The Robustness of National Agency Governance in Integrated Administrative Systems: Evidence from a large‐scale study

Trondal, Jarle; Haslerud, Gjermund; Kühn, Nadja Sophia Bekkelund

doi:10.1111/puar.13309

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 86 publications

(103 reference statements)

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“…The robustness concept that stresses the need for agile adaptation in the face of turbulence has first recently found its way into the study of public governance, policy, and administration (Ansell et al, 2021; Capano & Woo, 2018; Ferraro et al, 2015; Howlett, 2019; Trondal et al, 2021). It all began with a growing interest in building societal resilience, which refers to the ability of a system to bounce back to its previous state of equilibrium in the wake of disruption triggered by external events or internal malfunctions (Duit, 2016; Juncos, 2017; Lindbom & Rothstein, 2006; Walker et al, 2004).…”

Section: Toward a New Paradigm: Robust Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Ansell

Sørensen

Torfing

2022

Public Administration

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Public governance has always been challenged by turbulence, defined as "situations where events, demands, and support interact and change in highly variable, inconsistent, unexpected or unpredictable ways" (Ansell & Trondal, 2017, p. 1). Social conflicts, economic recession, war, and political leadership contests create turmoil and chaos to which governments aim to respond with a mixture of repression, concession, reform, and regime change to maintain or restore some form of social, economic, and political order. Political philosophers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes depicted history as a circular movement where the rise of relatively stable regimes predicated on the excise of hard power ultimately gives way to decadence, corruption, and ruin that erode the social and political order. In contrast, Hegel and Marx portrayed history as a linear trajectory governed by the rational unfolding of a dialectics whereby new, contradicting developments challenge the old, stable structures, thus leading to turbulent transitions that bring society to higher and higher stages. Despite their different views on history, they all agreed that order is temporary and invariably disturbed by short spells of crisis and heightened turbulence occurring at regular intervals but tending to foster a new period of relatively stable rule.Today, there seems to be a new sense that turbulence has become a chronic and endemic condition for modern governance. This new condition cannot be traced to any single factor, arising instead from multiple interacting developments. A first factor is that acute or creeping crises seem to be arising more frequently, affecting a wider range of sectors, spilling across political boundaries, and possibly producing multiple interacting crises (dubbed "poly-crisis" by Zeitlin et al., 2019). A second factor is how social, economic, and political interactions among widely distributed, multilevel parties are accelerating-producing interactions of surprising speed, scale, and scope (Hong & Lee, 2018). Communication and information technologies create lightning-fast information exchanges demanding a rapid and timely response to far-flung citizens, suppliers, stakeholders, and decision-makers who may not have even been part of the administrative picture until recently. Keeping up with potentially destabilizing, mediatized events can easily devolve into a constant stream of fire drills (Cottle, 2006). A third source of turbulence arises from an intensification of political conflict that challenges existing norms and mechanisms of conflict mediation. While public organizations are familiar with politics and conflict, they must now adapt to shifting political issues, polarized populations, rapid leadership turnover, clashing reform agendas, and uncertain planning horizons-sometimes all at once (Kriesi et al., 2012).Although the concept of turbulence implies the need to respond and adapt to change, it refers to a certain kind of adaptation and certain kind of change. When change is slow and steady, when shifts and trends c...

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Section: Toward a New Paradigm: Robust Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Ansell

Sørensen

Torfing

2022

Public Administration

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“…In this way, how to reconcile the conflict between morality and power, and the conflict between human feelings and legal principles has become a problem that civil servants need to face ( Fan et al, 2017 ). According to statistics in 2016, there were more than 71 million civil servants in China, of which grassroots civil servants accounted for about 60% of the total civil servants ( Trondal et al, 2020 ). As an important executor of the government’s public policies, basic-level civil servants play an irreplaceable role in promoting economic development and promoting social stability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Administrative Ethics Conflict and Governance of Grassroots Government Staff Under the Human Relationship Society

Yin

Yang

2022

Front. Psychol.

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The conflict of administrative morality among civil servants at the grassroots level arises from the background of China’s long-standing traditional culture, and the current administrative system cannot keep up with the pace of economic development. In the process of grassroots management, due to the lag in the construction of administrative morality, the traditional official standard thinking, the imperfection of the current system, and the restriction of human nature, it is easy to cause the administrative moral conflict of the grassroots civil servants in practice. This paper takes the interpersonal society as the research background, analyzes the influence of the interpersonal society on the environment, and studies the administrative ethics conflicts and governance issues of basic civil servants from the interpersonal background. In addition, this paper conducts a more detailed field investigation based on fuzzy cluster analysis, analyzes the manifestations and causes of the administrative moral conflict of grassroots civil servants in the context of human society from multiple perspectives and levels, and then proposes countermeasures to solve the administrative moral conflict. The administrative moral conflict and governance of grass-roots civil servants under the background of interpersonal relationship is of great positive significance for solving the administrative moral conflict and improving the service awareness and service level of grass-roots civil servants.

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“…Although the interest in robustness is growing among political scientists (Ansell et al, 2020; Bednar, 2008; Capano and Woo, 2017; Howlett, 2019; Trondal et al, 2020), few have considered political robustness as a systemic capacity to cope with the centrifugal political forces in terms of political disagreements, conflicts and disruptive events that threaten to tear a society apart. This article aims to answer the key question of how political systems can absorb, monitor and cope with and perhaps even build back better in the wake of political turmoil and contestation through adaption and innovation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a Concept of Political Robustness

Sørensen

Ansell

2021

Political Studies

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How effective are different political institutions, policy-making processes and policies when it comes to mediating, mitigating and managing vertical and horizontal political tensions caused by disruptive societal challenges and political polarization? The present crisis for liberal democracy places this question high on the research agenda. A concept of political robustness is helpful for identifying the properties of political systems with a strong capacity for coping with political instability and conflict. This article defines political robustness, draws the contours of a conceptual framework for analysis of the political robustness of political systems and applies it illustratively to the political robustness of liberal democracies. We propose that the robustness of a political system depends on how much those who voice political demands—which differs greatly over time and between regimes—are involved in aggregating and integrating political demands into binding decisions.

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The Robustness of National Agency Governance in Integrated Administrative Systems: Evidence from a large‐scale study

Cited by 13 publications

References 86 publications

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Administrative Ethics Conflict and Governance of Grassroots Government Staff Under the Human Relationship Society

Towards a Concept of Political Robustness

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