Chairs:
Andrei Poama (Leiden University, The Netherlands) a.poama@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Hester Paanakker (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands) h.l.paanakker2@vu.nl

Language: English
Key words: administrative ethics and integrity, public values, good governance

Description of the panel and themes
This panel aims to feature research on normative questions of good governance, widely understood, i.e. ranging from applied ethics to empirical research on public values and integrity and methodological discussions in the field of administrative ethics. We envision papers on three related themes, but welcome other ideas as well. The first theme would be research on the application of ethical principles to moral questions of public policy and the fulfillment of public office, i.e. concerning decisions and actions undertaken by public servants as holders of specific public offices, either as individuals or collectively. Contributions can focus on the ethical context of the design, implementation and reform of specific governmental practices or on the functioning of processes of moral disagreement, moral craftsmanship and constructive dissent in complex multi-governance networks, in politics and/or in public organizations. The second theme would be research on public values and public value conflict, the study of integrity and anti-corruption and public sector reform in light of good governance. The third theme would be research that engages in meta-theoretical analyses about the disciplinary and methodological commitments of administrative ethics as practiced today. Here, we are concerned with where different methods place administrative ethics in the landscape of contemporary ethical theorizing (e.g., descriptive ethics, normative ethics, meta-normative ethics, meta-ethics).

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

We welcome papers on the three themes outlined above (but welcome other ideas as well) in a variety of approaches. Papers can be mono-, or multi-disciplinary, more theoretically or empirically focused, quantitative and/or qualitative. Topics per theme that could be interesting to explore include but are not limited to:

Theme 1: ethics in public practice
– Ethical reflection on specific individual or systemic actions by public actors, their displayed behavior , etc., including the development and facilitation of moral craftsmanship
– Ethical reflection on events, procedures, legislation and/or specific cases of public policy, such as specific public-private interactions, the functioning of specific organizations or (current or future) legislative schemes

Theme 2: public values, integrity and anti-corruption and public sector reform
– Research and/or ethical reflection on (causes and consequences of) value pluralism
– Research and/or ethical reflection on specific cases of (lacking) integrity or anti-corruption (measures)
– Research on and civil service and/or public sector reform and political-administrative relations

Theme 3: meta-theoretical analyses
– Discussions on a move from descriptive empirical research to making normative ethical claims about the quality of governance.
– Discussions on methodology of ethical and/or normatively driven research, such as historical archival work, ethnographic research or experimental design.
– Examples of ways in which the empirical study of public administration and politics leads to normative arguments and claims.

Please note: if you have doubts about whether your paper idea fits, please do not hesitate to contact us!

The working language of the panel will be English, but papers can also be written, presented and/or discussed in Dutch.

Chairs:
Sarah Giest (Leiden University, The Netherlands) s.n.giest@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Haiko van der Voort (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands) h.g.vandervoort@tudelft.nl

Language: English
Key words: algorithms, artificial intelligence, governance

Description of the panel and themes
Government operations are becoming ever more digitized and automated—a trend underway for decades and still accelerating. More specifically, academic exploration of AI’s role in the public sector is rapidly advancing. While earlier research largely relied on anecdotes and preliminary case studies to weigh its benefits and drawbacks, the field is now progressing with substantial empirical evidence. This evolution allows for richer integration with the extensive scholarship on digital governance, information management, innovation, and government data practices. As a result, researchers are now able to move beyond basic questions about the pros and cons of AI and begin embedding AI discourse within a more holistic perspective on the digitization of government.

While scholarship on AI’s role in the public sector is maturing – especially about data-driven and machine learning-based approaches – new AI applications are popping up, again asking for new interpretations and reflections. An example is the rapid development of generative AI applications and the language models behind them. Generative AI may both support and challenge the work of public professionals on all levels (Criado c.s., 2020). Ownership and use of language models are publicly debated and subject of innovation. Many public organizations are developing their own language models as alternatives to the well-known models from big technology firms.

On a macro level, the impact of AI on government is expected to be high. Some researchers suggest that AI’s transformative and disruptive potential could fundamentally reshape the public sector, leading to what is termed “algorithmic governance.” (e.g. Gritsenko, & Wood; 2022). Others claim that existing institutions may mitigate the impact and support a more gradual transformation. It can be expected that the effects of AI depend heavily on specific policy contexts.

Furthermore, some scholars are addressing the impact of government’s use of AI on citizens, driven by some well-known scandals (e.g. König, 2025). Especially when it comes to automating governmental decisions, some scholars have underscored challenges tied to accountability and the often-unclear logic behind AI-driven decision making (e.g. Kuziemski & Misuraca, 2020).

AI garners significant interest, as both its promises and its risks have been extensively discussed in recent literature. Of course, AI could enhance public values by improving government efficiency and effectiveness. Still, concerns persist: AI systems may be flawed or biased, and their opaque functioning can undermine government transparency and accountability. There is an increasing interest in “Responsible AI”, which is increasingly viewed not as a fixed set of principles or a static checklist, but as an ongoing, adaptive governance process that is deeply rooted in institutional, organizational, and sociotechnical settings (Batool c.s. 2023).

In short, while research on the direct effects of AI-use by governments is still relevant – even essential – some second order questions are emerging:

– What insights can public administration gain from disciplines such as the humanities, law, engineering and computer science?
– Which political or organizational institutions influence the balance between effectiveness and transparency across different organizational levels?
– What specific ethical and operational challenges do individual public servants face as a result of algorithmic governance?
– What is the role of human, professional expertise in the era of analytical and generative AI?
– How do public organizations navigate challenges related to coordination between developers, analysts, professionals and managers?
– How do RAI principles connect to public values in governance?
– How do institutional contexts translate RAI ideals (fairness, transparency, accountability, explainability, human agency and oversight) into practice?
– How can (semi-)algorithmic services be designed to incorporate citizen input, enable short feedback loops? How can be insured that the impact of this input is meaningful?

This panel seeks to investigate these second-level questions and shed light on the role, implementation, and effects of AI in the rapidly digitizing public sector. We invite contributions that are empirical, theoretical, normative, or reflective in nature. Submissions that cross disciplinary boundaries or involve transdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged. By bringing together a wide variety of perspectives, we aim to stimulate a scholarly conversation on the current landscape and emerging challenges of AI adoption in digital government, thereby advancing the growing academic field of Algorithms and Digital Governance

References:
Batool, A., Zowghi, D., Bano, M., 2023. Responsible AI Governance: A Systematic Literature Review

Criado, J.I., Valero, J., Villodre, J., 2020. Algorithmic transparency and bureaucratic discretion: The case of SALER early warning system. Information Polity 25, 449–470. https://doi.org/10.3233/IP-200260

Gritsenko, D., & Wood, M. (2022). Algorithmic governance: A modes of governance approach. Regulation & Governance, 16(1), 45-62.

König, P. (2025). Institutionalized respect in the algorithmic state: On the consequences of artificial intelligence for citizen-state relations (No. pua4s_v1). Center for Open Science.

Kuziemski, M., Misuraca, G., 2020. AI governance in the public sector: Three tales from the frontiers of automated decision-making in democratic settings. Telecomm Policy 44, 101976. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2020.101976

Rinta-Kahila, T., Someh, I., Gillespie, N., Indulska, M., Gregor, S., 2024. Managing unintended consequences of algorithmic decision-making: The case of Robodebt. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases 14, 165–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/20438869231165538

Zuiderwijk, A., Chen, Y.-C., Salem, F., 2021. Implications of the use of artificial intelligence in public governance: A systematic literature review and a research agenda. Gov Inf Q 38, 101577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2021.101577

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Public values in relationship to AI and (big) data analytics
• AI applications in the public sector
• AI and policy monitoring and analytics
• Smart cities
• Organisational consequences of digital or algorithmic system in government
• Big data analytics for policy making
• Digital innovations and innovation management in the public sector
• Public sector information management
• AI implementation cases and strategies
• Regulatory issues related to AI, data or digitalisation more broadly
• The politics of algorithms, including the emergence of new professionals
• The effects of digital systems on citizens and public sector professionals
• The dynamics of ‘networked’ decision-making in relationship to AI
• The impact of AI on democratic values and the governance thereof
• Work on the twin-transition (sustainability + digitalisation)
• Strategies to mitigate unintended or undesirable effects of digitalisation.

Chairs:
Amandine Lerusse (Leiden University, The Netherlands) a.v.lerusse@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Rosanna Nagtegaal (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) r.nagtegaal@uu.nl

Language: English
Key words: behavioural public administration, decision-making, micro-level perspective

Description of the panel and themes
The behavioral public administration stream aims to integrate psychological research within the study of public administration (Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2017). Theoretically, public administration scholars have started to borrow and extend theories from the field of psychology and micro-economics. This panel focuses on the use of insights from psychology and behavioral economics within the field of public administration. This includes the attitudes and judgments of citizens, civil servants and elected public sector workers, including the influence on their decision-making and behaviors. The question that is at the center of this panel is: How can we understand the attitudes and behavior of individual citizens, civil servants, and elected officials in the public domain?

Examples are the identification of the influence of heuristics on the decision-making of citizens and public officials (DellaVigna and Linos 2020). Citizens can for instance be ‘nudged’ to increase vaccination rates (Milkman et al. 2021) or public sector workers can be biased when interpreting performance information (Baekgaard et al. 2019). Other examples include studies on preferences of local public managers for different policy instruments (Migchelbrink & Raymaekers, 2022). Furthermore, we also look to explain both public servants’ and citizens’ behaviours from a psychological perspective, for example relevant competencies, motivations or personality traits.

Methodologically, public administration scholars have recognized the potential of experiments as an advancement of the methodological tool-kit of public administration (Bouwman & Grimmelikhuijsen, 2016; James, Jilke, & Ryzin 2017; Margetts, 2011). Most importantly, experimental research enables systematic research of causes and effects. This panel welcomes papers which use such designs. However, we are also open to other methodological approaches such as surveys and interviews to increase understanding of the relationship between psychology and public administration. We also welcome innovative methods such as diary studies, machine learning and eye tracking

References

Baekgaard, Martin, Nicola Belle, Søren Serritzlew, Mariafrancesca Sicilia, and Ileana Steccolini. 2019. Performance Information in Politics: How Framing, Format, and Rhetoric Matter to Politicians’ Preferences. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration 2 (2). https://doi.org/10.30636/jbpa.22.67.

Christensen, Julian, Lene Aarøe, Martin Baekgaard, Pamela Herd, and Donald P. Moynihan. 2020. Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen‐State Interactions. Public Administration Review 80 (1): 127–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13134.

DellaVigna, Stefano, and Elizabeth Linos. 2020. RCTs to Scale: Comprehensive Evidence from Two Nudge Units. National Bureau of Economic Research, July. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27594.

Grimmelikhuijsen, Stephan, Sebastian Jilke, Asmus Leth Olsen, and Lars Tummers. 2017. Behavioral Public Administration: Combining Insights from Public Administration and Psychology. Public Administration Review 77 (1): 45–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12609.

Migchelbrink, K., & Raymaekers, P. (2022). Public managers’ trust in citizens and their preferences for behavioral policy instruments: evidence from a mixed-methods study. Behavioural Public Policy, 1-24.

Milkman, Katherine L., Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather Graci, Dena Gromet, Quoc Dang Hung Ho, Joseph Kay, et al. 2021. A Mega-Study of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients to Get Vaccinated at an Upcoming Doctor’s Appointment. SSRN Electronic Journal, January. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3780267.

Roberts, Alasdair. 2020. Bridging Levels of Public Administration: How Macro Shapes Meso and Micro. Administration & Society 52 (4): 631–56. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399719877160.

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

We invite two types of submissions: regular full papers and research design papers. The latter are shorter papers that only consist of introduction, theory and methods. This way researchers are encouraged to receive feedback early in the research process, at a time where changes in the design are still possible and useful.

In this panel, we welcome:
– Papers from national and international scholars;
– Papers that employ theories to study the behavior of individuals, including citizens, civil servant, or elected public officials;
– Papers that use experimental and advanced methodological approaches, or critically reflect on them;
– Papers that focus on the discrepancy between (self-)reported and actual behavior in public sector organizations;
– Papers that explore meso- and macro-level public administration theories with micro-level (individual) data;
– Papers that investigate the effects of choice architecture, organizational structures and practices on behavior in the public sector.

In terms of topics, we – for instance – welcome papers that focus on:
– Citizen-state interactions;
– Administrative burdens;
– Judgment and decision-making in public organizations;
– Citizen satisfaction and trust in government;
– The interpretation of performance information by citizens/public managers/politicians;
– The effects of administrative reforms on citizens/public employees;
– Human-computer interactions;
– Public servants’ competencies and (individual) performance;
– The use of behavioral science by and on public officials (for instance through nudges);
– Psychology of and pressures on public employees;
– Use of evidence by public officials and citizens.

