150 6: Postmodern Th eory
As this brief description of the postmodern dialect and the notion of hyper-
reality indicate, postmodern public administration has mostly to do with the
defi nitions and understandings of such basic philosophical questions as these:
What is real? What is reality? Deconstruction is central to this perspective. Not
a methodology or a system of analysis, postmodern deconstruction
can be used to dismantle narratives that constitute the underpinnings of mod-
ernist public administration theory and practices. Bureaucratic deconstruction
can also be used to dismantle narratives constructed in postmodernity. Grand
narratives are the accounts that are thought to explain the development of his-
tory, and Hegel’s and Marx’s (the march of history being explained by the work-
ings of, respectively, the Absolute Spirit and economic factors) are oft en given
as examples. An Enlightenment grand narrative is that rationalization equals
human progress. Public administration and practices are also underpinned by
certain narratives. One narrative is that the goal for public administration the-
ory should be objectivity. A second narrative is that effi ciency is a viable goal
for public administration practice. One narrative is illustrative of a modernist
underpinning of theory, and the other is an example of a grounding of much
practice. Certainly, alternative examples of narratives could have been selected.
(Farmer 1995, 179)Th e postmodernist might approach the subject of effi ciency by taking effi -
ciency to be a part of a master or grand narrative and then deconstructing that
narrative, and, with it, both the concept of effi ciency and the practical applica-
tions of effi ciency, such as cost-benefi t analysis or performance measurement.
Doing this has a great deal to do with the so-called deep structure of a word, the
word here being “effi ciency,” and its intended meanings. Th e point is that the
word effi ciency merely represents or simulates some actual phenomenon that we
choose to describe as effi ciency. Obviously, effi ciency as a word not only describes
something but also favorably represents it. Effi ciency is good; ineffi ciency is bad.
Although such deconstruction might be all dolled up in postmodern language,
the end result would look very much like the standard critique of effi ciency al-
ready found in the public administration literature. A good example of this is the
emergence of NPM in public administration, a perspective resting on the logic
of effi ciency or the effi ciency grand narrative. Whether the critique of effi ciency
is furthered by using postmodern logic or postmodern language depends on
how one views postmodernity. In the postmodern dialectic, words and images
come together more powerfully than the images of men and women in public
administration.
Th ere is a close connection between postmodern public administration theory
and feminist perspectives on the fi eld (Stivers 2002, 1990, 1992, 2000; Hendricks
1992; Haslinger 1996; Ferguson 1984; Cocks 1989; Ackelsberg and Shanley 1996;
Morgan 1990). Th e problem begins, following Camilla Stivers, with this: