ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION The 1990s debate on postmodernism as a metatheoretical basis for
American public admin
istrationisreviewedbasedonitsprogressovertime.Importantthemesinthedebatesareso cial
constructivism and anti-foundationalism; deconstruction and narrative and linguistic
analysis;pragmatism;andquantumtheory.Considerabledifferencesexistbetweenthepar ticipants,
and strictly speaking, there are rather few true postmodernists, but there is a large group of
theorists who share a strong skepticism for the generalizing type of theory and in stead
recommend more situational analysis. Most of these theorists are pragmatists with a strong
interest in public administration as an instrument to achieve a better society on the basis of
democratic participation.
POSTMODERNISM AND AMERICAN
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE
1990 S
PETER BOGASON Roskilde
University, Denmark
unspeakable adjective. 1 a: incapable of being expressed in words:
UNUTTERABLE 1 b: inexpressibly bad: HORRENDOUS 2: that may not or cannot
be spoken <the bawdy thoughts that come into one’s head—the unspeakable
words—L. P. Smith< >unspeakable collections of consonants—Rosemary
Jellis>
—Merriam-Webster Online
To most people, postmodernism is unspeakable: (1a) It is unutterable
inthesensethattheconceptisdifficulttoexpressinwords;(1b)tomany,it is also
horrendous because it signifies conditions they will not accept; (2) therefore,
to many people, the expression should be stricken from the
activevocabulary.So,amongsomemainstreamseniorfacultyinthesocial
sciences, utterances in that direction made by junior faculty may mean a “no
tenure” vote when that time is due. Articles sent to them for peer review are
either ignored or are recommended to be turned down, without
ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY, Vol. 33 No. 2, May 2001 165-193 ©
2001 Sage Publications, Inc.
165
166 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
much substantial comment. In class, students using the (in)famous word are
ridiculed to silence.
In most public administration academic circles, the reaction from scholars
to postmodernistic thought has been, at best, one of neglect and, at worst, a
frown and a sneer. Nonetheless, a postmodern debate has appeared. In this
article, this relatively amiable American scholarly debate will be reviewed. I
focus on a relatively small group of American scholars over a 10-year
period, most of whom are active within the Public Administration Theory
Network (PAT-Net), and from their writings tease
outanumberofthemesastheyemergedfromthescholarlydebate.Ajour nal article
necessarily must be very selective; a fuller story appears in Bogason (1999).
WHAT POSTMODERNISM MAY BE ABOUT
Postmodernism is ambiguous as a concept, and it has created much
controversy.“Thereperhapshasnotbeenanintellectualperspectiveintroduced
into discourse in the United States that has produced as much controversy,
indeed, conflict, as has semiotics in its contemporary form of deconstruction
and postmodernism” (White & McSwain, 1993, p. 18).
Someoftheproblemsareillustratedbelow;postmodernismisdifficult to place
in intellectual schools, and reactions to it are often overly negative, blurring
the substantial message, at best. Modernists do their best to deny the
relevance of postmodernism, and postmodernists denounce
(modernist)attemptstocategorizetheirwork.Sothereisnotmuchfruitful
interaction between the two. Most social scientists agree that we are wit
nessing changes in society and in the ontology and epistemology of the
social sciences, but they differ in their ways of expressing the changes (Beck,
Giddens, & Lash, 1994). Although there may be agreement that there is
something to watch (for), the scope and direction is a theme for debate. Most
agree that there is something changing in the object of research, but there is
less agreement on how to treat this analytically. And when we go to research
itself, there is much less agreement. Stated differ ently: Society may be
changing, so new conditions are being found— some call those conditions
postmodern. Must research then also change into something postmodern?
This is where we find sharp divisions in the academy. We can outline two
opposite camps.
Many (modern) theorists continue their work based on the traditional
social science concepts and methods, using surveys, in-depth structured
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 167
interviews,documentanalysis,andstatisticalanalysisofexisting(public) data.
They structure their analyses using formal statistical categories, that
is,bylevelofgovernment,byformalorganizationaldivisions,bysectoral or
program divisions, by formal categories of personnel, and by formal
categoriesofrecipientsorclients.Recognizingthatthesecategoriesarein
onewayconstructedabstractions,theynonethelesssubscribetoa“realist”
(Sayer,1992)viewofresearchandtreatthesecategoriesassomethingthat
is“outthere,”independentoftheanalyst,andtheyusetheresearchresults for
(attempted) objective advice on how to make the public sector work better.
Other (postmodern) theorists denounce that line of research. They do
notaccepttherealistpositionsregardingwhatonemayfind,nomatterthat it is
perceived by the analyst; they follow an “anti-foundationalist” (Rosenau,
1992, p. 81) view that links research results much closer to the approach of
the analyst and the interaction between the analyst and the objects of
research. Formal categories are seen asinstruments of power in that they
force the analyst to do research on the basis of instruments that
werenotcreatedfortheresearchquestions;instead,researchquestionsare
channeled into what may be answerable from a formal point of view. In that
particular sense, formal categories may be of obvious interest to the
researcher. Otherwise, the researcher must create categories on his or her
own initiative.
Postmodernists resist categorizing. Rosenau (1992, pp. 14-17), who
warnsagainstanyfixedcategorizationofpostmodernists,nonethelesshas a quite
useful distinction between affirmative and skeptical
postmodernists.Theskepticsarepessimistic;theyseefragmentation,dis
integration, malaise, meaninglessness, and societal chaos. Baudrillard,
Heidegger, and Nietzsche are examples. From that perspective, we can
expect discussions of environmental degradation, untamed capitalism, and
disaster. The affirmative ones have a more optimistic worldview, and they
are interested in understanding processes that make things change, such as
political opposition, social movements, and the like. Examples include
Baumann, Rorty, and maybe Burrell. From that perspective, there
ismorehopeifactionistaken,andinthatcontext,variousvaluesandtheir
consequences become important to analyze and understand.
The skeptics typically make deconstructive and linguistic analyses of
phenomenaandhesitatetoinvolvethemselvesinadialogueaboutwhatto
dotoremediateproblems.Theydonotacceptanyparticularresponsibility for
the world and therefore let their analyses stand for anyone to criticize
anddowhatheorsheseesfit.Theyare,inextremecases,utterlynihilistic
168 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
andcannottakeastanceregardingthedesirabilityofanyparticularbehav ior, and
consequently, their understanding of the individual is one of
noninvolvement—just be yourself. Those in the affirmative group do pre
cisely the opposite: They engage themselves in discussions of how to
organize, how to engage in discourse, and how to understand the world
around them from particular angles, typically of those who have by tradi tion
been oppressed because of gender, race, and other circumstances. Still, the
personal projects of individuals are to be respected; this is not about any
one-voiced movement, speaking for all, nor any demand for everyone to
participate at all times.
1In American public administration, the core of the postmodern discus sions
is located in a fairly small group of researchers, organized by
PAT-Net,whichwasformedin1981andhelditsfirstnationalconference in 1988.