Chairs:
Sabine van Zuydam (Necker/Utrecht University, The Netherlands) sabine@necker.nl
Marcel Boogers (Utrecht University/Necker, The Netherlands) m.j.g.j.a.boogers@uu.nl

Language: English and Dutch
Key words: democracy under pressure, local governance

Description of the panel and themes
The crisis narrative of “democracy under pressure” has become ubiquitous, with politicians, news reporters and commentators frequently invoking concerns about the rise of populist movements, increasing polarization, propaganda and disinformation, as well as declining trust in institutions and political engagement. Within these narratives, mostly national-level political developments and high-profile manifestations of democratic strain, like electoral disputes and challenges to institutional legitimacy, gain attention. In line with work of among others Benjamin Barber (2004; 2013), the assumption seems to be that the problems democracy is facing are less prominent at the local level, or even that local democracy is key in addressing these problems. It remains to be seen, however, whether democratic problems are indeed less prevalent at the local level, in what way, and if this is the case, what can be learned in terms of for example maintaining democratic legitimacy and citizen engagement.

In this panel, we therefore aim to study how democracy functions at the local level: if and in what ways democracy is under pressure, its causes or underlying mechanisms, and its consequences. After all, if the diagnosis is that democracy is under pressure, the commonly proposed “solution” is the development of resilient democracy. However, this prescription raises fundamental questions about the mechanisms underlying democratic strain and the pathways towards institutional resilience. What specific processes and dynamics constitute a “democracy under pressure”, and what phenomena fall outside this framework? Who are the key actors shaping democratic outcomes, how do they operate, and with what effect? How do different elements of the political system interact to either strengthen or weaken democratic governance?

In addressing these types of questions in this panel and integrating discussion on a broad range of aspects of democratic functioning at the local level, we also aim to address another limitation of the current debate on the problems facing democracy, namely that societal and academic debates appear to be misaligned. In societal debate the crisis narratives often lack precision to understand the exact nature of the problems democracy is facing, including terms like “democratic backsliding” and “institutional decay”. In academic debate, in contrast, specific aspects of democratic functioning tend to be studied in isolation. Combining the findings of these individual studies to assess and understand the overall state of democracy is sparse.

The consequences of this conceptual imprecision on the state of democracy, and fragmented academic debate centered on (inter)national level politics remain unclear. They may, however, include misdirected (policy) responses, scholarly research that addresses symptoms rather than underlying causes, and public discourse that amplifies anxiety without providing actionable insights. Understanding how democratic institutions actually function in practice, particularly at the local level where citizens most directly encounter public administration, is crucial for developing evidence-based responses to contemporary challenges.

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

This panel invites papers that critically examine these questions on the state and functioning of democracy at the local level. We encourage contributions on a broad range of topics related to (alleged) problems facing democracy, including – but not limited to – trust in and satisfaction with local government, citizen engagement, governance culture, integrity of politicians, and the functioning of political parties. Papers can cover individual aspects related to the functioning of democracy or take a more integrated stance. In the panel discussion, we plan to not only allocate time to discuss each individual paper, but to also discuss what we learn from all papers combined.

We invite submissions from scholars across multiple disciplines, including public administration, political science, political history, sociology, governance studies, and related fields. Papers may focus on single-country studies or comparative analyses across different sub-national contexts. We particularly welcome research that examines under-studied aspects of local governance or employs innovative theoretical or methodological approaches. This panel explicitly welcomes methodological diversity, recognizing that understanding complex governance phenomena requires multiple analytical approaches.

The panel aims to generate insights relevant to multiple audiences, including academic researchers studying democratic governance, public administrators working to improve institutional performance, policymakers concerned with democratic renewal, and citizens engaged in local civic life. We seek research that bridges the gap between abstract theoretical discussions of democratic resilience and concrete analysis of governance practices and outcomes.

Chairs:
Eske van Gils (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) e.e.a.van.gils@rug.nl
Veronica Junjan (University of Twente, The Netherlands) v.junjan@utwente.nl

Language: English
Key words: CEE-EaP, EU enlargement, democracy (backsliding)

Description of the panel and themes
This panel addresses the drivers, opportunities for and blockages against democratic reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), EU accession countries and EU’s wider eastern neighbourhood. We investigate developments in democracy-building and democracy protection, and identify, analyse and explain behavioural, institutional and structural blockages to democratic reform, and the conditions under which they can be overcome. The panel addresses several questions: What is the current state of democratic reform and backsliding, including the rise of competitive authoritarianism? How effective is EU democracy support and transformative power? What were the effects of tensions between the EU’s democracy support agenda and the EU’s declared aim to become a more geopolitical actor? What new tools of democracy support should be developed and how can democracy support itself be democratised? A particular emphasis is placed on reforms linked to the recently reinvigorated enlargement process to the Western Balkan countries, and the accession process of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to the EU.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

We invite papers from across different disciplines and areas (political science, public administration, international relations, sociology of governance, etc). We strongly encourage papers drawing on interdisciplinary theoretical and diverse methodological approaches, which are highly needed to help explore and explain the complex developments regarding political and administrative reforms in the region.

Chairs:
Sam Muller (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) s.h.a.muller-4@umcutrecht.nl
Mark van Ostaijen (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) vanostaijen@essb.eur.nl

Language: English
Key words: interpretive research, critical studies, ethnography

Description of the panel and themes
The aim of this recurring panel is to provide a home for critical and/or interpretive studies in public administration.

Critical public administration is a reflective and normative approach that explicitly scrutinizes and questions the hegemonic paradigms and (implicit) values that inform both theory and practice of public administration. In doing so, it generally draws on critical theory. An example of critical studies could be a Foucauldian discourse analysis of climate policy.
Interpretive approaches to public administration focus on ‘the meanings of policies, on the values, feelings and/or beliefs which they express, and on the processes by which those meanings are communicated to and “read” by various audiences’ (Yanow, 1996, pp. 8-9). Interpretive studies tend to ‘zoom in and out’ on daily practices, framing and narratives of diverse actors – whether policy makers, frontline workers, or citizens.

To some, critical and interpretive approaches go hand in hand. Others portray themselves as engaging in one, but not necessarily the other. Nonetheless, critical and interpretive scholars may find each other in an ambition to explore, at a fundamental level, the way in which actors ‘construct the world through acting on beliefs they also construct’ (Bevir & Rhodes, 2010, p. 73). It is this critical or reflexive stance towards knowledge production that feeds a common ground; both problematize the idea of the objectively knowable.
We believe that these two approaches are especially relevant in current times. Memories of nationwide lockdowns are still fresh, while campaigns against the rights of racial and religious minorities dominate elections. Governments worldwide are divided on the ongoing Gaza genocide and pulled in different directions when it comes to their contribution to it. Climate change progresses unabated, while authoritarian regimes undermine the administrative state. This calls for a critical assessment of the way states and social groups exercise power and countervailing powers. In other words; the need to critically assess the contribution of public administration to common policy goals has rarely been so acute.

This panel is part of the NIG Colloquium Critical and Interpretive Public Administration, originated in 2019, and aims to ‘further develop and improve interpretive and critical approaches in terms of content, method and output and more firmly establish them within the landscape of public administration research.’ This panel is one of the platforms in which this colloquium gets substance. Often, researchers employing critical or interpretive methods meet each other in conference panels organized by empirical topic rather than theoretical approach. This panel provides a reflexive space for critical and interpretive scholars to enter into conversation about their research and its contributions to the broader discipline of public administration.

In 2020, the Dutch journal Bestuurskunde published a Special Issue on Critical Public Administration (Kritische Bestuurskunde) in which the call and plea for more reflexive knowledge was explored. This panel aims to investigate, where do we stand after 5 years? The panel aims to look back and forth and invites scholars who can contribute to that question with showing how their research has moved up the frontiers of critical PA, or how their research could contribute to that in the future. This could enable the colloquium to investigate its blind-spots and new frontiers for the future ahead.

References
Bevir, M., & Rhodes, R. A. W. (2010). The State as Cultural Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yanow, D. (1996). How Does a Policy Mean? Interpreting Policy and Organizational Actions. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

The panel welcomes quality papers that explicitly apply a critical or interpretive approach, as well as reflexive papers about what ‘interpretive’ or ‘critical’ public administration research means or should mean. This means that papers can cover a wide array of topics, from ethnographic accounts of front-line practices to reflexive studies of dominant discourses in public administration research itself. Or from narrative analyses of decision-making processes to papers discussing comparative analysis using critical theory. Because this panel is presented by a colloquium which emphasizes networking, we also welcome contributions that deviate from the traditional research paper format, including research proposals or op-eds.

In addition to this general call, this year we particularly welcome papers that investigate (after the SI Kritische Bestuurskunde in 2020) where do we stand after 5 years? Therefore we particularly invite scholars who can contribute to that question with showing how their research has moved up the frontiers of critical PA, or how their research could contribute to that in the future.

Chairs:
Carola van Eijk (Leiden University, The Netherlands) c.j.a.van.eijk@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Hessel Bos (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) hessel.bos@ru.nl

Language: English and Dutch
Key words: citizen initiatives, co-production, citizen-government interaction

Description of the panel and themes
Societal challenges such as climate change or the shortage of personnel in elderly care can no longer be addressed by government actors alone. Because of this, citizens are increasingly taking responsibility and contributing to the resolution of these complex, so-called ‘wicked’ problems. Under what we will call ‘citizens’ from here on for consistency, we consider a broad range of initiatives and activities, including but not limited to co-production, co-creation, community-based initiatives (CBI), citizen collectives, and social innovation. Dependent on the exact conceptualization, smaller or bigger differences exist among the different types of initiatives and activities. Indeed, in practice especially, the labels are often used intertwined. Three criteria for inclusion are that the initiative 1) must be a collective rather than individual effort, 2) must involve a form of concrete action, and 3) that the not-for-profit actions by citizens are directed at public goods, values or policies, rather than serving individual interests. Citizens’ involvement takes various forms and degrees of intensity. In some cases, collaboration with public authorities (e.g., local government) is relatively loose, while in others it becomes more structured and sustained. 

1. Sustaining successful initiatives: While the existing literature provides substantial insights into how successful citizen involvement emerges, highlighting key early-stage factors such as trust, motivation, and self-efficacy, the focus is now gradually shifting towards understanding their long-term impact. What does productive collaboration with government look like at different stages of initiatives?
2. Sustaining internal structures and working procedures: While citizen–government collaborations often emerge around a specific goal, the internal organization of  citizens is typically less defined than their overarching aims. Understanding how citizens develop and maintain their operational structures while over time the scope and activities are extended is therefore essential. 
3. Shifts in actor involvement and roles: A key area of interest is who becomes involved in the collaboration and how roles evolve. As experience accumulates and the external environment changes, actors may adopt different positions from those initially envisioned, and new actors such as commercial parties may enter the mix. How do these developments change the dynamics of interaction? Explications of (shifts towards) non-interactions, where governments and citizens do not engage with each other, are also of key interest.
4. Representation and legitimacy: whom do these collaborations represent and with what legitimacy? Do the citizens involved act on behalf of a broader community, or do they merely lend support to governmental actions? To what extent can/should we assess the legitimacy of (different forms of) citizen initiatives and government actors along the same standards? Moreover, how does all this change over time? 

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

We welcome all types of contributions, whether early-stage research proposals or papers ready for submission. Theoretical papers that explore the dynamics of interaction and the long-term development of citizen initiatives in any form are particularly relevant. While the long-term objectives of co-production and related practices have not been a central focus in the literature, some studies do refer to them implicitly. Empirical work is equally valuable, and we particularly encourage the use of underrepresented research designs within this field. This includes, for example, quantitative approaches, experimental methods, or longitudinal studies that move beyond the traditional single case study model.

The research may focus on one of the mentioned concepts, such as co-production, community-based initiatives (CBIs), co-creation, or any other form of citizen initiative that requires collective effort from citizens to generate public services or public goods. We encourage researchers to take an integrated perspective that considers all actors involved in the collaboration and focuses its analysis on the dynamics of interaction. However, research that contributes to a better understanding of one of the actors involved in the collaboration is also welcome.

We welcome both solution-oriented research that aims to explain/understand how to leverage the relationship between government and citizens’ initiative in order to address societal challenges, and critically oriented research that aims to problematize elements of this relationship, including examination of underlying social structures and processes.

Chairs:
Juan Pablo Centeno (KU Leuven, Belgium) juan.centeno@kuleuven.be
Heleen Vreugdenhil  (TU Delft, The Netherlands) heleen.vreugdenhil@deltares.nl 

Language: English
Key words: knowledge co-production, knowledge governance, collaborative governance

Description of the panel and themes
Knowledge and expertise play a central role in many of the challenges that democratic societies are currently facing. Contemporary crises like the recent Covid-19 pandemic or climate change stand as a reminder of their importance in public governance when addressing these complex (or wicked) problems (Bouckaert, et al., 2025). Yet, the effective integration of different knowledge sources in public interventions remains challenged by a number of issues. On the one hand, the rise of populist leadership in governments across the globe threatens the stability of evidence-based public service delivery. On the other hand, these processes still struggle to integrate the experience of citizens and other stakeholders to complement the scientific evidence that informs service delivery systems.

