In this article we use Foucault’s conception of games of truth to investigate how truth in public policy is rhetorically constructed through the notion of “transparency.” Data was collected from various public sources regarding a medal target policy promoted by Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc) for the national team at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. By analyzing the multifarious rhetoric surrounding the medal target policy, we show that the notion of transparency, although ostensibly appealing and helpful as a mechanism to justify goals, exposes inherent contradictions that were counter to Sparc’s goals. The discussion encourages scholars and practitioners to conceive of policy as ongoing contests over truth. We suggest that practitioners might benefit from considering the problematic implications of promoting “transparent” public policy.
This article analyses the sources of knowledge New Zealand sport and recreation policymakers rely on when forming public policy. Specifically, utilizing a Foucauldian lens of governmentality, we consider how New Zealand sport and recreation policy is influenced by various sources of knowledge. Through analysis of official policy documents, media releases and interviews with senior New Zealand policy managers, we argue that despite claims of positivistic, 'evidence-based' policy, writers draw on a wide range of knowledge sources. Thus, despite being governed by positivism, policy-makers themselves utilize other, multifarious sources of knowledge in order to construct national sport policy. We offer considerations for the future setting of such public policy, and in particular suggest the existing rationale for the formulation of public policy could be altered to acknowledge these wide ranging knowledges.
PurposeThe paper seeks to examine the tension between a Levinasian ethics and routine corporate activity in multinational business worlds. It investigates the calculative regimes around financialisation and places these against the absolute ethical responsibility to the other and the third, and the issues of justice and politics this produces.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on the notion of the deconstructive moment and uses this to investigate the ethics of key decision making by a medium‐sized international telco, Telecom New Zealand, in the construction of a submarine cable.FindingsThe paper details the irreconcilable ethical conflict between the acutely human responsibility of corporations and the sophisticated, dehumanising regimes of calculation which they both mobilise and in which they are embedded.Originality/valueThe authors utilise the notion of the deconstructive moment to investigate the ethics of corporate practice. They also show how this can be related not just to the other but to other others and to wider issues of justice.
The following paper had something of a rough passage through LR's refereeing procedure. One comment was that the three elements in its title did not cohere. Nevertheless, it was by all accounts well received when delivered as a lecture at CLW. LR prints this article as a basis for ongoing discussion, and is open to constructive comment.
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