Arthur Sementelli

A critical examination of social media adoption in government: Introducing omnipresence

Abstract As government agencies at every level are adopting social media tools, scholarship is emerging that indicates dialogic potentials meant to increase citizen engagement might not be met. With that premise, we take a critical examination of the way social media can increase capacity for engagement rather encourage collaboration, depending upon the way the tools are constructed. To do so, we expand Lippmanns notion of the phantom public to introduce the theoretical constructs of Omnipresent Citizens and Omnipresent Administrators. These people are everywhere but nowhere and embody characteristics of accessibility, desire to participate, and the possibility of remaining anonymous. Each has implications for citizen participation.

Toward a Taxonomy of Disaster and Crisis Theories

This article frames and defines the role of public administration theory in disaster planning and response. It is argued that there is little if any systematic theorizing in disaster planning and response beyond mainstream heuristics and possibly ad hoc classification schemes. By offering a basic taxonomy of existing disaster management theory literature, this article points toward opportunities for future theoretical development. Specifically, this taxonomy uses a concern for tools and a concern for process to categorize decision, administrative, economic, and social theories related to disaster and crisis management. This article highlights the Love Canal case as an example of how alternative approaches to theorizing disaster can help explain seemingly irrational phenomena.

Evolutionary critical theory, metaphor, and organizational change

Purpose – Aims to consider what the best metaphor or set of metaphors might be in the organizational change process.Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual discussion and approach are taken.Findings – Metaphors have proven to be highly effective aids to understanding the circumstances, clarifying the direction and resolving the problems of organizational change. However, despite their efficacy, there is much debate over what the best metaphor or set of metaphors might be. This paper argues that this uncertainty is resolved by employing Veblens metaphor of “endogenous evolution”, and that this claim is supported by current studies of organizational change.Originality/value – The paper is of value to management professionals in helping to develop skills for facing the onset of, and consequences of, the processes of organizational change.

Power, Emancipation and the Administrative State

Until recently, critical theorists have conceived of power in terms of domination. Public bureaucracies were thought to play a central role in domination as they mediated on behalf of dominant interests both by embodying and enforcing the dominant ideology, and by reinforcing society-wide practices of domination. Habermas, however, has suggested that one particular form of power, “communicative power,” might be emancipatory rather than domineering in nature and that the domineering practices of public institutions might be set aright through its proper expression and exercise. This paper argues that power as first conceptualized in Veblens evolutionary critical theory and as further explicated by Foucault, is of a still more intricate and subtle nature than suggested by Habermas. Further, it argues that as a consequence public agencies have both less potential for mediating domination and more potential for advancing emancipation than critical theorists originally thought.

Metaphor, cultural imagery, and the study of change in public organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how mechanistic and organic metaphors might be fused through the application of cultural imagery.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a theoretical examination of metaphor and its application in public organizations. Specifically, this paper examines the possibility that images from popular culture might offer some insights. Selected metaphors linked by elective methodological affinities are examined in order to determine potential significance of the Robocop metaphor for guiding research in organizations.Findings – The popular culture image Robocop from 1980s films can help us detect what is not being included in most theoretical analyses of public organizations, while simultaneously helping us to purge the negative connotations of the Robocop image.Research limitations/implications – The popular culture image can help us to understand change in public organizations.Originality/value – It is one of the few, if any, papers using popular culture ...

Framing Discourse in Budgetary Processes: Warrants for Normalization and Conformity

Abstract Using a modified form of Burkeian cluster analysis, a study of discourse in local government budgetary processes uncovered three warrants that were used for normalization and coriformity (persuasion, conservatism, and expenise). These warrants encourage panicipants in budgetary processes to appear to be consistent with institutional goals and values in order to receive desired financial outcomes. Therefore, administrators have incentives to employ these warrants. Failure to use these warrants can lead to adverse budgetary decisions, in effect punishments. The analysis suggests a significant discrepancy between actual warrants identified in this study and ideal ones such as proposed by Fox and Miller. This discrepancy raises the question of which warrants best serve the public interest.

Government is them: How traveling the road to wellville can undermine the legitimacy of public administration

The Road to Wellville is a useful allegory to describe the consequences a therapeutic approach to Public Administration can have on citizen participation. A therapeutic approach assumes that the citizens in an administrative state, are sick, and therefore need intervention by the government to heal them, regardless of whether we want it or not. In The Road to Wellville, Kellogg, though well intentioned, relied on alternative, unconventional therapies to try to cure health problems. This paper uses The Road to Wellville to illustrate how public organizations that adopt a therapeutic approach can broadly undermine legitimacy

Recasting Critical Theory: Veblen, Deconstruction, and the Theory-Praxis Gap

Abstract This paper contends that Thorstein Veblen’s economic and social thought constitute a remarkably advanced form of critical theory. This “evolutionary critical theory” shares the goals, methods, assumptions, and critiques of thought associated with modern critical theory as it has developed out of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. However, it is more comprehensive in its critical approach, denying both that emancipation and responsive democratic pluralism are necessarily adaptive, and that they necessarily provide the “fittest” institutions. In contrast to other critical theory, Veblen’s emphasis on non-teleological and non-deterministic social evolution constitutes a dynamic social construction that closes the theory-praxis gap and explains why historical change is not consistently emancipatory.

Distortions of Progress Evolutionary Theories and Public Administration

Evolution and evolutionary theories in the social sciences in general, and applied fields in particular, are often grounded in the discredited (in biology) Lamarckian conceptualization. Lamarckian ideas of progress, with their associated teleology and totalizing influences, tend not to be useful for public administration. This article proposes that public administration instead consider an alternative image of evolution that enables the practical use of evolutionary theories, enabling them to better understand the nature of wicked problems in both theory and practice.

Just Green Iguanas?: The Associated Costs and Policy Implications of Exotic Invasive Wildlife in South Florida

Invasive exotic species have begun to emerge as a policy issue at the federal, state, and local levels. Although invasive species are often understood as a function of the damage they cause to localized ecosystems, this study diverges by discussing the infrastructural damage caused by an invasive exotic species, the green iguana (Iguana iguana). Specifically, the authors discuss the magnitude and scope of damage caused by iguana burrows on canals in southern Florida and offer policy recommendations to move discussions of this potentially disastrous public works issue forward.