Bureaucracy and Society in Transition : Comparative Perspectives.

Cover -- Bureaucracy and Society in Transition: Comparative Perspectives -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Editorial Board -- List of Reviewers -- About the Authors -- Introduction: Bureaucracy in Transition -- Fear of Formality -- If It's Dead, Why Won't It Lie Down? -- Varieties of Bureaucracy and Reform Models -- Civil Service and Political Leadership -- Bureaucratic Identities -- Organisation: How Do Recent Reforms Affect Bureaucratic Infrastructures? -- Transition: The Road to Denmark -- Transitions: To Denmark or Beyond? -- Future Challenges - Digitalisation and Mediatisation -- References -- The Impact and Interpretation of Weber's Bureaucratic Ideal Type in Organisation Theory and Public Administration -- Introduction -- Weber as Part of a German Scholarly Tradition -- Weber Translated: The Ideal Type as 'Bureaucracy Theory' -- Parsons' Interpretation of Weber -- Organisations as 'Natural Systems' -- Reception of 'Bureaucracy Theory' in Europe -- Textbook Weber - Weberian Perspectives and Concepts Translated into Method -- Efficiency Is Not the Same as Rationality -- The Relative Superiority of Bureaucracy -- The Ideal Type Is Not a Hypothesis -- Not Just One, but Several Ideal Types -- Varieties of Bureaucracy: Weberian Interpretations -- The Professional and Administrative Bureaucracy -- The Many Webers -- State Bureaucracy: The Significance of the Political-Cultural Context -- Changes in Bureaucracy and Identity -- Organising as Meaningful Activity at Intermediary Level -- Weber as Historical-comparative Scholar Not Father of 'Organisation Theory' -- Some Weaknesses in Weberian Explorations into Bureaucracy -- A Short Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Part I. Comparative Perspectives -- Building State Infrastructural Capacities: Sweden and Greece -- State Autonomy and Infrastructural Capacities: The Relevance of Extreme Cases.

Sweden: A Mapped, Registered, Simplified and Objectified Society -- The Legibility and Simplification of Space -- Registering the Economy and Counting People -- Simplifying and Objectifying Society -- Greece: The Unmapped Landscape, the Ambiguities of Society and the Complexity of the State -- Who Owns the Land? -- Distant Taxation and the Ambiguity of State-Society Relations -- Comparative Remarks -- Notes -- References -- From Neutral Competence to Competent Neutrality? Revisiting Neutral Competence as the Core Normative Foundation of Western ... -- Introduction -- Neutral Competence -- Research Design and Methods -- Contextualising Danish and British Perceptions of Neutral Competence -- Perceptions of Neutral Competence -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Outcome-based Performance Management Systems: Experiences from the Danish and Swedish Tax Agencies -- Introduction -- Performance Management in Public Administration -- A Qualitative Study of Performance Management Systems -- Outcome-based Performance Management Systems in Use -- The Danish Case - Auditing Claims for Negative VAT -- The 55% Hit Rate as an Outcome-based Performance Indicator -- The Swedish Case - Doing Proactive Information Work -- Performance Management by Qualitative Outcomes -- Comparison of Performance Management Systems -- Adaption to Local Contingencies -- Relating the Cases to Snippets of the Existing Literature -- Conclusion -- References -- Anti-bureaucratic Identities among Top Bureaucrats? Societal Norms and Professional Practices among Senior Civil Servants i... -- Introduction -- Contrasting Ideal Types: Custodians of Rule-bound Government versus Result-oriented Entrepreneurs -- Comparative Interview Data on Discourse and Practice -- Anti-bureaucratic Self-presentations -- Making Things Happen (Outcome Orientation) -- Autonomy and Discretion.