In this context, New Public Governance (NPG) approaches like co-production and co-creation intend to respond to these limitations (Brandsen, et al., 2018; Osborne, et al., 2016). These frameworks stress the need to broaden the knowledge base of decision making processes by incorporating, not only the professional views of academics and public servants, but also citizens’ expertise as a legitimate knowledge source (Ansell & Torfing, 2021). For example, patients may act as experts-by-experience in collaborating with professionals to co-produce healthcare solutions (van Dijck & Steen, 2023).
These views are gaining popularity both in public governance research and practice, with a growing body of literature addressing the topic (Acar, et al., 2025; Rodriguez Müller, et al., 2021; Voorberg, et al., 2015; Verschuere, et al., 2012). Co-creation is an emerging form of collaborative governance describing the ways in which multiple actors (including citizens) exchange knowledge and resources, while actively engaging in the design and implementation of public interventions to address societal issues and generate public value (Torfing, et al., 2019). This includes co-production as the direct and active collaboration between citizens and public sector organisations to particularly enhance public service delivery (Parks, et al., 1981; Ostrom, 1996; Brandsen & Honingh, 2015) .

Co-production involves mobilising distributed knowledge, assuming that the experience of different actors (e.g. citizens, researchers) is valuable for innovative problem solving (Ansell & Torfing, 2021). This builds on the premise that governments alone don’t have full knowledge about what is best for citizens (Torfing, et al., 2019). However, there is scarce research on how different knowledge sources may inform co-production initiatives, what kind of knowledge is used and circulated here, and under which conditions new knowledge can be produced in collaborative processes.

The discussions in this panel will revolve around these three encompassing issues, seeking to identify current research and novel conceptual frameworks to better understand 1) how we can enhance public governance by generating and circulating knowledge for co-production, 2) what strategies and mechanisms may facilitate multi-stakeholder engagement in knowledge co-production, an 3) what are the key conditions shaping, representing and enacting knowledge in co-production. These three broad themes may act as guiding cornerstones to further explore, both theoretically and empirically, how the interaction between diverse knowledge sources in co-production can be more constructive to respond to the current crises and challenges of public governance. Figure 1 represents these three tentative notions as overlapping, suggesting their encompassing and non-exclusive scope.

Figure 1 Knowledge (in/for) co-production: a guiding roadmap for further inquiry

Source: own elaboration.

First, knowledge for co-production refers to the ways in which diverse knowledge sources inform co-production processes. This may include external forms of evidence or knowledge inputs that feed into co-production initiatives, and that can be regarded as knowledge flows between organisations and participants (OECD, 2018). As such, knowledge is a resource that contributes to improving delivery efficiency (Thomsen, 2017).
From a knowledge management point of view, the generation, transfer, uptake and application of data and information in co-production initiatives is of particular interest here (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). In this context, further understanding is needed on how tacit knowledge (i.e. non-explicit and informally codified) is accessed and integrated into co-production processes (Bovaird & Loeffler, 2021). Some possible lessons may be found in policy studies dealing with knowledge utilisation and evidence-based policy making (Larsen, 1980).

Second, knowledge co-production describes multi-actor engagement (including citizens) in the joint production of knowledge outcomes (e.g. citizen science) (Yu, et al., 2025). Here, participatory research is key for scientific knowledge production (Durose, et al., 2021) and diverse forms of knowledge (often referred to as experiential, local, lay, traditional) complement decision making processes.

This has prompted extensive research in sustainability science (Norström, et al., 2020; Miller & Wyborn, 2020), showing how knowledge-based collaborations can tackle Grand Societal Challenges. This has also been influenced by Science & Technology Studies (STS), where knowledge co-production serves as heuristic stressing the interwovenness of our ways to understand/know and act upon our surrounding context (Jasanoff, 2004). This could inspire future research on the dynamics of (mutual) learning between different actors in co-production (Voorberg, et al., 2017; Osborne, et al., 2016).

Finally, the notion of knowledge in co-production sheds light on the epistemic conditions shaping co-production processes, capturing how different ways of knowing are enacted therein (Centeno, 2025; Weber & Khademian, 2008). This includes how pieces of data and information embody and integrate underlying ways of understanding a given problem, unveiling a cognitive dimension in co-production (Centeno, 2025). Knowledge is also enacted in actors’ networked interactions, suggesting a relational dimension (Brugnach & Ingram, 2012).

Contextual and performative dimensions allow us to challenge the idea of ‘neutrality’ in knowledge (Fischer, et al., 2015). Thus, knowledge in co-production is context specific (van Buuren, 2009) and enacted and embedded in actors’ practices (Schatzki, et al., 2001). The tensions of multi-source knowledge interactions may deserve further attention, particularly issues of legitimacy and power imbalances between knowledge sources in co-production (Brandsen, 2021; de Vries, et al., 2025).

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

We invite researchers and practitioners to submit papers presenting finalised or on-going empirical research. We also welcome conceptual papers reflecting on existing theories on public governance and other disciplines, proposing novel approaches exploring the role of knowledge (in/for) co-production. Topics/questions of interests include, but are not limited to:

KNOWLEDGE FOR CO-PRODUCTION
• What are the conditions shaping (inbound/outbound) knowledge flows between different organisations and stakeholders in co-production processes?
• What type of network structures facilitate the circulation of evidence/data to inform co-production initiatives?
• What kind of knowledge management mechanisms/tools facilitate long-term learning in-between co-production initiatives? How can digital platforms and AI systems better support this?
• What type of evidence is better integrated into co-production processes? How to integrate tacit knowledge into co-production? How can science better inform co-production initiatives

KNOWLEDGE CO-PRODUCTION
• What are the key motivations and incentives for citizens and different other stakeholders (e.g. firms, public servants, scientists) to engage and collaborate in knowledge co-production?
• What are the key outcomes of knowledge co-production processes? How are knowledge co-production outcomes up-taken and up-scaled by public administrations?
• Under what conditions does mutual learning occur between different actors involved in knowledge co-production? What mechanisms/platforms facilitate this (e.g. Living Labs)?
• What are the costs/benefits of knowledge co-production? How are these distributed among participants?

KNOWLEDGE IN CO-PRODUCTION
• What knowledge governance tensions arise when addressing complex societal challenges (e.g. climate change, social inclusion) and how may co-production provide tools to cope with these?
• What are the key knowledge circulation practices driving co-production processes? How do these differ across policy domains (e.g. natural resource management, healthcare, agri-food)?
• How can diverse ways of knowing be integrated to facilitate the co-production of new solutions to complex challenges? What types of innovations result from such processes?
• What knowledge governance mechanisms can potentiate the contribution of different ways of knowing in co-production?

Chairs:
Reinout van der Veer (Radboud University, The Netherlands) reinout.vanderveer@ru.nl
Esther Versluis (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) e.versluis@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Language: English
Key words: EU politics, governance and policy

Description of the panel and themes
This panel is organized by the NIG Colloquium on EU and International Governance, and is open to both members and non-members of the colloquium.

The European Union is under ever-increasing pressure to solve complex societal problems that transcend national borders. Some of these problems unfold over extended periods of time, such as climate change, democratic backsliding and the rise of AI, whereas others seemingly appear as sudden and urgent crises, such as the outbreaks of the various wars and conflicts in the EU’s neighborhood.

At the same time, effective collective problem-solving is complicated by the strong politicization of EU governance at the national level, the rise of the far right at the European level, and the breakdown of the liberal international order, as evidenced by return of Donald Trump and increased great power competition at the global level. This contestation hampers further sovereignty transfers to the EU level, especially in domains that touch on core state powers and involve distributional conflict, while also weakening the EU’s capacity to operate as a player in global politics.

As a consequence, the EU is confronted by an increasingly pressing governance paradox: the EU’s member states are increasingly dependent on each other to solve common problems, but surrendering enforceable competences to supranational institutions is increasingly politically difficult. This paradox between collective action and member state control under conditions of geopolitical instability has had important ramifications for the institutional setup, functioning and outputs of EU governance.

Firstly, in recent years we have seen fundamental changes of an institutional nature. The upsurge of crisis and strengthening role of member states has led to important shifts in power between the EU institutions, as epitomized by the rise of the European Council and increasing manifestation of the European Parliament in the wake of the Treaty of Lisbon. These shifts in power also have important ramifications at the national level. The strengthening of the European Council, for instance, requires a recalibration of national coordination structures and complicates effective scrutiny and control by national parliaments.

Furthermore, to bridge the gap between collective problem solving and national control over implementation and enforcement, the member states have pieced together a European Administrative Space, characterized by composite administrative structures such as European Administrative Networks, comitology committees and European agencies. These developments coincide with a more political, flexible approach to enforcement of policies by EU institutions, which further undermines member states’ commitment to adequate implementation of EU legislation. This includes the weakening of EU commitment to issues it touts as ‘core values’, including the respect for international law, rule of law and human rights.

A second set of changes is attitudinal and behavioral in nature: both EU-level and domestic actors have repositioned themselves in response to these institutional shifts. A key development is the politicization of the European Commission, introduced by Juncker and continued by Von der Leyen. Furthermore, national parliaments have sought to ‘claw back lost powers’ by utilizing newly acquired institutional powers such as the Early Warning System, or improving their information position.

Thirdly, the European governance paradox has played out rather differently in various policy areas. Some areas are characterized by policy stagnation, as is the case for the Green Deal and the EU’s attempts to crack down on ‘Big Tech’. In other areas, rapid and unprecedented collective action ensued in response to crisis, as evidenced by the Recovery and Resilience Fund and the EU’s relatively unified response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s tariff threats.

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

We welcome papers on:

1. The domestic public and political attitudes on EU governance, politics and integration;
2. The consequences of this political contestation for the EU’s inter-institutional balance and its effects on EU decision making and accountability;
3. The characteristics, functioning and impact of the different institutional elements of the European Administrative Space (European Administrative Networks, comitology);
4. The implications of these EU-level institutional developments for national systems of EU coordination and control;
5. The various EU policy responses to pressing collective action problems, both of a crisis and non-crisis nature;
6. Member states’ responses to these policies, in terms of compliance, implementation and enforcement;
7. EU institutions responses to these national patterns of policy delivery, e.g. in terms of enforcement. 
8. Normative assessments of EU governance, e.g. focusing on notions of transparency, accountability, or legitimacy.

Papers can be theoretical, empirical or normative in nature. We welcome both papers that reflect on these topics in general terms, or in applied terms, i.e. focusing on one or more EU policy areas.

Chairs:
Martin Rosema (University of Twente, The Netherlands) m.rosema@utwente.nl
Krista Ettlinger (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) k.m.ettlinger@uu.nl

Language: English
Key words: democratic innovation, citizen participation

Description of the panel and themes
In response to growing dissatisfaction with the functioning of democratic political systems, many countries have developed innovative ways to let citizens participate in the political process. Examples include Luxembourg’s national citizens’ assembly on climate policy or Ireland’s combination of a citizens’ assembly and referendum on the issue of abortion and on constitutional provisions about family and care. At the local level, there are even more examples, such as citizens’ assemblies, referendums, participatory budgeting, e-democracy platforms, “right to challenge” procedures, and combinations of these forms.

In this panel, we aim to bring together scholarship from diverse fields and subfields that study citizen participation to foster intellectual exchange and strengthen connections among researchers studying these developments.

Democratic innovations can be studied from multiple perspectives, for example:

• Political philosophers might explore how they align with core democratic values, drawing on classic democratic theory.
• Policy designers may focus on how best to structure such initiatives.
• Empirical political scientists might assess whether they succeed in including citizens from different demographic backgrounds and in building trust in political institutions.
• Public administration scholars and political scientists might investigate how innovations are implemented within the political-administrative system and the roles civil servants and politicians play.
• Policy specialists may analyse how citizen participation affects established decision-making in their field. Think of recent examples of citizen participation being introduced on topics such as climate, sustainability, healthcare, and waste management.
These are just some examples of the rich way in which different perspectives can deepen our understanding of the theory and practice of democratic innovation and citizen participation.

We welcome papers on these and related topics, including the design, effects and systemic implications of citizen participation and democratic innovation. Topics include, but are not limited to:

1. description, explanation and evaluation of the current state of citizen participation at different levels of government;
2. design of democratic innovations, e.g. how processes are organised in terms of themes, participants, logistics, deliberation, voting procedures;
3. what citizens expect from participation and which roles, guidance or follow-up they would prefer for democratic innovations;
4. elite perspectives on democratic innovations within the context of representative democracy: what drives politicians or civil servants to engage in such processes, how this affects their role perceptions, and which challenges they face in practice;
5. democratic values realised by democratic innovations, such as inclusion, effectiveness, and citizen competences;
6. inclusion of harder-to-reach participants, for example minority groups or youths, and which design features and organisational aspects are most successful in involving them;
7. The role for and effect on organized interests and civil society organisations in relation to citizen participation.

