Future Directions of Public Administration Research—Addressing Fundamental Issues and Questions

2025/03/02 by Tom Christensen, Per Lægreid · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Local Government Finance and Decentralization #Policy Transfer and Learning #Public Policy and Administration Research

paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/01900692.2025.2470006

openalex publication_date 2025/03/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue on future directions of Public Administration research addressing fundamental issues and questions, reflects on some selected subjects emerging from the accepted articles. We outline some main themes and place aspects of the single articles within them. The topics covered are theoretical development in Public Administration, the significance of the political and normative context of transboundary public administration, the importance of temporal context, and increased focus on specific policy areas such as crisis management and digitalization in a comparative perspective. It concludes by pointing to the importance of understanding and meeting the challenges of democratic backsliding, regime-threatening populism, and autocratic government.

Citations

• A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice
• Organizing for Crisis Management: Building Governance Capacity and Legitimacy
• Representative Bureaucracy: A Lever to Enhance Social Equity, Coproduction, and Democracy
• The future of public administration research: An editor's perspective
• Privacy Regimes, Crisis Strategies, and Governments’ Legitimizing of Digital Surveillance Technology: Comparing Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom
• Multiple Streams and Plausibility Cones: Using Concepts from Future Studies to Depict Policy Dynamics
• Co-Design as Institutional Innovation: Can We Build the Plane While Flying It?
• Comparing Gambling Policy Evolution in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden

Cited by

• Future Challenges of Public Administration