The Social Construction of Public Administration: Interpretive and Critical Perspectives

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

We live in an “age of paradox,” in which our good intentions to progress and our efforts to improve the quality of life produce unintended consequences and often contradictory results (Handy, 1994). This paradox results when policy makers put forth a strong argument for pursuing one policy and neglecting another, less pressing, one, such as preferring development over environmental protection, administrative efficiency over effectiveness, or organizational goals over individual needs. Although economic progress has meant material bounty for the individual in industrialized and postindustrialized countries, it has also produced numerous negative consequences nationally and globally , such as inequality, high consumerism, social divisiveness, and alienation. Because of the growth and spread of industrialization and modernization, people in the workplace and in society are often connected in a merely functional way: they lack intimate, social, or authentic relationships. Because of a desire to manage society and institutions in order to cope with turbulent changes, organizational goals are seen as more important than democratic governance, participation, human growth, or social justice. Although bureaucracies see progress and the management of complexity as necessary for human cooperation, bureaucratic organizations have been hostile to the promotion of democratic ideas. Since the latter part of the twentieth century, however , we have witnessed centrifugal forces working to renew greater human purposes in governing, development, change, and problem solving. A public administration that relies on conventional pluralistic politics and modern management theories is inadequate for understanding today’s crisis and complex human phenomena. Furthermore, mainstream public administration, which overly emphasizes the role of management, is incapable of developing democratic ways to resolve conflict or generate socially grounded solutions. What is required in the current crisis is a creative awakening to the dialectical social process—to the ability to join what is, what can be, and what should 1 CHAPTER 1 Introduction be—in order to alter the social and administrative structure and processes. In other words, an appreciation of social processes, of the interplay of instrumental and technical elements, and of collective and democratic means of creating a more humane and hopeful society is needed. When we examine the conceptual orientation of public administration today, we see that the dominant approach to its study, as manifested in the educational curriculum, in research methods used to collect information, in administrative operations, and in reform efforts, is both intellectual and pragmatic. Mainstream public administration reflects this orientation in seeking administrative knowledge and concepts grounded in the positivistic and functionalist tradition of epistemology .1 But a true understanding of social reality and human relationships requires more than instrumental and rational ways of investigating human knowledge. This book explores constructive ways of understanding the complex phenomena of public administration by introducing the interpretive and critical perspectives. The concepts applied are a hybrid of phenomenology , ethnomethodology, hermeneutics, critical theory, and postmodern ideas.The interpretive approach focuses on social practice: public administrators act in a social situation by listening to other voices.The primary concern of administrators is not to use a theory (or theoretical knowledge) to guide administrative action: rather, their effort is to understand and interpret people’s experience and form a sense of mutuality by sharing “intersubjective meanings” (Taylor, 1985b; Schutz, 1967). The critical theory perspective, however, critically reflects on established assumptions, theories, values, and methods and reconstructs possibilities that are democratic and socially acceptable without dismissing the importance of theoretical knowledge and “technical interest” (i.e., the use of instrumental knowledge to control the environment) to administration (Habermas, 1971). The field of public administration needs a critical, self-reflexive practice if it is to improve current practice, which is largely influenced by the people at the top. Members of this elite work hard to justify their ideas and activities , which have produced the current crisis. Western public administration (U.S. public administration in particular) has become a rational -instrumental model for most non-Western countries to keep pace with industrialization and modernization. The growth of bureaucracy in both the Eastern and the Western governments has produced the 2 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION management and professional capability. The bureaucratization of public institutions, however, has generated various unintended consequences and faced limitations. THE LIMITATIONS OF MODERN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION The characteristics of modern public administration are adequate administrative guides in a stable organizational environment in which services and everyday operations do not require much innovation, in which people’s values and needs remain persistent; and, in which external elements, such...