Parrhesia and the ethics of public service – towards a genealogy of the bureaucrat as frank counsellor
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12947777 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Edward Barratt (0000-0002-4002-9911, University of Essex, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 28 |
| Pages | 120-141 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-27 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Foucault Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1832-5203 • E-ISSN: 1832-5203 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.22439/fs.v1i28.6076 |
| OpenAlex | W3088190222 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
Foucault makes clear in his later lectures that the notion of parrhesia has a long and varied history, which he merely sketches in his investigations of ancient politics and philosophy. Recent research extends and modifies Foucault’s genealogy of parrhesia as an aspect of the practice of the adviser or counsellor of a monarch or prince, showing how parrhesia informed notions of counsel at other times: in later antiquity, the middle ages as well as early modern Europe. Here we seek to show that the ancient notion of parrhesia reappears as a graft in another domain of modern truth telling: that of bureaucracy in Britain, in the debates over the organisation of the offices of government, with the middle years of the nineteenth century a decisive moment of rupture. We consider the fate of bureaucratic frank counsel in our own era. Interpreters of Foucault’s later lectures on governmentality have analysed the consequences of neoliberal rule for the government of public servants during the era of Margaret Thatcher. Presenting a reappraisal of the era, we show how important counter-discourses also emerged in this era, bringing the ethics of office to the fore, as civil servants argued for the formal codification of bureaucratic ethics, including frank counsel, as they tried to defend their professional ethics. Our discussion therefore addresses a key, early moment in the emergence of the ideal of codifying frank counsel and bureaucratic ethics. We consider the consequences of codification, arguing that a deep ambivalence now characterises the way in which political authorities seek to govern this domain of ethical practice
Ambivalence · Bureaucracy · Government (linguistics · Governmentality · Ideal (ethics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Philosophy
Britain's Economic Problem
The Rhetoric of Free Speech in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Comparing Westminster
The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain
In defence of Mandarins
Speaking frankly – parrhesia and public service
Governing public servants
The Development of the Thatcher Government's ‘Grand Strategy’ for the Civil Service
An Organized Civil Service
The Public Service in Modern Society
What Prospects for the Civil Service
The Reforms of 1854 in Retrospect
Greek Philosophy and the Victorians
Bringing Anglo-Governmentality into Public Management Scholarship
New Political Governance in Westminster Systems
The Role of the Civil Service
Governamentalidade e a genealogia da política
Bureaucracy as a Vocation
"Tom Brown's Schooldays and the Development of "Muscular Christianity
The Government of Self and Others
The Emergence of Neoliberalism
Governmentality, criticism, politics
| Highly cited | No |
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