Section 3: Administrative Governance in a Historical Perspective
It would be misleading to suggest that there is some kind of linear development "from nation-states to Europe", which concomitant effects on the development of bureaucracies, from classical "Weberian" national bureaucracies to complex trans- or supernational administrative structures. Hence, the birth of the EU or other international organization is not where our interest in administrative governance begins. Looking at the history of administration through the lens of administrative governance fits in perfectly with a widely accepted general definition of administrative history as the interaction between government and society. Administrative history is not just about rules and regulations governing bureaucracies, or about formal criteria for measuring the growth of bureaucracies, but rather about the concrete workings of public administration, both in its executive functions as in its involvement in policy-making.
The projects listed below embody different aspects of the administrative governance research programme, notably its emphasis on the transnational dimension of the role of information and expertise (project 1), on questions of legitimacy and democratic potential (project 2), and on transparency and communication (project 3). Staff members involved in the supervising teams of these projects are cooperating with research groups consisting of members from the universities of Geneva, St. Andrews, and Cologne, and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva).
Project 1: Internationalism and the transfer of administrative knowledge, 1840-1919 Contact person: dr. N. Randeraad
Project 2: The Reform of National Administrations in Belgium, Italy and The Netherlands, 1919-1999 Contact person: dr. N. Randeraad
Project 3: The Language of Bureaucracy from the 19th Century to the Present Day Contact person: dr. N. Randeraad