Governance or interpellation? An elaboration of civil servant practice(s)
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Governance or interpellation? An elaboration of civil servant practice(s). / Nielsen, Niels Jul.
In: Ethnologia Europaea, Vol. 52, No. 1, 2022, p. 1-22.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Governance or interpellation? An elaboration of civil servant practice(s)
AU - Nielsen, Niels Jul
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
U2 - 10.16995/ee.3004
DO - 10.16995/ee.3004
M3 - Journal article
VL - 52
SP - 1
EP - 22
JO - Ethnologia Europaea
JF - Ethnologia Europaea
SN - 0425-4597
IS - 1
ER -
ID: 250617859