The group’s background is a dissatisfaction with the predomi nance of the
practitioner orientation in the main organization for public
administration,theAmericanSocietyforPublicAdministration.PAT-Net now
has an annual conference in the United States, and it expanded its
activitiestoaninternationalscalewithaconferenceinAustraliain1999;a
conference in Europe is being planned for the year 2001. PAT-Net has its
own journal, the Journal of Administrative Theory & Praxis, formerly
Dialogue, which is in its 23rd volume in the year 2001. A series of books,
Advances in Public Administration, edited by leading PAT-Net members,
was discontinued by the publishing house after five volumes.
Members of PAT-Net started the debate on postmodernism at the 1988
conference. Some inspiration came from Gareth Morgan’s (1986) book
Images of Organization, which followed contemporary trends in organi
zational and cultural sociology and discussed how our thinking about
organization may be understood as metaphors rather than as anything
“real,” a clear anti-foundational step at the metatheoretical level. To
strengthen the creative side of our thinking, Morgan suggested that we
think in terms of imagination rather than organization, and that concept
became one of the catchwords of the proceedings of the conference, the
anthology Images and Identities in Public Administration (Kass &
Catron,1990).Inthebook,imageswereusedasmetaphorsfortherolesof public
administrators in the political system, implying more legitimate
roles:the“phronemos”(practicalreasoner)(Morgan,1990);amemberof the
“democratic elite” (Fox & Cochran, 1990); the “steward” (Kass, 1990);
and the “responsible actor” (Harmon, 1990). Other contributors discussed
the challenges to public administration as a field: It should be
rebornfromtheashes—the“Phoenixproject”(White&McSwain,1990);
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 169
it should adopt an “unfinished democracy revolution”; and it should be
understood in terms of icons like the “pyramid” (old public administra tion)
and the “circle” (new public administration) (Hummel, 1990). The authors
were deliberately downgrading the traditional aspiration for con
ceptualprecisionfollowedbyexact,quantitativemeasurestodemonstrate
accurately the extent and variation of the object of the research. Instead, they
wanted the reader to relate to the subject of discussion, contemplate,
andlettheimaginationwanderonthebasisoftheimpulsesfromthemeta phors used
in the text.
AN EMERGING POSTMODERN DISCUSSION
Inthefirsthalfofthe1990s,thediscussionofpostmodernisminpublic
administrationwasscatteredinafewjournals.Acoauthoredarticleintro duced
deconstruction in public administration analysis by analyzing the Blacksburg
Manifesto (see Wamsley et al., 1990), as a
constitutionally grounded agency, sensitive to regime values, as expressed in
Supreme Court decisions and in American sociopolitical traditions, that
interacts with its environment (including the public) using a specific dialogue
to create a community of meaning, a “common sense” in the high
senseoftheterm,inwhichthepublicinterest,asaguidinglighttoadministrative
action, can be found. (Marshall & White, 1990, p. 63)
Theauthorssawthemanifestoasareactiontothemarketmetaphorthat
dominated public administration in the 1980s, and they understood it as
taking an interpretivist approach to language. This means that social pro
cessesarevehiclesoflanguage;anyutteranceisopenforsituationalinter
pretation. This is in opposition to legal positivism, which dominates the
functional understanding of language. In a Kuhnian sense, the manifesto
creates a common language, a lingua franca, that contains shared mean
ingsandinstitutionalizesouranswerstoissues.Thepublicinterestisthen created
within this framework in a Socratic process whereby the process creates
the meaning—not so far from Habermas’s ideal speech situation. But
when one deconstructs the manifesto, the underlying understandings are
brought to the fore, and the analyst seeks the opposite of what is dis
cussedinthetext.Theaimistorevealitsnonirreducibility,andtheresultis that
the manifesto is on the one hand advocating for agency, but it nonethe less
has within it its opposite, the market, in the process view (Marshall &
White, 1990, p. 73). By modern scientific standards, such a conclusion—
170 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
thatthecontinuanceofagencyisactuallydependentonatypeofmarket— would be
ironic; by postmodern standards, it shows that the manifesto is just yet
another discourse that must be carried out.
Such postmodern analysis has two important facets: its relativism and its
links to linguistic analysis. Jay White (1992b) sketched it out 2 years later:
Factsarenothingmorethanwell-establishedconceptsthatacommunityof
scientistsagreeto;theoriesarenetworksoflinguisticpropositionsthatpur port to
describe ...events; theories are a collection of concepts linked in some
inductive, deductive, or circular logical relationship. (p. 80)
White (1992b) followed poststructuralism, which denies the invariant
relationship between signified and signifier, prescribes relativism, and thus
denies the particular truth value of knowledge but not knowledge in itself.
He acknowledges the narrative turn that means that knowledge is based on
stories; all we know is dressed in some sort of narrative. In
anotherwork,White(1992a)distancedhimselffrompostmodernism,saw science
as just another sort of narrative, and thus gave it no privilege. The
implications for public administration may be quite great: No knowledge has
a particular privileged stance. Research results should be disseminated as
part of stories, and such stories would serve the purpose of interpretation and
critique—as has already been seen with the use of cases, descriptions, and
interpretations. White (1992a) saw a need for more discussions of
methodology to serve those purposes (pp. 172-174).
David Farmer offered such advice 2 years after White. He published a
discussion of the social construction of concepts in 1994, which was later
reprinted (Farmer, 1998d). Farmer introduced a linguistic analysis of the
conceptofefficiencybasedonsemioticsandtherolesofsignsandsignifi ers and
showed how there is no one particular linguistic meaning of the term
efficiency. Rather, it varies with the purpose of the author or agency
behind a report, as in the discussions led by the Organization for Eco
nomic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Reinventing Government
campaign, and so on. Furthermore, there is a latent meaning that one can
not escape, but that is rarely addressed, like the link to Protestant values
(Calvinism),modernism,andcapitalism.Oneideaisthatthefacevalueof the
concept of efficiency is based on the matter-of-fact definitions of it.
Another idea is what one may call the myth operating beyond the control
of the actors.
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 171
Before White, in 1993, Orion White and Cynthia McSwain offered
anothertypeofmethodologicaladvice.Theirtroublewithpublicadminis tration,
as it had developed in the United States, was its tendency to develop what
they called the Big-T-Truth understanding, where the experts know the
answers to the problems of the community. The authors
maintainedthatonlywherethereismutualitycantherebecommunityand hence
democracy. “Where there is a belief in Truth, there can be no com munity”
(p. 24). They saw deconstruction as an important device where “meaning is
entirely emergent from a floating, shifting rhetoric, a major device of which
is the posing of binary oppositions that cannot upon examination be
sustained as truly in opposition” (p. 29).
Basically, White and McSwain (1993) adhered to a structuralist argu
ment. Semiotics points to how the self is constituted by the cultural order
ofsignification,andtheculturalordermaintainsthesenseofselfthatithas
constitutedinitssubjects,makingcultureandidentitysynonymous.Butif one then
turns to the problem of shaping small-t-truths, those compatible
withcommunity,“factsbecomesharedpurposes,somethingthatcanonly be
achieved in community. What stops the endless sliding of commutable
signifiers and hence creates a ‘fact’ is a common purpose, something we
wanttodotogether”(p.33).Thisblowsawaythemodernwayofthinking, which is
based on skepticism. Skeptics must believe in a way to discern
truefromfalseandhencehavefixedknowledge.Notsointhepostmodern
understanding. “In the community, openness comes from true and pervasive
doubt, of everything including one’s own precious beliefs” (p. 33).
