Practitioner Envy and Construction of the Other in Public Administration

Abstract

This article focuses on the personal dimension of the identity crisis in public administration and its impact on academic research. Devoid of a socially recognizable secure academic identity, practitioner represents the closest to an authentic identity for the public administration researcher. This identification with the practitioner comes at a price and leads to the treatment of “public” as the Other in public administration research. Drawing insights from Said’s treatment of the concept of the Other, various dimensions of the discourses of power and knowledge in public administration which lead to categorization of the public as the Other are discussed.