148 6: Postmodern Th eory
Th ese formulations are negativities. Modernity can yield convenient sets of
propositions that invite examination in terms of the laws of logic. Postmodernity
does not fi t into this mold. . . . Part of the diffi culty in comprehension can be un-
derstood if we examine what it would mean for postmodernity to be incoherent
nonsense. To be incoherent and nonsensical, a postmodern view (or any other
view) would have to fail to meet some set of criteria for coherence and sense; it
would have to fall outside the pale of sense and coherence. Th is understanding
fails if postmodernism is recognized as denying a distinction between sense and
nonsense and between coherence and incoherence. It fails if postmodernism is
recognized to go on to deny that this means nonsense exists; there is only an
intermingling of sense and nonsense. Nevertheless, from the modernist perspec-
tive, this explanation is unappealing. (145–146)In postmodernist logic, the negativities, contraries, or problematics that cri-
tique modernist logic oft en have a playful quality to them, as Table 6.2 serves to
indicate.
Many of the similarities between this characterization of the diff erences be-
tween modernism and postmodernism and Clark’s description of the diff erence
between classic and postpositivist organizational paradigms described earlier in
this chapter are worth noting. Th e question is, what does a public administra-
tion theory built on antiform, play, chance, anarchy, and so forth, look like?^3 Th e
hard-core postmodernist would likely answer that question with a comment such
as this: “You cannot either describe or understand the postmodern world by an-
swering such a question.” Th e soft -core postmodernist would likely answer thus:
“Postmodern public administration theory looks rather like a combination of the
sense making logic described in Chapter 7 on decision theory, many of the mod-
ern elements of institutional theory described in Chapter 4, and public manage-
ment theory described in Chapter 5 of Th e Public Administration Th eory Primer.”
To carry postmodern theory forward will most likely require adoption of the soft
postmodernist perspective.
“Postmodern Public Administration researchers, then, have an interest in
Public Administration practice. But they rarely engage in consulting practi-
tioners, and particularly high-level civil servants, as their more traditional col-
leagues do” (Bogason 2005, 248).
Even though modernists or traditional public administration scholars would
argue that postmodernists are less practical, an argument could also be made that
they are more democratic. By engaging individuals oft en overlooked in modern-
ist research, postmodernists provide a unique perspective on governance and
policymaking.
Following Farmer, postmodern public administration theory can be under-
stood to include the following traits: dialectic, a return to imagination, a de-
construction of meaning, deterritorialization, and alterity. As a postmodern
perspective, dialectic has to do with distinctions and absence of distinctions.