Project

Making sense of formal arrangements in practice – the case of the Investment Fund for Rural Areas (Ellen Wiemer)

Ellen Wiemer’s PhD research focusses on everyday practices of civil servants. Ellen investigates how civil servants make sense of public sector reforms that introduce new working modes and alter relations within the public sector itself.

Given that today’s public sector is characterised by a high degree of complexity and is subject to continuous societal and political developments, civil servants must relate to constant dynamics, ambiguity and impasses. How they still come to terms, is the focus of Ellen’s research. The public sector reform that is central to her research is the Investment Fund for Rural Areas (ILG) through which the Dutch national government delegated policy implementation and partly policy development in the field of rural spatial development to the provinces.

Supervisors: Katrien Termeer, Paul Frissen (NSOB) & Adri van den Brink (Landscape Architecture, WUR)