Thought styles on administrative justice systems

This chapter reviews Mike Adler’s contribution to administrative justice theory, re-assessing his own critique and extension of Jerry Mashaw’s seminal work, Bureaucratic Justice. We offer an interpretation of Adler’s contribution which is sometimes overlooked by his critics: that he sought to move the agenda on from a narrower focus on frontline administrative decision-making to a broader consideration of administrative justice systems, including modes of redress. We also seek to build on Adler’s contribution. Drawing on Mary Douglas’ grid-group cultural theory, we offer a high-level ‘map’ of thought styles around administrative justice systems—four distinctive ways in which participants in systems of administrative justice—whether users, operators or designers—frame the legitimacy of the system rationality that underpins it. We observe that, while Adler’s work can be read as drawing attention to two families of thought styles, two others remain unexamined. The styles of administrative justice identified by Adler align along what Mary Douglas calls the ‘positive diagonal’. The contribution of this chapter, on the other hand, is to draw attention to the neglected ‘negative diagonal’ of thought styles which are—in different ways—critical of the more familiar legitimacy claims of administrative justice systems.