While this panel focuses primarily on democratic innovations in the Netherlands and Belgium, contributions addressing other contexts are also welcome. Papers may be empirical studies that use any quantitative of qualitative methodology (e.g. case studies, surveys, interviews, focus groups or document study) or theoretical accounts of the rationale and potential for further facilitating participation and deliberation.

We aim for a fruitful mix of senior, mid-career and early-career researchers, and we encourage colleagues in all stages who are interested in these topics to join and share their recent work and work-in-progress.

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

We welcome academic papers analysing democratic innovations either from an empirical or theoretical perspective, such as, but not limited to, in-depth case studies of specific cases, comparative research on democratic innovations, survey studies on perceptions and preferences for citizen participation, focus group and interview data exploring the preferences of citizens, politicians and civil servants, and theoretical and normative reflections on the application of democratic innovations within a broader democratic context.

Additionally, we welcome practitioner papers detailing cases of democratic innovations at national, regional and local level, reports discussing findings based on survey or interview data collected among participants and organisers of democratic innovations, and evaluation studies of participation processes.

Chairs:
Dovile Rimkute (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands) d.rimkute@vu.nl
Sjors Overman (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) s.p.overman@uu.nl

Language: English
Key words: emotions, affect, public governance

Description of the panel and themes
Emotions – including enthusiasm, anger, fear, hope, pride, gratitude, surprise, disgust, happiness, and sadness – are not merely by-products of decision-making in government. They are integral to how bureaucracies formulate and implement governance and policy decisions; how citizens experience governance, process policy information, make compliance decisions, assign blame, and perceive bureaucratic legitimacy and reputation. Moreover, they are powerful and consistent predictors of human behavior. It is, therefore, safe to assume that these emotions are equally powerful predictors of administrative behavior. Yet, emotional processes often remain implicit or secondary in public administration research. Even with the advent of behavioral public administration, cognitive mechanisms have consistently been prioritized.

This panel focuses on the emerging body of research at the intersection of public governance and emotions, with particular emphasis on reintroducing the role of affect into public administration theory and research. While the field of behavioral public administration (BPA) has significantly advanced our understanding of the psychological foundations of administrative behavior, substantial untapped potential remains in systematically studying how emotions – alongside cognition and motivation – shape the information processing, judgment formation, decision-making, and behavior of public officials, policymakers, and citizens.

The discussion in this panel will focus on the affective dimension of public administration. It builds on recent theoretical and empirical developments suggesting that emotions are essential for explaining variation in how citizens and bureaucrats process information, form judgments, and behave. For example, emotions have been argued to play an important role in regulators’ formulation of – and citizens’ responses to – regulatory interventions (Rimkutė, 2025). Scholars have introduced theoretical frameworks that identify emotion-based components of bureaucratic reputation and theorize how emotions shape audience reputation learning processes and perceptions of public institutions (Maor et al., 2025). Empirical research has also demonstrated that bureaucratic red tape evokes significant negative emotional responses—particularly confusion, frustration, and anger—among citizens (Hattke et al., 2020). But also compassion (Szydlowski et al., 2022).

Also, within the cogs of the bureaucracy, emotions play an important role in shaping mutual relationships between actors and organizations. For example, the anticipation of accountability has various emotional consequences, including fear, anger, and pride (Overman et al., 2025). Such reactions predictably influence the governance of public sector organizations. And civil servants, such as police officers, may experience stereotyping, which triggers emotional responses, predicting subsequent coping (Neo and Overman, 2024). These examples underline the human aspect of public governance beyond rationality and cognitive biases.

The panel’s goal is to start a productive dialogue among scholars who are advancing this emerging research agenda – what might be called affective public administration. By encouraging theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions, we aim to deepen our collective understanding of the emotional foundations of governance and promote greater integration of affective dynamics into the core concerns of public administration theory and research.

Ultimately, this panel aims to initiate a broader scholarly conversation about how emotions – often overlooked or relegated to the background – shape the everyday realities of governing, being governed, and responding to public authority. We welcome contributions that chart new directions, revisit classical questions through an emotional lens, or challenge conventional assumptions about how public administration works.

References:

Hattke, F., Hensel, D., & Kalucza, J. (2020). Emotional responses to bureaucratic red tape. Public Administration Review, 80(1), 53–63.

Maor, M., Rimkutė, D., & Capelos, T. (2025). Emotions and reputation learning by audience networks: A research agenda in bureaucratic politics. Public Administration Review.

Neo, S., & Overman, S. (2024, December 5). Coping with negative occupational stereotypes in the public sector: An emotional appraisal account among police officers in the United States and the Netherlands. Paper presented at City University, Hong Kong.

Overman, S., & Schillemans, T. (2022). Toward a public administration theory of felt accountability. Public Administration Review, 82(1), 12–22.

Overman, S., Neo, S., & Hall, A. (2025). The emotional backlash of public accountability. [Manuscript in preparation / forthcoming].

Rimkutė, D. (2025). Affective regulatory governance: Towards an emotion-based understanding of citizen–regulator interactions in regulatory politics. Journal of European Public Policy.

Szydlowski, G., de Boer, N., & Tummers, L. (2022). Compassion, bureaucrat bashing, and public administration. Public Administration Review, 82, 619–633.

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

We are particularly interested in research that examines the interplay between emotion, cognition, and behavior in public governance contexts. This includes, but is not limited to, theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that explore topics such as:

• The emotional dynamics of bureaucratic decision-making and rule enforcement.
• The role of affect in shaping citizens’ perceptions of reputation, legitimacy, and trust of public institutions.
• The emotional framing of policy communication and its effects on compliance and engagement.
• Cross-national or cross-sectoral variations in emotional responses to governance.
• Methodological innovations for studying emotion in public administration (e.g., physiological measures, experiments, surveys, ethnography).

This panel invites interdisciplinary perspectives, including work from psychology, sociology, political science, communication studies, and organizational behavior that can inform public administration’s understanding of emotions in public governance.

Chairs:
Erna Ruijer (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) h.j.m.ruijer@uu.nl
Federica Fusi (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands) f.fusi@vu.nl 

Language: English
Key words: digitalization, equity, inclusion

Description of the panel and themes
Digitalization in the form of online public services, social media, open government data, public engagement tools, algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence, has fundamentally re-shaped the interaction between government bureaucracy and the public (Peeters & Widlak 2023; Bovens & Zouridis, 2002; Marienfeldt; 2024; Dunleavy & Margetts 2025). Digitalization is enabled by both innovations in government capacity to collect, process, and utilize data, as well as the development of new online tools to enhance public service delivery and participation. This digital transformation has been justified by efficiency and effectiveness goals (Dunleavy & Margetts 2025; Mergel et al., 2019), but scholars, practitioners, and citizens express growing concerns about the impact of digitalization on other public values, particularly social equity and inclusion (Ruijer et al. 2023). Social equity broadly describes concerns on the disproportionate distribution of issues of access, procedural treatment, quality, and outcomes of digital public services (Ruijer et al 2023) reflected in government willingness (or lack thereof) to design and deliver digital services based on the needs of different society groups (Cepiku & Mastrodascio, 2021). Inclusion is a multi-faceted concept distinguished by the degree to which individuals are part of (digital) democratic and organizational processes, by the extent to which they have access to government information and digital information services, and have the digital skills to participate and influence decision-making processes (Ruijer & Piotrowski 2022).

In the past decade, several studies of equity and inclusion about digitalization have been produced outside of the public administration field, which has meant that little attention has been dedicated to their implications for public service delivery (Ruijer et al 2023). PA scholarship is filling this gap at a fast pace, with a growing number of studies investigating – for example – how data-assisted decision-making contributes to equity and inclusion goals, for instance by expanding access to government services and reducing administrative errors and biases in interactions with bureaucrats (Compton et al 2023). Other studies have examined how online interfaces (Schwoerer, 2025; Fusi et al 2023) might include or exclude societal groups because of how they are designed and conceptualized. Scholars have also examined exclusionary mechanisms triggered by digital technologies because of skill and access divides, which limit access to benefits and services for vulnerable populations and exacerbate unequal outcomes (Busuioc 2021; Moynihan et al 2025; Peeters & Widlak 2023; Young et al 2019). More recently, researchers have raised new concerns over complexities in terms of ownership, transparency, and accountability brought by the use of data-assisted technologies developed by third-party companies and used by the government, which might impact equity and inclusion and even justice in service provision (Ruijer et al 2023).

While the challenges and opportunities associated with digitalization for social equity and inclusion are increasingly on the public sector agenda, it is timely to take stock of our academic understanding of their implications and impacts, which is still fragmented, not in small part because of the variety of definitions and conceptual frameworks used. This panel aims to bring scholars together with empirical and conceptual papers examining the implementation of policies, programs, and initiatives that address the relationship between the digital transformation and social equity, inclusion, and/or investigating their impact and implications for public administration practice and research. The panel aims to map exclusionary mechanisms emerging in digital transformation, including but not limited to digital administrative burdens, gaps in data infrastructure and integration, data-assisted decision-making, and algorithm bias (Moynihan et al 2025; Peeters, 2023). The panel also focuses on identifying mechanisms that can foster equity and inclusion efforts, such as open government and transparency programs, UX design, and data equity frameworks.

References
Bovens, M., & Zouridis, S. (2002). From street‐level to system‐level bureaucracies: How information and communication technology is transforming administrative discretion and constitutional control. Public administration review, 62(2), 174-184.

Busuioc, M. (2021). Accountable artificial intelligence: Holding algorithms to account. Public administration review, 81(5), 825-836.

Compton, M. E., Young, M. M., Bullock, J. B., & Greer, R. (2023). Administrative Errors and Race: Can technology mitigate inequitable administrative outcomes?. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 33(3), 512-528.

Dunleavy, P., & Margetts, H. (2025). Data science, artificial intelligence and the third wave of digital era governance. Public Policy and Administration, 40(2), 185-214.

Fusi, F., Zhang, F., & Liang, J. (2023). Unveiling environmental justice through open government data: Work in progress for most US states. Public Administration, 101(3), 1088-1114.

Gooden, Susan T. Race and social equity: A nervous area of government. Routledge, 2015.

Marienfeldt, J. (2024). Does digital government hollow out the essence of street‐level bureaucracy? A systematic literature review of how digital tools’ foster curtailment, enablement and continuation of street‐level decision‐making. Social Policy & Administration, 58(5), 831-855.

Mergel, I., Edelmann, N., & Haug, N. (2019). Defining digital transformation: Results from expert interviews. Government information quarterly, 36(4), 101385.

Moynihan, D., Hybschmann, M., Gimborys, K., Loudin, S., & McClellan, W. (2025). Digital administrative burdens and clawback logics: the Australian Robodebt scheme. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, gvaf011.

Peeters, R., & Widlak, A. (2018). The digital cage: Administrative exclusion through information architecture–The case of the Dutch civil registry’s master data management system. Government Information Quarterly, 35(2), 175-183.

Peeters, R. (2023). Digital administrative burdens: An agenda for analyzing the citizen experience of digital bureaucratic encounters. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 6(1), 7-13.

Ruijer, E., Porumbescu, G., Porter, R., & Piotrowski, S. (2023). Social equity in the data era: A systematic literature review of data‐driven public service research. Public Administration Review, 83(2), 316-332.

Ruijer, E., & Piotrowski, S. (2022). Introduction to the special issue on Inclusion and E-Government: Progress and Questions for Scholars of Social Equity. Information Polity, 27(4), 425-432.

Schwoerer, K. (2025). Designing with end-users in mind: principles and practices for accessible, usable, and inclusive open government platforms. In Research Handbook on Open Government (pp. 239-252). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Young, M. M., Bullock, J. B., & Lecy, J. D. (2019). Artificial discretion as a tool of governance: a framework for understanding the impact of artificial intelligence on public
administration. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2(4), 301-313.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

Our panel seeks high quality papers that focus on topics such as:
● State-of-the-art academic thinking about the digital transformation and inclusion/exclusion of individuals and different groups in society;
● Theoretical and practical explorations of the different types of equity (distributional, procedural fairness, process equity and outcomes; Gooden 2015) and how they relate to the digital transformation, public engagement, and service delivery;
● Critical analysis of the relations between the digital transformation and social equity, inclusion and justice, and service delivery and program implementation;
● Studies of the impact of digitalization on social equity and inclusion in different policy domains such as welfare, housing, education, health, criminal justice, environmental justice, and civic space;
● Studies of open government and transparency programs, and how these programs can facilitate diverse participation in policy making and ensure that government data and policies align with the needs and preferences of underrepresented groups;
● Organizational and institutional studies exploring more inclusive approaches to the design, deployment, and implementation of government digital technologies;
● Organization- and individual-level studies examining the integration of equity-oriented processes and procedures in government agencies as well as studies examining how public managers deal with equity
● Best practices of initiatives, policies, programs, and administrative processes that advance social equity, inclusion, and justice through digitalization;
● Mechanisms and measures for assessing digital transformation impacts on social equity and inclusion.

