[
Wesleyan Home Page
] [
WesMaps Home Page
] [
WesMaps Archive
]
[
Course Search
] [
Course Search by CID
]
| |
We live in a bureaucratic era, in a society in which the one-room school house, the volunteer night watch and scribes hunched over accounts books are as anachronistic as the kerosense lamp, the horse and buggy and the
outdoor privy. These have been
replaced by modern technology and modern management and in the process society, has become increasingly dependent on bureaucracies large and small--on complex organizations characterized by extensive internal
specialization and staffed by all manner of
experts. The dependence is as marked in the private sector as in the public. But the public sector presents a special challenge, at least in a democratic society. In a democratic society government is supposed to be
dependent on and serve its citizens,
but many claim the reverse is now the case. Increasingly, it is said, governments are dominated by bureaucracies that have taken on a life of their own--as self-sustaining and self-directing forces that are far less
subordinate to the electoral process
than democratic theory would have it.
This course will explore two broad questions with respect to bureaucracy in the United States. The first is whether people wish bureaucrats to be somehow subordinate to the
electoral process or whether they
would prefer instead that politicians not interfere with the work of the experts and professionals who run the bureaucracies. We will try to shed light on this question by examining a second, namely, past and present
efforts to control the bureaucracy,
focusing particularly on this country's enduring faith in the efficacy of institutional engineering.
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS GOVT Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-19-2002
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459