^aDepartment of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, College of Education, Florida International University, ZEB 313, College of Education, FIU, Miami, FL 33199, USA. E-mail: parsonsm@fiu.edu

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to attempt to reclaim the concept of foundations of power as a framework of analysis and as an approach to influencing policy. The first section briefly re-examines the policy area that developed in the late 20th century United States and suggests that it was an illusion based on a small area of consensus and a large supply of federal funds. The next section questions the ability to find a new consensus. The policy arena of the previous century has fragmented into multiple sites that make a new common foundation difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. The last section considers postmodernism as a heuristic device for understanding and influencing public policy. In doing so it is possible to reconstruct the concept of the foundations of power.