Chairs:
Tamara Metze (TU Delft, The Netherlands) t.a.p.metze@tudelft.nl
Thomas Hoppe (Universiteit Twente, The Netherlands) t.hoppe@utwente.nl

Language: English
Key words: governance, energy transition, knowledge and technology

Description of the panel and themes
This panel is proposed by the chairs and members of the NIG Energy and Climate Governance research colloquium.

Worldwide, including in the European Union, the governance of energy transitions to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are under pressure due to societal contestation and shifting political priorities. Technologies and knowledge become part of these contestations, and are used and misused by all sorts of actors (including experts).

The governance of energy transitions requires transformations in both knowledge and technology. These changes go beyond ‘promising’ new technologies, such as “smart” energy grids, small modular nuclear reactors, flying wind turbines, artificial intelligence in for example digital power plants, or supply and demand- forecasting in (economic) policy analysis models. Transformations also include new methodologies for knowledge cocreation in transdisciplinary research processes; for more critical studies into for example the choices made for and during the (co)development of new technologies and other types of expertise; the epistemological (in)justices in governance of energy transitions, and last but not least, theories and methods that account for the meaning and values of energy sources and infrastructures, of energy technologies, and broader, for example, the planning sites for renewables.

This panel looks into how the circulation of all sorts of expertise shape energy transition governance. This includes, the framing contest about problems and solutions, what publics are imagined, whose voices are included, coalitions formed, and which futures become imaginable. Overall, this panel brings together scholars to explore how knowledge and technology function not only as instruments in governance and decision making, but also as sites of meaning-making, contestation, and power in energy governance.

Questions addressed in this panel are, how epistemic communities and technical experts define and legitimate energy problems and solutions; how technological artifacts—from wind turbines to blockchain-based energy markets—embody particular social, political, and cultural assumptions; how publics, policymakers, and industry actors negotiate competing visions of a low-carbon future; and how interpretative approaches can enrich critical debates on the politics of innovation, risk, and sustainability transitions.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
The panel aims to advance both theoretical and empirical understandings of the role of knowledge and technology in the governance of energy transitions. We welcome contributions that address topics including (but not limited to):

1. The role of predictive modeling, scenarios, and metrics in shaping energy policy agendas;
2. localized interpretations and adaptations of global energy technologies;
3. contestations over expertise and legitimacy in energy transitions;
4. stories, metaphors, and imaginaries surrounding emerging energy infrastructures;
5. the co-production of social order and technical systems in energy governance;
6. the role of post truth in the governance of energy transitions.

Chairs:
Aneta Spendzharova (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) a.spendzharova@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Jasper Simons (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) j.p.simons@uu.nl

Language: English
Key words: green transition policies, geopolitics

Description panel and themes
This panel seeks to examine the politics, policies, and governance of the green transition, particularly in light of intensifying global geopolitical tensions. The term “green transition” refers to the shift towards a sustainable, climate-neutral economy by 2050, as outlined in the Paris Agreement. Achieving this transition is a complex, multi-level governance challenge that requires coordinated public action across all levels—from local municipalities and national governments to supranational institutions like the European Union (EU)—alongside significant private sector involvement.

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of ambitious policy interventions and generously funded incentive schemes aimed at facilitating the economic transformations required by the green transition. Prominent examples include the EU Green Deal and the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. However, the green transition’s long-term and transformative nature makes it politically vulnerable—not only to domestic electoral cycles, but also to shifting geopolitical priorities, economic crises, and emerging security threats that increasingly dominate policy agendas worldwide. In the same vein, the current global reordering presents new opportunities for EU and domestic mobilization and action.

Theoretically, recent scholarship reflects a growing convergence between political economy and public administration in addressing urgent questions about the role of politics and institutions in driving or impeding the green transition. Shared research interests—such as the design of state institutions, the role of expertise in policymaking, and the political dynamics of policy implementation—provide fertile ground for interdisciplinary dialogue. This panel aims to build on that productive engagement by combining theoretical and empirical insights from these fields to explore three interconnected themes:

1. Institutional Governance and Policy Instruments:
How are public institutions and agencies managing the green transition at (sub)national and cross-border levels? For example, the EU’s Green Deal seeks to catalyse green technology innovation, industrial transformation, and broad societal adoption of renewable energy. Yet governments also deploy alternative tools—such as off-balance-sheet financing mechanisms or regulatory mandates in private markets—which raise questions not only about effectiveness, but also about legitimacy, transparency, and public accountability. How are these instruments coordinated across EU institutions and member states? Are they coherent and politically sustainable? Do they enjoy public support amid increasing geopolitical fragmentation?

2. The Role of Organized Interests and Stakeholders:
How do interest groups—such as businesses, labour unions, environmental NGOs, and civil society actors—influence the direction of green transition policies? As the transition often generates distributional conflicts, especially between environmental goals and the socio-economic interests of carbon-intensive sectors (e.g., agri-food or petrochemicals), it becomes highly politicized. How do policymakers mediate these tensions? What compromises are struck with legacy industries that are simultaneously economically strategic and environmentally problematic?

3. Geopolitical Constraints and Strategic Trade-offs:
What are the major geopolitical and economic obstacles to implementing the green transition as well as opportunities for greater European autonomy, for example, in renewables? Key challenges include uncertainty about market uptake of green technologies, intense lobbying from high-emissions industries, and escalating global competition over critical raw materials essential for clean energy production. These materials—often controlled by a few global players—have become focal points in international negotiations between the EU, China, the United States, and others, sometimes undermining long-standing climate commitments. How do such geopolitical dynamics reshape domestic and international environmental agendas in the EU?
Considering the long-term nature of the green transition, its successful implementation depends on stable political support from elected officials, continued access to public funding, and regulatory requirements such as policy stability and transparency. Recently, the strong political backlash in the USA from the Trump Administration and the rollback of previous ambitious green initiatives by the Von der Leyen EU Commission also indicate the political vulnerability of policy packages already put in place to facilitate the green transition. These examples of politicization, and even erosion, of green transition policy targets and actions in major global jurisdictions call for further research.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
In general, we invite paper submissions that employ political economy and/or public administration theoretical approaches. We aim to create fruitful dialogue between these approaches. We also welcome a wide range of methodological approaches and research designs engaging with the themes above, ranging from qualitative single and comparative case studies to large-n statistical analyses. We encourage young scholars to submit papers based on dissertation articles and chapters (work in progress). The chairs will strive to ensure a constructive atmosphere and detailed discussion of each paper to develop the manuscripts further in line with the publication goals of the authors.

Furthermore, we warmly welcome dialogue with practitioners from the Dutch and other European public administration organisations working on these matters. Hence, this panel is also open to practitioners who would be interested in discussing practical policy insights and ongoing policy work in the field of the green transition.

Chairs:
Beau Warbroek (University of Twente, The Netherlands) w.d.b.warbroek@utwente.nl
Lizet Kuitert (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) kuitert@essb.eur.nl

Language: English
Key words: cross-sectoral, integration, built environment

Description of the panel and themes
Governance of the built environment is becoming increasingly complex as society faces multiple transitions, such as the energy shift and the move toward a circular economy. With climate change surging to exceed the 1.5 degree limit (C3s, 2025), urgency is ever increasing to make way for a sustainable future. Hitherto, the transitions underpinning climate change have been studied and governed in a relatively siloed way. There is an abundance of governance literature on energy transition, climate adaptation, circular economy, and so on. Governments lay out policy ambitions for climate mitigation and adaptation but only limitedly recognize the interdependencies between these transitions. Competing (spatial) demands in the built environment often lead to trade-offs rather than fostering cross-sector synergies, hindered by fragmented finances and administrative cycles (Kuitert, 2021). An example of such interdependency is that substantial construction work on infrastructure and buildings needed for the energy transition provides ample opportunity to improve the climate adaptiveness of urban areas (e.g. implement blue-green infrastructure). Another example is that the energy transition requires substantial CO2-intensive, rare materials and therefore cannot be considered independently of a circular economy. Still, the status quo is characterized by relatively siloed policy frameworks and implementation efforts. Public organizations are crucial for safeguarding holistic, sustainable outcomes but remain embedded in sectoral, hierarchical structures with fragmented accountability.

Public organizations typically adopt structured, goal-oriented value management approaches, such as policies (e.g., land use) and regulations (e.g., carbon emission standards), fitting within bureaucratic structures (Williams et al., 2020). These static approaches assume a solid knowledge base and measurability of values, suitable for most technical (e.g., physical infrastructure) and spatial (e.g., housing) issues (Kuitert & van Buuren, 2022). They emphasize goal-oriented trade-offs based on predetermined or singular value goals (Stewart, 2009; Williams et al., 2020). In engineering practices, decision-making often follows a sequence: identifying the problem, formulating objectives, collecting information, deciding, implementing, and evaluating (De Bruijn and Herder, 2009). Conventional strategies, such as timely replacement of infrastructure components and optimization of existing solutions, are increasingly inadequate (Ansell et al., 2023). Resulting forms of bounded rationality can derail long-term, integrative governance efforts.

This panel will explore avenues for implementing integrative governance to designing sustainable futures. We understand integrative governance as an governance approach that seeks to coordinate and align the efforts of multiple actors, sectors, and levels of government to address complex, interdependent challenges in a coherent and collaborative manner. In such a governance setting, traditional boundaries of legal jurisdiction, governmental levels, and policy domains are crossed (Candel & Biesbroek, 2016).

The notion of integrative governance that this panel puts forward is rooted in debates of public administration on policy integration. The concept initially emerged in marine policy (Underdal, 1980). Over time, the scope of integration has broadened to encompass environmental concerns across various sectors, such as housing, water resource management, environmental management, and food production (e.g. Biesbroek, 2021; Candel & Biesbroek, 2016; Lafferty & Hovden, 2003; Jordan & Lenschow, 2010). Consequently, academic discourse has increasingly concentrated on the significance of integration in public decision-making (De Wulf et al., 2023; Biesbroek, 2021; Trein et al., 2021; Tosun & Lang, 2017; Candel & Biesbroek, 2016), with some scholars even dubbing it ‘the holy grail’ (Biesbroek, 2021; Keast et al., 2007). Other related concepts are boundary judgements and spanning (Williams, 2002; Bressers & Lulofs, 2010) and mainstreaming (Uittenbroek et al., 2013; Baack et al., 2024), which indicate that integration ensues beyond policies, but involves actors, institutions, practices and so on. As multiple actors become involved, issues of frame and institutional logic convergence arise (Klijn and Koppenjan, 2016; Vandenbussche et al., 2025). Analyzing actor interactions using an institutional lens is a promising avenue to design interaction processes that facilitate integration (Warbroek et al., 2023; Bakhanova et al., 2025).

Despite its promise, integration encounters obstacles such as implementation challenges (Kuitert et al., 2023) and barriers to social innovation (Karré, 2018). As such, integrative governance not only involves bridging domains (such as water security, energy, housing, climate adaptation), but also involves bridging the silo’s stemming from inter alia policy, planning, implementation and maintenance, and many more. The ambition of integrative governance that this panel proposes is not myopic to solely eliminating overlap between sectoral policies and approaches or filling gaps. There is a lack of clarity on what exactly needs to be integrated—whether different interests, domains, or values in the product or the process, but also at what level and with what means. Furthermore, it is rarely questioned when integration is considered successful, or what degree of integration is appropriate. As such, the aim is to explore the potential of integrative governance in the context of transitions in the physical environment by understanding when and how it facilitates a more sustainable future.

