عنوان

The Endurance of the Pre-Bureaucratic and eGovernment Hybridity at the Street-Level:

Number

TLpq2471894001

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

The Endurance of the Pre-Bureaucratic and eGovernment Hybridity at the Street-Level:

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Alshallaqi, Mohammad

Title Proper by Another Author

An Ethnographic Study

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Hayes, Niall

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Lancaster University (United Kingdom)

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2019

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

360

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

Lancaster University (United Kingdom)

Text preceding or following the note

2019

Text of Note

How is a post-bureaucratic reform under the rubric of eGovernment enacted at the street-level in a Middle Eastern, specifically, Saudi Arabian context? And 'what insights can be gained from describing this enactment to advance debates on bureaucracy versus post-bureaucracy as well as debates on street-level bureaucracy?' These questions underpin the focus of this ethnographic study. The conventional wisdom in the debate on bureaucracy versus post-bureaucracy is that the outcomes of post-bureaucratic reforms indicate hybridisation of bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic characteristics. In this thesis, I argue that this debate is limited by its overlook of the 'pre-bureaucratic' (Weber, 1978). The pre-bureaucratic manifests clearly at the street-level (Lipsky, 1983), where it has been argued that street-level bureaucrats exercise discretion in ways that deviate from the formal bureaucratic rationality toward the pre-bureaucratic. In the Middle East, the pre-bureaucratic at the street-level is intermeshed with local cultural practices that suffuse everyday work in bureaucratic organisations. Public sector post-bureaucratic reforms in the guise of eGovernment were poised to overcome not only bureaucratic inertia but also pre-bureaucratic practices in this context. The findings of this thesis demonstrate that eGovernment at the street-level is enacted through a negotiated order (Strauss, 1978) that indicates hybridisation of the pre-bureaucratic, the bureaucratic, and the post-bureaucratic. The emerging pattern is characterised, drawing on Gouldner (1954), as a 'mock post-bureaucracy' pattern. The theoretical contributions of the thesis are discussed in relation to the debates on bureaucracy versus post-bureaucracy and street-level bureaucracy. The thesis also extends empirical and methodological contributions.

Information science

Middle Eastern studies

Political science

Public administration

Alshallaqi, Mohammad

Hayes, Niall

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y