1. Introduction Nowadays the state building requires new ap- proaches aimed at managing the political and so- cial development. The reforms in the political and administrative spheres require changes in the way of communication between institutions, affect the system qualities of their components, and require the use of modern approaches to politics and pub- lic administration. This is reflected in the develop- ment trends under which the government system, presented by an interaction of a large group of hier- archically dependent managers, no longer remains a superstructure that controls the development of the society and under the influence of democratic processes gradually transforms into institutions pro- viding public services to society. It leads to a system approach implementation, which has been practi- cally applied in the political and social management, meets the demands of the time and aims at provi- sion of social and psychological conditions for politi- cal and administrative interaction. Paper objective is to substantiate the use of a system approach in the political-administrative management in order to improve the efficiency of administrative activity under the conditions of social transformation. 2. Theoretical aspects of system approach to management It should be noted that the public-political rela- tions – is a specific branch of social life with its fun- Journal of Geography, Politics and Society 2015, 5(1), 37-42 DOI 10.4467/24512249JG.15.005.5161 A SySTem APProAch In The PolITIcAl-AdmInISTrATIve mAnAGemenT Igor Reshevets Regional Development and Local Self-Government Department, Kharkiv Regional Institute of Public Administration, National Academy of Public Administration under the office of the President of Ukraine, Prospect Maskovskiy 75, 61001, Kharkiv, Ukraine e-mail: lerhnettv@mail.ru citation Reshevets I., 2015, A system approach in the political-administrative management, Journal of Geography, Politics and Society, 5(1), 37-42. Abstract The article presents the results of the study on a system approach in the political-administrative management in order to improve the efficiency of administrative activity under the social transformation conditions. The system approach value in the process of a modern Ukrainian state development is grounded. Key words public administration, political and administrative management, governance paradigm, system approach, management inter- action, managing group dynamics, group processes management. 38 Igor Reshevets damental laws, internal links, development sources and environment interdependence channels. An unsurpassed heuristic impact on conditionality pro- cesses conception in political life has been made by a system approach which developed in the Western political sociology in the mid-twentieth century. The most important principles of this approach are: • integrity of the system, i.e. a new state of con- nected various events and institutions, generat- ing new properties and features of a single entity; • quantity and variety of internal and external sys- tems links which reflect the complexity and rich- ness of relationships between elements in the middle of integrity and interactions with the en- vironment; • viability of the system is determined by the bal- ance of interaction processes; change and stabil- ity, upgrades and preservation; implementation and routine, etc. System approach function is to identify the means of achieving and maintaining a balanced, stable condi- tion of a political and administrative system, its abili- ty to adapt to the external environment. The modern world is becoming more complex; the risk of global disasters, crises and conflicts is increasing, because of social, economic, ethnic, national, environmental, demographic and other reasons. The understanding of the complexity of the processes of social and po- litical development and the need for their regulation is the order of the day. The political and administra- tive system in all its structural and functional diver- sity is a means of social integration, containment of damaging effects of destructive processes and indigenous social differences for a single intercon- nected existence of the social elements. New trends in policy and management develop- ment are to shift attention to process management and the human factor activation. It requires from the politicians and civil servants to take over new types of competencies, including group dynamics me- negement and group processes management which are becoming particularly important in the context of policy and management cooperation, interper- sonal and group awareness phenomena, psycho- logical competence. A new wave of modern politi- cal development is based on increasing importance of a human factor as the central one in the strategic and tactical management. A holistic management paradigm is becoming increasingly popular as it challenges the linear thinking and helps to integrate different management approaches. Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in their study of 62 successful US companies point to a new period of management theory evolution: “In stead of rational actors comes a complex social and active image – a man with the achievements and shortcomings, limitations, contra- dictions and even irrationality. Teams, isolated from the outside world, are changed by an organization affected by constantly moving highly dynamic set of forces – the objectives, means and external transfor- mations” (Питерс, 2011). In the area of policy and management interac- tion system approach technologies in managing organizational processes can be used in solving the following managerial tasks: • decision-making; • management relations improvement; • provision of social and psychological support of managerial activities; • policy-making; • distribution and delegation of authority; • self-management; • feedback provision; • the monitoring system improvement; • identification of management aspects which re- quire assistance, training and research. Every management system has a huge potential that can remain unrealized. Application of system ap- proach technologies in political and administrative activity has already found its practical implementa- tion, because their ideology is based on common patterns of interaction between living systems and the environment. Herewith, if the need for individual development can be satisfied at a personal level, it will probably correlate with the process of group, or- ganization or community life at the “social organism” level. System theories in the context of administrative activity optimization as one of the important as- pects of modern management have been reflected in studies of Western scholars U. Grau et al. (1988). An important aspect of the practical application of psychological counseling technologies is their us- age in decision-making processes. Summarizing practical experience of system technologies appli- cation in administrative cooperation processes, we can formulate the main goal of their implementa- tion: management of social development processes, ensurance of human resources efficient use, their professional and social development (Афонін et al. (eds.), 2010). Application of system approach technologies in administrative activity is an important lever for improving interactions of political and administra- tive management as their scientific and practical achievements are looking for the answers to the question what determine the efficiency of adminis- trative cooperation? In the process of political and administrative in- teraction the feature of system counseling is a sys- A system approach in the political-administrative management 39 tem view of the existing situation and the subject of system consultants’ activity is to focus their atten- tion on the living system of relationships that can be presented through a variety of its manifestations, namely: • managerial (who sets the rules, what rules have power); • functional (ways of communication and interac- tion, coalitions, alliances, symptoms and their functional role in the system); • morphological (structure, organization construc- tion in terms of hierarchy and borders, organiza- tion history and myths); • axiological (values, precepts of previous genera- tions). The hypothesis of problem areas availability and strategies for further development of the system are based around these concepts. The focus of their work is a system understanding of the issue, which reflects the main idea of a problem emergence where it’s not a system that „has” a problem, but rather the oppo- site – a situationally characterized system is created around some fortuitous behavior, activity or topic in the process of communication about the problem. From a perspective system approach scientists propose an algorithm of detection and identifica- tion of problematic issues as those that can lead to a system approach in management. According to K. Ludewig (2002, p. 98), a problem is “any communication subject that contains unde- sirable but potentially able to change components”, that is someone sees as an undesirable condition re- quiring changes. The scientist offers a step by step algorithm to determine and identify a problem that can be ap- plied to make analysis in politics and public admin- istration. This algorithm includes the following com- ponents: 1. “Condition”: the problem is determined by ex- perts or participants of a public management process as a certain condition. That means that the priorities were selected: from many simulta- neous processes one or some were chosen and placed in the spotlight. This condition is given its own name, and other processes retreat into the background. 2. “Who?” are experts: the identification and de- scription of a particular “condition” is carried out by one or more observers who define such a “condition” as an important, draw attention to it and can agree or argue about it. 3. ”Undesirable, or one that requires changes”: there are experts of this condition who see it as undesirable for public management, or as one that requires changes. This is the basis for own motivation or for encouraging others to make changes. 4. ”Capacity for change”: condition of public man- agement activity is subject to change and there are at least some experts describing it as capa- ble of change. As well as there are those in public management process who can take responsibil- ity, or at least believe that the situation can be changed. The interaction of these four abovementioned fac- tors determines the complete description of the problem and is an important part of the consulta- tion process. Its purpose is to identify (detect) links and people involved in the problem situation and therefore – their “live” inclusion or, at least, alleged one in the process of solving problems. Thus, all the process participants who recognize this prob- lem and have undesirable consequences from it are taken into account. In general, systemic counseling should be seen as an attempt to transfer problem- atic condition into unproblematic one which means an attempt to find an adequate solution. This strat- egy is implemented through various approaches: the initiation of new processes or new conditions, another assessment of the existing problem (posi- tive reinterpretation), that is called reframing in neu- rolinguistic programming framework, i.e. new refor- mulation. The feasibility and nature of psychological system consultation is well reflected in the follow- ing statement: “The challenge is not whether here should come all those whom the problem concerns, – the challenge is: here may come anyone who is able and can contribute to solving problems” (фон Шліппе, 2004). 