230075 SE Public Administration Reforms: Perspectives form the Sociology of Organizations (2012W)

The sociology of public administration is a central, yet, over the last decades, increasingly neglected domain of sociological research. The course is intended to give students an introductory insight into the most prominent approaches in the sociology of public administration and to present new findings in the field. The course is divided into two parts. In the first part, broadly discussed approaches in the sociology of public administration will be discussed on the basis of selected texts. The focus will be on theories of bureaucracy according to Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, Peter Blau and W. Richard Scott, Michel Crozier, and Niklas Luhmann.
In the second part, new phenomena in the sociology of public administrations will be focused on the basis of the previously discussed theories. Here, empirical studies on new trends in public sector reforms will be presented and discussed. Thematically, the studies are centered on unintended consequences of public sector reforms which try to introduce transparent and market-oriented principles into bureaucratic organizations. Here, the following questions might arise: what side effects emerge in transparent public administrations and should organizations always be transparent for outsiders? Do universities and hospitals need managers and how powerful are they? Can schools be managed like companies? What expectations lie behind the idea of standardizing and supervising bureaucratic decisions and how does it work in reality? The examples will be reforms of local administrations, education and health services.