Public Administration and Interdependence

Abstract

In this article, we begin by reviewing the literature regarding the interaction between national bureaucratic systems and international actors and institutions. In particular, we find Keohane and Nye's notion of “complex interdependence” to be useful in understanding the emerging interactions and multifaceted nature of public administration. This is demonstrated by a case study of the successful partnership between Fiat and Chrysler, in which several public bureaucracies were essential. We conclude with our observations about public administration in an increasingly interdependent and globalizing world and offer an agenda for future research in the field.

Keywords:

• globalization
• interdependence
• bureaucratic collaboration
• comparative public administration

Notes

¹Globalization usually refers to a multi-dimensional process whereby markets, firms, productions, and national financial systems are integrated on a global scale. At the same time, globalization in other areas of life, such as communications, might have ramifications in non-economic areas too, as in cultural affairs—and these can have a subsequent political consequence (Brawley, 2003, 12–17).

²Globalization is not a process that involves the ‘retreat of the state’ because the state remains a strategic contested terrain, control of which is pivotal to world order. It is a process involving increased cross-border socio-economic activity, making it enormously difficult to distinguish between global and national—in fact, the global becomes the national and vice-versa. This renders the excessively vertical view of the world found in mainstream international relations theory in the form of traditional levels of analysis and dichotomous external-internal approaches increasingly meaningless (Baker, 2000, 366–367).

³Given German sensitivity and vulnerability interdependence to the European automotive market, it is not surprising that GM's Opel division is currently expecting a loan from the German government in order to maintain operations in Germany (“Opel Aid,” 2010).