Sanford Borins (2011) Governing fables: Learning from public sector narratives
| Published date | 01 March 2012 |
| Date | 01 March 2012 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852312437325 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
78(1) 186–188
!The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852312437325
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Book review
Book review
Sanford Borins (2011) Governing fables: Learning from public sector narratives, Charlotte NC,
Information Age Publishing, 291pp. ISBN 978-1-6175-4908 (pbk); 978-1- 61735-4915 (hbk).
Sandford Borins has written this book ‘to encourage public management to take
the narrative turn’ (p.xi). He argues that narratives are such a ‘universal and com-
pelling means of creating meaning and engaging an audience [that] they should be
an essential way of communicating management concepts and skills’(p.3).
In the first chapter, he introduces core narratological concepts, reviews relevant
literature and proposes a taxonomy of dominant fables and counter fables. His
basic framework – which is then used throughout the book – consists of a 2x2 with
personal growth/decline of the narrative’s protagonist as the two vertical columns
and organizational renewal/decline as the two horizontal rows. Quite soon, how-
ever, (after 26 pages) Borins plunges into his empirical material, where he stays for
the next 111 pages, until his final 25 page conclusion. The empirical matter he
examines is, as he himself avers, highly diverse. We are introduced to films, both
dramas and documentaries, television series, historical and policy analytic books,
novels and a range of other material. So fans thereof can read a scholarly analysis
of their TV favourites such as Yes Minister and The West Wing, or of political
thriller movies such as Thirteen Days, but they will find these alongside much more
‘serious’ material such as Roy Jenkins’ analysis of Churchill’s opposition to
appeasement, or Allison and Zelikow’s modern classic Essence of Decision. In all
this the author is not seeking to establish the definitive interpretation or judgement
on each of the tales: on the contrary, he insists on the advantages of ‘polyphonal’
narratives, and highlights the frequent presence of counter narratives, either along-
side or lurking within some of our best-known stories of political and public service
life. In the conclusions he revisits his 2x2 framework (see above) and finds it useful
in, for example, showing that, taken together, US narratives are more diverse, or
‘balanced’ than those about the UK. Finally, he advances a ‘cumulative model of
public sector leadership’. This model, he argues, consists of three narratives – a
‘public narrative of goal and agenda-setting, the internal narrative of decision-
making and implementation; and the personal narrative of professional conduct,
personal commitment and moral or ethical choice’ (pp.249 – italics in the original).
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