Call for Papers, December 15 Deadline Public Administration Theory Network
Annual Conference, May 29-31, 2015
Metropolitan Hotel, Vancouver, British Columbia
Anti-Government: Different this time?
The end of the cold war was a moment of celebration for free market enthusiasts,
and it also ushered in a Reagan-Thatcher style of neoliberalism with an accompanying antigovernment
ethic that sometimes included ridicule. The anti-governmental narrative did not
recede in the subsequent era of market fundamentalism. Instead, numerous governing
challenges became more difficult, including regulation of carbon emissions, implementing a
macroeconomic fiscal policy that could stimulate the economy, and rising inequality.
Federal, state and local governments reduced some services and contracted-out others. The
risk of corruption and other insider games loomed larger as government agencies were
made leaner and government functions were privatized. Thus far, public administration has
seemed unwilling or unable to defend itself, perhaps trapped in its own self-reinforcing
narratives about expertise, non-partisanship, and aversion to politics.
The 2015 Program Committee invites paper and panel proposals that track along the
conference theme or any of the following topics:
1. Comparative and international anti-government.
2. The web of anti-government imagery.
3. Serving public interests in a context of anti-government initiatives.
4. Market narratives and market reforms: Implications for practice.
5. The seeming inability of public administration to defend itself against a hostile narrative.
6. Social media, democracy and anti-government sentiment.
7. The Foucault effect: Governmentality, governing, and governance.
8. Apathy and activism: Imagining an activist role for public administration.
9. Quantitative methodology as ideology.
10. Redescribing public administration as policy implementation.
11. Theme 11: None of the above.
For panel proposals, include a one-page abstract for each paper in the panel.
Similarly, paper proposals should take the form of one-page abstracts. For both papers and
panels, please indicate the theme/topic you have in mind. Send proposals to Hugh T. Miller
2014.
Program Committee
Hugh T. Miller, Professor, Florida Atlantic University
Chris Erickson, Sessional Lecturer, University of British Columbia
David Kasdan, Assistant Professor, Incheon National University
Larry Luton, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Washington University
Cheryl Simrell King, Member of the Faculty, The Evergreen State College
Jeannine Love, Assistant Professor, Roosevelt University
Alexandru Roman, Assistant Professor, California State University, San Bernardino
Charlene Roach, Lecturer, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine
Umar Ghuman, Assistant Professor, California State University, Stanislaus
Lester Leavitt, Doctoral Candidate, Florida Atlantic University