Pub Date : 2024-08-26DOI: 10.1177/09520767241271848
Mats Fred, Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren
A strong and prevailing innovation imperative is sweeping across the public sector and despite a growing literature on public sector innovation (PSI), the actors driving these processes tend to end up in the background of analysis. Based in an analytical framework of narrative theory and organization studies, and the efforts to introduce Social Impact Bonds (SIB) in Sweden as empirical case, the aim of this article is to unpack and analyze the neglected initial stages of PSI. Building on a 4-year qualitative study, the analysis shows that actors promoting PSI narrate the public sector as in need to “open up” for (1) new actors; (2) new services and solutions; and (3) new forms of knowledge. Our findings suggests that the initial stages of PSI are substantially more formative than previously indicated. We show how the innovation at hand function as a discursive node towards which the actors’ storylines gravitate. Despite differences, the actors involved narrate their world similarly constituting discourse coalitions that connects and aligns their interests and objectives. We argue that the early stages of PSI are to be understood as cognitive and narrative struggles, or negotiations. The potentially good news here is that change continuously takes place in processes of PSI, despite narratives of inertia. The potentially bad news is that the same change is difficult to predict, control and govern.
{"title":"Promoting public sector innovation: who does what, when and how?","authors":"Mats Fred, Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren","doi":"10.1177/09520767241271848","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241271848","url":null,"abstract":"A strong and prevailing innovation imperative is sweeping across the public sector and despite a growing literature on public sector innovation (PSI), the actors driving these processes tend to end up in the background of analysis. Based in an analytical framework of narrative theory and organization studies, and the efforts to introduce Social Impact Bonds (SIB) in Sweden as empirical case, the aim of this article is to unpack and analyze the neglected initial stages of PSI. Building on a 4-year qualitative study, the analysis shows that actors promoting PSI narrate the public sector as in need to “open up” for (1) new actors; (2) new services and solutions; and (3) new forms of knowledge. Our findings suggests that the initial stages of PSI are substantially more formative than previously indicated. We show how the innovation at hand function as a discursive node towards which the actors’ storylines gravitate. Despite differences, the actors involved narrate their world similarly constituting discourse coalitions that connects and aligns their interests and objectives. We argue that the early stages of PSI are to be understood as cognitive and narrative struggles, or negotiations. The potentially good news here is that change continuously takes place in processes of PSI, despite narratives of inertia. The potentially bad news is that the same change is difficult to predict, control and govern.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-16DOI: 10.1177/09520767241272897
Edoardo Ongaro, Michele Tantardini
This is the introductory article to the special issue ‘Religion as an explanatory factor in public administration: Directions for research’. We make the argument that religion matters for understanding public administration, and that the manifold relationships between religion and public administration deserve more systematic investigation. We present and critically consider the papers of this special issue with the goal of delineating the contours of a proposed research programme for advancing the study of the relationships between religion and public administration. We also notice the risks associated with the study of the influence of religion on public administration, and we argue for an ethics of responsibility in engaging with this important field of scholarly inquiry.
{"title":"Contours of a research programme for the study of the relationship of religion and public administration","authors":"Edoardo Ongaro, Michele Tantardini","doi":"10.1177/09520767241272897","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241272897","url":null,"abstract":"This is the introductory article to the special issue ‘Religion as an explanatory factor in public administration: Directions for research’. We make the argument that religion matters for understanding public administration, and that the manifold relationships between religion and public administration deserve more systematic investigation. We present and critically consider the papers of this special issue with the goal of delineating the contours of a proposed research programme for advancing the study of the relationships between religion and public administration. We also notice the risks associated with the study of the influence of religion on public administration, and we argue for an ethics of responsibility in engaging with this important field of scholarly inquiry.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-14DOI: 10.1177/09520767241272921
J Ignacio Criado, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, J Ramon Gil-Garcia
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of the most prominent topics in public policy and administration studies over the last years. Despite the attention to AI in this field isn’t entirely new, the universality of these group of technologies has radically increased the attention of scholars around the globe. This expansion of AI in the public sector entails the exploration of renovated foundations of analysis, not only to understand the novelty of these technologies, but also to connect these processes of adoption and implementation with other debates in public policy and administration. To do so, in this article we debate the need of an analytical framework of AI in the public sector based on the three levels of public administration: macro, meso, and micro. Also, we review the state-of-the-art in the field using the articles presented in the special issue on Artificial Intelligence and Public Administration: Actors, Governance, and Policy. Form here, we propose studying AI using a combination of macro, meso, and micro levels of public administration. We assume this will help to broadly apprehend how and why people, policies, and institutions interrelate with AI in public sector settings, and which effects can be expected from these processes in public administration.
