3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course addresses the subject we love to hate. Out of popular critiques of bureaucracies from the DMV and “deep state” have emerged varied – sometimes paradoxical – images about bureaucracy and bureaucrats: as simultaneously conniving and power-hungry, bumbling and incompetent, or rule-bound, dull, and mundane to the point of lunacy. But what actually is bureaucracy? More than the butt of gripes or jokes, bureaucracy is a powerful political concept worthy of scholarly study. Our class will consider what bureaucracy is, how and where it emerged in American life, and what its implications are for democracy, individual freedom, and effective organization. It will emphasize the study of primary sources pertaining to bureaucracy – including company organization charts, film, social theory, novels, legislation, government reports, and contemporary discourses – and ask students to put them in conversation with interdisciplinary theories about its significance and development.