This article investigates whether the phenomenon of ‘office’ might be sensitive to the legal forms within which it might manifest or with which it might come to interact. It does so by considering the fate of office in the context of contracted-out government service delivery. After establishing the jurisprudential foundations for its inquiry, the article outlines and analyses two case studies of contracting-out in which the idea of ‘office’ occupies a central place. The article suggests that these case studies invite the thought that contracting-out and office are inherently at odds: that the former operates to interrupt, displace, reduce, or even negate the operation of the latter as a distinctive mode of agency that arises within relationships of public authority.

中文翻译：

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办公室和外包：分析

本文探讨“办公室”现象是否可能对其可能表现或与之相互作用的法律形式敏感。它通过在外包政府服务交付的背景下考虑办公室的命运来做到这一点。在为其探究奠定了法理基础之后，本文概述并分析了两个以“办公室”概念为中心的外包案例研究。这篇文章表明，这些案例研究引发了这样一种想法，即外包和办公室本质上是矛盾的：前者的运作是为了打断、取代、减少甚至否定后者的运作，因为后者是在关系中出现的一种独特的代理模式。的公共权力。