Speaking truth to power? Anti-bureaucratic romanticism from critical organizational theorizing to the White House

In spite of their distinctive normative and political differences, critical organizational scholars use a vocabulary which in several respects resembles that adopted by right-wing populists. This vocabulary, we argue, consists of components that can be deployed in the pursuit of radically conflictin...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization (London, England) Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 441 - 453
Main Authors: Lopdrup-Hjorth, Thomas, du Gay, Paul
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.05.2020
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Bureaucracy
Organization theory
Organizational power
Populism
Reflexivity
Right wing politics
Romanticism
Truth
Variants
Vocabulary
Anti-bureaucracy
populism
bureaucracy
organization theory
CMS
critique
Trump
ISSN:1350-5084, 1461-7323
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In spite of their distinctive normative and political differences, critical organizational scholars use a vocabulary which in several respects resembles that adopted by right-wing populists. This vocabulary, we argue, consists of components that can be deployed in the pursuit of radically conflicting goals. At its heart lies a profoundly antithetical stance toward bureaucracy and the state. In this article, we explore the components of this vocabulary as well as the role they play in both populist- and critical organizational theory-variants. In doing so, we further discuss the lack of critical potential this vocabulary has in the present. For critical organization scholars, we argue, this should perhaps lead to a renewed consideration and reflexivity concerning not only the merits of bureaucracy and the state, but also of how to conduct critique in populist times.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:1350-5084
1461-7323
DOI:10.1177/1350508419830622