Carnivalesque Resistance to Global Spectacle: A Critical Postmodern Theory of Public Administration

I propose a critical postmodern application of Debord’s Spectacle and the carnivaJesque of Bakhtin to the theatrics I see happening in city streets, on college campuses, and Internet resisting the new globalized economy. In the past decade public administration has experienced the postmodernturn, becoming caught in the conflicting theatrics of corporate-mediatized spectacle and the carnival of resistance to globalization discourse. My contribution is to theorize the interplay of spectacle and carnival on the global stage as theatrical constructions of corporate and state power and resistance. I analyze growth of the spectacle of the monitoring industry that attests corporate codes of conducts in narratives of progress, while the anti-sweatshop and antiglobalization carnivals perform a devolution script in street theater, antisweat fashion shows, and cyber-activism.