Suchergebnisse

The realms of consumption have typically been seen to be distinct from those of work and production. This book examines how contemporary rhetorics and discourses of organizational change are breaking down such distinctions - with significant implications for the construction of subjectivities and identities at work. In particular, Paul du Gay shows how the capacities and predispositions required of consumers and those required of employees are increasingly difficult to distinguish. Both consumers and employees are represented as autonomous, responsible, calculating individuals. They are consti

A spectre has haunted many forms of 'social' explanation over the course of the last century – the spectre of anti-statism. For not a few sociologists and social theorists, the state has long been regarded as the medium of enslavement, the very antithesis of what they take to be 'civil society'. Here the state is viewed as a cold monster whose conducts (impersonalism, coercion, indifference, authority – the list is potentially endless) need to be relentlessly exposed and critiqued for their malign influence on the 'whole human being' and on 'society', which is seen as a naturally occurring phenomenon. This article argues that this enduring opposition between state and civil society represents an unfortunate error, arising from a perverse tradition which would do away with the state. This problematic tradition was born in liberal and democratic ideas of civil society, was embodied in the romantic apotheosis of the purely and metapolitically social, was radicalized by Marxist designs for a society without a state, and culminated in Nazism and Communism. It has survived, however, frequently 'in mufti', into our own times and can be found in the social sciences, inter alia, in contemporary social constructionist analyses, such as those associated with certain Foucauldian analytics of 'government', and in the moralizing edicts of 'cosmopolitanism'. Against this tradition, the article sees the state as a remarkable, if fragile, achievement, whose withering away does and will continue to bring forth (predictable) monsters. Rather than the antithesis of society, the state is the major vehicle of human liberty, of social peace and security, and, paradoxically, provides sanctuary for the political critics who attack it.

Explores the process by which historically specific "self- interested" behaviors were conceptualized. It is contended that "self- interested" behavior is in fact real, but it is not a fixed & timeless human essence. It is demonstrated how, in a particular historical era & in relation to particular objectives, a specific type of self-interested personhood was invented. The historical context in which this mode of "self-interest" appeared as a normative creed whose dissemination was characterized as a possible medium for salvation is examined. The singular notion of "self" promoted by this creed, & its performative function as a strategy intended to establish social pacification, is emphasized. The chapter's overall aim is to suggest a more sympathetic treatment of the historical plurality of self-interested behaviors. K. Coddon

This article explores different conceptions of 'enterprise' and seeks to indicate the extent to which they are non-reducible. Its main focus is on one particular conception of enterprise that has underpinned a powerful critique of public sector organizations and which has been translated into a variety of specific organizational strategies for restructuring or modernizing the public services. This conception, it is argued, is very different from that informing much of the prescriptive and descriptive literature on entrepreneurship within management studies, for instance. The article also attempts to question the opposition between 'bureaucracy' and 'enterprise' that frames this self-styled 'entrepreneurial' approach to organizational reform. This epochal 'bureaucracy/enterprise' dualism, it is argued, is best viewed as a rhetorical move in a political polemic, but one with real effects.

The paper focuses upon a particular discourse of organizational 'change' as it has appeared in a specific context—the contemporary field of public administration—and seeks to explore its role as a rhetorical device in reshaping the identity of public service. It does so first by seeking to indicate the epochalist bent of much theorizing about contemporary economic and organizational change—in both its academic and its more managerial manifestations. Second, it seeks to show how a particular discourse of organizational change mobilizes support for attempts to 're-invent' or 'modernize' the public administration as an institution of government. Finally, it seeks to offer a few words in support of the seemingly unfashionable art of 'piecemeal reform' or ' organizational casuistry'.