UPL503 THEORY PRACTICE IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Course Objectives

At the end of this course, the student will learn:

• major theories of public administration (their underlying assumptions, conclusions about the nature of public administration, and their reform prescriptions)

• political bases of different approaches to the notion of "public interest"

• the history of the practice of public administration

• key concepts used to examine organisational reforms in the public context

• the relationship between the notions of "public interest" and the "urban"

• the role and place of local government(s) in different theories of public administration

• the administrative problems and reform pressures caused by processes of urbanisation.

• the dynamics that shape the relations between central and local governments (and thus dynamics of local government reform)

• administrative issues underlying organisational arrangements in local governments

• how civil society/business and local government relations could shape the practice of local governments.   

Course Content

Definition of the discipline of public administration and basic problem areas; discussion of Turkish public administration system and its problems, alternative methods of solution.

Course Learning Outcomes

A student who passed this course will be able to:

• critically analyse current reform proposals for local governments by examining the content of the discourse on "public interest" adopted by those proposals.

• locate the reform proposals and the challenges before local governments to their proper historical context.

• identify the current (and future) challenges for local government practice by detecting their roots in the processes of urbanisation.

• formulate and produce nuanced, empirically oriented research papers to examine: 

  • the dynamics that shape the relations between central and local governments (and thus dynamics of local government reform)

  • administrative issues underlying organisational arrangements in local governments

  • how civil society/business and local government relations could shape the practice of local governments.

• construct an analytical framework to conduct research on "local governments"
• prepare a research proposal in the above regard
• gather and/or produce empirical information required to operationalise a given analytical framework.
• establish connections between a theoretical framework and the empirical material collected via field research.
• offer policy alternatives to a given administrative problem employing a critical perspective.