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Each crisis is dreadful in its own special way, and so is the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond its lethal nature and truly global spread, one of its characteristics lies within the detachment of cause and effect. The cause, i.e. SARS-CoV-2, can clearly be attributed to health issues, though the COVID-19 pandemic challenges entire public administration (PA) systems well beyond the health sector. Both the lockdown as executed and the first careful exit-steps in their entire complexity increase scope and scale of PA’s tasks and responsibilities, challenging not only health authorities, but all parts of the administrative system, from security administration to public service delivery, with the entire world remaining in very turbulent water. Thus, the question arises how the PA should react to ensure high performance in times of crisis. Our findings underpin the relevance of trust in public administration (or “the government” in general), notably in times of crisis: the higher trust levels are, the more likely compliance of citizens and successful networking with non-state actors is. Even in the absence of many trust generating factors, trust levels are increasing in the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic constitutes a veritable capacity test for local administrations in Germany and Austria. Based on a survey among systematically sampled Austrian (n=130) and German (n=517) employees of local public administrations, the article taps into the perceptions of how the bureaucracies in the two federal states coped with the challenges emerging at the early stage of the crisis. As it turns out, in the administratively well-equipped and—in comparison to disastrous situations elsewhere—mildly hit countries, local administrations did fine—even growing beyond themselves. Key to a higher probability of coping well with Covid-19 appears to be an intelligent administrative networking strategy. Five tentative lessons are drawn on what—at this early stage—can only constitute an incomplete picture taken from a fluid context.
The Covid-19 pandemic affects societies worldwide, challenging not only health sectors but also public administration systems in general. Understanding why public administrations perform well in the current situation—and in times of crisis more generally—is theoretically of great importance; and identifying concrete factors driving successful administrative performance under today‘s extraordinary circumstances could still improve current crisis responses.
This article studies patterns of sound administrative performance with a focus on networks and knowledge management within and between crises. Subsequently, it draws on empirical evidence from two recent public administration surveys conducted in Germany in order to test derived hypotheses. The results of tests for group differences and regression analyses demonstrate that administrations that were structurally prepared, learned during preceding crises, and that displayed a high quality in their network cooperation with other administrations and with the civil society, on average, performed significantly better in the respective crises.
It is an open question what impact public governance reforms have had in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, which is challenged by domestic transformative societal developments as well as by transformational pressures from abroad. To assess their differential impact, the article first revisits the legacies that characterize the public administrative systems of the MENA region. Then, using data from the newly-developed Arab Administrative Elites Survey, it taps into the images and aspirations of public governance insiders as regards crucial public sector values. According to this data, the reforms aim to increase efficiency and to bring public administrations closer to the people. Arguably, reforms in MENA public governance converge, though from a relatively low level, with the direction of global standards of public management.
The analysis of forms and effects of what is usually conceived of as globalization or internationalization has become a major topic of political speeches and academic research, especially in the social sciences. While the consequences of globalization for Western economies and societies are often at the forefront of debates, their effects on public administrations are focused on relatively sparsely yet.
This entry aims at identifying the different manifestations and effects of internationalization in the context of bureaucracies. The subsequent sections provide an introduction and delineate the main mechanisms of internationalization. The next section identifies the topics discussed in the context of globalization, internationalization and transnationalization, and distils the main characteristics of international public administrations, as well as the effects and ramifications of internationalization on domestic public administration.
While traditionally the provision of public services was monopolized by the gov-ernment, lately service delivery has been challenged, resulting in more coopera-tions between private enterprises and the public sector. We discuss theoretically and based on empirical evidence the role of trust in these arrangements and under which conditions information can help to overcome a “trust gap”, contributing to the success of these cooperation. Additionally, we develop and test an experimental design that allows us to show which factors influence the public opinion in favor of these service arrangements and public-private cooperations. Therewith our paper does not only contribute to the investigation of information and trust in PA, but provides some implication for policy makers and the public administration.
The study of the processes and effects of internationalization has become a major field of inquiry in the social sciences. This article takes stock of corresponding research efforts in the field of public administration (PA) to understand the internationalization phenomenon by analyzing studies that were systematically sampled from major PA journals over recent decades. After 10 delineating, sampling, categorizing, and subsequently examining the scholarly production of PA regarding what can be understood as the internationalization of domestic PA, three major themes of PA-related debates are identified: diffusion, resistance, and the transformation of bureaucratic power. The article concludes that PA has developed neither genuine research questions nor a coherent theoretical framework able to come to grips with the internationalization challenge. It 15 ends with an appeal for PA to become aware of this deficit and recommends PA scholars liaise Q3 more intensively with other social sciences to overcome the current state of affairs.