News from Sociology of Migration and Education – New Article by Paul Schreiber and Aladin El-Mafaalani
In a new article in “Frontiers in Sociology”, Paul Schreiber, together with Aladin El-Mafaalani, develops an alternative perspective on these interrelationships. The starting point is the question of how administrative interdependence becomes visible as a subject of research in the first place.
Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, the article reconstructs various scholarly approaches to observing administrative interdependence. It becomes apparent that the same empirical structures appear differently depending on the theoretical perspective: While actor-centered approaches primarily observe coordination problems and governance deficits, a systems-theoretical perspective focuses on the processing of social complexity.
The article argues that administrative interdependence does not simply represent objectively given problems. Rather, scholarly diagnoses and reform proposals arise from the theoretical distinctions through which administration is observed. As a result, administrative interdependence can be analyzed not only as an empirical phenomenon but also as a result of scholarly observation.
The publication appeared in the “Sociological Theory” section of *Frontiers in Sociology* under the research topic “Building on Luhmann: Advances in Systems-Theoretical Observation and Application” and combines administrative science research with systems-theoretical approaches in sociology.