{"title":"Artificial intelligence and public administration: Understanding actors, governance, and policy from micro, meso, and macro perspectives","authors":"J Ignacio Criado, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, J Ramon Gil-Garcia","doi":"10.1177/09520767241272921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241272921","url":null,"abstract":"Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of the most prominent topics in public policy and administration studies over the last years. Despite the attention to AI in this field isn’t entirely new, the universality of these group of technologies has radically increased the attention of scholars around the globe. This expansion of AI in the public sector entails the exploration of renovated foundations of analysis, not only to understand the novelty of these technologies, but also to connect these processes of adoption and implementation with other debates in public policy and administration. To do so, in this article we debate the need of an analytical framework of AI in the public sector based on the three levels of public administration: macro, meso, and micro. Also, we review the state-of-the-art in the field using the articles presented in the special issue on Artificial Intelligence and Public Administration: Actors, Governance, and Policy. Form here, we propose studying AI using a combination of macro, meso, and micro levels of public administration. We assume this will help to broadly apprehend how and why people, policies, and institutions interrelate with AI in public sector settings, and which effects can be expected from these processes in public administration.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"98 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-03DOI: 10.1177/09520767241266410
Diego Galego, Giovanni Esposito, Nathalie Crutzen
Sustainable urban development (SUD) gained prominence after the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030), countering imbalanced growth that was impacting society, the economy, and the environment. Research on SUD is rapidly expanding among scholars and practitioners, analysing theoretical and empirical aspects. However, SUD encounters multiple barriers in public policies and administration. This study examines academic literature to identify trends in barriers hindering effective policy development based on policy cycles. Through analysis of 90 records, 183 fragments express barriers to SUD, categorized into five types: organisational, interaction-specific, SUD characteristics, contextual and policy-related. The article offers insights to enhance SUD policies and overcome the identifying barriers.
{"title":"Sustainable urban development: A scoping review of barriers to the public policy and administration","authors":"Diego Galego, Giovanni Esposito, Nathalie Crutzen","doi":"10.1177/09520767241266410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241266410","url":null,"abstract":"Sustainable urban development (SUD) gained prominence after the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030), countering imbalanced growth that was impacting society, the economy, and the environment. Research on SUD is rapidly expanding among scholars and practitioners, analysing theoretical and empirical aspects. However, SUD encounters multiple barriers in public policies and administration. This study examines academic literature to identify trends in barriers hindering effective policy development based on policy cycles. Through analysis of 90 records, 183 fragments express barriers to SUD, categorized into five types: organisational, interaction-specific, SUD characteristics, contextual and policy-related. The article offers insights to enhance SUD policies and overcome the identifying barriers.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141969331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-23DOI: 10.1177/09520767241266774
Li Tang, Zhaopeng Li, Hongxu Liu, Yijia Jing
As an interdisciplinary field, public administration (PA) has evolved by borrowing and integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines, including philosophy. Consequently, the means by which these disciplines’ influence diffuses to PA may significantly influence PA research quality and direction. This study is a first step to quantitatively appraise the effect of philosophy on PA research alongside other disciplines. Using a dataset of 58,333 PA journal articles, their 2,224,146 references, and 563,237 philosophy articles extracted from the Web of Science database, this study explores the evolution of knowledge sources, temporal-geographical distribution, and thematic topics of PA journal articles under direct philosophical influences. Empirical evidence reveals that citing philosophy in PA research continues to grow, despite continuing to make up a lesser share of citations than political science, economics, management and law. Articles published in top PA journals tend to cite the most impactful philosophical journals. There is no significant difference in authorship structures between PA journal articles citing or not citing philosophy articles, but those that do have greater research impacts and demonstrate different topical preferences.
