ABSTRACT
Great refusal is Herbert Marcuse’s concept of refusal of all forms of oppression and domination, and power that should be refused is what oppresses and dominates. A great refusal of a discourse or practice of power is toward one end of the range. Power, biopower, discipline, discourse, games of truth, power-knowledge, normalization, genealogy, and governmentality are examples of Foucauldian concepts that are relevant to Public Administration (PA). In the spirit of Marcuse, refusal for many of us includes overcoming traditional PA’s tendency to one-dimensionality in privileging speaking-from-power, or system-affirming, frameworks and actions. Mary Parker Follett repeated the well-known distinction between “power” and “power-over”, for example. Traditional PA peers through a lens that is a power-distorted mass of what-counts-as-truths, what-counts-as-concepts, rules-that-count-as-ruling, and meanings-that-have-privileged-meaning. James Scott is indeed another power goldmine for improving PA practice, both micro and macro. Power has practical relevance for PA.
