142 6: Postmodern Th eory
is postmodernism” (Baudrillard, quoted in Farmer 1995, 6). To the postmod-
ernist, Disneyland is neither more nor less real than Los Angeles and the other
suburbs surrounding it. All are hyperreality and simulation (Baudrillard 1984).
Modernity is also characterized in postmodernity as particularly authoritarian
and unjust. Much of postmodern language has to do with the abuse of govern-
mental power, including bureaucratic power. As such, postmodern theory is an
aff ront to orthodox public administration based on a rational, centralized struc-
ture necessary for control. Key subjects in the postmodern lexicon are colonial-
ism, including corporate colonialism; social injustice; gender inequality; and the
distribution of wealth between the developed and so-called third world. Th e irony
is, of course, that the Enlightenment brought what is now described as demo-
cratic government and, in the countries that practice it, what is now generally
thought to be the highest level of human freedom, self-government, and well-
being in history. Nevertheless, postmodernists are not wrong regarding poverty,
injustice, and inequality.
Finally, modernity, in the postmodern perspective, is primarily concerned
with objective knowledge and its development. Postmodernity is more concerned
with values and the search for truth than in characterizations of knowledge.
Farmer (1995) describes modernity as expressions of the limits of particularism,
scientism, technologism, and enterprise.
Particularism
According to Farmer:
Th e national particularism of American public administration does have pro-
found disadvantages in terms of contraries and blind spots. A contrary was
noted earlier between particularism and universalism. Th e urge for the less
bounded and the focus on the more bounded are also contraries. Insofar as it is
interpretationist, public administration has an interest in interpretations that are
as little culture bound as possible. Th is interest in the intercultural is a facilitat-
ing insight. Without the intercultural interest, for instance, insightful questions
can be overlooked. (1995, 55–56)No doubt modern public administration is largely a twentieth-century Amer-
ican product, complete with many of the attendant cultural blinders. But special-
ists in comparative administration have long understood this, as regular reading
of the journal Administration and Society would attest. Comparativists have long
argued against the exportability of American public administration. Much of the
impetus behind the so-called New Public Management (NPM), or new manageri-
alism, comes from the Western European countries, Australia, and New Zealand
(Considine and Painter 1997; Kernaghan, Marson, and Borins 2000). Modern
public administration is less and less an expression of American particularism;