Assessing the political role of public administrations through the lens of the Programmatic Action Framework (PAF)

This PhD dissertation aims to investigate the political role of public administrations in the decision-making process, in both Switzerland and Germany, in different policy domains (health and migration) and at different governmental levels (national and subnational). By using the Programmatic Action Framework to reconstruct and analyze different policy processes, this PhD will assess whether and to what extent a homogenous administrative elite is governing a policy sector by promoting and implementing a policy program. It will analyze who composes these elite groups (when they exist) and under which conditions such groups appear and succeed in the imposition of their program. The use of the Programmatic Action Framework allows disaggregating the analysis of the policy process down to the level of individual actors and to examine their biographical trajectories. It thus gives a new perspective on the structure of the constellations of actors participating in the policy process. The research will use this framework for the first time in Switzerland, in terms of migration policies, and at the sub-national level. It will thus allow a solid test of the relevance of this paradigm based on a comparison between states, public policy sectors, and levels of government, allowing for a better understanding of the functioning of these elites’ groups and the conditions for their emergence and potential success. It will represent a contribution to the study of public policies, both through the broad and innovative application of the Programmatic Action Framework and through an analysis of decision-making processes that integrates the findings of elite sociology.