Margaret Stout

Back to the Future Toward a Political Economy of Love and Abundance

This article presents a reconceptualization of public administration within a profoundly different political economy. The depiction is based on an alternative set of assumptions to those most typically held about human nature and the corollary approach to political and economic life. Ideas are drawn from two sets of scholars, each writing respectively at the turn of the last two centuries. As both historical periods are marked by claims of progressivism, the reconceptualization is framed around an alternative understanding of “progress” and exploration of a political economy that would support this different meaning. Specifically, in a relational rather than material understanding of progress, public administration would be transformed into a process of self-governance within political and economic institutions based on assumptions of generative rather than degenerative principles that replace fear with love, scarcity with abundance, self-interest with mutual interest, and dialectical competition and hierarchy with collaboration. Although this might sound utopian at face value, no such notions of perfection are assumed. Rather, the methods of progress—collaboration and cocreation—are simply assumed to be possible and the proper basis for social institutions seeking to foster them. This reconceptualization offers a transformational role for public administration in advocating a new meaning of progress, cocreating political democracy, democratizing the economy, and changing the role of government, in addition to a facilitative role in the resulting political economy.

Revisiting the (Lost) Art of Ideal-Typing in Public Administration

Despite a renewed interest in Max Webers work in public administration literature, there has been little discussion of his ideal-type method as a useful tool for contemporary theory building and subsequent research. The article challenges the field to revisit the art of ideal-typing as an important methodology when applied accurately, distinguishing ideal-typing from other forms of classification. It revisits Webers original (translated) essays on methodology, clarifying the specific steps involved in generating and utilizing ideal-type models and illustrating each step with Webers ideal-type models as well as a recent study that employed the method to generate an ideal-type model of public administration theory based on logics of democratic legitimacy. Both applications make a case for the methods appropriateness for public administration and its potential usefulness in generating robust theoretical models from which to develop hypotheses and conduct a variety of both mental experiments and empirical research.

What restorative justice might learn from administrative theory

Two administrative ideal‐types related to competing forms of justice: retributive and restorative include ontological and epistemological foundations and associated organizational theory. The alternate understandings are coherently linked with the principles of justice informing retributive and restorative practices. Retributive justice is linked to formal organization based on instrumental rationality and individualist ontology, while restorative justice is linked to substantive organization based on ethical reasoning and relational ontology. Once constructed, ideal‐types can be used both to assess actual conditions on key characteristics as well as to make recommendations for organizational design. Therefore, conclusions are drawn about the importance of matching context to purpose, pointing toward further empirical research that will inform system design for restorative justice practices.

You say you want A revolution

Confidence in government continues to plague our field. Based on a dissertation inquiry, this essay offers a theoretical critique of public service through the lens of democratic legitimacy, suggesting many role conceptualizations promoted in the field conflict with powerful characteristics of the U.S. political economy. Beyond the traditional bureaucrat accountable to the Executive as dictated by the Constitution, role conceptualizations call for a variety of reinterpretations that contest our system of separated powers and representation through election. Furthermore, roles that promote social and economic justice conflict with many capitalist interests. While concurring that a facilitative role in pursuit of democratic social and economic justice is appropriate, this transformation must be undertaken using methods appropriate to what it actually represents: a revolution.

Enhancing Professional Socialization through the Metaphor of Tradition

Abstract This article explores how the metaphor of tradition can help educators foster specific public service attitudes in students of public administration, while simultaneously helping their students make sense of the diverse ideations presented in the field’s theories. This is of particular value because public administration is experiencing an identity crisis related to competing interpretations of legitimacy and associated role conceptualizations. In fact, the explication of multiple traditions throughout the program of study could help educators better achieve forthcoming accreditation mandates to demonstrate firm emphasis on public values.

Relational Process Ontology: A Grounding for Global Governance

This article presents a Governance Typology comprising philosophical and practical theoretical elements which compose four ideal-types found in dominant Western political theory, what we label Institutional, Holographic, Atomistic, and Fragmented governance types. Then a fifth synthesis type is articulated, Integrative Governance, which is based on relational process ontology derived from alternative sources. The article then makes the argument that Integrative Governance is fitting in terms of the contemporary context and leading edge theory and addresses important critiques of the other governance types. In closing, the article affirms Integrative Governance and argues it is a more fruitful grounding for global governance and a more sustainable future.

