Saying No to Structures Is to Say No to Regulated Conflicts

The Danish welfare state is currently undergoing yet another wave of debureaucratization, characterized by buzzwords such as "turn everything upside down," "liberation," "agility," "flexibility," "think outside the box," "we'll pave the road as we go," and "break away from tradition." Unlike earlier debureaucratization reforms, it is no longer just specific structures being targeted. This is an attack on structures in general, including laws and regulations, professional expertise, and organizational structures. The ideal is temporariness.

For instance, when a vulnerable citizen approaches the social administration today with a request for a particular service, they no longer receive a simple yes or no. The social administration typically responds: "we need to discuss this further." Legal administrative decisions are postponed as long as possible. The effect is that the citizen cannot complain or disagree with the administration because there is nothing to disagree with. One never receives a rejection, and therefore no reasoning. "Maybe" is the only answer the administration provides.

This paper addresses how the formal administration, which emerged in Denmark from the 1860s, recognized and institutionalized the value of conflicts with citizens. The article will analyze how formal administration invited conflicts and how conflicts became a kind of creative immune mechanism for public administration. Thus, the article tries to argue for a close connection between the form of "formal administration" and the acceptance of conflicts. When today's reforms dismantle all kinds of structures, they also dismantle the citizens' ability to say no. The new debureaucratization expresses a kind of autoimmune reaction that combats the possibility of conflicts.

The article theoretically draws on thinkers such as Niklas Luhmann, Roberto Esposito, Hannah Richter, Jacques Derrida, and Peter Sloterdijk.