作为一个跨学科领域,公共行政(PA)是通过借鉴和整合包括哲学在内的多个学科的知识而发展起来的。因此,这些学科的影响通过何种途径扩散到公共行政学中,可能会对公共行政学的研究质量和方向产生重大影响。本研究是定量评估哲学与其他学科对政治学研究影响的第一步。本研究利用从 Web of Science 数据库中提取的 58,333 篇政治学期刊论文及其 2,224,146 条参考文献和 563,237 篇哲学论文的数据集,探讨了政治学期刊论文在哲学直接影响下的知识来源演变、时空分布和主题议题。经验证据表明,尽管哲学在政治学、经济学、管理学和法学研究中的引用比例仍然低于政治学、经济学、管理学和法学,但政治学、经济学、管理学和法学在政治学、经济学、管理学和法学研究中的引用比例持续增长。在顶级政治学期刊上发表的文章往往会引用最有影响力的哲学期刊。引用或不引用哲学文章的政治学期刊论文在作者结构上没有明显差异,但引用哲学文章的期刊论文具有更大的研究影响力,并表现出不同的专题偏好。
{"title":"Appraising the philosophical influences on modern public administration research","authors":"Li Tang, Zhaopeng Li, Hongxu Liu, Yijia Jing","doi":"10.1177/09520767241266774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241266774","url":null,"abstract":"As an interdisciplinary field, public administration (PA) has evolved by borrowing and integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines, including philosophy. Consequently, the means by which these disciplines’ influence diffuses to PA may significantly influence PA research quality and direction. This study is a first step to quantitatively appraise the effect of philosophy on PA research alongside other disciplines. Using a dataset of 58,333 PA journal articles, their 2,224,146 references, and 563,237 philosophy articles extracted from the Web of Science database, this study explores the evolution of knowledge sources, temporal-geographical distribution, and thematic topics of PA journal articles under direct philosophical influences. Empirical evidence reveals that citing philosophy in PA research continues to grow, despite continuing to make up a lesser share of citations than political science, economics, management and law. Articles published in top PA journals tend to cite the most impactful philosophical journals. There is no significant difference in authorship structures between PA journal articles citing or not citing philosophy articles, but those that do have greater research impacts and demonstrate different topical preferences.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141779423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-23DOI: 10.1177/09520767241265151
Adrian Kay
This article, commissioned by the editors of Public Policy and Administration, contributes to the theoretical and methodological groundworks for the development of research in religion and public administration. It does so in three ways. The first part contrasts different approaches to defining the concept of religion, those from the vantage of academic observers against those from within religious traditions themselves. Several theoretical and methodological challenges for public administration follow. Part two sets out two theoretical concerns; first, the role of religious belief in intentional explanations of public administration activity; second, the institutionalised position of secularity in the recently freighted concept of a religious regime. Part three identifies a clutch of methodological concerns associated with these theoretical issues. A final section concludes with a summary of the contribution of the article to the nascent research programme in public administration for a post-secular world.
