This article proposes that a reorientation is required in public administration’s discourse style. It suggests that traditional style(s) cannot cope with complex problems like the ongoing antipathy against bureaucracy and bureaucracy’s “iron cage” challenges. It proposes, first, that public administration discourse should become more self-conscious about style, a feature often misunderstood as a decorative and unimportant add-on. Second, a self-conscious style should be what is described as post-ist, including emphasis on the autonomously macro and longer term. Traditional and post-ist styles are contrasted.
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