Postmodernism and Public Administration

Modern public administration was based on such values and techniques as authority, unity of command, merit, specialization, rationalism, impartiality, coordination, control, discipline, planning, and standardization. Besides, modernism and modernist state and public administration have embraced the individual as a citizen with basic rights and freedoms, deserving public services provided effectively, efficiently, fairly, and economically by rationally designed bureaucratic organizations according to the rule of law.

It was accompanied by urbanization, differentiation, specialization, secularization, the development of mass communication and transportation, and a belief in the power of science and universal truth.

Modernist philosophers wanted to understand the world and the self, control natural forces, organize social (and organizational) life rationally, and promote democracy, secularization, and human progress, rights, freedom, and happiness based on the knowledge of objective science.

The Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and modern society required economic, effective, and efficient production and delivery of goods or services. Industrialization generated new tasks for public administration, and technological advancements made new tools and techniques available for public

officials to deliver services. Hence, a shift took place from traditional to modern modes of bureaucratic organization and responsibility, and the modernist paradigm dominated the public sector from the late 19th Century until the last decades of the 20th Century.

There are at least four major threats and challenges to public bureaucracies:

The postmodernist age is characterized by fuzzy boundaries, turbulent environments, and ambiguous lines between facts and values or causes and effects. Postmodernism also refers to an understanding of science based on the deconstruction of reason and truth. It rejects metaphysical or grand theories, absolute knowledge, and human trust in science and reasoning and admits that human knowledge is limited and cannot be omniscient.  In postmodernism, reality is not seen to be objective or concrete, but relative and pliable that is constructed by humans.

Jean-François Lyotard was the first scholar to use the term “postmodernism” to define the new era.

Nietzsche saw the world as chaotic and in conflict; thus, reducing the world and life into harmony was impossible. Yet, Nietzsche opposed nihilism and utopias (including grand theories and values such as humanism, socialism, or religion) for denying and destroying the present moment, the real world of experiences, and the present life itself.

Baudrillard offered the concept of ‘hyper-reality’ as the model or representation of the real above the real world without actual contact with reality.  Television, film, and the internet separate us from the real, create the hyperreality of communication and of meaning, and abolish the real.

Baudrillard argued that domination refers to historical, traditional power relations. At the same time, hegemony represents modern, more sophisticated power relations based on modes of thought carried out by states, ruling institutions, organizations, and corporations to control individuals. Thus, according to Baudrillard, power itself must be abolished by not only refusing to be dominated by others but also by refusing to dominate others.

Horkheimer described critical theory as a social theory based on a humanistic understanding of Marxism to liberate humans from the undesirable conditions that enslave them. 

The examples of such approaches include the new public administration (NPA) movement, public choice theory, learning organizations or organizational change movement, reinventing government approach, chaos and complexity theory, and more recent approaches such as the new public management, new public service, public governance, public value, as well as postmodern public administration theory.

Postmodernist critiques on organizational theories and public administration revolve around such issues as policy orientation, governance, environmental awareness, flexibility, flatter organizational structures, adaptability, innovation, creativity, choice, shared leadership, and participatory decision-making, employee empowerment, teamwork, continuous improvement, ongoing learning and renewal, and tolerance for complexity, diversity, uncertainty, and chaos.

This way of thinking entails such traits as rethinking universal truths, taken-for-granted assumptions, meta-narratives, one-best-way of doing things, and replacing them with relativity, flexibility, diversity, ambiguity, uncertainty, openness to negotiate, learning and development, and environmental awareness.

Uncertainty, discontinuity, chaos, complexity, unpredictability, the loss of unity and integration, disorder, polarization, etc., seem to characterize today’s organizational environment.

The government's role is seen as less the producer of goods and services and more the supervisor and facilitator of proxies who do the actual work.