The Social Construction of Public Administration: Interpretive And Critical Perspectives

by Jun, Jong S.; Sherwood, Frank P.

• ISBN13: 9780791467251
• ISBN10: 0791467252
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-07-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

In this conceptual guided tour of contemporary public administration, Jong S. Jun challenges the limitations of the discipline which, he argues, make it inadequate for understanding today's complex human phenomena. Drawing on examples and case studies from both Eastern and Western countries, he emphasizes critical and interpretive perspectives as a counterforce to the instrumental-technical rationality that reduces the field to structural and functionalist views of management. He also emphasizes the idea of democratic social construction to transcend the field's reliance on conventional pluralist politics. Jun stresses that public administrators and institutions must create opportunities for sharing and learning among organizational members and must facilitate interactive processes between public administrators and citizens so that the latter can voice their problems and opinions. The future role of public administrators will be to transcend the limitations of the management and governing of modern public administration and to explore ways of constructing socially meaningful alternatives through communicative action and the participation of citizens.

Author Biography

Jong S. Jun is Professor Emeritus of Public Administration at California State University at East Bay

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Frank P. Sherwood
Preface	xxi
1 Introduction	1	(20)
The Limitations of Modern Public Administration	3	(6)
Social Construction in a Democratic Context	9	(4)
Dialectical Possibilities	13	(2)
Learning from a Cross-Cultural Perspective	15	(3)
The Orientation of this Book	18	(3)
2 The Changing Context of Public Administration	21	(22)
Unanticipated Consequences in the Twentieth Century	21	(8)
Lessons for the New Century	29	(2)
Reinterpreting the Meaning of Public Administration	31	(7)
Dialectic in Administrative Action	38	(3)
Conclusion	41	(2)
3 The Social Constructionist Approach	43	(30)
The Limitations of the Functionalist Perspective	44	(2)
The Interpretive, Critical Theory, and Postmodern Perspectives	46	(9)
Theorizing the Social Constructionist Approach	55	(11)
Globalization as Social Construction	66	(4)
Reflection	70	(3)
4 Public Administration as Social Design	73	(28)
The Use and Abuse of Metaphor	73	(2)
Design: A Basic Concept	75	(3)
Administrative Science, Art, and Social Design	78	(6)
The Modes of Administrative and Policy Design	84	(15)
Conclusion	99	(2)
5 Social Design in Practice	101	(22)
Coproduction and Community Policing	102	(3)
Bridging the Digital Divide in Silicon Valley	105	(3)
Helping Homelessness	108	(3)
Designing the Public Transit System	111	(3)
The Clinton Health Care Reform Plan: From Social Design to Incrementalism	114	(5)
The Limits of Social Design	119	(1)
Conclusion	120	(3)
6 Understanding Action, Praxis, and Change	123	(24)
The Dialectic of Organizational Action	124	(10)
Praxis and Change	134	(2)
The Praxis-Oriented Administrators	136	(3)
Changing Organizations and Action Research	139	(5)
Conclusion	144	(3)
7 The Self in Social Construction	147	(30)
Social Construction of the Self: Eastern and Western Views	148	(11)
The Self and Sociality: Western Views	159	(3)
Postmodern Views of the Self	162	(4)
Implications of Eastern and Western Views	166	(2)
The Self-Reflexive Individual in a Social Context	168	(2)
The Self and Bureaucracy	170	(5)
Conclusion	175	(2)
8 The Social Construction of Ethical Responsibility	177	(30)
The Ethical Dilemma of the Responsible Administrator	178	(8)
Constructing Ethics in Organizations	186	(10)
A Public Conception of Autonomy: Confucian and Western Views	196	(3)
Civic Virtue and the Public Good	199	(2)
Connecting Administrators and Citizens	201	(4)
Conclusion	205	(2)
9 Civil Society, Governance, and Its Potential	207	(28)
The Civil Society Triangle: A New Form of Governance	207	(4)
From Hierarchical Governing to Democratic Governance	211	(4)
NGO's as a Force for Social Change	215	(5)
A Case of Local Governance: Resolving the Soup Kitchen Controversy	220	(4)
Designing Modern Development Projects	224	(4)
Globalization and Democratization: A Contradiction	228	(4)
Implications	232	(3)
10 Concluding Thoughts	235	(24)
Recapitulation	237	(4)
Making Social Construction Effective	241	(10)
The Tao of Public Administration	251	(8)
Notes	259	(8)
References	267	(24)
Index	291