Looking for Postmodern Public Administration Th eory 159
of our daily life . . . and too constrained to confront the global problems that aff ect
us” (Guéhenno 1995, 12–13).
Politics in the modern nation-state is deeply challenged by postmodern
circumstances:
In the age of networks, the relationships of citizens to the body politic is in com-
petition with the infi nity of connections they establish outside of it. So, politics,
far from being the organizing principle of life in society, appears as a second-
ary activity, if not an artifi cial construct poorly suited to the resolution of the
practical problems of the modern world. Once there is no longer a natural place
for solidarity and for the general good, the well-ordered hierarchy of a society
organized in a pyramid of interlocking powers disappears. (Guéhenno 1995, 19)In the postmodern perspective, legislative gridlock, the infl uence of money in
politics, and the power possessed by interest groups have so polluted the political
system that it has been drained of legitimacy. Modern politics has moved from
the pursuit of the general good to the professionalization of interests. Th e litigious
pursuit of individual rights coupled with exaggerated individualism weakens the
possibility of a greater good. Finally, the common public understanding of poli-
tics is based on media coverage so shallow, so inclined to sensationalism, so pre-
occupied with personalities, and so disinclined to deal with issues that politics is
reduced to sound bites and clichés.
If this postmodern critique of the nation-state is even partially correct, it has
powerful implications for public administration. If sovereignty is in doubt, for
whom do public administrators work? If the nation-state’s constitutional order is
altered by global infl uences, how shall public administration respond?
Th e generalized postmodern answer to these questions is somewhat like our
descriptions of governance theory in Chapter 9:
As soon as the frontier is no longer a given, whether in the case of a corporation
or a state, the function of management, and thus the nature of power, changes.
Th e managers thus become “intermediaries” rather than bosses, constantly ad-
justing the organization of the relationships between the diff erent units. . . . And
even this management is effi cient only if it is strongly decentralized. . . . Th e
multidimensional model, based on so-called interlocking databases, succeeds the
“natural” model, with straightforward, spreading branches. Th e hierarchical, py-
ramidal structure, in which to be powerful was to be in control and command, is
succeeded by a structure of the diff usion of power with multiple connections, in
which to be powerful is to be in contact, in communication, and in which power
is defi ned by infl uence and no longer by mastery. (Guéhenno 1995, 61–62)Following this argument, postmodern public administration will need to
think in postnational terms. Public administration in the postnational world will