Critical Management Studies and public administration: reinterpreting democratic governance using critical theory and poststructuralism By: Ryan Deviney

Introduction

THE CONCERN Pluralism at the state level causes coordination issues New tools such as deliberative democracy quasi-judicial quasi-legislative processes collaborative policymaking e-government All the above elements have been developed to address the specific challenges of pluralism, and has made government ‘lighter on its feet’.

CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES Critical Management Studies (CMS) have long been concerned with these issues in the field of business management, but have made few inroads in public policy and public management research. Nevertheless, CMS can provide a coherent framework for observing public administration critically. The aim of this paper is therefore to present a synthesis of the various schools of thought within CMS and to use these tools to provide an alternate definition of democratic governance.

THE MODERN STREAM Knowledge acquired through Scientific Method Reason over authority and traditional values Analyze social conditions, to criticize the unjustified use of power, and to change established social traditions and institutions so that human beings are freed from dependency, subordination, and suppression Identifying the failures of a narrow vision of modernity, stuck in universalizing ideas

POSTSTRUCTURALISM Four Themes Centrality of discourse, the Fragmentation of identities Critique of the philosophy of presence Loss of foundations and meta-narratives

Conclusion