TY - JOUR
T1 - "Knowing" the rules
T2 - administrative work as practice
AU - Wagenaar, Hendrik
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - This article presents a theory of administrative work as practice. Building on a rich narrative of a mid-level administrator in the Dutch Immigration Office, four core elements of administrative practice are identified: contextuality, acting, knowing, and interacting. Taking cues from practice theory and ethnomethodology, the author argues that the visible aspects of administrative work (decisions, reports, negotiations, standard operating procedures, and - on a higher level of institutional abstraction - structures, legal rules, lines of authority, and accountability) are effectuations, enactments of the hidden, taken-for-granted routines: the almost unthinking actions, tacit knowledge, fleeting interactions, practical judgments, self-evident understandings and background knowledge, shared meanings, and personal feelings that constitute the core of administrative work. Taken together, contextuality, acting, knowing, and interacting make up a unified account of practical judgment in an administrative environment that is characterized by complexity, indeterminacy, and the necessity to act on the situation at hand.
AB - This article presents a theory of administrative work as practice. Building on a rich narrative of a mid-level administrator in the Dutch Immigration Office, four core elements of administrative practice are identified: contextuality, acting, knowing, and interacting. Taking cues from practice theory and ethnomethodology, the author argues that the visible aspects of administrative work (decisions, reports, negotiations, standard operating procedures, and - on a higher level of institutional abstraction - structures, legal rules, lines of authority, and accountability) are effectuations, enactments of the hidden, taken-for-granted routines: the almost unthinking actions, tacit knowledge, fleeting interactions, practical judgments, self-evident understandings and background knowledge, shared meanings, and personal feelings that constitute the core of administrative work. Taken together, contextuality, acting, knowing, and interacting make up a unified account of practical judgment in an administrative environment that is characterized by complexity, indeterminacy, and the necessity to act on the situation at hand.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=9944224145&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2004.00412.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2004.00412.x
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:9944224145
SN - 0033-3352
VL - 64
SP - 643
EP - 656
JO - Public Administration Review
JF - Public Administration Review
IS - 6
ER -