Governance or Interpellation? An Elaboration of Civil Servant Practice(s)

Bibliographic Data

ID3073385
AuthorsNiels Jul Nielsen (University of Copenhagen, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume52
Issue1
Publication date2022-06-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnologia Europaea (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0425-4597 • E-ISSN: 1604-3030
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.16995/ee.3004
OpenAlexW4213449924
LanguageEN
References cited10

How can we understand and analytically grasp the practices that "run the state"? Departing from a contemporary focus on co-production in governance regimes, such as New Public Management and New Public Governance, this article argues that the Althusserian concept of interpellation contemplates a focus on a necessary connection between a superior Subject (often understood as the state) and dependent subjects - generally absent in governance studies. Drawing on Hegel's concept of the universal class (der allgemeine Stand) and deploying the ethnologically-based state and life-mode theory, it is concluded that a state-subject can constitute a coherent and resilient whole only by encompassing a viable civil servant life-mode, and that the concepts policy-developing, operationalizing, and policy-implementing, together specify three different but interdependent and necessary dimensions of civil servant practice. A presentation of an empirical case of contemporary co-productive governance applies the developed concepts

Civil servant · Corporate governance · Democracy · Democratic governance · Economics · Epistemology · Interdependence · Management · Operationalization · Political science · Politics · Servant · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Marxism and Critical Theory · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies