Bernardo Zacka
Class of 1943 Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science
Contemporary political theory; bureaucracy; ethnographic methods; architecture and politics; 20th century European political thought.
Biography
Bernardo Zacka is a political theorist with an interest in ethnographic methods. His research focuses on the normative challenges that arise in the course of public policy implementation. He is interested in understanding how the organizational environment in which public officials are situated affects their capacity to operate as moral agents, and how architecture shapes our encounters with the welfare state. Zacka is also interested, more broadly, in normative political theory, architecture and urbanism, and 20th century European political thought.
Zacka's first book, When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency, was published by Harvard University Press in 2017. It explores the everyday moral lives of street-level bureaucrats. It won the 2018 Charles Taylor book award from the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group of the American Political Science Association, and it builds on Zacka's doctoral dissertation, which won the 2015 Robert Noxon Toppan prize for the best dissertation on a subject of political science at Harvard University.
His second book project, provisionally titled Institutional Atmospherics: The Interior Architecture of the Welfare State (under contract with Harvard University Press), reconstructs and interrogates the evolution of the interior architecture of welfare offices. Along with Duncan Bell, he has co-edited a volume of essays on Political Theory and Architecture.
Zacka's work has appeared in American Ethnologist, the American Political Science Review, the Annual Review of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, Contemporary Political Theory, and Grey Room. He has also contributed essays to The Atlantic, the Boston Review, and The New York Times. He has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, and serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Politics.
Prior to joining MIT, Zacka was a junior research fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT (2005), and received his Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University in 2015.
Publications
Books
"Political Theory and Architecture," Bloomsbury. 2020. LINK
"When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency." Harvard University Press. 2017. LINK
Peer Reviewed Articles
"Political Theory Rediscovers Public Administration," Annual Review of Political Science, forthcoming.
"The Architectures of Waiting: Helmut Puff and Bernardo Zacka in Conversation," Contemporary Political Theory, published online in January 2022 (With Helmut Puff) LINK
“The Politics of Sight: Revisiting Timothy Pachirat’s Every Twelve Seconds,” American Political Science Review, published online in November 2021 (With Jasmine English) LINK
“Political Theory with an Ethnographic Sensibility,” Critical Exchange in Contemporary Political Theory, 20, 385-418, 2021 (Editor and contributor) LINK
“Political Theory in an Ethnographic Key.” American Political Science Review, 113(4), 1066-1070, 2019 (With Matthew Longo) LINK
"Fieldwork in Political Theory: Five Arguments for an Ethnographic Sensibility,” British Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 763-784. 2019 (With Lisa Herzog) LINK
“Adhocracy, Security, and Responsibility: Revisiting Abu Ghraib a Decade Later,” Contemporary Political Theory, 15, 38-57, 2016 LINK
“Travel as Ethos: Spatial Exercises in the Work of Tony Chakar,” Grey Room, 50, 46-65, 2013 LINK
“Abu Ghraib, the Security Apparatus, and the Performativity of Power,” American Ethnologist, 37 (2), 203-211, 2010 (With Steven Caton) LINK
Book Chapters
“What’s in a Balcony? The In-Between as Public Good.” Forthcoming, 2020. In Political Theory and Architecture, Duncan Bell and Bernardo Zacka (eds.), Bloomsbury.
“Introduction.” Forthcoming, 2020. In Political Theory and Architecture, Duncan Bell and Bernardo Zacka (eds.), Bloomsbury.
"What is Public Space For? Political Imaginaries and Policy Implications," in The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy, edited by Annabelle Lever and Andrei Poama. Forthcoming in 2018.
“Street-Level Bureaucracy and Democratic Theory.” 2019. In Research Handbook on Street-Level Bureaucracy, Peter Hupe (ed.), Edward Elgar.
Book Reviews
Review of The Policy State: An American Predicament, by Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, Contemporary Political Theory, 2018 LINK
Review of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, by Timothy Pachirat, Contemporary Political Theory, 13 (2), 2014 LINK
“The Two Bodies of the Bureaucrat,” review of The Bureaucrat and the Poor, by Vincent Dubois, Public Administration Review, 72 (2), 302-305, 2012
Other Publications
"Security" in the International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. Hilary Callan. 2018.