这篇文章是受《公共政策与行政》(Public Policy and Administration)编辑的委托撰写的,为宗教与公共行政研究的发展奠定了理论和方法基础。文章从三个方面进行了阐述。第一部分对比了界定宗教概念的不同方法,即从学术观察者的角度和从宗教传统本身的角度界定宗教概念的方法。随后提出了公共行政在理论和方法上面临的若干挑战。第二部分提出了两个理论关注点:第一,宗教信仰在有意解释公共行政活动中的作用;第二,世俗性在最近宗教制度概念中的制度化地位。第三部分指出了与这些理论问题相关的一系列方法论问题。最后一部分总结了本文对后世俗世界公共行政新生研究计划的贡献。
{"title":"Theoretical-methodological aspects of researching the area of religion and public administration","authors":"Adrian Kay","doi":"10.1177/09520767241265151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241265151","url":null,"abstract":"This article, commissioned by the editors of Public Policy and Administration, contributes to the theoretical and methodological groundworks for the development of research in religion and public administration. It does so in three ways. The first part contrasts different approaches to defining the concept of religion, those from the vantage of academic observers against those from within religious traditions themselves. Several theoretical and methodological challenges for public administration follow. Part two sets out two theoretical concerns; first, the role of religious belief in intentional explanations of public administration activity; second, the institutionalised position of secularity in the recently freighted concept of a religious regime. Part three identifies a clutch of methodological concerns associated with these theoretical issues. A final section concludes with a summary of the contribution of the article to the nascent research programme in public administration for a post-secular world.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"110 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141779419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-20DOI: 10.1177/09520767241263233
Emine Zehra Akgün, Paolo Gerli, Luca Mora, Clare McTigue
Smart city technologies provide promising solutions for local governments to tackling societal challenges and enhancing public service provision. The global embrace of these digital innovations represents a new era in public sector advancements. However, it has also brought to light difficulties that existing public sector innovation (PSI) theories struggle to address. One key issue is the lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding the most critical barriers to implementing smart city projects and their intensity. We address this knowledge gap with a systematic literature review within the smart city domain, focusing on literature reporting on the barriers that local governments commonly encounter. This effort has culminated in the development of a conceptual framework that categorize smart city project barriers, forming a taxonomy that builds on and expand the most recent development in the PSI literature. This study contributes to PSI theory refinement by offering a more nuanced understanding of the barriers that local governments might experience when attempting to sustain digital innovation efforts. Moreover, this insight into PSI dynamics is a valuable resource for local governments as they seek to devise realistic mitigation strategies tailored to local development needs.
{"title":"Breaking barriers for breaking ground: A categorisation of public sector challenges to smart city project implementation","authors":"Emine Zehra Akgün, Paolo Gerli, Luca Mora, Clare McTigue","doi":"10.1177/09520767241263233","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241263233","url":null,"abstract":"Smart city technologies provide promising solutions for local governments to tackling societal challenges and enhancing public service provision. The global embrace of these digital innovations represents a new era in public sector advancements. However, it has also brought to light difficulties that existing public sector innovation (PSI) theories struggle to address. One key issue is the lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding the most critical barriers to implementing smart city projects and their intensity. We address this knowledge gap with a systematic literature review within the smart city domain, focusing on literature reporting on the barriers that local governments commonly encounter. This effort has culminated in the development of a conceptual framework that categorize smart city project barriers, forming a taxonomy that builds on and expand the most recent development in the PSI literature. This study contributes to PSI theory refinement by offering a more nuanced understanding of the barriers that local governments might experience when attempting to sustain digital innovation efforts. Moreover, this insight into PSI dynamics is a valuable resource for local governments as they seek to devise realistic mitigation strategies tailored to local development needs.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141743056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-04DOI: 10.1177/09520767241251913
Andreas Klasen, Kuno Schedler
The service model approach, like business models in the private sector, is gaining increasing attention in public management literature. In line with this evolving discourse, our study analyzes service models in government export promotion. By exploring the use of service models and discussing key developments, we shed light on the diverse application of service models in the context of officially supported export credits – an under-researched field in which a lot of innovation is happening. We observe a limited number of traditional service models with significant relevance. In addition, our findings suggest a rising diversity that signifies innovation and the broadening scope of activities. We also uncover the underlying motivations and practical experiences associated with their implementation and provide valuable insights into the benefits they offer.
