Public Administration Discourse As Play With A Purpose

Abstract

P.A. discourse-conceptualized as a language game governed by rules-could be more productive if we were more conscious of the constraints imposed by our game's rules and if we were more open to the possibility of playing with our socially constructed rules. The paper presents an example of a more productive game, situated in the conceptual space between the postmodern and the modern. The play of irony, characteristic of postmodernity, is explicated in terms of Umberto Eco's, Jean-Francois Lyotard's and Richard Rorty's accounts. A practical P.A. implication lies in the writing and rewriting about institutional practices from decentered perspectives. The paper illustrates how, even in modernity, P.A. discourse has avoided opportunities for useful play that other disciplines have followed. The idea of P.A. discourse as a language game is discussed, and examples of rules used in P.A. theorizing and practice are offered. The paper suggests that modernist P.A. discourse has been modeled too much on the riddling genre understood as a paradigm of discovery. P.A. discourse, it is claimed, should embrace play.