Working as equals: Relational egalitarianism and the workplace. By Julian David Jonker , Grant J. Rozeboom (Eds.), New York: Oxford University Press. 2023. pp. 272. £71.00 (hardback). ISBN: 9780197634295

• Published date: 01 November 2024
• Author: B. V. E. Hyde
• Date: 01 November 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13883

the band or tribe on a ‘we know each other’” basis;

(b) whereas “in small, nomadic communities, the sur-

vival of the group was assured by sanctions against

predatory behavior…rent-seeking behaviors are a fea-

ture of large-scale imagined communities where crimi-

nals can prey upon public goods and where economic

and political elites can take advantage of their wealth

and of their specific role and position in society”; and

(c) “collective challenges emerged that could not be

handled on the self-governing characteristic of small

communities all over the world”(121–122).

3. The third and current age, “the transition to a demo-

cratic political system and industrialized economy

started about 250 years ago”(111). A major change

was that government shifted from being “property

and instrument of the few…to enabler and container

for the many”(124). Also, “bureaucracies”that were

previously “parasitic by nature…extracting resources

and providing few services to people at large”(137)

emerged as “the foundation upon which expansion of

government services became possible”(138). As the

boundaries between government and society may

become blurred through collaborative governance

efforts and the globalization with which we are now

familiar, Raadschelders reminds us that “government

still remains the only actor that has the authority to

make binding decisions on behalf of an entire citizenry”

(142). Service and regulation are inevitably entwined

and subject to administrative law regimes. In democra-

cies, citizens seek or expect assurance “not only that

internal and external order and safety are guaranteed

by means of police, justice and military functions but

also that their well-being is advanced through the pro-

vision, production, and governance of so-called wel-

fare functions”(147–148). Chapters 5–7 essentially

analyze this period and democracy.

Raadschelders’rich description and analysis of each of

these ages is supported by his daunting command of a

wealth of scholarship and is among the book’s major con-

tributions toward answering his big questions. Overall, the

book is an instantiation of why big questions matter and

often call for multidisciplinary research. If big questions

spawn additional important questions, macro, meso, and

micro, to his great credit, Raadschelders has created a

research agenda that can deepen and broaden the study

of public administration. If I were still teaching a doctoral

level course on the intellectual history of US public admin-

istration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizen-

ship and Public Affairs or at American University, The Three

Ages of Government would be required reading with the

expectation that it would encourage new lines of thought

and noteworthy dissertations enriching our understanding

of what government and public administration are.

Accepted: 9 September 2024

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13883

Working as equals: Relational

egalitarianism and the

workplace

By Julian David Jonker, Grant J.

Rozeboom (Eds.), New York: Oxford

University Press. 2023. pp. 272. £71.00

(hardback). ISBN: 9780197634295

B. V. E. Hyde

School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds, Leeds,

UK

Email: prbh@leeds.ac.uk

There has always been a big discussion in administrative

science about how to make places of work more efficient.

For a long time, this was thought to contradict the ethics

literature, in which the primary concern has been how to

make them more just, even at the expense of profit.

Recently, though, these ostensibly opposite aims have

converged as we have begun to discover that a just and

equitable workplace is not only a human right that needs

to be respected –as per article 23 of the Universal Decla-

ration of Human Rights –it is also a determinant of firm

efficiency and therefore ought to be an organizational pri-

ority. Recent research has shown that workers care about

pay justice (Valet, 2023) and that perception of organiza-

tional justice has a negative relationship with emotional

exhaustion and a positive relationship with wellbeing

(Karaca et al., 2023); it mitigates the negative impact of

abusive supervision on employee creativity (Akram

et al., 2022); and it has a significant direct negative effect

on deviant workplace behaviors, more so than ethical

leadership even (Tufan et al., 2023). The adverse conse-

quences of injustice include poor team climate, reduced

productivity and well-being, and work-related illnesses

(Virtanen & Elovainio, 2018) among other counterproduc-

tive staff behaviors (Lambert et al., 2024).

All this goes for public administration too because

government is an organization with employees like any

other. In fact, it might be even more important when it

comes to government. For one, the state tends to be the

1238 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN PRINT