Ansell, C., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2023). Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses. Public administration, 101(1), 3-22.
Baack, F., Özerol, G., Vinke-de Kruijf, J., Halman, J., & Kuks, S. (2024). Implementing climate change adaptation through mainstreaming at the local level—a comparative case study of two municipalities in the Netherlands. Regional environmental change, 24(2), 49.
Bakhanova, E., Kruijf, V. D., Wöhler, L., Warbroek, B., & Arentsen, M. (2025). Integrative Approaches to Interconnected Environmental Challenges: How Institutional Factors Influence Cross-Sector Integration in Dutch Rural Areas. Environmental management, 75(5), 1308-1321.
Biesbroek, R. (2021). Policy integration and climate change adaptation. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 52, 75-81.
Bressers, H., & Lulofs, K. (Eds.). (2010). Governance and complexity in water management: Creating cooperation through boundary spanning strategies. Edward Elgar Publishing.Candel, J. J., & Biesbroek, R. (2016). Toward a processual understanding of policy integration. Policy sciences, 49(3), 211-231.
Climate Change Service (2025). Coperniucus: 2024 is the first year to exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial level. Accessed via: https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-first-year-exceed-15degc-above-pre-industrial-level
De Bruijn, H., & Herder, P. M. (2009). System and actor perspectives on sociotechnical systems. IEEE Transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics-part A: Systems and Humans, 39(5), 981-992.
De Wulf, N., Voets, J., & Molenveld, A. (2023). Policy coordination and integration in local government: perspectives on barriers. Policy & Politics, 51(3), 530-549.
Jordan, A., & Lenschow, A. (2010). Environmental policy integration: a state of the art review. Environmental policy and governance, 20(3), 147-158.
Karre, P. (2018). Navigating between opportunities and risks: The effects of hybridity for social enterprises engaged in social innovation. Journal of entrepreneurial and organizational diversity, 7(1), 37-60.
Keast, R., Brown, K., & Mandell, M. (2007). Getting the right mix: Unpacking integration meanings and strategies. International public management journal, 10(1), 9-33.
Klijn, E. H., & Koppenjan, J. (2016). The shift toward network governance: Drivers, characteristics and manifestations. In Theory and practice of public sector reform (pp. 158-177). Routledge.
Kuitert, L. (2021). The balancing act: How public construction clients safeguard public values in a changing construction industry. A+ BE| Architecture and the Built Environment, (06), 1-234.
Kuitert, L., & van Buuren, A. (2022). Delivering blue-green infrastructure: Innovation pathways for integrating multiple values. Frontiers in sustainable cities, 4, 885951.
Kuitert, L., Volker, L., & Hermans, M. H. (2023). Definitely not a walk in the park: coping with competing values in complex project networks. Project management journal, 54(1), 19-34.
Lafferty, W., & Hovden, E. (2003). Environmental policy integration: towards an analytical framework. Environmental politics, 12(3), 1-22.
Stewart, J. (2009). What Are Policy Values?. In Public Policy Values (pp. 14-32). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Tosun, J., & Lang, A. (2017). Policy integration: Mapping the different concepts. Policy studies, 38(6), 553-570.
Trein, P., Biesbroek, R., Bolognesi, T., Cejudo, G. M., Duffy, R., Hustedt, T., & Meyer, I. (2021). Policy coordination and integration: A research agenda. Public Administration Review, 81(5), 973-977.
Underdal, A. (1980). Integrated marine policy: what? why? how?. Marine policy, 4(3), 159-169.
Uittenbroek, C. J., Janssen-Jansen, L. B., & Runhaar, H. A. (2013). Mainstreaming climate adaptation into urban planning: overcoming barriers, seizing opportunities and evaluating the results in two Dutch case studies. Regional environmental change, 13(2), 399-411.
Vandenbussche, L., Edelenbos, J., & Eshuis, J. (2025). Collaboration in action: How micro-level relational dynamics are connected with issue frame convergence in collaborative governance networks. Public Management Review, 27(4), 1116-1134.
Warbroek, B., Holmatov, B., Vinke-de Kruijf, J., Arentsen, M., Shakeri, M., de Boer, C., … & Dorée, A. (2023). From sectoral to integrative action situations: an institutional perspective on the energy transition implementation in the Netherlands. Sustainability Science, 18(1), 97-114.
Williams, P. (2002). The competent boundary spanner. Public administration, 80(1), 103-124.
Williams, M. J., Leaver, C., Mundy, K., Mansoor, Z., Qarout, D., Asim, M., … & Bilous, A. (2020). Delivery approaches to improving policy implementation: A conceptual framework. Education Commission, University of Oxford, UKAid.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

In this panel, we aim to advance academic thinking on integrative governance, exploring its characteristics and how it may contribute to governmental policy and decision-making about governance of the built environment in an increasingly interconnected world. The panel seeks to foster a deeper understanding of integration challenges and opportunities, encouraging contributions that offer theoretical insights and practical applications. Sub-objectives of this colloquium include developing criteria for successful integrative governance and analyzing structural and cultural impacts on goal prioritization. By addressing these sub-objectives and topics, we aim to enhance the effectiveness and inclusivity of policy-making, implementation and interaction processes.

Chairs:
Julia Penning de Vries (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) j.penningdevries@uu.nl
Martin Sievert (Leiden University, The Netherlands) m.c.g.sievert@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

Language: English
Key words: leadership, managing people, HRM

Description panel and themes
Panel Background:
This panel proposal is developed in close collaboration with Professor Brenda Vermeeren (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Professor Ben Kuipers (Leiden University) and endorsed by the PUPOL Academic Network Public and Political Leadership.
Moreover, this panel is a joint effort of two previous panels presented at earlier NIG conferences: “The Multiple Levels of Public and Political Leadership” (part of the PUPOL Colloquium) and “Managing and Leading Employees in Public Organizations.”

Panel Description:

To address the complex and multifaceted challenges that public and political organizations and institutions face, effective leadership and managing people across multiple levels of the public domain are indispensable. Public leadership and Human Resource Management (HRM) constitute an important part of solving such challenges. They are particularly vital for enabling institutions to adapt and endure in times of adversity. For instance, public organizations like schools face urgent issues such as labor shortages and demographic change, while having to deal with multiple stakeholder groups and differing (often opposing) political demands and expectations. In such contexts, leadership and HRM are essential for navigating in a complex and dynamic environment, sustaining institutional resilience and ensuring the continuity of public service delivery.

To understand the functioning, antecedents, and impacts of both leadership and HRM, especially within the public domain, much more attention for the many aspects, multiple layers, various levels, and the interactions between them, is needed (Kuipers & Murphy, 2023). Hence, this panel invites contributions that examine how leadership and HRM at different levels can enhance public value creation and service performance, both separately and in conjunction. The panel is intentionally broad in scope, welcoming diverse research within the field of public and political leadership, managing people and (strategic) HRM. By bringing together scholars working at the intersection of leadership and HRM in the political and public domain, we seek to foster exchange and integration between these two fields, which have largely developed in parallel but often pursue similar objectives.

To provide structure to this broad topic, the panel adopts a framework that considers leadership and managing people in three directions: inwards, upwards and outwards.

The inwards perspective concerns one of the more dominant ones in leadership and managing people. Public employees play a critical role in the performance of public organizations and services (Leisink et al., 2021). High-quality education depends on skilled teachers, effective healthcare requires professional health workers, and public safety relies on capable police officers. Consequently, the management and leadership of public employees has long been recognized as a central element in the effective administration of public organizations (O’Toole & Meier, 2009). Both leadership and HRM scholars have shown a sustained interest in understanding how to effectively manage and influence employees (Leroy et al., 2018), also emphasizing the relevance of employees’ perspectives (e.g. Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015; Penning de Vries & Knies, 2022). Building on previous work, we argue that advancing our understanding of employee management in public organizations requires an integrated approach that brings together insights from both public leadership and HRM research.

The outwards perspective concerns a growing field of interest in the role of leadership and public professionals working with a diversity of stakeholders and network collaborations (Crosby & Bryson, 2010). Working on the boundaries between (public) organizations to contribute to societal value requires new competences and work arrangements that support both organizational goals as well as those of the network collaborations (e.g. Huxham & Vangen, 2013). Additionally, we aim to explore the leadership roles and behaviors of public professionals working in these settings that often lack formal leadership power due to the networking constellations (Akerboom et al., 2024)

The upwards perspective involves the way leadership and management deal with political-administrative relationships (Hartley et al., 2019). As such it concerns matters of political astuteness and acting in complex stakeholder settings. This is the direction of leadership and developing competences of public professionals in various positions to acquire the resources needed to deliver the required public services and contribute to societal value. It concerns developing strategies for public organizations and policy fields involving strategic competences not only at top managerial levels, but in all relevant positions (Christensen, 2021).

Accordingly, this panel welcomes contributions from scholars in both broader fields that focus on the management and leadership of people working in the public domain, and on how such efforts shape performance and behavior within and between public organizations.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
We welcome a wide range of submissions, including theoretical or conceptual papers, empirical studies, and research proposals (such as PhD projects or research designs). As noted in the previous section, the panel embraces contributions that address a broad spectrum of topics related to leadership, managing people and HRM within the political and public domains. We particularly encourage submissions that explore the intersection of HRM and leadership with the societal challenges currently confronting public organizations.

Chairs:
Lars Brummel (Leiden University, The Netherlands) l.brummel@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Thijs de Boer (Leiden University, The Netherlands) t.c.de.boer@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

Language: English
Key words: legitimacy, bureaucracy, socio-political environment

Description of the panel and themes
There is a shared sense among many that we live in a moment of rapid and multifaceted transformations. Whether it is renewed geopolitical tensions, the erosion of the liberal international order, locally felt disruptive manifestations of a climate-changed world, declining levels of trust, the continuing rise of populism or more gradually developing phenomena such as population aging, the spread of misinformation and the weakening of the rule of law, public organisations in virtually all policy domains are confronted with a volatile socio-political environment.

These impactful, often fast-paced, changes can challenge public organisations in different ways. First, they challenge the legitimacy of public organisations, as they are put under pressure to navigate through new socio-political realities and to meet changing public expectations. Second, external shocks may provide opportunities for (re)legitimization, functioning as a critical juncture at which new policies become politically feasible. Public organisations can become the “winners” of moments of change, when they manage to establish themselves successfully as the rightful owner of new competences (e.g., central banks acting on the climate crisis). Third, public organisations are also expected to act as safeguards of democracy, for example, when democratic values are threatened due to populism, political polarization or democratic eroision. In such a changing political landscape, the working relationship between politics and public administration is put to the test.

With organisational legitimacy being recognized as crucial to the effective functioning of public organisations and a core principle of democratic governance, questions around how public organisations can stay legitimate in an era of turbulence is of utmost relevance for public administration scholars (and related disciplines). This panel is concerned with improving the understanding of how changes in public organisations’ environment affect their legitimacy and/or how public organisations react and respond to these changes in order to secure their organisational legitimacy, but also the legitimacy of the bureaucratic and democratic system in general.

In particular, we welcome contributions that focus on (1) how socio-political changes (such as polarisation, democratic backsliding and crises) challenge the legitimacy of public organisations, (2) how public organisations can respond to these changes in order to strengthen or maintain their own organisational legitimacy and (3) how public organisations can further contribute to strengthening democratic legitimacy and protecting democratic values.

Organisational legitimacy under pressure
The rise of populism often challenges bureaucratic authority, with politicians portraying public organisations as unaccountable, elitist, or obstructive. Such narratives frequently pit bureaucrats’ expert knowledge against the common sense of the people. These criticisms contest a central principle of the regulatory state, namely that politically neutral, science-based expertise is a credible basis for decision-making. The electoral success of populist parties only partially explains the traction of these narratives. The changing media landscape is another significant factor, providing a favourable environment for bureaucrat-bashing and undermining the credibility of official communication.
Simultaneously, crises have become a more permanent feature of public administration and politics. While most research focuses on understanding the effectiveness of crisis responses, legitimacy is equally important. Some public organisations have been found to implement crisis responses regardless of questionable legality (e.g., the “minkgate” scandal in Denmark), whereas others have engaged in “guerrilla government,” openly protesting policies they consider unprincipled (e.g., EU Staff for Peace). With the rise of authoritarianism, these dynamics have become more significant, as elected leaders appear increasingly inclined to exploit – sometimes even fabricate – crises to overstep traditional political and legal constraints.

Other issues that require further examination are the (de)legitimising role of expertise in crisis management, how crisis responses are framed and contested through media discourse, and the capacity of judicial systems to prevent/sanction wrongful bureaucratic conduct in times of crisis. Further research is also needed on whether effective crisis management inevitably involves trade-offs with democratic principles, and on which criteria should guide the delicate balance between effectiveness and legitimacy.

Strategies for (re)legitimization
Given these challenges, an important question reflects how public organisations can maintain their legitimate authority amidst socio-political changes. How can public organisations, for example, successfully manage politics of blame attribution during a crisis? While crises may be perceived as a threat to an organisation’s reputation, they can further provide public organisations with a (strategic) opportunity for change. Public organisations can employ different presentational tactics to reduce blame attribution, but how do these different strategies contribute to reputation and trust? Furthermore, when populist politicians question the bureaucratic expertise and impartiality of public organisations, this can have negative consequences for the acceptance and authority of bureaucratic decisions. How can expert bodies remain legitimate when their knowledge becomes more contested? And which strategies could different organisations use in order to deal with populist attempts to restrict their formal independence? Stakeholder or citizen involvement is often presented as a tool for improving legitimacy, but often appears challenging in highly polarized and/or politicized settings. We welcome contributions that aim to understand how public organisations can increase their legitimate authority in a changing political and societal landscape, and we particularly seek submissions that provide empirical evidence of the consequences of different (re)legitimization strategies on the actual legitimacy of public organisations, for example, in the eyes of their stakeholders and/or citizens.

