When Politics Meets Bureaucracy: Rules, Norms, Conformity and Cheating

This book follows the perspectives of high-level municipal bureaucrats and local politician through a wide range of policy processes in two small Norwegian municipalities. Through this interdisciplinary approach, the book offers a novel perspective on central themes from the governance literature. Most of all, the ethnographic accounts of political and administrative practices are used to demonstrate how processes of hierarchical government and broader processes of governance become inextricably intertwined during policy processes, and how horizontal alignments can modify the hierarchal logic of bureaucratic structures. Lo draws on perspectives from political science, sociology and anthropology to understand the cultural and historical conditions that inform this intertwinement. This broad approach makes the book relevant for a wide audience of students and scholars interested in the inner workings of bureaucratic organisations.