'No Philosophy, Please, We are Managers' Public Management and the Common Good: Euro-Atlantic Convergences

Public Administration and Nation’s Building Working Paper

31 Pages Posted: 10 Aug 2009 Last revised: 27 Sep 2010

See all articles by Claude Rochet

Claude Rochet

Institut de Management Public

Date Written: July 9, 2009

Abstract

Public management, as an academic discipline, has been, up to now, inspired by a managerialist approach axiologically neutral that cast aside the great questions regarding the ends of public life, those of the common good and of the good life that were at the very basis of the classical political philosophy. Governing has been reduced to governancing, relying on the presupposition that good means automatically lead to good ends. Based on critiques of this drift, we witness on both sides of the Atlantic the renewal of the old republicanism that makes the common good the aim of public administration. This debate has been at the very foundation of the modern democracies since the XVII° century in England, to the foundation of the United States and the republican tradition stemming from the French Revolution. This paper envisages how public management could rejuvenate itself to mend the broken link between the managerial and the political, putting emphasis on what would be the consequences on the training of public managers.

Keywords: Political philosophy, Research programme, public management, common good, history of England, Histoty of the United States, financial crisis

Suggested Citation

Rochet, Claude, 'No Philosophy, Please, We are Managers' Public Management and the Common Good: Euro-Atlantic Convergences (July 9, 2009). Public Administration and Nation’s Building Working Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1446781 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1446781

Claude Rochet (Contact Author)

Institut de Management Public ( email )

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Aix en Provence, 13625
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+33 1 48727505 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.managementpublic.univ-cezanne.fr/

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