Legitimacy claims can only be made and processes of legitimation can only unfold in a specified context. This article uses Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the social field to name this context and to analyze the construction of the bureaucratic or public administrative field in the United States. Field is meant in a triple sense—public administration as a general, institutionalized field in the structure of government; public administration as a professional field; and public administration as an academic field of study. Thus, rather than the bureaucratic field, the relationship of these bureaucratic fields or an “ensemble of fields” is analyzed to consider how each field both bounds its own legitimation struggles and draws from other fields for symbolic resources—what Bourdieu called symbolic capital —to establish its legitimacy and position. The multifield quality of public administration is used to show how the nature of the general bureaucratic field is distinct from other fields insofar as it purports to represent a universal, general interest. This difference is used to theorize a distinction between “general” and “specific” legitimation processes.
Aleshire, R.A. ( 1972). Power to the people: An assessment of the Community Action and Model Cities experience. Public Administration Review , 32, 428-443.
2.
Appleby, P.H. ( 1945). Big democracy. New York: Russell & Russell.
3.
Arendt, H. ( 1998). The human condition (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press .
4.
Barzelay, M. ( 1997). Breaking through bureaucracy. In J. M. Shafritz, A. C. Hyde, & S. J. Parkes (Eds.), Classics of public administration (4th ed., pp. 533-555). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.
5.
Bensel, R. ( 1990). Yankee leviathan: The origins of central state authority in America, 1859-1877. New York: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Berman, E. (1997). Dealing with cynical citizens. Public Administration Review, 57, 105-112. Bourdieu, P. (1985). Social space and the genesis of groups. Theory & Society, 14, 723-744.
7.
Bourdieu, P. ( 1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241-258). New York: Greenwood Press.
8.
Bourdieu, P. ( 1994). Rethinking the state: Genesis and structure of the bureaucratic field (L. Wacquant & S. Farage, Trans). Sociological Theory , 12, 1-18. (Original work published 1991)
9.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992). Invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.
Castells, M. ( 1997). The power of identity. London : Blackwell.
11.
Catlaw, T.J. ( 2007). Fabricating the people: Politics and administration in the biopolitical state. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
12.
Cayer, N.J. ( 1975). Public personnel management in the United States . New York: St. Martin’s.
13.
Dahl, R.A. ( 1947). The science of public administration: Three problems . Public Administration Review, 7, 1-11.
14.
Derthick, M., & Quirk, P.J. ( 1985). The politics of deregulation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
15.
Diken, B., & Laustsen, C.B. (2005). The culture of exception: Sociology facing the camp. London: Routledge.
16.
Easton, D. ( 1975). A reassessment of the concept of political support . British Journal of Political Science, 5, 435-457.
17.
Follett, M.P. ( 1998). The new state: Group organization, the solution of popular government. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. (Original work published 1920)
18.
Frug, G.E. ( 1999). Citymaking: Building communities without building walls . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
19.
Galambos, L., & Pratt, J. ( 1988). The rise of the corporate commonwealth: United States business and public policy in the twentieth century. New York: Basic Books.
20.
Gere, E.A. ( 1982). Dillon’s rule and the Cooley doctrine: Reflections on political culture. Journal of Urban History, 8, 271-298.
21.
Goodnow, F.J. ( 1900). Politics and administration: A study in government . New York: Russell and Russell .
22.
Goodnow, F.J. ( 1997). Municipal home rule: A study in administration . Buffalo, NY: William S. Hein & Co., Inc. (Original work published 1895)
23.
Goodsell, C.T. ( 1990). Public administration and the public interest . In G. I. Wamsley, R. N. Bracher, C. T. Goodsell , P. T. Kroneberg, J. A. Rohr, C. Stivers , O. F. White, & J. F. Wolf (Eds.), Refounding public administration (pp. 96-113). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
24.
Goodsell, C.T. ( 2003). The case for bureaucracy (4th ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press .
25.
Gulick, L., & Urwick, L. (Eds.). (1937). Papers on the science of administration. New York: Institute of Public Administration.
26.
Gunnell, J. ( 2006). The founding of the American Political Science Association: Discipline, profession, political theory, and politics. American Political Science Review, 100, 479-486.
27.
Hanks, W.F. ( 2005). Pierre Bourdieu and the practices of language . Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 67-83.
28.
Harris, R.A., & Milkis, S.M. ( 1989). The politics of regulatory change. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
29.
Harvey, D. ( 1990). The condition of postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
30.
Hegel, G.W.F. ( 1996). Philosophy of right (S. W. Dyde, Trans.). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. (Original work published 1896)
31.
Henry, N. ( 1987). The emergence of public administration as a field of study. In R. C. Chandler (Ed.), A centennial history of the American administrative state (pp. 37-85). New York: Free Press.
32.
Herring, P. ( 1936). Public administration and the public interest . New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company .
33.
Hofstadter, R. ( 1955). The age of reform. New York : Vintage Books.
34.
Hood, C. ( 1991). A public administration for all seasons? Public Administration, 69, 3-19.
35.
Kathi, P.C., & Cooper, T.L. ( 2005). Democratizing the administrative state: Connecting neighborhood councils and city agencies. Public Administration Review, 65, 559-567.
36.
Kettl, D.F. ( 2000). The global management revolution: A report on the transformation of governance. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
37.
Krane, D., Rigos, P.N., & Hill, M.B., Jr. (2001). Introduction. In D. Krane, P. N. Rigos , & M. B. Hill, Jr. (Eds.), Home rule in America: A fifty-state handbook (pp. 1-22). Washington, DC: CQ Press.
38.
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. ( 1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso .
39.
Lefort, C. ( 1986). The political forms of modern society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
40.