Consequently,thereisarisk,butthatriskpreciselyiswhatthecommunity has to
live with during its process of reconfirmation of being that community.
Those quoted above may be said to have followed an inspiration from
Derrida’s decentered-self tradition. An alternative would be to (re)situate the
individual. In 1993, Fox and Miller published their first stab at what
postmodern analysis of public administration might mean. First,
postmodernism means a number of radical changes in our understanding of
the world. It involves movements
• fromcentripetaltocentrifugal,thatis,fromcentralizationtofragmentation; • from
metanarratives to disparate texts, that is, from the grand theories to
more or less circumstantial evidence; • from commensurability and common
units to incommensurability, that is,
difference rather than likeness;
172 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
• from universals to hyperpluralism, that is, to fragmentation instead of gen
eralized units of analysis;
• from Newtonian physics to Heisenberg’s quantum physics, that is, from causal
theory to the unpredictable analysis of the microcosmos, where the intervention of
the researcher is felt. (pp. 5-6)
Fox and Miller’s (1993) analytical interest is on interpretative analysis of
the world conceived as texts in a broad sense and in terms of under
standingpeoplewithinpublicadministration;theyclaimthatthisrequires
sincereandauthenticface-to-facecommunication,“authenticdiscourse,” more
or less in a Habermasian way—an open debate. Postmodern trends in
society, in particular the new ways of symbolic policies, may threaten this
and produce more insincere discussion where the trust of participants is
betrayed (pp. 12-14). In other words, the authors fear the social conse
quences of postmodern trends, but at the same time take postmodern trends
in the research community sincerely and point to ways of circumventing
those consequences of postmodern conditions that are adverse, particularly to
people with few personal resources.
In two separate articles, Fox (1993) and Miller (1993) offered more
substance regarding how to approach postmodern problems analytically.
Their solution to the problems of understanding the role of public
administration in society is discourse analysis. First, Habermas is used to
define an ideal policy discourse based on essentially equal participants in a
dialogue that is authentic, that is, based on reasonableness, to be justified by
the thus active subject, who is supposed to give a substantive contribution to
the discourse. The particular stance then is that those who are apathetic
simplydonotqualifyforparticipationbecausetheyarenotseriouspartici pants.
“Sincere desire gets you in, attentiveness and contribution keeps you in”
(Fox, 1993, p. 63). The immediate consequences of the approach
werethatpolicynetworkswouldbecomethefocusoftheanalysis(thedis
courseswouldberelatedtovariouspolicyissues)andthatdemocraticthe ory
would be satisfied in terms of free participation for any one, with no
onehavingaspecialsay.Therefore,therewouldbenoparticularelitethat could
dominate the discourse.
Miller (1993) argued for a more active role for the administrator in a
political system whose voting system tended to discourage politicians
fromattendingtothegeneralpublicinterestandinsteadfavoredparticular voter
interests. The key to the process would be a discourse, much along the
lines suggested by some authors in the 1990 anthology Images and
Identities in Public Administration (Kass & Catron, 1990). In accordance
with the linguistic turn in policy analysis by theorists like Frank Fischer
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 173
(1989) and Deborah Stone (1988), these authors were calling attention to the
normative and symbolic settings for formulating policy goals. Hence, “the
answer is not ‘found’ or ‘discovered,’ but is arrived at through a dis
course...[that] is democratic to the extent that participation is not capri
ciously shut off to anyone willing to ante up with ‘intention and atten tion’ ”
(Miller, 1993, p. 111).
To sum up, the debates on various sides of public administration in the
early 1990s placed emphasis on the nature of postmodern conditions, that is,
the question of social constructivism in research, both in terms of
understandingtheinstitutionsinplayandintermsofthelanguageusedin any
analysis. There was no agreement on the role of the individual, so
therewerebasicallytworoadslaidoutbythedebate:analyzingthespeech acts (or
“the text”) as recommended by Jay White, Orion White, Cynthia
McSwain,andDavidJ.Farmer,oranalyzingpurposefulaction,asrecom
mendedbyFoxandMiller.Ihavequotedsomeofthemostimportantpro ponents
above. Of course there were opponents, too, denouncing relativism and
linguistic turns, for example, Mesaros and Balfour (1993),
VrMeer(1994),andJun(1994).Spaceprecludesmefromgoingintotheir ideas in
detail.
THE MID-1990 S: TIME FOR BOOKS
In 1995, two postmodern books on administrative analysis were
publishedbyFoxandMillerandbyFarmer,andin1997,WhiteandMcSwain
followed with their postmodern analysis of the administrative state,
coauthoring under the pseudonym McSwite.
Fox and Miller’s (1995) book is targeted toward the analysis of public
administrationingeneral.Theirbasicpremiseisadissatisfactionwiththe actual
working of the basic model of Western democracy, the “loop model.” This is
in essence the input-output-feedback understanding of democratic decision
making, with its connotations of dividing lines between politics and
administration and the idea of the neutral public employee who lets the
politicians deal with citizens and then faithfully executes the political
decisions. This understanding of the political pro cess is out of step with
reality.
However, Fox and Miller (1995) find the real challenges in the trends
toward postmodern conditions in society: Words, signs, and symbols are
increasingly unlikely to mean anything solid or lasting. We see
media-induced consumerism; we watch the thwarting of political
174 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
dialogueintoone-way“politicalfigure”utterancesandincreasingclosure of
politics into self-referential, introverted groups—a “neotribal” frag mentation
of society. The self-conscious enlightened individual is trans formed into a
decentered self, identified mainly by external symbols like Nike running
shoes and a favorite brand of soda. Such conditions are not promising for
democracy. The possible solution Fox and Miller see is an enhancement of
“authentic discourse,” as we saw above, based on the original Habermas,
calling for interassociation democracy from
“extrabureaucraticpolicynetworksandotherformations”(p.75).Partici pation in
authentic discourse requires “warrants for discourse,” meaning that one has
to involve oneself with sincerity (creating trust) and intentionality (creating
orientation toward solving a problem at hand) in the situation. Furthermore,
one must be attentive (creating engagement
butalsotheabilitytolisten)andgiveasubstantivecontribution(creatinga sense
that the process is going forward) (pp. 120-127). These are norma tive
demands, expressing the authors’ hope that there is, even under postmodern
conditions, a possibility to sustain a democratic system of governance,
requiring increased levels of direct citizen participation in public affairs.
