The course is divided into two parts. In the first part, some introductory remarks about the genesis of contemporary science of administration and its interdisciplinary character will be carried out; the historical steps that gave rise to the object of study, namely the modern legal-rational bureaucracy, will be also analysed. Then, main theoretical and methodological approaches of policy analysis will be examined, starting from the established patterns of interactions among political institutions and bureaucracy, proceeding to the identification of actors, networks and rationality characterizing decision-making processes.
In the second part, the Weberian model of modern bureaucracy will be discussed, analyzing its actual evolution in Western democracies. For this purpose, the social, cultural, structural and processual characters of administrative systems will be examined, relatively to both their current and past configuration.