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The purpose of this chapter is to delineate and analyse current adjustments of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in Germany in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on current data and official material, road infrastructure PPP was analysed, as demand for transporta-tion services is highly sensitive to fluctuations of overall economic activity. Accordingly, they do not only offer a good illustration of the challenges encountered by PPP operators in gene-ral but also – as road infrastructure PPP in Germany exist in different designs – important lessons may be learned with respect to their respective resilience in extraordinarily adverse economic conditions. One finding from the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany is that the case for public–private partnerships (PPP) become more compelling, also as an integral element of a large-scale reform package to massively improve the resilience of public service delivery to citizens and companies alike. Another important insight from the pandemic and the politico-administrative countermeasures is that massive pressure – both financial and in terms of the workload on the human resources employed – has been placed upon existing PPP, especially in critical infrastructures. The principal reasons are unforeseen or unexpected changes in user behaviour, affecting demand, and more difficult access to funding. These new insights demonstrate the relevance of anticipation of such events in the PPP contract, and the role of preparation for practitioners on both the private as well as the public side. Moreover, the findings provide leeway for further research on how the public administration, in particular in a federal multilevel system, can strengthen knowledge management and information exchange between single entities and stakeholders, and the role of PPP units as potential gatekeeper within this system.
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 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.
The insight that politics and administration should be treated as separated spheres is not new, as already Wilson portrayed administration as the apolitical execution of law. Consequently, even if the spheres are distinct, there is no politics thinkable without administration to execute. However, as argued by Peters (2018: 164), “this presumed separation of administration and politics allows them [bureaucrats] to engage in politics.”
While the consequences and causes of revolutions for political systems and the economy are at the forefront of debates in the respective disciplines, scholars have paid scant attention to the role of bureaucracies in revolutions. Against this background, this entry maps the efforts of public administration theory to come to grips with what is understood as revolution. As public administration is of utmost relevance in the context of revolutions, and the scope of the role of administrations in revolutions can be manifold: they may be the passive recipient of change, may influence developments actively, or be more or less unaffected by a change of the political system.
This entry conceptualizes which potential positions in revolutions can be taken by the public administration and which consequences revolutions have for the bureaucracy from a theoretical viewpoint, and provides humble empirical evidence of administrative behavior in revolutions worldwide.
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.