The Autopoiesis of Administrative Systems: Niklas Luhmann on Public Administration and Public Policy

dc.contributor.authorBRANS, Marleen
dc.contributor.authorROSSBACH, Stefan
dc.date.accessioned2011-05-09T15:11:11Z
dc.date.available2011-05-09T15:11:11Z
dc.date.issued1997
dc.description.abstractThis article offers an introduction to Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems as it pertains to public administration and policy, as a first step towards both a critique and its empirical application to empirical reality. It reconstructs Luhmann's early writings on bureaucracy and policy-making and shows how this early, more empirical work grounded his abtract theory of social systems in general and the political system in particular. The article also introduces some central concepts of Luhmann's more recent work on the autopoietic nature of social systems and considers the latter's consequences for bureaucratic adaptiveness and governmental steering in the welfare state. One of the main benefits of applying Luhmann's theory to public administration, the article concludes, is that it conceptualizes the central concerns of public administration within a complex picture of society as a whole, in which both the agency that issues decisions and the realm affected by these decisions are included.
dc.identifier.citationPublic Administration, 1997, 75, 3, 417-439
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/1467-9299.00068
dc.identifier.endpage439
dc.identifier.issn0033-3298
dc.identifier.issue3
dc.identifier.startpage417
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/16929
dc.identifier.volume75
dc.titleThe Autopoiesis of Administrative Systems: Niklas Luhmann on Public Administration and Public Policy
dc.typeArticle
dspace.entity.typePublication
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person.identifier.other27276
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