Abstract
Because civil servants are secretive and protective of their work process, harmful or distorted outcome of their policy-work are often taken by outsiders to be either intentional or the outcome of a scheming manipulative processes. While not denying this is in fact the case in some instances, in this article, I want to develop a different framework for understanding the particular field of expertise that a bureaucracy constitutes. In this article, I analyse my own attempt to understand a particular case of labour market policy, which the civil servants marketed as ‘evidence-based’ despite an entire research community who claimed it was not. Through this analysis, I identify four ‘sites of mutual misunderstanding’ between researchers and civil servants. My aim is to develop a methodology of awareness in the study of bureaucracy and civil services by proposing a set of core concerns, which both define and distinguish the two fields of expertise.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Publikationsdato | jan. 2018 |
Status | Ikke-udgivet - jan. 2018 |