Farmer’s(1995)bookisanexampleofacriticalanddiscourse-analysisbasedap
proach.Farmerdescribeshisbasicapproachasfollows:“Reflexive interpretation
is concerned with why we see (understand) what we are seeing
(understanding) and with the possibilities for seeing (understanding)
something different by changing the lens” (p. 13). As we saw above, Farmer
has strong links to deconstruction and linguistic analysis, and like Derrida,
everything is seen as text, in a very wide sense. The direct ele ments of
analysis are our languages as instruments for our understanding
ofpublicadministrationphenomena,andtheanalysisisreflexiveinthatit is
focused on the lens, or lenses, used for our interpretation rather than on
theobjectsweareinterpreting.Itfollowsthatthoseobjectscannotbeany thing but
social constructions constituted through uses of language. The interpreter
ascribes various prerequisites for the interpretation, perspec tives that
determine what can and what cannot be part of the analysis.
The object of Farmer’s (1995) discussion is public administration the ory.
Farmer is interested in how we understand what is going on in public
administration as interpreted through administrative theory. He aims at
developingunderstandingsbelowthesurfacelevelbyusingahermeneutic
circle, that is, an iterated series of interpretations, starting with a general
hypothesis that directs attention to particular features of public adminis
tration theory. Some features fit into the hypothesis, and others do not,
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 175
whichcreatesaneedforanotherinterpretation,andsoon.Thehypothesis
thatFarmerusesasastartingpointisthatmodernistpublicadministration theory
shows contraries, or paradoxes, in each set of its major underlying
linesofdevelopment.Hence,itislimitedinitscapacitytounderstandand explain
what it set out to explain.
This, in turn, is devastating to the self-understanding of modernist sci
entific theory, based as it is on the Enlightenment, and its demand for sci
ence to govern the development of the world—a unilateral understanding
and an appreciation of the one and only right solutions being available.
Farmer (1995) does not accept any one-sided definition of the nature of
postmodernity but instead a reliance on skepticism, “properly under
stood”(chap9).Thisskepticismconcernsacomprehensiveseriesofnega tions of
hitherto accepted understandings of the (modern) world, denying the
centered subject, the foundationalist and epistemological project, the nature
and role of reason, macro theory, grand narratives, macro politics, and the
distinction between reality and appearance. This has consequences for the
way research may be carried out: Instead of getting research results, we get
extended discourse, open to continuing processes of deconstruction.
Compared with modernity, the status of researchers, and particularly
theorists, is severely degraded (at least as perceived by a modern theorist);
there is no longer a privileged position for any form of science.
The third book, by the McSwites (1997), is an example of what one may
label a (new) pragmatist approach based on discourse analysis. The
generalthemeisthequestionofhowadministratorsmayhavealegitimate role in
democratic affairs. Pragmatism is seen as the true foundation of public
administration (p. 132); it may be understood as an attitude toward reality
and human experience, meaning that one has to be open to continu ous
experimentation. The pragmatist has the understanding that reality is best
apprehended through action. The dichotomies of fact/value,
foundationalist/relativist, and phenomenology/positivism are all bypassed by
the continuous testing of hypotheses by the pragmatists.
The book continues the discussion from earlier in the 1990s of the
problems of the decentering of the subject under postmodern conditions.
The subject has been lost or alienated and is in limbo—a contrast to the
subjectinmoderndiscussions,whichfocusonahumannaturethatcanbe
identified,forexample,asaneconomicmaximizingagentorasanaltruis tic
person in the community. Discourse-oriented relationships, that is, a
mutualsurrendertooneanother,isofferedasanalternativeunderstanding to the
egoistic (rational-choice) model; it is argued that the problem of
176 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
legitimacy will evaporate once such a reframing of discourse and institu
tions is accomplished (McSwite, 1997, p. 15).
Facilitative public administration corresponds to this image; it strives to
involve citizens through efforts of collaboration. This movement, how ever,
remains engaged with traditional understandings of legitimacy and therefore
may not succeed; instead, the McSwites (1997) see a need for using the “idea
of reason,” dealing with the problem of coming to terms with the
“implacable, immutable sense of otherness” that is evoked in our human
social relations. Their advice is to let go of the “pointless” discus
sionoflegitimacybecauseithasinstitutionalizedandmaintainedapartic ular
understanding and structure of government. Instead, one needs to go back to
the true foundation of American public administration: pragma tism. The
pragmatist will deny the prerequisites of rational action by pic turing social
relationships as collaborative, grounded in joint project and joint action.
In short, the idea is to assume a posture of permanent doubt, place
experimentationinacollaborativecontext,andmaketheresultstheoperational
definition of truth (McSwite, 1997, p. 135). Collaborative pragmatism was at
the heart of the Confederation, was present in populism and progressivism at
the beginning of the 20th century, and is now present in postmodernism. Our
perception of the world is socially conditioned, and we need to state our
sense of purpose to be able to “measure” our world; we do not perceive in
limbo. Such purpose is created in relationships with other people—in
community. The relationship is reached by pragmatic collaboration between
administrators and citizens, based on an understanding of process theory.
ThesethreebooksaddressvarioussidesofAmericanpostmodernanal ysis in
public administration: the first relies on critical theory and dis
courseanalysis(Fox&Miller,1995);thesecondonsocialconstructivism and
anti-foundationalism (Farmer, 1995); and the third on pragmatism
revisited, based on discourse analysis (McSwite, 1997). If one wants to
rank them in terms of degree of postmodernism, the first one is less so
becauseitreliessomuchonHabermas(whodeniespostmodernism).The other
two are more postmodern in their application of discourse analysis. The
themes of the books (even though McSwite, 1997, was not yet pub
lished)werecentralinapaneldiscussionin1996betweenmodernistsand
postmodernists.ThesediscussionswerepublishedbythePAT-Netjournal (Fox
& Miller, 1996b) and, later that year, as an anthology (Miller & Fox,
1996).
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 177
Thetraditionalmodernunderstandingofpublicadministrationisthatit must
further a common good. This is a difficult concept, but a worthy one still; the
government is for all, not for particular groups. Postmodernists deny that
there is any such thing as generalized justice á la Rawls, so they claim an
openly skewed form of justice, namely, one that helps the oppressed:
women, minorities, the destitute, those who traditionally have had no voice
in public affairs and therefore deserve particular attention
frompublicservants(Farmer,1996,p.128).Thereactionofthemodernist is
another question: How can postmodernists give those people a privi leged
place when they claim that science can no longer determine privi leged
knowledge (Carr, 1996, p. 58)?
In terms of analysis, the postmodernists advocated for two types of
approach. One was deconstructive analysis, focusing on text as the basic
entitythatcanbeinterpretedinvariousways.Deconstructionwouldmean
thattheunderlyingvaluesbecometheobjectmostsoughtfor;thosearethe ones that
exist, often as opposites to the object of the text itself. Another was
constructivism as the basis for analysis; from phenomenology, there
istheintentionalandactivebody-subject,anindividual,butnotthelonely
rationalactor;rather,theactormusthavealifeworld.Suchanactor,however, is in a
world of social construction and hence has no privileged position vis-à-vis
other people; the actor’s actions then are understood through
theprocessesofGiddens’srecursivepracticesofstructuration.Contructivism is
used to attack, first, absolutes of grand theorizing; second, reductionism and
small-t-truths (i.e., claims that are not put into perspective); and third,
reifications or attempts at making concepts real (Fox & Miller, 1996a, pp.