From theory to practice: utilizing integrative seminars as bookends to the Master of Public Administration program of study

Integrative seminar style courses are most often used as an application-oriented capstone in place of a thesis or comprehensive exam requirement in Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree programs. This article describes and discusses the benefits of a unique approach of one National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA)–accredited U.S. MPA program that employs integrative seminar style courses at both the start and end of the program of study. The first seminar integrates theory while the last seminar integrates practice, while both utilize reflection as a synthesizing pedagogy. The other core courses in the program of study use distinct theories to analyze practice while building core competencies. This article explores the importance of theory in a professional degree program, describes and explains both integrative seminars, and discusses the value fostered by the pattern of synthesis-analysis-synthesis facilitated through integrative seminars and reflective pedagogies.

Delivering an MPA Emphasis in Local Governance and Community Development through Service Learning and Action Research

This paper describes an action-based model for a Master of Public Administration emphasis in Local Governance and Community Development, along with preliminary observations during pilot implementation. This series of four courses delivers substantive and sustained community outreach in a proven developmental process while providing students hands-on learning opportunities that build core professional competencies by putting theory into practice in a real-time, reflective manner. Students who complete all four courses are uniquely prepared to step into local governance activities that build community capacity and engage community stakeholders in collaborative planning and action. Readers are encouraged to adapt and adopt this integrated outreach, service learning, and action research model to most effectively meet these dual technical assistance and learning objectives.

Toward a Relational Language of Process

Following theories that language shapes consciousness and identity and therefore prefigures all forms of social relationship, this article argues that the static, discrete, hierarchical language of bureaucracy and positivist science does not serve well to explain process-oriented concepts of collaboration or to guide participatory practice. To become fully process oriented—to support a collaborative participatory process of inclusive, egalitarian, and relational self-governance—we need new language to restructure our consciousness, identity, and social relations, language that would be holistic, nondiscrete, nonbinary, nonhierarchical, and gerundial. This article explores the possibility of such a language, drawing from diverse process-oriented sources—including quantum physics and pre-Socratic, Eastern, feminist, and indigenous worldviews—that offer surprising corroboration of process language that could reshape the dominant Western worldview to align philosophically with collaborative self-governance. However, in this project, we must be vigilant against hierarchical meanings creeping in.

Refusing Ontological Colonization

This reflective essay was inspired by a conversation during the Open Spaces process convened by Tom Catlaw and Kelly Campbell Rawlings at the 2009 conference of the Public Administration Theory Network. The conversation’s theme was drawn from Waldo’s (1980, 1984) notion of “democracy as a way of life,” in which he challenged the public administration maxim that autocracy during work hours is the price we pay for democracy after hours. But more broadly interpreted than these management concerns is his notion of democracy as an ethos that should permeate all aspects of life (Marini, 1993). As such, the conversation centered on the problem of defining democracy as a way of relating that is exemplified in practices, attitudes, and values that can imbue any dimension of life. How do we describe this way of relating? How does it accommodate the exercise of authority? How do we see it manifest in government, workplaces, markets, neighborhoods, schools, and families? Through these questions, we explored the ideas that buttress egalitarian, interdependent relationships. Why would we choose to relate in such a way? In the political arena, this is often explained with an Aristotelian ideal of active participation in the political as an end in and of itself beyond the right of citizenship. Digging deeper, we find the Deweyan notion of a normative mode of social organization for collective problem solving that extends beyond government to workplaces, neighborhoods, and families (Talisse, 2003). In other words, democracy as a way of life calls for a particular quality of relating in all social activities, whether they are political, economic, or civic in nature. Such a quality of relating is guided by rules, norms, or agreements that can be described as governance. Thus, we are talking about how authority works in a democratic fashion in any context. Such a claim prompts the question: Why should we seek to govern all social interaction democratically? Why can we not have democracy in the polis, autocracy in the workplace or home, and meritocracy in the market? Why can we not seek to keep separate these spheres of activity so that each may privilege its own forms of authority, rationality, and ways of relating? Certainly, we have heard calls for such reinvigoration of sectoral differences and boundaries from theorists like Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, and Alberto Guerreiro Ramos. One contrary answer hinges on empirical observation—our sectors of social