On his book When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency
Cover Interview of April 30, 2018
A close-up
As a work of political theory, When the State Meets the
Street is unusual in that it combines normative reasoning with ethnographic
fieldwork. Political theory is often criticized for operating at too high a
level of abstraction, specifying ideals of justice or democracy that bear
little relation to the political world in which we live. I believe that a turn
to ethnography can serve to anchor a more grounded approach, situating
philosophical reasoning within a more realistic understanding of our political
institutions.
Political theory should look to ethnography not just for additional
context or meaning or texture, but also to uncover new normative questions that
are worth asking.
Seen from a distance, it may seem like all that happens when
the state meets the street is the application of legal directives. Seen from up
close, however, one starts noticing that the process is far more indeterminate
and that the individuals involved have real discretion. Ethnography thickens
the plot.
With that, a new terrain for normative reflection opens up.
What values should street-level bureaucrats be sensitive to when wielding their
discretion? How can we justify that discretion and reconcile it with the tenets
of democratic government? How can we hold them accountable?
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
A close-up
As a work of political theory, When the State Meets the Street is unusual in that it combines normative reasoning with ethnographic fieldwork. Political theory is often criticized for operating at too high a level of abstraction, specifying ideals of justice or democracy that bear little relation to the political world in which we live. I believe that a turn to ethnography can serve to anchor a more grounded approach, situating philosophical reasoning within a more realistic understanding of our political institutions.
Political theory should look to ethnography not just for additional context or meaning or texture, but also to uncover new normative questions that are worth asking.
Seen from a distance, it may seem like all that happens when the state meets the street is the application of legal directives. Seen from up close, however, one starts noticing that the process is far more indeterminate and that the individuals involved have real discretion. Ethnography thickens the plot.
With that, a new terrain for normative reflection opens up. What values should street-level bureaucrats be sensitive to when wielding their discretion? How can we justify that discretion and reconcile it with the tenets of democratic government? How can we hold them accountable?