Course 2026-2027 a.y.

• Bureaucracy and democratic governance: the role of bureaucratic organizations in democratic systems, and the tension between bureaucratic authority and democratic self-governance.

• Bureaucratic organization and decisionmaking: authority structures, information flows, administrative behavior, and bounded rationality in public organizations.

• Organizations, implementation, and discretion: organizational culture, institutional values, policy implementation, and the exercise of bureaucratic discretion.

• Bureaucratic problems and reform: organizational control mechanisms, bureaucratic pathologies, institutional stagnation, and reform proposals.

• Contemporary challenges for bureaucracy: bureaucratic politics and the pressures created by populism, disinformation, and artificial intelligence in democratic societies.

• To distinguish the core principles of bureaucratic organization and their relationship to democratic governance.

• To identify how administrative behavior, organizational culture, and political pressures shape policy implementation and public decisionmaking.

• To recognize the trade-offs between bureaucratic authority and democratic self-governance.

• To identify major pathologies and reform challenges in bureaucratic organizations.

• To distinguish the ethical and governance implications of artificial intelligence in bureaucratic settings.

• Apply theories of bureaucracy to interpret problems of governance, implementation, and administrative discretion in democratic settings.

• Evaluate how organizational culture, information flows, and political pressures shape bureaucratic decision making and policy outcomes.

• Compare alternative organizational arrangements and control mechanisms, and assess their implications for accountability, effectiveness, and democratic governance.

• Develop reasoned analyses of bureaucratic pathologies, institutional stagnation, and possible reform strategies in public organizations.

• Formulate ethically grounded arguments about the use of artificial intelligence in bureaucratic operations and public governance.

• Lectures

Face-to-face lectures

Class participation, worth 15% of the final grade, is aimed at assessing students’ ability to engage constructively in class discussion, critically evaluate the main themes of the course, and formulate reasoned arguments about bureaucracy and democratic governance.

A partial written exam, worth 40% of the final grade, is aimed at assessing students’ ability to apply the main theoretical perspectives on bureaucracy, analyze administrative behavior and decision-making, and interpret key problems of implementation, discretion, and organizational control.

A final written exam, worth 45% of the final grade, is aimed at assessing students’ ability to evaluate the trade-offs between bureaucratic authority and democratic governance, compare alternative organizational arrangements and reform strategies, and formulate ethically grounded arguments about contemporary challenges for bureaucracy, including artificial intelligence.

A final written exam, worth 100% of the final grade, is aimed at assessing students’ ability to evaluate the trade-offs between bureaucratic authority and democratic governance, compare alternative organizational arrangements and reform strategies, and formulate ethically grounded arguments about contemporary challenges for bureaucracy, including artificial intelligence.

All required readings will be available through Blackboard and the Bocconi University Libraries.