Lippman, W. ( 1922). Public opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company.
41.
Lukes, S. ( 1978). Power and authority. In T. Bottomore & R. Nisbet (Eds.), A history of sociological analysis (pp. 633-676). New York: Basic Books.
42.
Mann, M. ( 1993). The sources of social power, Volume II: The rise of classes and nation-states, 1760-1914. New York: Cambridge University Press.
43.
Martin, R.C. ( 1952). Political science and public administration: A note on the state of the union. American Political Science Review , 46, 660-676.
44.
McQuail, D. ( 1992). Media performance: Mass communication and the public interest. Newbury Park, CA: Sage .
45.
McSwite, O.C. ( 2002). Invitation to public administration. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
46.
Nalbandian, J. ( 1999). Facilitating community, enabling democracy: New roles for local government managers. Public Administration Review , 59, 187-197.
47.
Nalbandian, J. ( 2005). Professionals and conflicting forces of administrative modernization and civic engagement. American Review of Public Administration, 35, 311-326.
48.
National Performance Review. (1993). From red tape to resulting: Creating a government that works better and costs less. In J. M. Shafritz & A. O. Hyde (Eds.), Classics of public administration (5th ed., pp. 533-555). New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.
49.
Novak, W.J. ( 1996). The people’s welfare: Law and regulation in nineteenth-century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
50.
Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. ( 2004). Public management reform: A comparative analysis . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
51.
Porter, D. ( 1998). The Thames embankment: Environment, technology, and society in Victorian London. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press.
52.
President’s Committee on Administrative Management. ( 1937). Administrative management in the government of the United States. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
53.
Putnam, R.D. ( 2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community . New York: Simon & Schuster .
54.
Rivlin, A. ( 1997). Systematic thinking and social action. In J. M. Shafritz & A. O. Hyde (Eds.), Classics of public administration (5th ed., pp. 109-117). New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. (Original work published 1971)
55.
Roch, C., & Poister, T.H. ( 2006). Citizens, accountability, and service satisfaction . Urban Affairs Review, 41, 292-308.
56.
Rodgers, D.T. ( 1998). Contested truths: Keywords in American politics since independence. New York: Basic Books .
57.
Rohr, J. ( 1986). To run a constitution: The legitimacy of the administrative state. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
58.
Rohr, J. ( 2003). Introduction. In Politics and administration (pp. i-xx). Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
59.
Ross, D. ( 1991). The origins of American social science. New York: Cambridge University Press.
60.
Roy, W.G. ( 1997). Socializing capital: The rise of the large industrial corporation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
61.
Schubert, G. ( 1957). "The public interest" in administrative decision-making: Theorum, theosophy, or theory?American Political Science Review, 51, 346-368.
62.
Simon, H.A. ( 1991). Models of my life. New York : Basic Books.
Skocpol, T. ( 1999). Advocates without members: The recent transformation of civic life. In T. Skocpol & M. Fiorina (Eds.), Civic engagement in American democracy (pp. 461-509). Washington, DC: Brookings/ Russell Sage Foundation.
65.
Skowronek, S. ( 1982). Building a new American state: The expansion of national administrative capacities, 1877-1920. New York : Cambridge University Press.
66.
Solum, L.B. ( 2004). Procedural justice. Southern California Law Review, 78, 181-322.
67.
Sorauf, F.J. ( 1958). The public interest reconsidered. Journal of Politics, 19, 618-624.
68.
Stenberg, C.W. ( 1972). Citizens and the administrative state: From participation to power. Public Administration Review, 32, 190-198.
69.
Stivers, C. ( 1993). Gender images in public administration: Legitimacy and the administrative state. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
70.
Stivers, C. ( 2000). Bureau men, settlement women: Constructing public administration in the Progressive era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
71.
Stivers, C. ( 2002). Gender images in public administration: Legitimacy and the administrative state (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage.
72.
Strange, J.H. ( 1972). The impact of citizen participation on public administration . Public Administration Review, 32, 190-198.
73.
Svara, J.H. ( 1994). The structural reform impulse in local government . National Civic Review, 83, 323-347.
74.
Torfing, J. ( 1999). New theories of discourse: Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek . Cambridge, MA: Blackwell .
75.
Tyler, T.R. ( 2001). A psychological perspective on the legitimacy of institutions . In J. T. Jost & B. Major (Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging perspectives on ideology, justice, and intergroup relations (pp. 416-436). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
76.
Tyler, T.R. ( 2006). Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation . Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 515-525.
77.
Waldo, D. ( 1948). The administrative state: A study of the political theory of American public administration. New York: Ronald Press Co.
78.
Wamsley, G.L. ( 1990). The agency perspective: Public administrators as agential leaders. In G. I. Wamsley, R. N. Bracher, C. T. Goodsell , P. T. Kronenberg, J. A. Rohr, C. Stivers , O. F. White & J. F. Wolf (Eds.), Refounding public administration (pp. 115-162). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
79.
Weil, F.D. ( 1989). The sources and structure of legitimation in Western democracies: A consolidated model tested with time-series data in six countries since World War II. American Sociological Review, 54, 682-706.
80.
White, O.F. ( 1985). The dynamics of negotiation. In N. A. Huelsberg & W. F. Lincoln (Eds.), Successful negotiation in local government (pp. 143-160). Washington, DC: ICMA.
81.
White, O.F., & McSwain, C.J. ( 1990). The phoenix project: Raising a new image of public administration from the ashes of the past. In H. D. Kass & B. Catron (Eds.), Images and identities of public administration (pp. 23-59). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
82.
Wilson, W. ( 1887). The study of administration. Political Science Quarterly, 2, 197-222.
