Postmodern Postures

This work attempts to define what the postmodern means within the context of public administration and to explore the possibility that the postmodern can serve as a useful framework to conduct public administration research and solve complex problems. Additionally, this study intends to both inform and demonstrate to its readers how the postmodern may serve as an alternative theoretical perspective that has both utility and credibility within the scholarly field as well as the applied practice that is public administration. The theoretical framework for this work is based on the research foundations of: Postmodern Theory; Public Administration Theory; Interpretive Public Administration Theory, and Hermeneutic Theory. Developed was a model of the postmodern composed of three postures: skepticism, pluralism, and transformationalism. The model was then applied to a policy issue, the Spanish-American War Act of 1898, there by demonstrating the postmodern as an useful alternative milieu of research. Readers will find that the postmodern excelled in defining where values lie and negotiating the issue of subjectivity.