{"title":"What can we learn from service model analysis? An application in the government export finance sector","authors":"Andreas Klasen, Kuno Schedler","doi":"10.1177/09520767241251913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241251913","url":null,"abstract":"The service model approach, like business models in the private sector, is gaining increasing attention in public management literature. In line with this evolving discourse, our study analyzes service models in government export promotion. By exploring the use of service models and discussing key developments, we shed light on the diverse application of service models in the context of officially supported export credits – an under-researched field in which a lot of innovation is happening. We observe a limited number of traditional service models with significant relevance. In addition, our findings suggest a rising diversity that signifies innovation and the broadening scope of activities. We also uncover the underlying motivations and practical experiences associated with their implementation and provide valuable insights into the benefits they offer.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"146 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140884789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-18DOI: 10.1177/09520767241246654
Edoardo Ongaro, Yi Yang
Philosophical thought may provide an important contribution to the development of the theory and practice of public administration (PA). Notwithstanding such potential, however, philosophical thought has so far been limitedly employed in PA studies. To the extent philosophy has been brought into PA, three philosophies have been mainly used: Pragmatism, strands of Relativism-Constructivism, and Positivism. This paper argues that another philosophical approach can and ought to be considered much more systematically for application to foundational issues in PA studies, namely Critical Realism. The potential of this philosophical perspective is deployed to shed new light on key issues in the theory and practice of public value governance and management, a major area of academic investigation and practical application in the field of public administration and public management.
{"title":"Integrating philosophical perspectives into the study of public administration: The contribution of Critical Realism to understanding public value","authors":"Edoardo Ongaro, Yi Yang","doi":"10.1177/09520767241246654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241246654","url":null,"abstract":"Philosophical thought may provide an important contribution to the development of the theory and practice of public administration (PA). Notwithstanding such potential, however, philosophical thought has so far been limitedly employed in PA studies. To the extent philosophy has been brought into PA, three philosophies have been mainly used: Pragmatism, strands of Relativism-Constructivism, and Positivism. This paper argues that another philosophical approach can and ought to be considered much more systematically for application to foundational issues in PA studies, namely Critical Realism. The potential of this philosophical perspective is deployed to shed new light on key issues in the theory and practice of public value governance and management, a major area of academic investigation and practical application in the field of public administration and public management.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140623945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-15DOI: 10.1177/09520767241244981
Yvonne La Grouw, Oemar van der Woerd, E. Lianne Visser, Wieke Blijleven
Collaborative approaches to governance, policymaking, and administration are believed to provide means of adequately handling wicked problems. Simultaneously, many scholars have acknowledged the difficulty of collaboration in practice. In this article, we argue that understanding the ‘small’ practices of collaborative governance and actor-positioning processes illuminates why collaborative governance is such a challenging response to wicked problems. Instead of focussing on ‘big’ collaborative approaches to ‘big’ wicked problems, zooming in on mundane dynamics demonstrates the continuous work that governing and positioning processes require, exposing the provisional nature of elements that have been argued to be vital, such as mutual trust, reciprocity, long-term commitment, authority, or autonomy. Lastly, the mundane uncovers the importance of the material, spatial, and temporal organisation of actor-positioning processes and the potential of language to inhibit or enable collaborative governance. The article ends with a reflection on how analyses of mundane dynamics may help scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and citizens to understand their own processes of engagements in collaborative endeavours and possibly temper expectations.
{"title":"Mundane dynamics: Understanding collaborative governance approaches to ‘big’ problems through studying ‘small’ practices","authors":"Yvonne La Grouw, Oemar van der Woerd, E. Lianne Visser, Wieke Blijleven","doi":"10.1177/09520767241244981","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767241244981","url":null,"abstract":"Collaborative approaches to governance, policymaking, and administration are believed to provide means of adequately handling wicked problems. Simultaneously, many scholars have acknowledged the difficulty of collaboration in practice. In this article, we argue that understanding the ‘small’ practices of collaborative governance and actor-positioning processes illuminates why collaborative governance is such a challenging response to wicked problems. Instead of focussing on ‘big’ collaborative approaches to ‘big’ wicked problems, zooming in on mundane dynamics demonstrates the continuous work that governing and positioning processes require, exposing the provisional nature of elements that have been argued to be vital, such as mutual trust, reciprocity, long-term commitment, authority, or autonomy. Lastly, the mundane uncovers the importance of the material, spatial, and temporal organisation of actor-positioning processes and the potential of language to inhibit or enable collaborative governance. The article ends with a reflection on how analyses of mundane dynamics may help scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and citizens to understand their own processes of engagements in collaborative endeavours and possibly temper expectations.","PeriodicalId":47076,"journal":{"name":"Public Policy and Administration","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140561973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}