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The Public Agency as Polis

Active Citizenship in the Administrative State

Evergreen State College

This article offers a view of active citizenship in an administrative context. It argues that the classic features of active citizenship-authoritative action, public interest focus, practical wisdom, and community can be enacted in an agency setting, when community people join with professional administrators in exercising a measure of administrative discretion. Using a framework developed from the theories of Anthony Giddens, it is suggested that such interaction between lay citizens and administrators, constrained and enabled by bureaucratic rules and resources, constitutes a polis, a public space in which members act together in order to achieve limited ends and to lead a virtuous life. The federal Community Health Center program in the Bureau of Health Care Delivery and Assistance, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, is offered as an illustration.

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