Syllabus
ADMINISTERED SOCIETIES: A PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PERSPECTIVE (JSB733)
Course Syllabus
Course structure and organisation:
The course content comprises lectures and seminars. Lecture content will be covered online, via pre-recorded presentations. This applies except for the first, introductory meeting that will be held onsite (in class). The online presentations will be available on a special YouTube channel (To be added)
Seminars, requiring on-site, physical presence, will be held every other week (once in 14 days, except for Week 1 – Week 4). Hence, the course will be organised in blocks: an online lecture one week, an on-site seminar the other week.
The schedule of course organisation: 1. Week: Introductory lecture, onsite (Why administer societies?) 2. Week: Seminar, onsite 3. Week: Lecture, online (PA in practice and as a discipline) 4. Week: Lecture, online (Public vs private dilemma) 5. Week: Seminar, onsite 6. Week: Lecture, online (HR and EIDM) 7. Week: Seminar, onsite 8. Week: Lecture online (Politics and politicisation of public administrations) 9. Week: Seminar, onsite 10. Week: Lecture, online (Costs and investment management) 11. Week: Seminar, onsite 12. Week: Lecture, online (Openness to public) 13. Week: Seminar, onsite
Course requirements:
Requirements for passing the course comprise the following:
· Preparation for and discussion/mini-assignments in seminars.
· Presentation of potential solutions to a selected public-administration problem (during the last but one and the last seminar). The selection of a problem is up to a student but it has to have clear relevance to public administration. The selection has to be made till the fifth week of the course.
· Short seminar paper on solving a selected public administration problem (up to 4,000 words). Footnotes and annexes are not included in the word count.
Points allocation and course grading:
The activities required for passing the course will be allotted points as follows:
· Seminar work: 4 points to be earned for each seminar (24 points maximum)
· Presentation of solutions to a public-administration problem: 1-26 points
· Short seminar paper (on problem solution): 1-50 points
Course grading: 100-90 points: A grade 89-80 points: B grade 79-70 points: C grade 69-60 points: D grade 59-50 points: E grade 49 and less points: F (fail)
Course content:
I. Why administer societies? Who rules and who sets the rules in motion?
Introduction to the course and introduction to public administration: Making of the state and making of public administration
- Managing unmanageable? Major interpretations of statehood and its emergence
- Rule by force-Public interest -Trust-Authority-Legitimacy
- Rules, rule-makers, rule-facilitators and rule-breakers
- Forms of societal organisation: public-private divide/state-business-civil society,
- Power distribution and sharing through checks and balances
- Public sector specificities and challenges
- Seminar
- Chater, N. (2020), “Could we live in a world without rules?” https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200220-could-we-live-in-a-world-without-rules
- Oehmen, J., Stingl, V. and Witz, P., (2020). “Legitimacy of drastic action: lessons learned from megaproject management”, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/04/23/covid-19-and-the-legitimacy-of-drastic-action-lessons-from-megaproject-management/
II. Public administration in practice and as a discipline (characteristics, layers, roles and functions)
- Disciplinary groundings of public administration, evolution as a discipline
- Definitions, roles and functions of public administration
- Administrative reforms (incl. insights from comparative public administration)
- Classifications and characteristics of administrative cultures
- Administering societies: governing and governance, devolution and subsidiarity of administrative powers (layers: multi-level, supranational, state, region, locality)
III. Public vs private dilemma – which is better at what and when?
- administrative differences between public and private sector organisations
- Hollowed-out states vs ‘caring’/engaged states
- multisectoral overview of various forms of public-private arrangements and interactions in provision of goods and services
- Seminar Required reading:
Babic, Milan et al (2018) Who is more powerful - states or corporations? https://theconversation.com/who-is-more-powerful-states-or-corporations-99616.
Range of public-private interactions - https://ppp.worldbank.org/public-private-partnership/agreements
Hammerschmid, G., Van der Walle, S., Andrews, R., and Mosfata, A.M.S. 2019. New Public Management reforms in Europe and their effects: Findings from a 20-country top executive survey. International Review of Administrative Sciences, vol. 85, no. 3, pp. 399-418.
IV. Human resources management and evidence-informed decision making
- Competency building in public administration
- knowledge brokering
- Management of large data
- Institutional memory building
- Digital repositories of knowledge
- Seminar Required reading
Rose, D. et al. (2020), “The civil service doesn’t just need more scientists, it needs a decision-making revolution, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/01/28/the-civil-service-doesnt-just-need-more-scientists-it-needs-a-decision-making-revolution/
Chapter 6 in Torfing, J., Bøgh Andersen, L., Greve, C., and Klausen, K. K. 2020. Public Governance Paradigms, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Available From: Elgar Online: The online content platform for Edward Elgar Publishinghttps://doi.org/10.4337/9781788971225
Olejniczak, K. (2017). „The Game of Knowledge Brokering: A New Method for Increasing Evaluation Use“. American Journal of Evaluation, 2017, Vol. 38(4) 554-576 ª The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1098214017716326 journals.sagepub.com/home/aje.
V. Politics in public administration: how does politics impact on public administration - striking a balance [H1]
- Distribution of powers and responsibilities, politico-administrative relations (politicians and civil servants)
- Politicisation of civil service
- Seminar Politicisation in German civil service: discussion + outreach to the situation in student home countries. Required reading: Bach, T., and Veit, S. 2018. The determinants of promotion to high public office in Germany: Partisan loyalty, political craft, or managerial competencies? Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, vol. 28, no. 2, 254-269. Jann, W., and Veit, S. 2021. ‘Politics and Administration in Germany’, In Kuhlmann, S., Proeller, I., Schimanke, D., Ziekow, J. (eds.) Public Administration in Germany. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 145-162.
VI. Costs and investment management in public administration
- Public budgets – size, composition, structure, management
- Mandatory expenditure and public investments
- Public procurement methods
- S
Annotation
This course aims to develop students’ critical thinking of the ways our societies organise themselves to tackle serious societal problems. It highlights several types of challenges that modern public administration faces.
These challenges include: legitimation struggles, inadequate management capabilities, inefficiencies, lack of evidence, stakeholder engagement and lack of accountability/corruption. The course further aims to provide students with understanding of practical application of public administration concepts and the ways public administration attempts to apprehend societal problems and devise solutions thereof. This is done by presentation and critical reflection of the key public administration terms, theories and approaches to engage students in critical thinking and studying, as well as in systematic work with scholarly literature throughout active participation in seminars.
The students are also required to identify and present solutions to selected public administration problems and write short scholarly texts (a seminar paper). The course will be finalised by a written test.