Jacques Lacan and the Theory of the Human Subject
How Psychoanalysis Can Help Public Administration
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3759336 |
|---|---|
| Authors | O C Mcswite (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University George Washington University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 43-63 |
| Publication date | 1997-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0002764297041001005 |
| OpenAlex | W2027291251 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 19 |
| References cited | 17 |
Theoretical development in the field of public administration is impaired by its implicit, unacknowledged commitment to the incompatible ontology of economics. This ontological commitment restricts the possibility for defining the role of the public bureaucrat to that of being no more than a technically proficient of services, a definition that the field has long sought to escape. A psychoanalytic perspective, especially the one formulated by the French theorist Jacques Lacan, can help this problem. The aspects of Lacan's psychoanalytic model relevant to this issue are explicated. It is then argued that the model holds major implications for public administration, among which are (a) a radical change in its epistemology, (b) a complete reassessment of the function of the human ego in social life, (c) an ontological rationale for moving beyond the instrumental goal attainment schema for administrative action, and (d) a venue for public administration to move past its anachronistic modernist conceptual framework and into a more appropriate postmodern manner of thinking about its identity
Epistemology · Field (mathematics) · Ontology · Postmodernism · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Schema (genetic algorithms) · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Marxism and Critical Theory · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology
Somatic Writing
The Allure of Rhetoric and the Truancy of Poetry
The Rugged Individualist Club
Regarding the Animal
Practitioner as the Imaginary Father of Public Administration
From Atomistic to Interwoven
Carnivalesque Resistance to Global Spectacle
Applying Film to Public Administration
Enjoy Your Work! The Fantasy of the Neoliberal Workplace and Its Consequences for the Entrepreneurial Subject
The ghosts of the past, the dreamlands of the future … or why fantasies are bound to fail in socialism and the market
Authority, Representation, and the Contradictions of Posttraditional Governing
Derision and Management
Why do public policies fail so often? Exploring health policy-making as an imaginary and symbolic construction
Lacan and sexual difference in organization and management theory
The Sublime Object of Entrepreneurship
Enchantment, Weak Ontologies, and Administrative Ethics
Public Administration Discourse
The Irony of Privatization
Public Administration and “The Lives of Others”
| Unique citing works | 19 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,68 |
| Citation span | 1998 - 2019 (22) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 17 |