Beyond Bureaucracy-Public Administration as Political Integrator and Non-Weberian Thought in Germany

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Seibel, Wolfgang
• 署名单位: University of Konstanz
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02200.x
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 719-730
• 关键词: american; hintze; otto; GOVERNMENT; origins

摘要

The political role of public administration holds an ambiguous status in public administration theory. The dominant paradigms of the discipline offer more or less negative perspectives. Max Weber's notion of bureaucracy conceives public administration as the apolitical tool of government, while the public choice school conceives it as the realm of individual selfishness and rent seeking at taxpayers' expense. In this unfavorable epistemological environment, positive concepts of what makes public administration political can hardly flourish. However, as public authorities may organize clientele participation and consequently co-opt stakeholders, they provide for symbolic sense making and create patterns of identity. Public administration thus works as a political integrator in its own right. Unfortunately, this subject is not prominent within contemporary scholarly research. German political integration through administration is analyzed here in order to address these and related theoretical questions.