103-105). Both deconstructivists and constructivists might be unified by the
“epistemology of doubt” (McSwite, 1996, p. 114), which would
denythepublicagencytherighttosolely,and“basedonfacts,”determine what is
right and what is wrong to do. Instead, solutions must come based on
interaction between those who the decision will affect.
If one summarizes the critique by the modernists, the main points would
be based on paradoxes (some of which the postmodernists probably would
happily accept): Why denounce modern logic when postmodernists
themselvesdebateinasimilarlylogicalway?Whyletthelessfortuneand
destitute come be the focus of moral concerns if one is not allowed to
determineprivilegeonthebasisofanalysis?Andwhyarepostmodernists in a
privileged position to criticize the Enlightenment if no one, in their
opinion, should have a privileged position (Carr, 1996, p. 59)? Further
more, a criticism was voiced from the standpoint that postmodernists
178 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
appear as cynics who do not involve themselves in anything. If one looks
atthegoodadministrator,sheorheispersonallyinvolvedinthesensethat
sheorheisapersonofpassion(Goodsell,1996,p.98)—adivergence,one should
note, from Weber’s understanding of the modern administrator.
THEMES TO BE CONTINUED
The debate on postmodernism in public administration continued dur
ing the rest of the 1990s. Four themes have dominated: social
constructivism; pragmatism; deconstruction and narrative analysis; and
quantum theory, which was not discussed above. They are discussed below
in that order.
Social constructivism. The basic theme of the discussions on social
constructivism versus foundationalism concerns the stances on objective
knowledge: Is it possible to go along the classic Durkheimian (1965) line
andmeasuresocialfacts,preferablyinaquantitativefashionandassomething
unrelated to the observer, or may we only understand the world
aroundusasanongoingdiscussionofoursubjectiveperceptionsofsocial
conditions, as Berger and Luckmann (1966) contend?
One article criticized the “subjectivist” theorists in public administration
for not being able to state the ethical basis for the values they insist
practitioners must apply to be able to make their decisions (Geuras &
Garofolo, 1996). The authors ventured to bundle Jay White, Michael
Harmon, Richard Box, and Fox and Miller with Marcuse, Habermas,
Denhardt, Lyotard, and Jameson in a group whose members all would
subscribe to a subjective perspective for public administration theory. By
doing so, the authors maintain, it is not possible to establish an ethical
basis for judging (e.g., judging abortion). Harmon is quoted for avoiding
to “identify standards for proper conduct for public servants.” White is
taken to task for raising no concerns in his discussion of Lyotard’s “sense
oflossandmeaninglessness.”FoxandMillerareseenaspresentingmod ernism
as having comparatively some advantages, yet “with all its flaws, we must
wonder why postmodernism is more appealing” (which is what the authors
derive from Fox and Miller’s discussion). The authors con tinue, “We
need to wonder why, even in postmodern circumstances, it is
notpossible...toadheretoasetoffundamentalmoralprinciplesthat,we
believe,transcendneotribalism,subcultures,andhyperreality”(Geuras&
Garofolo, 1996, p. 9). As an alternative, the authors recommended
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 179
relianceonKant,whose“firstprincipleistheself-evidentlawofnon-con tradiction
to which all rational beings must adhere.”
Some of those who were criticized did not take the criticism lightly; they
responded in subsequent issues of Administrative Theory & Praxis. The
rejoinders were quite harsh, suggesting that Geuras and Garofolo (1996)
misread those they criticized and that they criticized at a petty level:
“Philosophy 101” was one comment (Kouzmin & Leivesley, 1997,
p.97).Anotherwas,“Theyrepeatedlypresentonlycaricatures”(Harmon, 1997, p.
16).
Michael Harmon’s (1997) rejoinder—and Harmon is hardly a hard core
postmodernist, but instead a phenomenologist—probably best illus
tratesthecenterofthedifferencesbetweentheparties.Hestatedthatbeing a
subjectivist does not mean that one accepts to reduce judgmental values to
some individual, “emotivist” preferences and that “it is this misinter
pretation . . . that leads...totheunwarranted conclusion that all forms of
subjectivism must necessarily regard arbitrary individual preferences as
the only conceivable alternative to a universalistic ethics” (p. 5).
That said, Harmon presents an elaborate discussion to show that the
alternative proposed by Geuras and Garofolo (1996)—using Kant’s first
principle of noncontradiction quoted above—is neither self-evident nor
rational. In essence, any virtue can become a vice if it is taken to excess, and
that same virtue may compete with another, equally good virtue. Many moral
choices are not made between an obvious good and an equally clear bad;
they often are made between contradictory impulses, and the tension
between opposing principles is impossible to eliminate or resolve by using a
higher order principle, a universal moral truth. Such problematic situations
are what Harmon (1995) discussed as paradoxes, using Horatio Hornblower
as an example and concluding that there is no single rational solution to the
problem. Therefore, morality is a question
ofprocessratherthananabsolutevalue;itisarelationship,anditconsists of the
sentiment, feeling, or impulse of being for the Other. Morality is an act or
process of self-constitution. The morality of ends, then, is depend
entonthemoralityofprocess,thatis,ofsocialrelationshipsthataremeant to
regenerate and maintain the social bond, that permit moral impulses of being
for the Other to be expressed (Harmon, 1997, pp. 15-16).
The Blacksburg group has also developed points of view on
foundationalismandhaswrittenasequeltoitsfirstbookonthemanifesto
(Wamsley et al., 1990). In the sequel’s introductory chapter (Wamsley &
Wolf, 1996, pp. 27-32), the editors leaned toward poststructuralism as a
suitable approach in an era of postmodernism; analyzing text would
180 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
becomeimportanttouncoversocialrelationshipsandthendeconstructthe context.
They thus followed the trends toward denying privilege to any
particularconcept,andbyquestioningpossibilitiesofrepresentation,they
recommended a sort of enforcement of dialogue on the participants, who
were then creating a number of small-t-truths, that is, localized and con
tingent truths as opposed to generalized “grand narratives.” The editors used
Giddens’s (1984) understanding of structuration, with its emphasis on
agency creating meaning in an institutional context. Consequently, a
focusonprocess—ofrelationshipswithmutualrecognitionbytheactors—
wouldbeimportant,aswouldbediscoursegroundedinasharedproblem, concern,
or goal and carried through without manipulation.
In other words, social constructivism is not reserved for postmodernists
butisbecomingmoreandmorewidespread.HarmonandWamsleyandWolf
represent (different) versions of postpositivism and poststructuralism, but even
so, inattentive observers seem to be able to put them in the unspeak able
category.
Pragmatism. Mary Parker Follett is a key person in the writings by
postmodernists on postmodernism. Keith Snider (1998) discusses her,
indicating that the core principle of pragmatism is a “view of reality as
indeterminant and flexible, of morality as inherent in action, of practical
consequences as determining meaning, of knowledge as pluralistic and
provisional” (p. 276).
