Reimagining Performance in Public Administration Theory and Practice: Creating a Democratic Performativity of Care and Hope

Abstract

Public administration scholars and practitioners for too long have understood the concept of performance almost exclusively in terms of the neoliberal, new public management project where it is defined by reference to the measurement of outcomes. Borrowing from the “performance turn” in the human sciences, this article proposes reimagining performance as a critical and cultural concept that refers both to what is done (or performed) and to the doing of what is done (performativity). From this perspective, performance becomes a concept by which public administration scholars might not just measure, but rather interrogate critically and deeply, how effectively and to what ends public policies, leaders, and administrators perform social justice, inclusivity, care, and other democratic values. This concept of performance introduces new expressive performance-based theories, methodologies, and pedagogies to public administration scholarship and teaching that could help advance the project of creating a hopeful, democratic, and caring performing state for the twenty-first century.