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Bureaucracy and Society in Transition
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Bureaucracy and Society in Transition

Comparative Perspectives

Haldor Byrkjeflot|Fredrick Engelstad
Emerald
Emerald

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Hardback
9781787432840
08 October 2018
£91.99
eBook (PDF)
9781787432833
08 October 2018
£91.99
eBook (ePub)
9781787439221
08 October 2018
£91.99

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New Public Management has held a central position within public administration over the past few decades, complemented by various models promoting post-bureaucratic organization. But ‘traditional’ bureaucracy has not disappeared, and bureaucracy is in transition in the West and the rest of the world. Bureaucracies still fill crucial positions in modern societies, despite growing criticism of assumed inefficiencies and unlimited growth.  

This volume examines a range of issues related to bureaucracies in transition across Europe, with a particular focus on the Nordic region. Chapters examine a range of topics including a reinterpretation of Weber’s conception of bureaucracy; the historical development of institutions and organizational structures in Sweden and Greece; the myth of bureaucratic neutrality and the concept of ‘competent neutrality’; performance management systems; the anti-bureaucratic identities of senior civil servants; the role of experts and expertise in bureaucratic organizations; the impact of reform on public sector executives; the curbing of corruption in Scandinavian states; an interrogation of the Nordic administrative model; Supreme Audit Institutions; ‘street-level’ bureaucracy; and the establishment of an ‘ethics of office’ amongst Danish civil servants.

Introduction 1. Bureaucracy in Transition; Haldor Byrkjeflot and Fredrik Engelstad  2. The Impact and Interpretation of Weber’s Bureaucratic Ideal Type in Organization Theory and Public Administration; Haldor Byrkjeflot 

  • Part One: Comparative Perspectives  3. Building State Infrastructural Capacities: Sweden and Greece; Apostolis Papakostas   4. From Neutral Competence to Competent Neutrality? Revisiting Neutral Competence as the Core Normative Foundation of Western Bureaucracy; Thurid Hustedt and Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen 5. Outcome Based Performance Management Systems: Experiences from the Danish and Swedish Tax Agencies; Karen Boll  6. Anti-Bureaucratic Identities Among Top Bureaucrats? Societal Norms and Professional Practices Among Senior Civil Servants in Britain, France and Norway; Marte Mangset  7. Economists in Government Bureaucracies; Johan Christensen  8. Multiple Shades of Grey: Opening the Black Box of Public Sector Executives’ Hybrid Role Identities; Stephan Leixnering, Andrea Schikowitz, Gerhard Hammerschmid and Renate E. Meyer
  • Part Two: Nordic Bureaucracy   9. The Building of Tte Scandinavian States: Establishing Weberian Bureaucracy and Curbing Corruption from the Mid-Seventeenth to the End of the Nineteenth Century; Mette Frisk Jensen   10. Nordic Bureaucracy Beyond New Public Management; Carsten Greve, Per Lægreid and Lise H. Rykkja 11. A New Organization of Public Administration – From Internal to External Control; Kristin Reichborn-Kjennerud, Thomas Carrington, Kim Klarskov Jeppesen, Külli Taro  12. Street-Level Bureaucracy and Crosscutting Cleavages in Municipal Worlds; Halvard Vike  13. Codification and Ethos of Office: Contextualizing a Codex-Solution Introduced in the Danish Central Administration; Thomas Lopdrup-Hjorth and Anne Roelsgaard Obling

Social scientists and business scholars study bureaucracies in transitions in the public sector of modern societies, that is in various types of civil service. They focus on the relationship between politics and bureaucracy, organizational challenges and problems, and the significance of identity and public ethos in modern bureaucratic institutions. Moving from comparative perspectives to Nordic bureaucracies, they consider such topics as the impact and interpretation of Weber's bureaucratic ideal type in organization theory and public administration, outcome-based performance management systems: experiences from the Danish and Swedish tax agencies, economists in government bureaucracies, multiple shades of gray: opening the black box of public sectors executives' hybrid role identities, and a new organization of public administration: from internal to external control.

- Annotation ©2018
Haldor Byrkjeflot is Professor of Sociology at University of Oslo (UiO), Norway and Academic Director of UiO:Nordic. He is currently exploring historical-comparative research, organization theory and the making and circulation of ideas across societies. Haldor has publications related to logics of employment systems, comparative healthcare reforms, public sector reforms as well as varieties of management systems and bureaucracy. 
Fredrik Engelstad is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Oslo, Norway where he was Head of the Institute for Social Research (1986-2007). Engelstad is a Co-Editor of Power and Democracy: Critical Interventions (2004), Comparative Perspectives on Social and Political Elites (2007), and Firms, Boards and Gender Quotas: Comparative Perspectives (2012).