Chronicle of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences

Abstract

Managing the “Opportunity of the Covid-19 crisis” at the International Institute of Administrative Sciences Public administration will never be the same during and after Covid-19—if there is ever an after Covid-19. Sabine Kuhlman, International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) Vice President for Western Europe, developed along with a number of colleagues (Kuhlmann et al., 2021), a cross-country comparative analysis in the September 2021 special issue of the International Review of Administrative Sciences (IRAS) on “Testing the crisis: Opportunity management and governance of the Covid-19 pandemic”. The comparison shows that opportunities arise during crises and the extent of these opportunities increases with the magnitude of the crisis. Needless to say that the Covid-19 crisis is a global cataclysm of a magnitude hardly seen before. Its longevity makes is all the more trying for a variety of actors including governments and public administration. The opportunities are, however, immense as well. According to Kuhlman and her co-authors, “opportunity management” by various political and administrative actors will depend on both institutional factors and individual ones. Institutional factors consist of the institutional starting conditions, administrative cultures and historical path dependencies. Individual factors consist of the strategies of actors who will see in the crisis a welcome opportunity to demonstrate leadership and effective governance. In these annual chronicles, and other than referring the reader to the excellent special issue of IRAS and in particular Kuhlman et al.’s contribution, I would like to review the work of the IIAS during this year and plans for the years ahead in terms of the conceptual framework laid out by the guest editors to the special issue. How did the IIAS, through the agency of its secretariat, manage opportunities arising from the Covid-19 crisis. It goes without saying that the special issue is about managing the health crisis itself at the