Pragmatic Discourse and Administrative Legitimacy

Abstract

Legitimacy, the place of public administration in governance, has always been a concern in American society. Responses to this concern have included efforts to control bureaucracy by defining what it should do, to free it from control by elevating its status in relation to other branches of government, and to confine it to micro-level, market-like management techniques. The discourse theory of O. C. McSwite, based on pragmatism, suggests that governmental legitimacy in America may be revived by shifting from an emphasis on the public administrator’s role in directing agencies to thinking about how administrators may assist in creating community through collaboration with citizens. This article offers a critique and extension of McSwite’s work based in part on critical theory, arguing that to recover administrative legitimacy through collaborative discourse, it may be necessary to recognize and respond to the nature of the liberal-capitalist political environment.