Pragmatists emphasize experimentation end experience. As Snider (1998)
quotes Follett, “People must socialize their life by experience, not by
study....Ideas unfold within human experience, not by their own momentum
apart from experience.” Likewise, “We need then those who are frankly
participant-observers, those who will try experiment after experiment and
note results, experiments in making human interplay pro ductive.” Follett,
then, does not recognize the functional administrator’s
callfortheabilitytoorganizeforstrategyandsuccess,leadbythetop;this is the
result of processes of relating, not of managing (p. 279). Pragmatists, then,
deny the principles of rational action by picturing social relation ships as
collaborative, grounded in joint project and joint action.
Hugh Miller and Cheryl Simrell King (1998) have followed the prag
maticlinebychallengingthedichotomyoftheoryandpractice,launching
apleaforpracticaltheorythat“isacriticalreflectiononpracticeaswellas
imaginative reflection on possible modification of that practice” (p. 58).
They see theories as instruments for transforming reality, rather than hav
ingtheroleofmirroringitsessentialandinvariantfeatures.Intheirreview
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 181
ofthefield,publicadministrationhasfoundnofoundationaltruthstoform
guideposts for practitioners. The contents of the discipline defy precise
measurement,generalizabilityacrosscultures,oruniversaltruths,butthe ories
may be used as frames for discussions to reach some contingent agreements
on possibilities. Actually, there are predictable elements in social life, but
this is not due to deductive, rationalistic theory; it is due to humans
generating patterns in their daily practices. The practices are of a
vague,fragilesortofpredictability.Theory,then,ispotentialactionunder
consideration, which may be understood from a phenomenologist per
spective or as Giddens’s (1984) structuration processes. What matters from
that perspective is practical discourse with practitioners who have the
discretion to experiment.
Practical theory, therefore, takes place at the tangled overlap of practi
tioners’ thoughtful reflection on action and scholars’ deconstruction and
critique of recursive social life (Miller & King, 1998, p. 57).
Deconstruction and narrative analysis. Farmer (1998b) edited a book
on“anti-administration,”whichwaspublishedin1998.Initsintroductory chapter,
he characterized postmodern analysis as a liberating endeavor, aspiring to
full accomplishment of what citizenship should entail, enabling a radical
“listening to the other”—the overall idea of anti-administration is to negate
the administrative-bureaucratic rational power and to
liberatemarginalizedvoices(Farmer,1998a,pp.2-5).Atthecoreisskepticisminits
philosophicalsense,holdingthatthecapacityofhumanminds is limited. In this,
Farmer differs from the philosophers of the Enlightenment, who saw
rationality as our savior.
A quotation from another chapter of the anthology makes Farmer’s
purpose quite clear:
The play of irony is a weapon that postmodernists use in seeking liberation from
the constraining effects of conceptual categories and metaphors, because they hold
that failure to deconstruct texts results in human suffer ing. There should be no
objection to a sensitive use of (say) categories in developing important “little t
truths,” truths within a language or a way of
life.Butitispartofpostmodernism’sphilosophicalskepticismthatthecat egories of a
language do not guarantee noncontingent (or transcendental)
BigTtruth,thewholeandcompletetruthaboutitself.Undeconstructedcat
egoriesmeanthatweget“facts”notquiteright....Truthswhichseemtobe
interpretation-free facts are shown, through deconstruction, to depend on hidden
assumptions (oppositions and metaphors) manufactured by the lan guage used.
(Farmer, 1998c, pp. 42-43)
182 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
Inseveralarticles,Farmer(1997,1998d)demonstratedhowtodecons truct
bureaucratic efficiency: First, it is a social construct, dependent on how
people construe it. It follows that efficiency is culture specific,
modernist-secularist, and Weberian and is linked to the advancement
ofproduction.Becauseefficiencyisnotatermthatisfoundinallcultures, it is not
an objective fact but something desired under particular circum stances, as
in the discussions led by the OECD Reinventing Government campaign.
Third, the binarity between efficiency and inefficiency is ambiguous; for
example, it does not guarantee a just outcome. Finally, the concept of
efficiency is only privileged in a society that emphasizes control. This
means that for postmodernists it is not important; for mod
ernists,itis.Theroleofdeconstruction,then,istoquestionwhatliesunder the
seemingly well-established categories of the bureaucratic phenomenon.
Gillroy (1997, pp. 164-167) had a similar point of view, seeing an
advantage of postmodern theory to be that language does not have timeless
meaning but reflects specific contexts. Postmodern analysis then can
beusedtomakeadministratorsreexaminetheirfundamentalassumptions based
on fixed paradigms and concepts, or categories. The major concept of
modern administration is efficiency; under postmodern conditions,
alternative values such as fairness, equality, utility, and autonomy may be
furthered, but then they must meet the formal requirements of the modern
strategy to get recognition in the policy design phase.
Tennert (1998) discusses the linguistic roots of theorizing from an
anti-foundationalist perspective: Wittgenstein, Davidson, and Rorty.
Antifoundationalism is defined on the basis of Stanley Fish’s work:
Questions of fact, truth, correctness, validity and clarity can neither be posed
nor answered in reference to some extra contextual, ahistorical,
non-situationalreality,orrule,orlaw,orvalue;rather,anti-foundationalism asserts,
all of these matters are intelligible and debatable only within the precincts of
the contexts or situations or paradigms or communities that give them their
local and changeable shape. (Tennert, 1998, p. 241).
Tennert’s(1998)lineofanalysisisthatsentencesareonlytruethrough their
relations to other sentences; language cannot be isolated from the
individuals who speak them. Following Rorty, science for Tennert is sim
ply a forum for unforced agreement where communities test other beliefs
against their own. This is ethnocentrism in the sense that we are bound to
our language and our own web of beliefs; our judgment of the beliefs of
others are rational or reasonable depending on our attempt to weave their
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 183
beliefsintoourown.Soquestionsof“bigscience”dropout.Thenotionof praxis in
public administration—that is, theory guiding practice—drops out.
Constructing general narratives of accomplishments after the fact may be
thought of as recontextualization rather than as theorizing. Public
administration as science, then, is constructed as a series of language games,
none of which begins with greater value than others, and which can be
defined and redefined many times. Popular themes like account ability and
democracy, then, become meaningless outside of a particular context and
problem; one should avoid grand theorizing.
Quantumtheory.Afourththemeamongsomepostmodernistsisquan
tumtheory.Inmanagementtheory,thefirstpartofthe1990ssawsomeini tiatives
based on “new science” implementations of Heisenberg’s quan tum physics
(Overman, 1996). This way of understanding society perceived
postmodernism as a collection of ideas, mirroring conscious and unconscious
dynamics of change in our society, and as an era relating to modernity, rather
chaotic as is so often seen in times of change. Quantum/chaos theory is
emerging, and a vision is coming that “characterizes
natureinlesshostiletermsthanthelinear,control-orientedonesperceived
necessary by Descartes, Bacon, Darwin and Hobbes . . . [suggesting] the
possibilityoflesshostilesocialrelationships”(Dennard,1997a,p.150).
