On the Shoulders of Giants – Public Administration Classics revisited - Einzelansicht

Administrative Science is a young and not always clearly shaped discipline. Influences from Political Science, Economics, Business Administration, Psychology, Law and Sociology merge to an unmistakably growing and interesting branch of Social Science research. This seminar aims to contribute to a consolidation of our discipline in dealing with classical literature in form of 12 selected elementary texts.

The goal is not only to get in touch with some of the texts for the first time - to gain expertise in the field of public administration - but also to rediscover already known texts and their meaning and value for the everyday work of both administrative science researchers and public administration practitioners.

Argyris, C. (1977). Double loop learning in organizations. Harvard Business Review, 55(5), 115–125.

Argyris, C. (1992). On Organizational Learning. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Balla, S. J., Lodge, M., & Page, E. C. (2015). What Makes a Classic? In S. J. Balla, M. Lodge, & E. C. Page (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Public Policy and Administration. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

Cohen, M. D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1–25.

Crozier, M. (1963). The Bureaucratic Phenomenon. Paris: Éditons de Seuil.

Downs, A. (1967). Inside bureaucracy. Boston: Little Brown.

Kaufman, H. (1959). The forest ranger: A study in administrative behavior. Baltimore: Jons Hopkins Press.

Lindbloom, C. E. (1959). The Science of “Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review, 19(2), 79–88.

Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1975). The Uncertainty of the Past: Organizational Learning Under Ambiguity. European Journal of Political Research, 3(2), 147–171.

Mayntz, R. (1965). The Study of Organizations. Current Sociology, 13(3), 95–119.

Merton, R. K. (1940). Bureaucratic structure and personality. Social Forces, 18(4), 560–568.

Niskanen, W. A. (1971). Bureaucracy and Representative Government. New York, NY: Routledge.

Olson, M. (1971). The Logic of Collective Action. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Pressman, J. L., & Wildavsky, A. (1984). Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland; Or, Why It’s Amazing that Federal Programs Work at All, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation. University of California Press.

Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative behavior. A study of decision-making processes in administrative organization. New York, NY: Free Press.

Walker, J. L. (1969). The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States. American Political Science Review, 63(3), 880–899.

Wilson, J. Q. (1989). Bureaucracy: What government agencies do and why they do it. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Wilson, W. (1887). The Study of Administration. Political Science Quarterly, 2(2).

The seminar is a literature based seminar, containing sessions about 12 administration science classics. For every session, it is expected that all participants have read the text. The experts (1-3 participants) will give an introduction in form of a talk with the lecturer - recorded for a podcast project. They will have to show why this classic is one, how it shaped public administration science and what we can take away for research and/or administration practice nowadays.

In the end of the seminar, the participants are expected to write a term paper, taking one classic to explain a certain administrative phenomenon, represented in a case study..