3. The system approach introduction to political and administrative management The concept of political and administrative man- agement can not be considered without commu- nication, interaction, influence. In the course of this interaction managerial influence is exercised and effectiveness and implementation of public policies and social development are stipulated for. The political process covers the political system of the society, the functioning of which is provided through a specific interaction among policy actors (Головатий, 2005). The main content of the political process is a set of actions taken by political subjects in order to implement their political interests. In the most general terms the political process is a “form of a political system of the society which evolves in space and time” (Головатий, 2005). The political process is developing together with the political 40 Igor Reshevets system and depends on factors that are part of the political system and the political process. The basis of political and public administrative activity process is made up with relationships which are developing in the process of interaction. “Certain relations on the policy itself and its individual features (compo- nents), such as power” belong to the political inter- action (Головатий, 2005). Any interaction, including political, exists in two basic forms: informal and formal (through political institutions – formal structures or with their help) (Головатий, 2005). Moreover, relations within the government in- clude: • relationship between the politician and his politi- cal group; • relationship developing within the political group; • relationship between the political leader and a member of a political party; • relationship developing among political groups. Power relations (between those who govern and those who are governed): • relationship between any politician and govern- ment authorities; • relationship between a political group and gov- ernment authorities. Relations within the social system: • relationship between any politician and social groups; • relationship between a political group and com- munities. Essentially psychological process of any social inter- action is performed by certain actors – individuals, groups, masses. For all that each of them interreacts more or less under the conditions of the current so- cial environment. The combination of such conditions and interac- tions forms a kind of “socio-psychological field” (which in different paradigms is also called “social context”, „inter-subjective foundation of social actions”, “collec- tive fabric”, etc.). The concepts of “field”, “space” are here mostly figurative in nature (Донченко, Романеско, 2001). Any interaction and any possible relationship are possible in community with other people and stipulate for the impact of an individual and groups of people on the management process and a return impact of management relations on the psychology of an individual or a group. The effectiveness of joint interaction is influenced by various factors: executives’ legal authority, work incentives, age and gender differences, personal re- lationships and more. Interaction mechanism short- comings also manifest themselves in various forms: conflicts, psychological barriers, etc. As a result of a contact setting among people there is an influence of one person on another, in- formation exchange and development of a common strategy for interaction, perception, understand- ing of another person. Communication satisfies the need for another person. Communication is impor- tant in the formation of the human psyche, person’s development and the formation of reasonable, cul- tural behavior. Through communication a person ac- quires and develops all his higher cognitive abilities and qualities, through active intercommunication he becomes a personality himself. System consulting in organizational processes management draws attention to the importance of the activity that can be carried out being aware of the dominant needs of the individual and the dominant group or organization needs, realization of significant objects or subjects of the environment which can help to satisfy this need, and awareness of ways of interacting with them. System approach em- phasizes mutual influences that make up the system, the importance of the context in which the interac- tion occurs and draws attention to the lack of a sin- gle recipe for achivieving success in different kinds of systems. This is based on the assumption that the originality and uniqueness of an individual or a sep- arate organization and the environment, in which they are located, may contribute to their adoption of “authorship” or responsibility for the choice of aims and means, as well as motivate them for changes. This approach brings not only an individual system but also an organization system to another level of development and opens up wide opportunities for the needs satisfaction, their coordination and achievement of the objectives of the management system development. The application of psychological technologies in the management interaction process has its own peculiarity, which is a prerequisite for their effective- ness. The special features of a consultating process in management include the following: • the specific content of this activity; • the structure of public management; • solution targeting; • traditions and rules existing in public institutions; • factors of professional impact on the personali- tyof a public manager; • characteristics and patterns of interaction; • short durability; • focus on resources. Based on the system theory of public authority’s lev- els – these are its system components in relation to the context. Any system is both a