A seen by Dennard (1997a), postmodernism is not a new order but a
self-aware search for a new and more inclusive order, a transition period; to
what we are transitioning, we do not know. It would, however, be required
by postmodernists and their collaborators within the new sciences, feminism,
and multiculturalism that collaboration take place as a cooperative
coevolution among interdependent human beings; the role of government,
then, is to sustain processes rather than regulate them. As a social construct
creating meaning, postmodernism promotes diversity; instead of denying
difference or seeing it as a threat, it should be recog nized as being no
problem, happening, but we can go on nonetheless. Identity and the self are
not fixed under postmodern conditions, as is the maximizing, rationalchoice individual under modernity. Identity is evo lutionary in a nonlinear
and adaptive manner; therefore, processes can evolve rather than be seen as
fragmented (pp. 159-160).
Such processes should be understood at a micro (quantum) level.
Self-organizing is essential in communities and may occur at levels that
public administration is not at all geared to handle; on the contrary, such
formalorganizationmaybehurtthesubtleprocessesofmutualadaptation
among people in the community.
184 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
Perhapscitizensdoknowwhatisbestforthemselvesandtheircommu nities.
Furthermore, they may know best at quantum levels of human pro cess,
which are only distorted by the more left-brain practices required to comply
with administrative procedures (Dennard, 1997b, p. 391).
Consequently, a nearly extreme micro-level perspective is necessary
foranalyzingsuchlocalizedphenomenaofself-organization.Thefollow ing
quotation indicates what this may entail: “In many respects, quantum
administration shifts focus from structural and functional aspects to the
spiritual characteristics and qualities of organizational life” (Overman, 1996,
p. 489). Furthermore, “Gone is the expectation of objective reality, certainty
and simple causality. In its place are inter-subjectivity, uncer
tainty,context,manyworldsandmanyminds,nonlocalcauses,andpartic ipatory
collusion” (Overman, 1996, p. 490).
Morcöl(1997,p.310)hasnotfoundmuchapplicabilityforthenewsci
encesinpublicadministration,exceptforquantumtheory,whichseemsto be
applicable to learning processes. In particular, there seems to be promise in
applications to complex relations between many organizations, to
participatory problematics, and to situations of indeterminacy. This was
echoed by Evans (1997), who found five indicators of shifts toward the
“quantum world”:
• ashiftfromtheparttothewhole—thepropertiesofthepartsmustbeunderstood as
dynamics of the whole;
• a shift from structure to process; • a shift from objective to epistemic
science—descriptions are not independent of the observer; • a shift from “building” to network as metaphor of
knowledge—has no
fixed foundation; • a shift from truth to approximate descriptions—the true
description of any
object is dependent on a web of relationships associated with concepts and
models. (pp. 358-359)
Some important consequences would be that the understanding of
management changes from top-down control to empowerment of bot
tom-upprocesses;thatorganizationalstructureiscreatedbywebsofrela
tionships, not vice versa; and that strategic planning is impossible, but
visualization and strategic coevolvement with the environment is possi
ble.Insum,theappealliesintherejectionoflinearunderstandingoforga
nizationandmanagementanditsopeningofthepossibilitiesforpractices that
evoke relationship and meaning for our collective endeavors in
governance.
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 185
GOING WHERE?
Two anthologies on postmodern analysis and public administration have
been published since 1996. The first one is a special issue of Ameri
canBehavioralScientist(vol.4,no.1),publishedin1997,thathas11arti cles
discussing the pros and cons of postmodern analysis. It was reprinted (less
one article) as a separate book in 2000 (Rivera & Woller, 2000). The second
anthology is Farmer’s (1998b) Papers on the Art of Anti-Adminis tration,
which contains articles that advocate the uses of postmodern analysis.
In the special issue of American Behavioral Scientist, stock is taken of the
development in public administration by confronting modern and
postmodern views on the problems of public administration in times of
change toward downsizing, reinventing, and reengineering. The conflict
concerns epistemology: modern analysis stresses the utility of tradition
andlegitimacy,achievementandrationality;postmodernanalysisstresses
detachment from tradition and a plurality of identity, autonomy, and
counterrationality (Jun & Rivera, 1997, pp. 133-134). Public
administrationfacesanumberofproblems,amongwhicharefragmentationandlac
k
ofcoordinationinsocietyandinpublicadministrationagencies.Suchdispersionan
dmultiplicityisacceptedbypostmodernistsashelpingcreativity, whereas
modernists stress the need for unity and totality, with problems to be solved
by management strategies, by tighter budgetary procedures, by
responsiveness to clients, and the like. Postmodernists, among others, would
resist this because they presuppose an objective determination of human
needs, for example. There is a call for critical reflexivity as being necessary
for solving the problems that managers
face,namely,deliberatechange,andacallforcriticalmodernisticanalysis rather
than postmodern analysis (Jun & Rivera, 1997, p. 146).
This is in accordance with many of those who participated in the dis
cussions of the 1990s of the postmodern line of analysis. Jun himself has
recommended the use of the interpretive approach as helpful for adminis
trativeanalysisinitsfocusonexplainingtheworldfromtheperspectiveof the
actor in a social situation. It forces the observer into a position of
understanding of meaning; it redirects attention to relations between actors
by emphasizing the actor as an active, purposive, and creative sub ject;
and it recommends studying actions in a nondeterministic
(noncausal)mannerfromthesubject’spointofview.Allthisisresearched
through the interpretation of human expressions, emotions, conversation,
artifacts, and symbols.
186 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
Jun (1997) thought that for administrators, a critical analysis would mean
self-reflexivity, where, for example, responsibility is actively made (through
establishing and maintaining relationships) rather than taken or
accepted.“Theinterpretiveperspectiverevealstheproblematicpresuppo sitions
of public administration, it reaches the foundation of the knowl
edgeandthepracticeofpublicadministration,wherepracticeperpetuates
processesnolongeradequatetotherequirementsofproblems”(p.152).
Zanetti and Carr (1997) have made a somewhat different case for
applying critical theory to the analysis of public administration. In partic
ular,theyadvocatethatoneshouldusetheFrankfurtschool(examplesare
Adorno,Habermas,Horkheimer,andMarcuse);theaimwouldbetomake agents
work toward emancipation. Participatory research has roots in the Frankfurt
school and in Gramsci’s ideas of a class of “organic intellectu
als”totransformsociety,inthatitempowersactorsthroughcollaboration,
dialogue,andeducation.Joiningtheseinsightswithadministrativeanaly sis
means that one can perceive the role of the administrator as one of mediating
in a critical analysis, in a process of realizing the tensions and strains that
come from contradictions, oppositions, and negations.