Public organisations as guardians of democracy
On top of that, public organisations are not only concerned with their own legitimate reputation, but they also play an important role in protecting democratic governance and holding up to democratic principles. When political systems are affected by democratic erosion, the bureaucracy can function as a counterweight for powerful politicians that aim to reduce democratic checks and balances or replace democratic values with authoritarian ones. What role can public organisations take in safeguarding democratic governance? What does it imply for our understanding of political-administrative relationships? And to what extent do public organisations have legitimate authority in the eyes of citizens to act as guardians of democracy? This panel is open for all types of submissions that aim to address the broader question of the role of public organisations in safeguarding democratic governance when democratic erosion becomes an increasing challenge for many countries across the globe.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
This panel seeks to stimulate academic discussion around innovative and cutting-edge research on the legitimacy of public organisations in the context of societal and political changes. Submissions should focus on improving the understanding of relevant socio-political changes, bureaucratic responses to these changes or the interaction between public organisations and their socio-political environment. The panel is open to theoretical/conceptual, normative, and empirical (qualitative and quantitative) papers using any kind of well-founded methodology. We encourage the submission of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary papers, as well as monodisciplinary papers from neighbouring disciplines. Contributions (co-)written with practitioners and public professionals are also encouraged.

Chairs:
Ben Suykens (Universiteit Gent, Belgium) ben.suykens@ugent.be
Arjen de Wit (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands) a.dewit@vu.nl

Language: English
Key words: nonprofit organizing, philanthropy, third party government

Description of the panel and themes 
Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are key actors in the public administration field (Pandey & Johnson, 2019). Covering a broad range of service fields, NPOs can (a) supplement the government by providing services that governments fail to provide, (b) complement the government by providing services on behalf of the government in exchange for public funding, and/or (c) take an adversial stance towards the government by advocating for policy change on behalf of their constituents (Young, 2000). Doing so, NPOs can among other things collaborate with governments in public-private networks (e.g., Cornforth, Hayes, & Vangen, 2015), function as governmental stand-ins in the coproduction of public services (e.g., Larsson, 2023), facilitate public-civic interactions by mitigating administrative burden (e.g., Tiggelaar & George, 2025) or influence public policy by taking an insider- or outsider approach (e.g., Johansen & LeRoux, 2013).

This panel welcomes theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions studying public-nonprofit relationships from a nonprofit- or an integrated public-nonprofit perspective. Topics include, yet are not limited to:

1. Public-nonprofit financing – In corporatist welfare state regimes like Belgium and the Netherlands, public-nonprofit relationships are typically described as institutional partnerships in which NPOs receive public funding in exchange for public service delivery (Suykens, De Rynck, & Verschuere, 2020). Here, important research questions include, yet are not limited to, the dynamic between charitable donations and governmental funding (e.g., De Wit & Bekkers, 2017), the so-called creeping shift from lump sum- to project-based funding (e.g., Bode, 2011) and the tension between restricted and unrestricted public financing of NPOs (e.g., Wiepking & de Wit, 2024).

2. Public-nonprofit accountability – A perennial debate, one of the key questions is arguably the search for boundary conditions under which public accountability demands are purposeful for both the government (control of efficient and effective use of public spending) and the NPOs (facilitating organizational learning and stakeholder communication). Complexity is infused by the knowledge that both public accountability and nonprofit performance are best understood as multi-layered concepts that can materialize in different ways (Ebrahim, 2003; Suykens, Hvenmark, Hung, & Verschuere, 2025), and that contextual factors at the organizational, field and country level are likely to affect the public accountability – nonprofit performance nexus in different ways.

3. A shrinking or shifting space for NPOs – Relative recent research describes how the discretionary space of NPOs is increasingly limited in (quasi-)authoritarian countries (Toepler, Zimmer, Levy, & Fröhlich, 2023). Examples of shrinking space mechanisms constitute the limitation of self-organizing rights, suppression of NPOs’ critical voice towards the government and/or decreasing access to transnational funding (Onyx et al., 2010; Toepler, Zimmer, Fröhlich, & Obuch, 2020). Here, challenging questions constitute to what extent shrinking space dynamics can be observed in Western welfare state types that are considered non-authoritarian, which mechanisms drive said manifestations and what the main consequences are. In addition, a more provoking question may be to what extent the idea of a shrinking space is better understood as a shifting space, as this dynamic may produce so-called winners and losers. Indeed, while (subtle) regime shifts may limit the maneuvering space for some NPOs, it may actually enlarge it for others.

4. Public-nonprofit responsibilities in service delivery – This theme explores the critical role of unpaid workers in service delivery, with a particular focus on their interaction with government policies and expectations. It explores the dynamics of replacement and displacement between paid and unpaid work, highlighting how (local) governments increasingly rely on volunteers and informal caregivers to deliver social services. While volunteering may have a unique value in terms of the outcomes on the micro, meso and macro level (De Wit et al., 2009; Van Overbeeke, 2024), the reliance of governments on unpaid work can lead to significant challenges (De Waele & Hustinx, 2019). Research may critically assess the assumptions behind government policies; study antecedents, consequences and experiences of unpaid work on different levels; and examine dynamics between governments and the voluntary sector when it comes to delivering crucial social services.

References
Bode, I. (2011). Creeping Marketization and Post-corporatist Governance: The Transformation of State–Nonprofi t Relations in Continental Europe. In Governance and regulation in the third sector (pp. 123-149): Routledge.
Cornforth, C., Hayes, J. P., & Vangen, S. (2015). Nonprofit–public collaborations: Understanding governance dynamics. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 44(4), 775-795.
De Waele, E., & Hustinx, L. (2019). Governing through volunteering: The discursive field of government-initiated volunteering in the form of workfare volunteering. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 48(2_suppl), 72S-102S.
De Wit, A., & Bekkers, R. (2017). Government support and charitable donations: A meta-analysis of the crowding-out hypothesis. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 27(2), 301-319.
De Wit, A., Mensink, W., Einarsson, T., & Bekkers, R. (2019). Beyond service production: Volunteering for social innovation. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 48(2_suppl), 52S-71S.
Ebrahim, A. (2003). Accountability in practice: Mechanisms for NGOs. World Development, 31(5), 813-829.
Johansen, M., & LeRoux, K. (2013). Managerial networking in nonprofit organizations: The impact of networking on organizational and advocacy effectiveness. Public Administration Review, 73(2), 355-363.
Larsson, O. S. (2023). The Role of Nonprofit Organizations in the Co-Production of Welfare Services: A Systematic Literature Review. Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, 9(2), 164-182.
Onyx, J., Armitage, L., Dalton, B., Melville, R., Casey, J., & Banks, R. (2010). Advocacy with gloves on: The “manners” of strategy used by some third sector organizations undertaking advocacy in NSW and Queensland. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 21, 41-61.
Pandey, S. K., & Johnson, J. M. (2019). Nonprofit management, public administration, and public policy: Separate, subset, or intersectional domains of inquiry? Public Performance & Management Review, 42(1), 1-10.
Suykens, B., De Rynck, F., & Verschuere, B. (2020). Examining the extent and coherence of nonprofit hybridization toward the market in a post-corporatist welfare state. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 49(5), 909-930.
Suykens, B., Hvenmark, J., Hung, C., & Verschuere, B. (2025). Looking Under the Hood Challenges and Remedies for Cross‐Country Surveying of Nonprofit Organizations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership.
Tiggelaar, M., & George, B. (2025). No two-party game: How third-sector organizations alter administrative burden and improve social equity. Public Management Review, 27(2), 473-494.
Toepler, S., Zimmer, A., Fröhlich, C., & Obuch, K. (2020). The changing space for NGOs: Civil society in authoritarian and hybrid regimes. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 31, 649-662.
Toepler, S., Zimmer, A., Levy, K., & Fröhlich, C. (2023). Beyond the partnership paradigm: Toward an extended typology of government/nonprofit relationship patterns. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 52(1_suppl), 160S-186S.
van Overbeeke, P. (2024). Appreciating what matters: The many dimensions of volunteer value. [Doctoral Thesis, Erasmus University Rotterdam].
Wiepking, P., & de Wit, A. (2024). Unrestricted funding and nonprofit capacities: Developing a conceptual model. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 34(4), 801-824.
Young, D. R. (2000). Alternative models of government-nonprofit sector relations: Theoretical and international perspectives. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(1), 149-172.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
We welcome theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions studying public-nonprofit relationships from a nonprofit- or an integrated public-nonprofit perspective. Topics include, yet are not limited to public-nonprofit financing, accountability, advocacy and service delivery.

Chairs:
Joris Voets (Ghent University, Belgium) joris.voets@ugent.be
Duco Bannink (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The Netherlands) d.b.d.bannink@vu.nl

Language: English
Key words: governance networks, interorganizational networks, purpose oriented networks, collaborative governance, governance capacity, meta governance

Description of the panel and themes
Collaboration between organizations is increasingly propagated as the best possible solution to deal with complex policy issues (Head, 2022; Raab, 2024), such as like water security, urban development, energy transition, poverty, and to provide better service delivery (e.g. integrated care services, better employment services, regional health collaboration). Collaboration in networks also gains ground as a pathway for innovation (Verhoest et al., 2024) and crisis management (Kapucu and Demirhan, 2019).

While networks connect interdependent actors to exchange information or pool resources (e.g. financial resources, staff, expertise, competencies, legitimacy) to achieve a public purpose (Klijn et al., 2025), managing these networks and other collaborative arrangements has proven to be challenging (Provan and Kenis, 2008). This panel will explore several key issues to achieve effective network and collaborative governance.

For example, extant research has shown how challenging it is to obtain the right governance capacity, to get the structural design ‘right’, to organize productive interaction and learning processes, to deal successfully with different perceptions and values, and to pacify power struggles, especially over longer periods (Keast et al. 2023; Raab, 2024).

The panel also hopes to explore questions about accountability and learning. Both political principals and regulators still need to adapt to the new network reality on the ground, highlighting the need for innovative practices. Collaborations struggle to identify key lessons in their highly ambiguous task environments and translate them to their highly diverse partner groups.

We approach this issue from different levels: the macro level (e.g. institutional structures that shape the network’s operational context), the meso level (e.g. governance arrangements concerning issues and sectors, and the micro level of management capacity of public and non-public organizations to operate (in) networks as well as their strategies, perceptions, interests.

Papers seeking to make a theoretical contributions in relation to these questions are welcome, just as papers that provide empirical evidence for current theoretical assertions. We explicitly welcome different types of methodology, and papers employing novel methods for engaging with these questions – ranging from new data analytical methods to transdisciplinary action research strategies are also invited.

References:

1. Head, B. (2022). Wicked problems in public policy: Understanding and responding to complex challenges. Springer Nature.
2. Kapucu, N., & Demirhan, C. (2019). Managing collaboration in public security networks in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 85(1), 154-172.
3. Keast, R., Voets, J., Meek, J. & C. Flynn (2023). A Modern Guide to Networks. Edward Elgar.
4. Klijn, E.H., Koppenjan, J., Spekkink, W. & Warsen, R. (2025). Governance Networks in the Public Sector. Second Edition. Routledge.
5. Raab, J. (2024). Organizing in an Age of Complexity: Reflections on When and How (Not) to Use Organizational Networks
6. Verhoest, K., Hammerschmid,G.,Rykkja,L.H, Klijn, E.H. (2024). Collaboration for digital transformation; how internal and external collaboration can contribute to innovative public service delivery. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:

In this panel, we invite papers dealing with networks and collaborations between organizations; theoretically, empirically, and practically. The co-chairs will engage with participants to discuss their work, but also want to collectively discuss overarching questions, such as the mismatch between network ambitions and governance capacity and the need to promote innovative practices for accountability and learning. We welcome papers addressing a wide range of topics related to governance networks and collaborations, including:
1. The specific role(s) of governments in creating/maintaining network governance capacity & the instruments that can be used;
2. The network governance capacity at different levels and the interplay/conflict among them;
3. The democratic questions related to impact and governance capacity: how to deal with accountability and legitimacy? How can networks be made accountable to stakeholders, legislators, and citizens? How should regulators and inspectorates adapt to be able to oversee the work of networks?
4. The role of learning and innovation in collaborations;
5. The trade-offs between various aspects, including potential trade-offs between accountability, learning, and performance management. How to deal with them?

Chairs:
Lauren Fahy (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) l.a.fahy@uu.nl
Judith van Erp (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) j.g.vanerp@uu.nl

Language: English
Key words: regulation, stakeholders, independence

Description of the panel and themes
Regulatory agencies are independent, but at the same time interdependent with their stakeholders (Chesterfield et al. 2025). Citizens, regulated organizations, interest groups, and civil society organizations play an important role in contemporary regulatory governance. They provide information and perspectives which are useful in the design and implementation of regulation (for example, via consultation processes). In some cases, stakeholders are even co-producers in regulatory governance: participating directly in interpretation and enforcement (De Graaf et al, 2024). Such collaboration can contribute to better regulatory outcomes. There are, however, challenges arising from this interdependence.

