On his book When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency
Cover Interview of April 29, 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?
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
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?