Death, actually: Emboldening theory and praxis when death is all around

In this article, we seek to illuminate the public sector relevance of the weighty subject of death, and to identify the stakes in avoiding the subject. Our purpose is to unlearn silence about Public Administration’s (PA’s) potential role in understanding, communicating, and addressing the avoidable and unavoidable in human death and suffering. At this time, death seems to be all around, and at the same time, nowhere. Contending that the academic field of PA understates the degree to which death features in actual PA practice, this article establishes death’s relative absence in the journals of the field before examining obstacles to its presence. We identify and critically examine potential barriers to death’s inclusion in PA, suggesting ways forward and intimating that COVID-born openness to recognition and discussion of death is not likely to last without conscious efforts. In illuminating objections and stakes we propose that PA theory and praxis and the public sector itself would benefit by confronting death avoidance, anxiety, and dread with greater and more intentional reflection, deliberation, and literacy on these subjects.