Working in a Non-hierarchical Environment -- Power -- Being Where the Action Is -- Flexibility, Variation and Unpredictability -- Practice Closer to the Weberian Ideal Type -- Routine, Procedurality and Predictability -- Hierarchy Manifested in Everyday Bureaucratic Practices -- Restricted Autonomy and Power -- Analysis and Discussion: Disentangling the Framings of More or Less Influential Professional Norms -- Concluding Remarks -- Notes -- References -- Economists in Government Bureaucracies -- Introduction -- Theoretical Discussion: The Position of Professions in Public Bureaucracies -- Empirical Analysis: The Changing Role of Economists in Four States -- Norway and Denmark, 1930-1965 -- Norway and Denmark, 1965-1990 -- New Zealand and Ireland, 1930-1965 -- New Zealand and Ireland, 1965-1990 -- Discussion and Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Multiple Shades of Grey: Opening the Black Box of Public Sector Executives' Hybrid Role Identities -- Introduction -- Conceptualising Public Sector Role Identity as a Bi-dimensional Construct -- Disentangling Pure and Hybrid Identities -- Administrative Traditions and Public Executive Identities -- Data and Method -- Dataset -- Operationalising Bureaucratic and Managerial Attitudes as well as Practices -- Data Analysis -- Findings -- Discussion: Identity-profile Patterns within and across Administrative Traditions -- Conclusion: Contribution, Limits and Future Developments for Studying Public Sector Identities -- Notes -- References -- Descriptive Statistics of Country-level Identity Combinations' Occurrences -- Part II. Nordic Bureaucracy -- The Building of the Scandinavian States: Establishing Weberian Bureaucracy and Curbing Corruption from the Mid-Seventeenth ... -- The Historical Realms of the Scandinavian Countries -- The Growth of the Absolute States -- Changing the Bureaucratic Framework.

The Appointment of Civil Servants -- Setting up Restrictions through a Formal Oath of Office -- Legal Regulations for Civil Servants -- The Educational Background and Recruitment Based on Merit -- Corruption in Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the Nineteenth Century -- The Case of Corruption in Denmark -- The Cases of Corruption in Norway and Sweden -- Legal and Administrative Reforms in the Danish Administration -- Setting up New Procedures for Accounting and Audits -- The Adoption of New Penal Codes -- Salaries and Pensions for Civil Servants -- The Scandinavian states, Lutheranism and the Weberian Bureaucracy of the Nineteenth Century -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Nordic Bureaucracy beyond New Public Management. -- Introduction -- Database -- Structural Features of the Bureaucracy -- Low Politicisation -- High Managerial Autonomy -- Coordination by Hierarchy Is Still Strong -- Role, Values and Motivation in the Bureaucracy -- Bureaucratic Roles - Combining Traditional Roles, Performance and Agenda-setting Roles -- Value Preferences - Trade-off between NPM Values and Neo-Weberian State Values -- Motivation - Professional Tasks and Common Goods Dominate -- Administrative Reforms: Processes, Trends, Content and Management Instruments -- Reform Process - Planned and Characterised by Public Involvement and Union Support -- Reform Trends - High Activity, Combining Different Reforms -- Reform Content - Service Improvement Rather Than Cost-Cutting -- Management Instruments Are Widespread -- Performance and Success of Reforms -- High Perceived Performance, but Not Strong Links to Reform Trends -- Perceived Effects of Reforms: Successful Reforms, but Reform Processes Might Be More Important than Reform Type -- Similarities and Differences between the Nordic Countries -- A North-South Divide in Europe -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References.

A New Organisation of Public Administration: From Internal to External Control -- Differences in the Public Administration Systems and Cultures -- Style of Auditing and Tradition in Public Administrative Control -- Traditions of Auditing -- Style of Auditing -- Data and Methods -- Findings: Civil Servants' Reactions to External Control -- Perceptions of Usefulness of Performance Audit -- Changes from Performance Audit -- Discussion -- The Influence of the Style of Audit -- The Influence of Public Administrative Systems and Cultures -- Conclusion -- References -- Street-level Bureaucracy and Crosscutting Cleavages in Municipal Worlds -- Introduction -- Street-level Bureaucracy in the Nordic Context -- Patterns of Conflict -- I -- II -- Cleavages that Cut across -- Conclusions -- References -- Codification and Ethos of Office: Contextualising a Codex-solution Introduced in the Danish Central Administration -- Introduction -- Understanding Codes from an 'Ethics of Office' Perspective -- Contextualising Codex VII along Three Dimensions -- Changing Organisational Conditions and Terms of Employment -- Changing Conceptions of the Ideal Civil Servant -- Ethical Training and Education -- Discussion -- Ethics Training for Public Servants -- Obscuring Political-administrative Responsibility? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Index.

Despite criticism of inefficiencies and unlimited growth, bureaucracies still fill crucial positions in modern societies. This volume examines 'varieties in bureaucracies' across Europe, with a specific focus on the Nordic region.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.