TY - JOUR
T1 - From resistance and control to normative orders
T2 - The Wire’s Cedric Daniels as an ethical bureaucrat
AU - Dallyn, Sam
AU - Marinetto, Mike
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - While the categories of control and resistance have provided important frames of reference to understand workplace relations, we argue that they offer a limited analytical range when investigating conduct in public institutions where work still has sizeable elements of discretion – despite the increasing demands of performance measurement that have been a central component of new public management. Here, we investigate the HBO series, The Wire, and situate it as a piece of social science fiction. By affording more attention to the different ‘codes’ of policework depicted on the show we develop a more pluralistic understanding of workplace conduct. In tracing out different normative orders that characterize these codes, we consider The Wire’s Cedric Daniels’ distinctive positioning in relation to performance measurement and the predominant normative order of ‘the numbers game’ and argue that he consistently displays the code of an ethical bureaucrat.
AB - While the categories of control and resistance have provided important frames of reference to understand workplace relations, we argue that they offer a limited analytical range when investigating conduct in public institutions where work still has sizeable elements of discretion – despite the increasing demands of performance measurement that have been a central component of new public management. Here, we investigate the HBO series, The Wire, and situate it as a piece of social science fiction. By affording more attention to the different ‘codes’ of policework depicted on the show we develop a more pluralistic understanding of workplace conduct. In tracing out different normative orders that characterize these codes, we consider The Wire’s Cedric Daniels’ distinctive positioning in relation to performance measurement and the predominant normative order of ‘the numbers game’ and argue that he consistently displays the code of an ethical bureaucrat.
KW - The Wire
KW - control and resistance
KW - discretion
KW - ethical bureaucrat
KW - normative orders
KW - performance measurement
KW - social science fiction
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098239373&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0018726720982040
DO - 10.1177/0018726720982040
M3 - Article
VL - 75
SP - 560
EP - 582
JO - Human Relations
JF - Human Relations
SN - 0018-7267
IS - 3
M1 - 001872672098204
ER -