Keeping expertise in its place: understanding arms-length bodies as boundary organizations
Keeping expertise in its place: understanding arms-length bodies as boundary organizations
Policy and administration scholars have struggled to explain the waxing and waning of arms-length bodies over time and across contexts. This article draws on the Science and Technology Studies' concept of boundary work — understood as practices which both demarcate and enable collaboration across distinct areas of expertise - to help explain variation in these institutional arrangements. Conceptualising arms-length bodies as boundary organizations shows how their authority rests on their capacity to enable ongoing coordination while preserving the authority and autonomy of relevant expert spheres. The article demonstrates this analytical purchase through reference to two cases in contemporary British government.
boundary work; science and technology studies; administrative reform; agencies
Boswell, John
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Boswell, John
34bad0df-3d4d-40ce-948f-65871e3d783c
Abstract
Policy and administration scholars have struggled to explain the waxing and waning of arms-length bodies over time and across contexts. This article draws on the Science and Technology Studies' concept of boundary work — understood as practices which both demarcate and enable collaboration across distinct areas of expertise - to help explain variation in these institutional arrangements. Conceptualising arms-length bodies as boundary organizations shows how their authority rests on their capacity to enable ongoing coordination while preserving the authority and autonomy of relevant expert spheres. The article demonstrates this analytical purchase through reference to two cases in contemporary British government.
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Keeping_expertise_in_its_place_PandP
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Accepted/In Press date: 25 August 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 October 2017
Keywords:
boundary work; science and technology studies; administrative reform; agencies
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 413872
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/413872
ISSN: 0305-5736
PURE UUID: 2c064d73-fe01-4639-9660-9d3d791938b6
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Date deposited: 08 Sep 2017 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:42
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