The end of the cold war was a moment of celebration for free market enthusiasts, and it also ushered in a Reagan-Thatcher style of neoliberalism with an accompanying anti-government ethic that sometimes included ridicule. The anti-governmental narrative did not recede in the subsequent era of market fundamentalism. Instead, numerous governing challenges became more difficult, including regulation of carbon emissions, implementing a macroeconomic fiscal policy that could stimulate the economy, and rising inequality. Federal, state and local governments reduced some services and contracted-out others. The risk of corruption and other insider games loomed larger as government agencies were made leaner and government functions were privatized. Thus far, public administration has seemed unwilling or unable to defend itself, perhaps trapped in its own self-reinforcing narratives about expertise, non-partisanship, and aversion to politics.





           The 2015 Program Committee invites paper and panel proposals that track along the conference theme, or any of the following topics:








1. Comparative and international anti-government.




2. The web of anti-government imagery.




3. Serving public interests in a context of anti-government initiatives.




4. Market narratives and market reforms: Implications for practice.




5. The seeming inability of public administration to defend itself against a hostile narrative.




6. Social media, democracy and anti-government sentiment.




7. The Foucault effect: Governmentality, governing, and governance.




8. Apathy and activism: Imagining an activist role for public administration.




9. Quantitative methodology as ideology.




10. Redescribing public administration as policy implementation.




11. Theme 11: None of the above.








           For panel proposals, include a one-page abstract for each paper in the panel. Similarly, paper proposals should take the form of one-page abstracts. For both papers and panels, please indicate the theme/topic you have in mind. Send proposals to Hugh T. Miller hmiller@fau.edu and to Jeannine Love jmlove@roosevelt.edu by Sunday, November 16, 2014.




Program Committee




Hugh T. Miller, Professor, Florida Atlantic University




Chris Erickson, Sessional Lecturer, University of British Columbia




David Kasdan, Assistant Professor, Incheon National University




Larry Luton, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Washington University




Cheryl Simrell King, Member of the Faculty, The Evergreen State College




Jeannine Love, Assistant Professor, Roosevelt University




Alexandru Roman, Assistant Professor, California State University, San Bernardino




Charlene Roach, Lecturer, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine




Umar Ghuman, Assistant Professor, California State University, Stanislaus




Lester Leavitt, Doctoral Candidate, Florida Atlantic University