Rereading Hannah Arendt on Bureaucracy, Administration, and Associations

A discussion of Hannah Arendt's understandings of administration, bureaucracy, & associations focuses on expressions of government action as more empowering than the realm of the social. The analysis is part of a larger project that contrasts Arendt's views with those of Jurgen Habermas. Special attention is called to her "claim about the specificity of the administrative" illustrated by her assertion that "there shouldn't be any debate about the question that everybody should have decent housing" (1979). Arendt's statements on government action are categorized as positive, pragmatic, or negative, to argue that her ideas about administration mediate between law & reality, making administration a participant in the world-changing functions of both the law & action. Arendt offers three views of government action that reflect conflicting concerns: bureaucracy & logic as policy; administration as keeping the world; & associations that seek specific goals. It is maintained that these conflicts erode the distinction between administrative & political, & evoke more complicated relationships between self/citizen, interest/opinion, & private/public. 9 References. J. Lindroth