Inpromotingreflectioncombinedwithrevelationasthenecessarypathway
toemancipation,wearepromotingcriticaltheoryandthedialecticwhichis an
integral part of its logic....[It] embraces...thehistorical and
culturally-mediated interpretation of “truth,” a Marcusean understanding of
how suchamediatedinterpretationbearsitshallmarksintheneeds,desires,and
wants which become exposed, and finally, a Gramscian understanding of
hegemonic consciousness as the necessary prelude to consequential hege
monic engagement. (p. 220)
Thisisclosetowhatmanypostmodernistsmaysayaboutanactiverole for public
employees, but the undertone is less liberalistic. In contrast, Farmer
(1998a, pp. 2-5), in the introduction to his anthology, stresses postmodern
analysis as a liberating endeavor, aspiring to full citizenship, enabling a
radical “listening to the other.” At the core is skepticism in its
philosophical sense, holding that the capacity of the human mind is lim
ited (again, in contrast to the philosophers of the Enlightenment who saw
rationality as our savior). The overall idea of the concept of anti-adminis
tration, which is in the title of the book, is to negate the administra
tive-bureaucratic, rational power and to liberate marginalized voices.
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 187
In the postmodern literature, there are several relatively concrete sug
gestions on how to help such marginalized voices. The problems of citi zens
and community in an “anti-government” era are discussed by King and
Stivers (1998). The anti-government sentiment of the American peo ple is
based on the anti-bureaucrat movement in the media and among presidents
as leading politicians: it is the feeling that administrators over
usetheirpowers,therealizationofthefailureofeffectivepolicies,andthe sense of
being powerless vis-à-vis government. There are different ways
ofconceptualizingtheworldaroundus.Lawmakersinrepresentativegov ernment
use generalized knowledge about citizens based on statistics and comparable
instruments. Citizens, on the other hand, think in personal terms, or “lived
knowledge.” In that sense, the U.S. government is not a democracy of lived
knowledge; law aimed at citizens excludes us as indi
viduals;administrationworkswithcases,notindividuals;andrepresenta tion
creates alienation. King and Stivers (1998) claim that democratic knowledge
must be constructed from re-presented to experienced knowledge by opening
up the public space and thereby easing processes that let human thoughts and
ideas be tested by the examination of other citizens.
Hereitisimportanttobeabletoputoneselfintoanother’splace,tounderstandfroma
nother’sviewpoint.Citizenscreatetheirsenseofthecommon through active
conversations with neighbors. That is when “government becomes us” (pp.
46-48).
Spicer (1997) has an alternative view. He argues that the state as a
purposeful agent is problematic in a postmodern understanding, whereas
the civil association may be more appropriate. The problems coming from
postmodern conditions are that one denies the possibility of such a shared
politicalmetanarrativethattiestheendssoughtbythestatetoabetterment
ofhumanconditions—thisisinaccordancewiththeideasofKingandSti vers
(1998). In contrast, a civil association is a platform where people see
themselvesasfreetopursuetheirowninterestsbutwithinrulesofconduct that
limit their individual spheres of action. It is a sort of procedural
regime,permittingindividualstofollowtheirownideasandtoparticipate
inadiscourse aboutthecommensurability ofthosewiththeideasofother people
in the association. The role of public administration, then, would be to
limit the monopolization of political discourse by particular subcul tures
that try to reduce the range of language discourses to promote their own
ends. Public employees, then, should serve to solve disagreements
between different interests and visions of the public good.
188 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / May 2001
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Theconceptofanti-administrationusedbyFarmer(1998b)summarizes the
gist of postmodern analysis: it is anti-authoritarian, anti-hierarchical,
andanti-foundationalist,butitisnotanti-analysis.Thereisnooneparticu lar way
of doing postmodern analysis, however. There is diversity and room for
maneuvering.
Going back to the question posed above: Must research change under
postmodern social conditions? Modernists deny a need to change their
research methods, whereas postmodernists follow new paths. In the
American public administration debate, however, there are few true
postmodernists, those doing deconstruction and discourse analyses, like
Farmer (1995) and McSwite (1997). But several are close, including Fox and
Miller (1995), Dennard (1997a), and King and Stivers (1998), by being
strong supporters of social constructivism and by being antifoundationalists.
This is where the toughest debates have been found vis-à-vis the
modernist camp in public administration, but it is not particular to public
administration theorists; the cleavage is found in all the social sciences. The
same goes for the introduction of quantum theory in the field; there
arestronglinkstoalargermovementwithinthesocialsciences,basedona micro
approach. A more parochial feature for the public administration discipline is
that, in one way or another, most of the postmodernists subscribe to
pragmatism. On the other hand, one need not be a postmodernist
tobeapragmatist.Atthemetatheoreticallevel,pragmatismisthealternativetotheut
ilitarian(rational-choice)approach,demandingexperimenta tion and learning
through experience, and based on democratic under standing with its
multiple realities and conflict. This gives the analysis a
certainflavorofliberalismbecausetheideaistoletchangesbeplayedout
toletpeoplelearnbydoingandhaveprinciplesaccommodatedatthelocal level to
local wishes.
Thesetheoristsareverycriticalof“reinventors”whothreatenthetradi tions of
public administration, and they have a critical stance toward
communitarians who tend to monopolize the definition of truth in the
community.Theyarenotmuchinterestedinpublicadministrationtechni
calities regarding what tools might and might not work. Likewise, big
government is out of bounds.
Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 189
But out of the debates have come strong demands for analyses that
explicitly face the problems of values in our research; this again is closely
linked to the anti-foundationalist trend. Furthermore, a large group of
postmoderniststakesastrongpositioninsupportingincreasedcitizenpar
ticipation in public affairs and in strengthening minorities in that respect;
feminism stands out prominently for several of the discussants. Finally, the
theme of the role of the public employee in public affairs and ethics is of
great importance to most of the theorists in the debates.
Radically absent, then, is analyses of high politics, of the relations
between top civil servants and politicians, of constructing good tools for
budgeting, of management techniques, and of other topics relating to the
dailylifeoftheexecutivelevel.Thethrillsofhelpingtomaintainpoweris
absent—maybe that is why so many colleagues within the field ignore
postmodernistic analysis.
Inthatsense,postmodernanalysisofpublicadministrationisnothreat to
mainstream research. So mainstream researchers should stop ignoring it and
instead actively discuss the challenges, realizing that the agenda is different
from a traditional disagreement among researchers. The postmodernists
appear to have no collective wish to run a program that
leadstofuturepowerpositions.Theydo,however,wishtobeabletopoint
towheretraditionalresearchcoulddoabetterjob,namely,inhighlighting how
traditional understandings of power block access for minorities, for the poor,
and for those who have few skills in communication. And they share this
wish with many in mainstream research who have not taken the full step
toward doing a postmodern analysis. If those two groups could
communicatebetteraboutwhattodo,theagendaofempoweringordinary people
might stand a better chance.
NOTE
1. The activities of Public Administration Theory Network (PAT-Net), its conferences,
members, and journal, can be monitored from its Web site, http://www.pat-net.org.
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Bogason / POSTMODERNISM AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 193
Peter Bogason is professor in public administration at Roskilde University, Den
mark.HeisadeputyeditorofthejournalPublicAdministrationandamemberofthe Danish
Social Science Research Council. His research interests are network analy sis, policy
analysis, and research methods, particularly from the bottom up. His recent books are
Public Policy and Local Governance: Institutions in Postmodern Society (2000) and the
edited volume New Modes of Local Political Organizing: Local Government
Fragmentation in Scandinavia (1996).