whole and a part A system approach in the political-administrative management 41 of a larger system. As well as people who work in the organization, on the one hand, are an independent whole system, and on the other hand they are the constituent elements of a larger system. The bound- aries between the system and the environment (and among units within the system) first create identity of the system or its parts, its uniqueness – differ- ence from the environment and other systems. In management systems, complex in structure, there is a constant tension between integration (awareness of the whole – we) and differentiation (awareness of its own autonomy – I). Hereat the parts can con- tribute to the whole, subjecting their goals to it and sharing their purposes, or, what often occurs, caus- ing imbalance. There are three levels of organization – individ- ual, group and organizational. System consulting in organization management deal with six major levels: an individual or intrapersonal, interpersonal, subgroup (sub level), group or collective, and inter- group level of an integrated organization. And we always have to take into account how the interac- tion in the middle of the system occurs and how the system interacts with the environment. In this case, two more levels are added tj the analysis: a society level and a culture level (Лєбєдєва, 2009). According to the needs each level provides the system interac- tion with the environment and has a tendency for another level interaction. The concept of “interaction” is extremely multici- phered. In terms of philosophy, this category is one of the common forms of relationship between phe- nomena. Its essence is to reverse the impact of one object or phenomenon to another. So interaction re- produces processes of objects impact at each other, their mutual conditionality and the derivation of one object from another. In sociology the definition of “social interaction” is used to determine such forms of communication among people, social communi- ties, groups where there is a system impact made on each other, social performance of each partner is re- alized, adjustment of one’s actions and to another’s actions is achieved, a community in understanding the situation, sense of actions and a certain level of solidarity or agreement between them. A society is a complex system of interactions among people. Various social relations, the subject of which is a personality, are conditioned by di- verse social interests. Social relations have an objec- tive character, but for every person they, refracting through his inner world, obtain a personal color, which is manifested in a particular human behavior, his feelings, sentiments, etc. That is why an interper- sonal social and psychological aspect of social rela- tions appears as a fact of the specific reality. So inter- personal relationships are formed not outside public relations but in their midst as personified reflection of impersonal social ties. In other words, in the inter- action social relations are “given” through that real social activity, the part (or a form of an organization) of which it is. All interactions are traditionally divided into two groups: cooperation and competition. The first group includes actions that promote the organ- ization of joint activities and ensure their success, consistency, efficiency (there are other terms to re- fer to this type of interaction: cooperation, consent, adjustment, association). The second group includes actions which to some extent prevent joint activi- ties, creating barriers to understanding. This type of interaction defines such concepts as competition, conflict, opposition, dissociation. This classification uses the so-called dichotomous division of all kinds of interactions. Another classification is based on a quantitative aspect which refers to the number of entities involved in the interaction. According to this classification interaction among groups, between an individual and a group, between two individuals are distinguished (Афонін et al. (eds.), 2010). It should be noted that in the management pro- cess the implementation of innovative changes are accompanied by resistance, because the system needs time in order to estimate future benefits. Re- sistance forms can vary. Passive resistance becomes apparent in hiding and ignoring information, solu- tions, in delaying their adoption and implementa- tion, in limiting the initiators’ activity and other fac- tors. Active resistance may include providing false information, intentionally false orders, and diversion of resources to other purposes. “Usually the resist- ance depends on the destruction degree of estab- lished life foundations, traditions, customs, principles and rules; on speed and intensity of understanding the need for change process, involving people, trust in the initiators and leaders” (Загороднюк, 2000). J.  Pfeffer (2007) defines power as “the potential ability to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance and force people to do things that otherwise would not be made”. 4. conclusions In the interaction of politics and management a sys- tem approach can be used to solve management problems, to find optimal solutions, to identify and reformulate the problematic situation. The feasibil- ity of a system approach depends on the ability of managers to contribute to the solution of the exist- ing problems of state-management. 42 Igor Reshevets The system approach to the process of politics and management interaction has its own specificity, which is a prerequisite for its effectiveness. It is likely that on the way of its implementation into public authoritative bodies the resistance can arise which can be caused by psychological braking factors (or psychological barriers). 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