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GOVERNANCE AND THE PUBLIC GOOD
Author(s) -
MORRELL KEVIN
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2009.01756.x
Subject(s) - administration (probate law) , corporate governance , power (physics) , politics , value (mathematics) , perspective (graphical) , public administration , narrative , control (management) , public management , good governance , sociology , cybernetics , law and economics , political science , positive economics , economics , epistemology , management , law , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , artificial intelligence
The paper examines the control of power, using an account of the public good developed from Aristotle. It identifies three different perspectives on the relationship between governance (the control of power) and the public good: a ‘cybernetic’ perspective, an ‘axiological’ perspective, and a perspective of ‘critique’. This framework offers a way to scrutinize the exercise of power, and to evaluate the linkages between a political administration and its citizenry. To evaluate an administration’s legacy, this framework suggests we should study: (1) how an administration controls power over time; (2) how an administration exhibits virtue; and (3) how an administration creates conditions which enable its citizens to live the good life. Narrative theory is one basis for empirical development of this framework. This contributes to some long‐standing debates in management, public administration, economics and political science. It also enables critical examination of a fashionable, though vague, term: ‘public value’.