This compact book presents a framework for the application of critical social theory in public administration. While identifying contradictions between what is prevailing and what might be better and showing the potentials for constructive change, the author turns to contemporary social theorists but with a greater focus on Herbert Marcuse's approach to humanize organizations, interpersonal relations, governmental operations and international affairs.
At a time when concern for public interest and a civil society is being displaced for attaining economic efficiency, the author presents a viable alternative that incorporates the latest views of postmodern thinking with the central elements of critical social theory, and which acts as a balancing proposition.
...critical theory is needed in public administration now more than ever. In this important new volume, one of the leading scholars of critical theory in our field reveals the relevancy of critical theory to our work. Every student and professor of public administration theory (and practice) should read this book.
-CHERYL SIMRELL KING
Evergreen State College
This volume provides a much-needed discussion of the value of critical theory for contemporary public administration. As a former practitioner turned academic, Box shows in accessible and convincing language that critical theory for understanding government is indispensable to public action and necessary for understanding the relation between government and society.
-JOS C.N. RAADSCHELDERS
University of Oklahoma

About the Author
RICHARD C. BOX is a Professor in the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha. He served for thirteen years as a land-use planner, department head, and city planner in local governments in California and Oregon before completing his doctorate at the University of Southern California. He serves as the editor of Administrative Theory and Praxis and is the author of Public Administration and Society: Critical Issues in American Governance.

Table of Contents

• Introduction.
• 1. Critical Imagination in a Postmodern Environment.
• 2. Contradiction, Utopia, and Public Administration.
• 3. The "T"ruth Is Elsewhere: Critical History.
• 4. Critical Theory and the Paradox of Discourse.
• 5. Pragmatic Discourse and Administrative Legitimacy.
• 6. Private Lives and Antiadministration.
• 7. Critical Practice and the Problem of Finding a Public.
• References
• Index