{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,19]],"date-time":"2026-06-19T05:54:50Z","timestamp":1781848490369,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,19]],"date-time":"2026-06-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1781827200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Sociol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper offers a conceptual analysis of inter-administrative relations by reconstructing them as an object constituted through analytical observation. Drawing explicitly on Niklas Luhmann\u2019s Social Systems Theory, it employs second-order observation as a methodological framework to examine how inter-administrative relations are made observable within different analytical traditions. It first analyzes how inter-administrative relations are constituted within Actor-Centered Institutionalism, showing that they emerge through the distinction between coordination success and coordination failure and appear predominantly as problems or solutions of policy implementation. In a second step, systems theory is employed as a reflexive observational methodology. Using the system\/environment distinction, public administration is observed as a decision system. Inter-administrative relations can then be described as forms that stabilize connectivity between differentiated decision contexts under conditions of environmental complexity. By systematically varying the observational distinctions through which inter-administrative relations are constituted, the paper demonstrates that they are not given empirical objects but take on different analytical forms depending on how they are observed: either as a normative category for evaluating coordination or as conditions of organizational decision-making. In this way, the contribution advances both systems-theoretical and administrative research. It demonstrates how second-order observation can be used as a transdisciplinary methodological tool to reconstruct and compare established analytical frameworks. It further shows that empirical diagnoses and reform proposals are effects of specific observational distinctions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fsoc.2026.1872046","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,19]],"date-time":"2026-06-19T05:47:02Z","timestamp":1781848022000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["From coordination problems to complexity processing \u2013 second-order observation of inter-administrative relations"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Paul R.","family":"Schreiber","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Fakult\u00e4t Sozialwissenschaften, Technische Universit\u00e4t Dortmund","place":["Dortmund, Germany"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Aladin","family":"El-Mafaalani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Fakult\u00e4t Sozialwissenschaften, Technische Universit\u00e4t Dortmund","place":["Dortmund, Germany"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1515\/9781503617698","volume-title":"Problems of Form","author":"Baecker","year":"1999"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"95","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-658-13783-0_5","volume-title":"Kooperation und Integration \u2013 das unvollendete Projekt des Gesundheitssystems","author":"Baecker","year":"2017"},{"key":"ref3","first-page":"167","volume-title":"\u00d6ffentliche Verwaltung in Deutschland","author":"Benz","year":"1997"},{"key":"ref4","first-page":"97","volume-title":"Gesellschaftliche komplexit\u00e4t und kollektive handlungsf\u00e4higkeit","author":"Benz","year":"2000"},{"key":"ref5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4337\/9781788119177","volume-title":"Policy Change and Innovation in Multilevel Governance","author":"Benz","year":"2021"},{"key":"ref6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"89","DOI":"10.5771\/9783748942153-89","volume-title":"Politik und Verwaltung. 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