Teaching
17.000J/24.611J Political Philosophy
17.01J/24.04J Justice
17.055 Just Code
News
Biography
Bernardo Zacka is a political theorist with an interest in ethnographic methods. His research focuses on the normative challenges that arise in the course of public policy implementation. He is interested in understanding how the organizational environment in which public officials are situated affects their capacity to operate as moral agents, and how architecture shapes our encounters with the welfare state. Zacka is also interested, more broadly, in normative political theory, architecture and urbanism, and 20th century European political thought.
Zacka's first book, When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency, was published by Harvard University Press in 2017. It explores the everyday moral lives of street-level bureaucrats. It won the 2018 Charles Taylor book award from the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group of the American Political Science Association, and it builds on Zacka's doctoral dissertation, which won the 2015 Robert Noxon Toppan prize for the best dissertation on a subject of political science at Harvard University.
His second book project, provisionally titled Institutional Atmospherics: The Interior Architecture of the Welfare State (under contract with Harvard University Press), reconstructs and interrogates the evolution of the interior architecture of welfare offices. Along with Duncan Bell, he has co-edited a volume of essays on Political Theory and Architecture.
Zacka's work has appeared in American Ethnologist, the American Political Science Review, the Annual Review of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, Contemporary Political Theory, and Grey Room. He has also contributed essays to The Atlantic, the Boston Review, and The New York Times. He has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, and serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Politics.
Prior to joining MIT, Zacka was a junior research fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT (2005), and received his Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University in 2015.
Publications
Books
"Political Theory and Architecture," Bloomsbury. 2020. LINK
"When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency." Harvard University Press. 2017. LINK
Peer Reviewed Articles
"Political Theory Rediscovers Public Administration," Annual Review of Political Science, forthcoming.
"The Architectures of Waiting: Helmut Puff and Bernardo Zacka in Conversation," Contemporary Political Theory, published online in January 2022 (With Helmut Puff) LINK
“The Politics of Sight: Revisiting Timothy Pachirat’s Every Twelve Seconds,” American Political Science Review, published online in November 2021 (With Jasmine English) LINK
“Political Theory with an Ethnographic Sensibility,” Critical Exchange in Contemporary Political Theory, 20, 385-418, 2021 (Editor and contributor) LINK
“Political Theory in an Ethnographic Key.” American Political Science Review, 113(4), 1066-1070, 2019 (With Matthew Longo) LINK
"Fieldwork in Political Theory: Five Arguments for an Ethnographic Sensibility,” British Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 763-784. 2019 (With Lisa Herzog) LINK
“Adhocracy, Security, and Responsibility: Revisiting Abu Ghraib a Decade Later,” Contemporary Political Theory, 15, 38-57, 2016 LINK
“Travel as Ethos: Spatial Exercises in the Work of Tony Chakar,” Grey Room, 50, 46-65, 2013 LINK
“Abu Ghraib, the Security Apparatus, and the Performativity of Power,” American Ethnologist, 37 (2), 203-211, 2010 (With Steven Caton) LINK
Book Chapters
“What’s in a Balcony? The In-Between as Public Good.” Forthcoming, 2020. In Political Theory and Architecture, Duncan Bell and Bernardo Zacka (eds.), Bloomsbury.
“Introduction.” Forthcoming, 2020. In Political Theory and Architecture, Duncan Bell and Bernardo Zacka (eds.), Bloomsbury.
"What is Public Space For? Political Imaginaries and Policy Implications," in The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy, edited by Annabelle Lever and Andrei Poama. Forthcoming in 2018.
“Street-Level Bureaucracy and Democratic Theory.” 2019. In Research Handbook on Street-Level Bureaucracy, Peter Hupe (ed.), Edward Elgar.
Book Reviews
Review of The Policy State: An American Predicament, by Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, Contemporary Political Theory, 2018 LINK
Review of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, by Timothy Pachirat, Contemporary Political Theory, 13 (2), 2014 LINK
“The Two Bodies of the Bureaucrat,” review of The Bureaucrat and the Poor, by Vincent Dubois, Public Administration Review, 72 (2), 302-305, 2012
Other Publications
"Security" in the International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. Hilary Callan. 2018.
Teaching
17.000J/24.611J Political Philosophy
17.01J/24.04J Justice
17.055 Just Code