Thomas J. Catlaw

Authority, Representation, and the Contradictions of Posttraditional Governing

The social, economic, and political transformations of the last 30 years have ushered in a “posttraditional” order in which the institutions and practices of the past are no longer authoritative guides for action and thought. Human experience increasingly is conceived as something to be constructed and decided on without reliance on the authority of tradition. This essay argues that these transformations pose grave challenges to the mechanisms of political representation and administrative legitimacy because they frustrate the coherent production of both recognition of a “We the People” and the conditions for human subjectivity. In doing so, the efficacy of the conventional mechanisms of governmental authority is eroded. An alternative model of administrative practice is outlined that rests on a nonrepresentational mode of authority and a reconceptualization of democracy.

Discipline and Participation: The Long-Term Effects of Suspension and School Security on the Political and Civic Engagement of Youth.

This study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health data set to evaluate the long-term influence of school discipline and security on political and civic participation. We find that young adults with a history of school suspension are less likely than others to vote and volunteer in civic activities years later, suggesting that suspension negatively impacts the likelihood that youth engage in future political and civic activities. These findings are consistent with prior theory and research highlighting the long-term negative implications of punitive disciplinary policies and the role schools play in preparing youth to participate in a democratic polity. We conclude that suspension undermines the development of the individual skills and capacities necessary for a democratic society by substituting collaborative problem solving for the exclusion and physical removal of students. The research lends empirical grounds for recommending the reform of school governance and the implementation of more constructive models of discipline.

Public Administration and “The Lives of Others” Toward an Ethics of Collaboration

Public administration is about how we work and live together; thus, it implies an ethic of collaboration. Despite this imperative, the ethical terrain in public administration appears divided into principle- and market-based ethics of judgment. Drawing from the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, this article argues that both of these ethical systems unproductively rely on logically similar efforts to reconcile individual demand with the presumption of a super-ordinate value, or conception of the Good. The thesis advanced here is, by contrast, that a collaborative ethics is directly concerned with the bearing of desire, that which is deeper than simple demand(s) and excessive to the Good as such. The film The Lives of Others provides a compelling example of the nature of this sacrifice as well as the collaboration that flows from it, and may serve as exemplar for those engaged in the practice of public administration.

Constitution as Executive Order: The Administrative State and the Political Ontology of 'We the People'

This article offers a new strategy for examining the legitimacy question in public administration and representative government. A genealogy of political discourses is proposed to suggest that political forms have historically relied on a constitutive exclusion. The U.S. Constitution and administrative state are conceived of as events in this genealogy but are unique in that both deny the ontologically constitutive effect of the exclusion. Administration and constitutionalism are described as liberal political technologies, deployed to re-present and fabricate “the People,” that is, to bring into reality the organic totality that is ontologically presupposed.

Dangerous Government: Info-Liberalism, Active Citizenship, and the Open Government Directive

There has been much debate about the change Barack Obama represents. This article considers this question by using Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality to explore the underlying governmental rationality of his administration’s policies and management practices. Obama’s governmentality is examined via the Open Government Directive, arguably the central initiative of the administration. The article concludes that this governmentality may be viewed as a mutation within neoliberalism, which the authors call info-liberalism—one that deploys a novel, integrative conception of social government. Info-liberalism is examined in conjunction with the contemporary usage of the term governance to analyze more broadly the dynamics of government and citizen participation today.

Governance and Networks at the Limits of Representation

Integrating literatures from public administration and social and political theory, this article provides a critical analysis of the political theory of democratic network governance. The article contends that critics and advocates alike have misrecognized the potentially transformative logic of networks by tacitly embedding their arguments and research in the taken-for-granted assumptions of representative government and its determination of political community as “the People.” This determination carries with it a number of assumptions and biases that are especially problematic in the contemporary world. The article argues that a new metaphor of and new style for imagining political community can be extracted from the network and that this can open a new avenue for reconsidering the nature of public administrative practice and pedagogy.

Frederick Thayer and the Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

A year after his death, this article provides the first critical analysis and overview of the work of Frederick Thayer. It argues that in the contemporary context of governance, Thayers work is more relevant than ever, but that a set of problems—including the apparent simplicity of Thayers assault on hierarchy, his frequently bombastic prose, and the foundational nature of his critique—impede the fields engagement with his work. The article contends that Thayers work is more nuanced and methodical than it may appear and offers important avenues for confronting some of the fields most persistent theoretical and practical problems. Perhaps most important, Thayers work lucidly illustrates the fields misunderstanding of process theory as an account of change. As such, Thayer turns us unwittingly into a theoretical cul-de-sac that undercuts any real possibility for action and movement toward the very world for which he hoped. This has important implications for critical approaches in public administration.

From Liquid Life to a Politics of the Subject; or Public Administration for a Fragile Planet

The enormity of the challenges and changes the world is facing demand that we reimagine the very notion of “government.” While sometimes useful, traditional sectoral divisions of labor (e.g. government, market, civil sphere) are an impediment to this reimagining. This essay argues that we need a dynamic, relational understanding of governing and different conceptualization of the relationship of the self to governing. This entails a revolution, initially, less in the formal political institutions than a transformation in the way in which we think about living together and labor to create a life in common.

Enjoy Your Work! The Fantasy of the Neoliberal Workplace and Its Consequences for the Entrepreneurial Subject

This article critically examines the ways in which organizational performance and audit practices intersect with the dynamics of contemporary capitalism, managerialism, and individualism to shape the experience of the entrepreneurial, “postneurotic” subject at work. Drawing from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, the article argues that the conditions for the contemporary subject are characterized by the declining efficacy of the Symbolic order, which induces the production of people whose identities are fragile and unstable. Paradoxically, this instability emerges at a historical moment at which individuals are commanded to “self-actualize” and to not be limited by authority or tradition. Neoliberalism makes “Work” assume particular importance in this project. The article argues that the decline of the Symbolic, in turn, places a heavy weight on interpersonal relationships in the Imaginary, or among alter-egos, to produce any semblance of a stable identity. Workplace performance measures and audit practices offer seductive points of identification and “quantifiable” stability for the subject in search of her “authentic” self at work in particular. Yet, at the same time, these measures painfully ensnare the subject in external identifications and managerial validation in new, constraining ways.

The Quantified Self and the Evolution of Neoliberal Self-Government: An Exploratory Qualitative Study

This article examines the “citizen side” of the performance and audit revolution through an exploration of individuals engaged in a “data-driven life.” Through an exploratory qualitative study of individuals’ video logs taken from the “Quantified Self” Web site, we examine how individuals are using information technology and Web 2.0 interfaces to generate data about themselves for themselves. We explore the questions, “Who are the subjects of governing today?” and “How do subjects care for and govern themselves, and how are data put to use?” We analyze the different kinds of self-government, expertise, and practices of the self that are involved in self-quantifying practices. The article concludes by examining the implications of these practices for our larger understanding of governance and the subject of governance in an emerging “info-liberal age.”