The Absurdity of Bureaucracy How Implementation Works [Hardcover]

The absurdity of bureaucracy offers a humorous ethnographic account of policy implementation set in contemporary Danish bureaucracy. Taking the reader deep into the hallways of governmental administration and municipal caseworkers' offices, the book sets out to explore what characterizes policy implementation as a mode of human agency. Using the notions of absurdity and sense-making as lenses through which to explore the dynamic relationship between a policy and its effects, the book reclaims 'implementation studies' for the qualitative sciences and emphasizes the existential dilemma that any policymaker and implementer must confront. Following step-by-step the planning and implementation of the randomized controlled trial, Active - Back Sooner, the book sets out to show that 'going wrong' is not a question of implementation failure but is in fact the only way in which implementation may happen.

Reading guide

Prologue: Labour days

Introduction: The absurdity of bureaucracy

Central people, documents, and organisations

Chapter I: Anticipations

Portrait 1: 'Making a difference'

Portrait 2: The prefect plan

Analysis: A container of discrete agendas

Chapter II: Mutations

Portrait 3: The trial mutates

Portrait 4: Satisfying needs

Analysis: Vectors of concern

Chapter III: Multiplications

Portrait 5: The purpose multiplies

Portrait 6: The productivity of controversy

Analysis: Absurdity is a perspective that appreciates the sum-total

Chapter IV: The quest for meaning

Portrait 7: 'Bending' the rules and agreements

Portrait 8: The end of meaning

Analysis: They rebel, they do not resist

Chapter V: How implementation works

Epilogue: Bureaucracy

Acknowledgements

Appendix: Data, position, method

Bibliography

Nina Holm Vohnsen is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University