Affective digital bureaucracies: public servants‘ sentiments of digital transformation in Germany’s migration administration
Thomas Götzelmann
My PhD project investigates affective and emotional dynamics in Germany's migration administration in relation to its ongoing digitalization. Within the German administrative landscape, the administration of migration plays a decidedly pioneering role for the introduction of digital tools and processes. These new techniques of administration are not only aimed at applicants (e.g. automated dialect recognition), but also at internal administrative processes. Both at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and the municipally located foreigners‘ registration offices, central software input masks are playing a growing role in the daily activities of the public servants. Paper files are increasingly being replaced by electronic files, database queries to other authorities are triggered semi-automated by mouse click, and, in general, individual steps within administrative procedures are increasingly being guided by the logic of software solutions developed partly in-house and partly by private companies. My initial studies suggest that the digitalization of individual steps within the administrative work is increasing the division of labor within the public administration, that it is changing the self-image of bureaucracy, and that public servants are developing new emotion repertoires related to applicants, their own work, and the state in general. My research project accompanies this digital transformation of migration management by tracing and documenting the affective dynamics of digitalization in the interactions between software/hardware, public servants, and migrants. The focus of my research is on the changing sentiments of bureaucracies, i.e. the affective-emotional attitudes of public servants towards new models of an administration that is in the process of digital transformation.
Duration
2020 - 2022
Mentoring
Prof. Dr. Olaf Zenker