfish by nature. They are in the search of self happiness. They can do, if not bounded by any kind of rules, anything and can be oppressive. So, to protect these phenomenon in the society, some mechanism did exist even in the long past. Poorer need to be protected, hence concept of government emerged. 
• Order and Tradition: - Maintaining the tradition and orders of the government, people in the past formed social groups and organizations. These groups and organization selected leader. Later on, in the long run these leaders started ruling the society and gradually formed the government.
• Natural Right:- People are free from the birth  and need protection. They have natural right to get food, shelter etc. For the provision of these essential things, a special mechanism was felt necessary, so the concept of government emerged. 
• Social Contract:- Society has various needs above the personal capacity and personal reach. But they have expectation in their life above their capacity. These activities can only be fulfilled by the organized institutions or by the government. To fulfill the gap of personal expectation and their gap, people go for the social contract. They assigned some of the leaders of the society to work for the fulfillment of the needs above personal reach and the selected leaders ruled the society and state forming the government. In this view government is a contract between society and institution. These contracting institution is government. Hence, government exists until it fulfills the needs of the society as per the contract and the government will be dismissed if it fails to address the needs of the society. Hence, government is the social contract.