Research Profile

Portrait of Gretchen Oliveira, M.P.A

Gretchen Oliveira, M.P.A

Doctoral Researcher in Political Science

Short Bio

Hi, I'm Gretchen Oliveira, a 2nd year PhD candidate at the outstanding WSCUV (Go Lions!). My research delves into the critical role of public administration discourse in fostering a healthy political environment, both locally and globally. I'm particularly interested in the interdependency between bureaucracy and authoritarian values. My current focus explores how Chinese bureaucratic practices might offer valuable lessons for Western democracies, specifically in mitigating the typical pitfalls associated with Prussian bureaucracy. I've been exploring this exciting perspective since 2024. Previously, my master's thesis examined the pathways of public administration discourse into local movie scenes. Specifically, I analyzed how the award-winning German short film "Lola Rennt" (Run Lola Run) reflects and critiques Prussian bureaucratic values. The intricate connection between public administration and various societal spaces is what truly fuels my curiosity.

Research Interests

  • comparative public administration
  • democratic accountability
  • bureaucratic transparency
  • digital governance and civic tech
  • mixed-methods research

Short CV

  • 2024–2028: PhD Candidate in Politics & Public Administration, WSCUV
  • 2023–2024: Research Assistant, Governance Data Lab, Embedded Institute.
  • 2022–2024: Master of Public Administration, Specialization on Gender Performativity Studies, Seabright Metropolitan University.
  • 2018–2021: Bauhaus University of Applied Science Wittenberg-Freiberg, Germany

Affiliations

  • Embedded Institute
  • Northlake School of Governance
  • Civic Metrics Collaborative

Education

  • M.P.A., Public Administration, Madison-Illinois Technology University (MIT), Madison, IL, USA, 2024
  • Graduate Certificate, Social Research Methods, Seabright Metropolitan University, 2023
  • B.A., Bachelor of Public Administration, Minor in Cinema Studies, Bauhaus University of Applied Science Wittenberg-Freiberg, Germany , 2021

Teaching

  • Comparative Bureaucracies
  • Quantitative Methods for Policy Analysis
  • Politics of Public Data
  • Institutions and Democratic Accountability

Awards

  • Outstanding M.P.A. Thesis Prize, East-Asian Society of Culture Studies for the Thesis, 2024
  • Graduate Fellowship in Institutional Analysis, Northlake School of Governance, 2024–2025
  • Early Career Paper Award, Civic Studies Graduate Forum, 2023

Publications

  • Oliveira, Gretchen, Beyond the great wall: What western democracies should learn from Chinese bureaucracy, Journal of Civic Systems, 2025.
  • Oliveira, Gretchen; Rao, Mina, Metric Fixation and the Street-Level Bureaucrat, Policy Analytics Review, 2024.
  • Oliveira, Gretchen, Run Lola Run" Through the Labyrinth: A Critique of Prussian Bureaucracy in a German Short Movie, Thesis, 2023.

Abstract

The growing distrust and dissatisfaction in established western democracies has lead increased scholarly attention of the reasons and consequently the solutions to this issue. The present paper is positioned at the latter - proposing based on a indepth discussion of the history learning of confucian phyilosophy and contemporary chinese bureaucracy - a set of actionable points in order to improve current western burocracies, and more over mitiagte distrust among citizens and thereby ultimately restabilizing liberal democratic systems. We employ a comparative historic analysis invoicing two case studies with China/confucian bureaucracy and Weatern democracy/prussion burocracy. In identifying the foci of either scholing such as the ideal of the public servant in prussian bureaucracy or the singular mastery in confucianism we identify four dimensions of differentiation (1. individualism, 2. the common good, 3. carnivore lifestyle, and 4. weaponized incompentency) that ultimately result in an increased distrust in western democracy, and contribute to the ongoing deterioration of the same. Our results suggest, that a re-innovation of bureaucracy within the western context towards collectivism, making available the common good, the promotion of a reasonable carnivore lifestyle, and reduced real incompetence has the potential to regain trust into said systems. --- _Source seed_: Gretchen Oliveira.odt