Power and Authority: changes in public administration from Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy view

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17721/2616-9193.2019/12-4/8

Keywords:

Hannah Arendt, Max Weber, totalitarianism, public realm, power, violence, authority, public administration

Abstract

The article aims at revealing theoretical and practical perspectives on public administration by exploring/studying the key notions of Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy and by juxtaposing these notions with the ones that describe current practices of public administration. Furthermore, the article estimates/offers the possibilities to converge their meanings for strengthening power as communication, to preserve the public realm as a place for reality, limiting the role of coercion and violence in the societal organization by increasing the influence of the authority in the public realm.
The study used a range of logical methods (synthesis, analysis, inductive method, etc.) and such general scholarly approaches as systematic, structural-functional and bibliographic ones.
The article examines Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy as a motivation for changes of the existing social orders, as they were defined by Max Weber and constitute the grounding for the common understanding of public administration as a public sphere’s phenomenon. It demonstrates that such changes do not implicate a radical rejection of the common meanings of the notions like power, violence, and authority as they were defined in the “sociology of understanding”. But they open the way to a new development of the public realm/space and public administration respectively by demonstrating the opportunities in situations when freedom border on necessity.
A scholarly novelty of the article is an outline (definition) for the new developments in public administration under the influence of changes in democratic political systems as they were foreseen by Hannah Arendt. This research demonstrates the importance of implementing the notion of authority as a special phenomenon of the public realm/space into a theory and practice of public administration and argues for developing new methods and instruments to support it.
A practical significance of the article is bound to recent changes in democracy and nation state and the proposed findings of the study can be used in course readings, research, and (political) practice.

References

Andrushchenko V.(2006) Organized society. Atlant UMC.

Аrendt, H. (1996) Origins of Totalitarianism. TsentrCom.

Аrendt, H. (2011) On Revolution. Izdatelstvo “Jevropa”.

Аrendt, H. (2013) Responsibility and Judgment. Izdatelstvo Instituta Gaidara.

Аrendt, H. (2013) Life of Mind. Nauka.

Аrendt, H. (2014) Between Past and Future. Izdatelstvo Instituta Gaidara.

Аrendt, H. (2017) Vita Activa.On Human Condition. Аd Marginem Press.

Bakumenko V. (2000) Formation of state management decisions: the problems of theory, methodology, practice. Vydavnytstvo UADU.

Bourdieu P. (2016) On State. Kurs lekciy v College de France (1989-1992). Izdatelsky dom “Delo” RANHiGS European Parliament resolution on the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War and the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe (2019/2819(RSP)) (2019)https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/B-9-2019-0098_EN.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3Ik8bXr3e-R_kpNGu6PdLRjp1uunzoj9h2bhppYQ4BCb3wDfjTPdrvj4Y (Last accessed: 15/07/2020).

Filippov A. (2013) Common, Communal and Public in Continuity and Change. Review on the book”From Communal to Public”. Sociology of Power. 1—2. 269—285. https://web.archive.org/web/20140222033943/http://socofpower.rane.ru/uploads/1-2%20(2013)/Filippov%20Review.pdf

Gloukhov А. (2019) Reading Arendt in the Russian Context. Russian Sociological Review. Vol 18. 5. 263-283. https://sociologica.hse.ru/data/2019/12/30/1511028853/SocOboz_18_4_263-283_Gloukhov.pdf

Gubersky L. (2007) Information Policy in Ukraine. Lybid’.

Jessop B. (2019) The State: Past, Present, Future. Izdatelsky dom “Delo” RANHiGS

Habermas J. (2006) Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Nauka.

LeJeune J. (2018) Hannah Arendt and the Dark Public Sphere. Russian Sociological Review. Vol 17.4.47-69.https://sociologica.hse.ru/data/2018/12/30/1143880881/RusSocRev_17_4_47-69_LeJeune.pdf

Makarenko Ye. (2003) European information policy. Nasha kultura i nauka.

Minenko M. (2014) Public management: theory and methodology. Kyivsky nacionalny torgovo-economichny universytet.

Motroshilova N. (2009) On Contemporary Situation of Civil Society. Voprosy filosofii. 6.12-32. http://vphil.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=52

Nelipa D. (2016) Organizational and Judiciary Foundations of the Ukrainian Civil Service. Centr uchbovoyi literatury.

Obolensky O., Lukin S. (2013) Public management, public sphere, public law and public policy. Derzhavne upravlinnya ta misceve samovryaduvannya. 2(17).3-11.

Ruban Y.G. (2020) Hannah Arendt’s Political Philosophy as an Invitation to a New Beginnings in Pblic Management. Scientific Papers of the Legislation Institute of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.2.150-158. https://doi.org/10.32886/instzak.2020.02.16

Salikov T. (2018) Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas and Rethinking the Public Sphere in the Age of Social Media. Russian Sociological Review. Vol 17.4. 88-102. https://sociologica.hse.ru/data/2018/12/30/1143881209/RusSocRev_17_4_88-102_Salikov.pdf

Weber M. (2012) Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Vyd. dim «Vsesvit».

Weber M. (2016) Basic Sociological Terms. in Max Weber. Politics as a Vocation. Ripol Classic.

Weber M. (2018) The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit if Capitalism. Nash format.

Published

2019-12-27

Author Biography

Yuriy Ruban, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

PhD, Assistant Professor, Public Administration Department, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

How to Cite

Ruban, Y. (2019). Power and Authority: changes in public administration from Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy view. Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Public Administration, 12(2), 39-49. https://doi.org/10.17721/2616-9193.2019/12-4/8