The seminar aims to provide students from the Global South with an introduction to administrative and political science concepts from Europe and especially Germany. A critical analysis of the transferability and adaptability of these concepts to the specific challenges and needs of the Global South will be encouraged. The learning objective of the seminar is to acquaint students with the essential structural elements of public administration as well as the contents and strategies of administrative reform and modernization, to enable them to acquire analytical skills to systematically examine threats to a well-functioning public administration. The students critically reflect on how these concepts can contribute to solving local administrative and governance problems.

The examination consists of a short presentation and active participation in self-selected practical cases in a workshop format (with discussion of the results of other groups) as well as a final term paper.

Course content of the seminar includes several key topics of current political science research on public administration: (1) Transparency and anti-corruption policy and regulations (Mugellini 2020, Schiffers/Plümer 2024), (2) Populism as a challenge for public administration (u.a. Peters/Pierre 2019, Bauer/Becker 2020) and (3) administration and governance of transformation (with governance for transformation, governance of transformation and transformation of governance, Patterson et al. 2017, Korte et al. 2023).