Public Administration and “The Lives of Others”: Toward an Ethics of Collaboration

Public administration is about how we work and live together; thus, it implies an ethic of collaboration. Despite this imperative, the ethical terrain in public administration appears divided into principle- and market-based ethics of judgment. Drawing from the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Administration & society 2009-05, Vol.41 (3), p.290-312
Main Authors: Catlaw, Thomas J., Jordan, Gregory M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bureaucracy
Collaboration
Cooperation
Ethics
Lacan, Jacques
Ontology
Presumption
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalytic theory
Public Administration
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Public administration is about how we work and live together; thus, it implies an ethic of collaboration. Despite this imperative, the ethical terrain in public administration appears divided into principle- and market-based ethics of judgment. Drawing from the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, this article argues that both of these ethical systems unproductively rely on logically similar efforts to reconcile individual demand with the presumption of a super-ordinate value, or conception of the Good. The thesis advanced here is, by contrast, that a collaborative ethics is directly concerned with the bearing of desire, that which is deeper than simple demand(s) and excessive to the Good as such. The film The Lives of Others provides a compelling example of the nature of this sacrifice as well as the collaboration that flows from it, and may serve as exemplar for those engaged in the practice of public administration.
ISSN:0095-3997
1552-3039
DOI:10.1177/0095399709332300