Administration & Society articles

Recent articles from Administration & Society

Clarifying the assumptions: the empirical referents of discourse revisited. (response to articles by H.T. Miller and O.E. White, Administration & Society, vol. 30(4), p. 462 and p. 471.)
November 1, 1998... On reading the critiques of my previous endeavor on the subject of discursive observation (Miller, 1998; White, 1998), it dawned on me that perhaps there are some aspects of the empirical referents that deserve to be discussed in greater detail. In particular, the qualitative and democratic...

Community coalitions and grassroots policies of empowerment.
November 1, 1998... Foundations and government agencies use community coalitions increasingly as instruments of social policy and program implementation. The rationales and hopes for community coalitions abound with terms such as grassroots, representation, development, and empowerment. This article examines the...

Management consultants, the state, and the politics of administrative reform in Britain and Canada.
November 1, 1998... Recent contributions to the literature on bureaucratic reform suggest that profit-seeking consultants from the private sector are one of the main driving forces behind the global spread of New Public Management (NPM) ideas. But contrary to what is expected, the growing role of consultants in...

The irony of privatization.
November 1, 1998... What does privatization really mean ? It depends on who is speaking and the specific language game in use. This article borrows an interpretive device, originally developed by Roland Barthes and further articulated by Jean Baudrillard, which lays waste to the assertion that a word has a...

Market-based reforms in government: toward a social subcontract?
November 1, 1998... The classical concept that reconciles a free and sovereign people with the authority of government is the social contract. Increasingly, governments are pursuing alternative approaches to public service delivery with the hope of achieving greater effectiveness and efficiency. This article...