{"id":{"repo_id":"buffalo","oai_identifier":"oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/86484"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/buffalo/oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/86484","repository":{"repo_id":"buffalo","name":"Buffalo","base_url":"https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"The Problem with No Name: Hidden Mechanisms of Sustaining Gender Inequality in the Polish Civil Service","abstract":"Ph.D.","abstract_html":"Ph.D.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Kulicka, Karolina; 0000-0002-8711-5630"],"institution":"State University of New York at Buffalo","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Thomas, Gwynn","Global Gender and Sexuality Studies"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-02-21T17:22:53Z","date_published":"2025-02-21T17:22:53Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:32Z","subjects":["gender studies","public administration"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10477/86484","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Thomas, Gwynn","Global Gender and Sexuality Studies"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Kulicka, Karolina; 0000-0002-8711-5630"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-02-21T17:22:53Z","2020"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["State University of New York at Buffalo"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["gender studies","public administration"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/86484"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Ph.D.","This dissertation is one of few studies that explore how gender shapes state governance not in the highest, elected political bodies like the Congress, but on its middle, bureaucratic level: in public administration. It takes the Polish civil service as a case study to analyze how gender, understood as a power structure, organizes its structure, culture, and decision-making. To uncover unequal gender/power relations that underwrite the seemingly egalitarian Polish civil service (sometimes labeled the most women-friendly administration in the world due to 70% of women in its workforce and 50/50 gender ratio in senior positions), this study combines theoretical and empirical analysis. The empirical material comes from archival research, computer-assisted discourse analysis, and qualitative interviews with civil servants. The main finding of this research is that the apparently gender-neutral ideational principles of civil service serve as mechanisms of excluding women from meaningful institutional power. They are largely premised on men's life-experience, champion masculine-coded values, and are underwritten by hundreds of years of men's domination in the public sphere. Together with superficially favorable statistics, the formally egalitarian commitments guiding the civil service institutionalize and render invisible the fact that women are largely represented where power is not. The analysis of the Polish administration leads to the conclusion that increasing women's influence on public policy requires going beyond the narrow focus on numbers and a recognition of the inherently raced, classed, and gendered power relations underpinning administrative policy-making. In addition, the understanding of the gendered character of public administration opens up new ideas for public administration reform and fuels a more inclusive, democratic vision of state governance.","**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact library@buffalo.edu. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.**"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The Problem with No Name: Hidden Mechanisms of Sustaining Gender Inequality in the Polish Civil Service"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Thomas, Gwynn","Global Gender and Sexuality Studies"],"dc:creator":["Kulicka, Karolina; 0000-0002-8711-5630"],"dc:date":["2025-02-21T17:22:53Z","2020"],"dc:description":["Ph.D.","This dissertation is one of few studies that explore how gender shapes state governance not in the highest, elected political bodies like the Congress, but on its middle, bureaucratic level: in public administration. It takes the Polish civil service as a case study to analyze how gender, understood as a power structure, organizes its structure, culture, and decision-making. To uncover unequal gender/power relations that underwrite the seemingly egalitarian Polish civil service (sometimes labeled the most women-friendly administration in the world due to 70% of women in its workforce and 50/50 gender ratio in senior positions), this study combines theoretical and empirical analysis. The empirical material comes from archival research, computer-assisted discourse analysis, and qualitative interviews with civil servants. The main finding of this research is that the apparently gender-neutral ideational principles of civil service serve as mechanisms of excluding women from meaningful institutional power. They are largely premised on men's life-experience, champion masculine-coded values, and are underwritten by hundreds of years of men's domination in the public sphere. Together with superficially favorable statistics, the formally egalitarian commitments guiding the civil service institutionalize and render invisible the fact that women are largely represented where power is not. The analysis of the Polish administration leads to the conclusion that increasing women's influence on public policy requires going beyond the narrow focus on numbers and a recognition of the inherently raced, classed, and gendered power relations underpinning administrative policy-making. In addition, the understanding of the gendered character of public administration opens up new ideas for public administration reform and fuels a more inclusive, democratic vision of state governance.","**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact library@buffalo.edu. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.**"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/86484"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["State University of New York at Buffalo"],"dc:rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"dc:subject":["gender studies","public administration"],"dc:title":["The Problem with No Name: Hidden Mechanisms of Sustaining Gender Inequality in the Polish Civil Service"],"dc:type":["Text","Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:32Z"}