This book provides a framework for the application of critical social theory in public administration. Its goal is to encourage awareness among public administration scholars and practitioners of social conditions that tend to shape and constrain scholarship, practice, teaching, and social change.

Introduction; Chapter 1 Critical Imagination in a Postmodern Environment; Chapter 2 Contradiction, Utopia, and Public Administration; Chapter 3 The "T"ruth is Elsewhere: Critical History; Chapter 4 Critical Theory and the Paradox of Discourse; Chapter 5 Pragmatic Discourse and Administrative Legitimacy; Chapter 6 Private Lives and Antiadministration; Chapter 7 Critical Practice and the Problem of Finding a Public;