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 Publishing<https://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