Contemporary Debates on Politics and Public Administration in the Postmodern Era

The expression of the above-mentioned financial transformation in terms of politics, sociology, and public administration can be described by the emerging paradigm changes and the different theories and approaches that try to explain or analyze the period. Similarly, especially after World War II, modernism has come to an end, and it is often mentioned that the postmodernist movement must leave its mark on the period. Postmodernism seriously criticizes the epistemology, methods, and understandings of modernism. According to postmodernism, the knowledge generation method based on meta-narratives should be changed, historically progressive understanding should come to an end, and comments rather than truths should be included in scientific discussions.

Postmodernism’s dominance or its being discussed in social sciences coincides with the late 1970s. Postmodernism deeply questions discourses, theories, and approaches that are related with the modern era and tries to develop a perspective that appropriates today’s information society. At this point, the basic theories, approaches, and principles of political science and public administration are discussed again. In political science, basic concepts such as sovereignty, democracy, legitimacy, representation, negotiation, civil society, and human rights are explained according to the conditions of the period. Again, deep paradigm shifts are observed in the field of public administration, and change over from traditional public administration to the new public administration is stated. New theories specific to the conditions of the period are developed in the field of urban, environmental science and international relations, and these theories affect the public policies of countries.

In postmodern public administration, there is a great transformation in the fields like bureaucracy, hierarchy, and secrecy regarding the modern period public administration. Concordantly, it is understood that flexibility, openness, and network-related electronic applications become prominent instead of these fields. At this stage, the two most important theories that have left their mark on public administration are new public management and governance. Governance is a democratic-based public administration theory of political origin, which has become a dominant paradigm in public administration after the 1990s as an advanced stage of new public management. The theory of governance has a postmodern feel and refers to a way of doing policy based on participative joint management.

As it is understood, in the postmodern period, a great transformation is observed in every part of social sciences, especially in politics and public administration. The postmodern era brings out the different debates and inquiries in the field of science and philosophy, in the public policies of the states, in the world’s financial system, and in the global culture and social sphere.

The main purpose of this study is to include contemporary debates and opinions in the context of the deep transformation mentioned above in political science and public administration, especially in the postmodern period. Within this framework, in this study, the chapters, written by academicians in different fields, discuss the following topics: postmodern political discourse, modern democracy theories, contemporary approaches to democracy and civil society concept, the position of women in society, current debates in international relations, climate change policy and urban theories, postmodern public administration and its pioneers, trust in the state, new public management, governance, e-government, city councils, sustainable urbanization and waste management, metropolitan area management, and regional management.