Bureaucracy as Politics in Action in Parks and Recreation
New Formations - ISSN 0950-2378
Volume 2020 Number 100-101
Bureaucracy as Politics in Action in Parks and Recreation
Holly Randell-Moon, Arthur J Randell pages -
DOI: 10.3898/NEWF:100-101.11.2020
Abstract
The North American television show Parks and Recreation focuses on the bureaucratic processes and practices of managing the Parks and Recreation Department for the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Filmed in the mockumentary style of television comedies such as The Office, humour is derived from the discrepancy between the self-importance the main character, Leslie Knope, deputy director of the department, attaches to the department’s work and the mundane realities of mid-level bureaucracy in municipal government. Nevertheless, in spite of this parodic discrepancy, the programme encourages viewers to sympathise with Leslie’s perspective that bureaucracy is foundational to building inter-organisational relationships and stimulating community activism. By using the mockumentary conceit to focus on public administration, Parks and Recreation also reveals the role of bureaucracy in place-making and the attendant histories that are included and excluded in the foundation of settler autochthony. Because the ideal of public administration as the service of community is emphasised, Parks and Recreation is also able to position the opposite of this ideal – reduction of municipal services and bureaucratic non-caring – as mockable and problematic for community interests, particularly the needs of women and minority groups. Parks and Recreation highlights how bureaucracy is politics in action that can fundamentally shape the civic, private, and communal spaces of residents’ lives.
SORRY - you are not registered as being permitted online access to the full text of this article
You have the following options:
- If you are viewing this via an institution or academic library you can ask that your institution takes out a Subscription to this journal.
- If you already have a Personal Subscription please login below
Forgotten your username / password? Click here to locate
- Purchase an annual Personal Subscription
PRINT + DIGITAL personal subscription (£45 / year)
DIGITAL personal subscription (£30 / year)
A Personal Subscription provides immediate access not only to the single article you are seeking, but also to all past and future articles in this journal up to the expiry of your annual (calendar year) subscription. - Purchase immediate access to this single article (UK£7.00) - Buy article Coming Soon
To cite this article
Holly Randell-Moon, Arthur J Randell (2020) Bureaucracy as Politics in Action in Parks and Recreation, New Formations, 2020(100-101 ), -. https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF:100-101.11.2020