Postmodernism in American public administration: a postmortem

This article presents a critical “postmortem” on the debate between modernism and postmodernism in American public administration. It argues that postmodernism was simply an extension of modernism, one that revealed a set of repressed theoretical complications at the core of the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Mcswite, O. C.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2003
País:Brasil
Institución:Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV)
Repositorio:Revista de Administração Pública
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.periodicos.fgv.br:article/6732
Acceso en línea:https://periodicos.fgv.br/rap/article/view/6732
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:modernism
postmodernism
American public administration
relativism
globalism.
modernismo
pós-modernismo
administração pública americana
relativismo
globalismo.
Descripción
Sumario:This article presents a critical “postmortem” on the debate between modernism and postmodernism in American public administration. It argues that postmodernism was simply an extension of modernism, one that revealed a set of repressed theoretical complications at the core of the modernist framework. The underlying similarity of the two schools of thought is described through analysis of the key issues: radical absurdity, self-referentiality, and nihilism. While depicted as essentially similar, modernism and post-modernism are shown as pointing in opposite directions for finding a basis for governance. The advent of globalism, however, renders the debatemoot and suggests that postmodernism served as a venue for moving toward the paradigm appropriate to this new era.