Securing well-intentioned collaboration from stakeholders is not guaranteed. Trust in government is low and the legitimacy of ‘experts’ increasingly questioned (Stoker 2019; Koop & Lodge 2020). Regulators are now more in the public eye and under public scrutiny, due to greater mediatization, politicization, and accountability requirements (Opperhuizen et al 2020; Schillemans & Pierre 2020). Resource limitations and (typically legalistic and technocratic) mandates mean agencies cannot always fulfil stakeholder expectations (Luoma-Aho 2008). Stakeholders who wish to engage with regulators may struggle with the complexity and cost of doing so (Borrás, Koutlakis & Wendler 2007). Under these circumstances, regulators seek to be strategic in managing their communications, consultations, relationships, and reputation (Fahy, Klijn, & van Erp 2025; Rimkutė 2019). Yet, such stakeholder strategies also pose normative and practical risks.

Deeper engagement with stakeholders creates a greater risk of regulatory capture. Agencies can become consciously or unconsciously biased towards special interests (Rex 2022; Joosen 2025). The democratic legitimacy of independent regulatory agencies is already under question. Decision-making via consultation with an unrepresentative group of stakeholders can deepen these critiques and undermine the quality of regulatory decisions (Busuioc & Rimkuté 2019). Insufficient oversight of stakeholders in regulatory enforcement can create space for non- or superficial- compliance (for example, in self-regulatory regimes) (Papenfuß & Schmidt 2021). Dissatisfied stakeholders can attack the legitimacy and authority of the regulator via (social) media, legal challenges, and political lobbying (Wesdorp & Klijn 2024).

As regulatory agencies become increasingly embedded in a polarized and mediatized society, scholars have become more interested in understanding the risks and challenges of stakeholder engagement, and regulator stakeholder strategy (Stoker 2019; Bressanelli et al 2020). This panel aims to showcase such research, welcoming papers related to the contemporary stakeholder dynamics of regulatory governance at national or EU level.

References
Borrás S., C. Koutalakis and F. Wendler (2007) European agencies and input legitimacy: EFSA, EMeA and EPO in the post‐delegation phase, Journal of European Integration, 29:5, 583–600.
Bressanelli E., C. Koop and C. Reh (2020) EU actors under pressure: politicisation and depoliticisation as strategic responses, Journal of European Public Policy, 27:3, 329–341
Busuioc M. and D. Rimkutė (2019) The promise of bureaucratic reputation approaches for the EU regulatory state, Journal of European Public Policy, 27:8, 1256–1269
Chesterfield, Alexandra M., Tom W. Reader, and Alex Gillespie. 2025. Cultural Capture Among Regulators: A Systematic Review. Regulation & Governance. Early view. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70040.
De Graaff, B., Rutz, S., Stoopendaal, A. and van de Bovenkamp, H. (2024), Involving citizens in regulation: A comparative qualitative study of four experimentalist cases of participatory regulation in Dutch health care. Regulation & Governance, 18: 1411-1425.
Fahy L.A., E.H. Klijn and J. van Erp (2025) Regulatory agency reputation acquisition: a Q methodology analysis of the views of agency employees, Regulation & Governance, 19:1, 104–125.
Joosen R. (2025), Is That a Threat? How Types of Stakeholder and Reputational Threat Matter for Gaining Influence in Regulatory Rulemaking, Regulation & Governance .
Luoma‐aho V. (2008) Sector reputation and public organisations, International Journal of Public Sector Management, 21:5, 446–467.
Koop C. and M. Lodge (2020) British economic regulators in an age of politicisation: from the responsible to the responsive regulatory state?, Journal of European Public Policy, 27:8
Opperhuizen A., E.H. Klijn and K. Schouten (2020) How do media, political and regulatory agendas influence one another in high risk policy issues?, Policy & Politics, 48:4
Papenfuß U. and C.A. Schmidt (2021) Understanding self-regulation for political control and policymaking: effects of governance mechanisms on accountability, Governance, 34:4, 1115–1141.
Rex J. (2022) Agency capture, in Handbook of Regulatory Authorities, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Rimkutė D. (2019) Building organizational reputation in the European regulatory state: an analysis of EU agencies’ communications, Governance, 33, 385–406
Schillemans T. and J. Pierre (eds) (2020) Media and Governance: Exploring the Role of News Media in Complex Systems of Governance, Bristol: Bristol University Press
Stoker G. (2019) Can the governance paradigm survive the rise of populism?, Policy & Politics, 47:1, 3–18
Wesdorp J. and E.H. Klijn (2024) Supporter or rival: developing a network governance approach about the role of surrogate inspectorates in regulatory governance, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 7:3, 101–112.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

We welcome papers which are theoretical or empirical, ready-to-publish or in very early stages. These papers could focus on regulatory agencies (and comparable supervisory bodies), or on the organizations and individuals who work with them or are supervised by them. Submissions might address, but do not have to be limited to, the following topics:
1. the nature of contemporary stakeholder dynamics in diverse regulatory regimes.
2. challenges or risks to collaborative stakeholder engagement in regulatory consultation, design, implementation, and enforcement, including regulatory capture, independence, non-compliance, and reputational/legal threats.
3. effects of stakeholder dynamics, e.g. for compliance, legitimacy or independence.
4. strategies for more effective stakeholder engagement. Papers could address strategies for stakeholders to better engage with regulators, or for regulators to better engage with stakeholders. These strategies may be substantive (for example, changes to rules and policies) or communicative.

Chairs:
Nadine Raaphorst (Leiden University, The Netherlands) n.j.raaphorst@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Margot Kersing (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands) m.j.kersing@vu.nl

Language: English
Key words: street-level decision-making, service delivery, citizens

Description of the panel and themes
Street-level professionals, such as social workers, police officers, inspectors, nurses, or teachers, often determine what, how and to whom public services are delivered while operating in uncertain and complex environments. They (must) make these decisions while facing limited resources, juxtaposing different (and often conflicting) values, and operating in challenging and changing environments. These environments are increasingly inter-organizational in nature. They simultaneously navigate ongoing developments such as digitalization, citizen co-production, changing regulatory pressures, and responsive lawmaking that can put conflictual demands on street-level bureaucrats. This panel focuses on understanding the impact of those environments on decision-making of street-level professionals as well as the impact it has on how citizen-clients are evaluated and treated.

First and foremost, street-level professionals must determine how written policies are implemented in real-life situations. These written policies, however, often do not match the complex realities and needs of the citizen-clients with whom street-level professionals interact (Lipsky, 2010). Moreover, policies often involve terms deliberately left open or vague for street-level professionals to interpret (Linthorst & Oldenhof, 2020; Raaphorst, 2018). Theoretically, it is important to understand these interpretations because they could involve or lead to, among other things, value tradeoffs, certain attitudes or enforcement styles, and stereotypes in decision-making (e.g., de Boer, 2019; Harrits, 2019; Keulemans & Van de Walle, 2020; Loyens & Maesschalk, 2010; Loyens & Paraciani, 2021; Oldenhof et al., 2014; Raaphorst et al., 2018; Zacka, 2017).

Moreover, in order to deal with societal challenges street-level professionals increasingly collaborate across organizational and professional borders (Noordegraaf, 2011). Instead of making decisions individually, street-level professionals operate in teams, deliberate with other professionals (Møller, 2020), and sometimes have joint decision-making responsibility (Rutz et al., 2015). Moreover, citizen-clients are not passive receivers of services, but are active actors who contribute to this process (Döring et al., 2024; Oldenhof & Linthorst, 2022). In this light, it has become ever more important to understand how social dynamics and social relations affect street-level decision-making (Keulemans, 2020), from both the side of the professionals and the citizen-clients.

Lastly, the roles of street-level professionals as decision-makers have been prone to substantial change. Digitalization by means of algorithms and other automated systems have become a core part of how service provision is structured and how professionals and citizens interact (Eubanks 2018; Kersing et al., 2022). In turn, discretion has been partially moved from street-level professionals to those designing the automated systems (i.e., system-level bureaucrats). It is important to understand these changing roles of street-level professionals and its effects because it alters the way individual cases are handled (Bovens & Zouridis, 2002; Buffat, 2015). These changes can, ultimately, lead to street-level professionals altering their behavior towards citizen-clients or unfair treatment of some groups of citizen-clients (Eubanks, 2018). Street-level decision-making, thus, has major implications for citizens, who may be discriminated against, differentially treated, or subjected to complex bureaucratic realities.

Ultimately, this panel aims to answer the following questions:
1. What decisions do street-level bureaucrats make and what behaviors and routines do they develop in complex contexts?
2. To whom do street-level bureaucrats direct their efforts and grant access to public resources?
3. How do individual, interactional, organizational, and environmental characteristics impact street-level bureaucrats’ decisions and behavior, and working conditions, including their evaluation and treatment of citizen-clients?

References
Bovens, M., & Zouridis, S. (2002). From street‐level to system‐level bureaucracies: How information and communication technology is transforming administrative discretion and constitutional control. Public administration review, 62(2), 174-184.
Buffat, A. (2015). Street-level bureaucracy and e-government. Public Management Review, 17(1), 149-161.
De Boer, N. (2019). Street-level enforcement style: A multidimensional measurement instrument. International Journal of Public Administration, 42(5), 380-391.
Döring, M., Drathschmidt, N., Nielsen, S.P.P. (2024). It takes (at least) two to tango: Investigating interactional dynamics between clients and caseworkers in public encounters. Public Administration Review, 85(2), 419-435.
Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. St. Martin’s Press.
Harrits, G. S. (2019). Stereotypes in context: How and when do street‐level bureaucrats use class stereotypes? Public Administration Review, 79(1), 93-103.
Kersing, M., van Zoonen, L., Putters, K., & Oldenhof, L. (2022). The Changing Roles of Frontline Bureaucrats in the Digital Welfare State: The Case of a Data Dashboard in Rotterdam’s Work and Income Department. Data & Policy, 4, e24.
Keulemans, S. (2020). Understanding Street-level Bureaucrats’ Attitude Towards Clients: A social psychological approach. Doctoral dissertation.
Keulemans, S., & Van de Walle, S. (2020). Understanding street-level bureaucrats’ attitude towards clients: Towards a measurement instrument. Public Policy and Administration, 35(1), 84-113.
Linthorst, E., & Oldenhof, L.E. (2020). Maatwerk aan de keukentafel: van’hoera’begrip tot betwiste norm. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Bestuursrecht (NTB), 209(8), 511-521.
Lipsky, M. (2010). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public service (30th anniversary expanded edition). Russell Sage Foundation.
Loyens, K., & Maesschalck, J. (2010). Toward a theoretical framework for ethical decision making of street-level bureaucracy: Existing models reconsidered. Administration & Society, 42(1), 66-100.
Loyens, K., & Paraciani, R. (2021). Who is the (“Ideal”) victim of labor exploitation? Two qualitative vignette studies on labor inspectors’ discretion. The Sociological Quarterly, 64(1), 1-19.
Møller, A. M. (2020). Deliberation and Deliberative Organizational Routines in Frontline Decision-Making. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 31(3), 471-488.Nielsen, V. L., Nielsen, H. Ø., & Bisgaard, M. (2021). Citizen reactions to bureaucratic encounters: Different ways of coping with public authorities. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 31(2), 381-398.
Noordegraaf, M. (2011). Risky business: How professionals and professional fields (must) deal with organizational issues. Organization studies, 32(10), 1349-1371.
Oldenhof, L.E., Postma, J., & Putters, K. (2014). On justification work: How compromising enables public managers to deal with conflicting values. Public Administration Review, 74(1), 52-63.
Oldenhof, L.E. & Linthorst, E. (forthcoming 2022). Public encounters and the role of citizens’ impression management. In: P. Hupe ed. The politics of the public encounter: what happens when citizens meet the state. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
Raaphorst, N. (2018). How to prove, how to interpret and what to do? Uncertainty experiences of street-level tax officials. Public Management Review, 20(4), 485-502.
Raaphorst, N., Groeneveld, S., & Van de Walle, S. (2018). Do tax officials use double standards in evaluating citizen‐clients? A policy‐capturing study among Dutch frontline tax officials. Public Administration, 96(1), 134-153.
Rutz, S., Mathew, D., Robben, P., & de Bont, A. (2017). Enhancing responsiveness and consistency: Comparing the collective use of discretion and discretionary room at inspectorates in England and the Netherlands. Regulation & Governance, 11(1), 81-94.
Zacka, B. (2017). When the state meets the street: Public service and moral agency. Harvard university press.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

We welcome both empirical and/or theoretical submissions. The research scope of our panel includes the micro-level focus of frontline decision-making, behavior and routines, and also welcomes contributions that focus on the meso and macro contexts in which these decisions, behaviors and routines take place.

Furthermore, we welcome submissions from a multitude of research philosophies and (quantitative and qualitative) methods. Methods can include discourse analysis, ethnographic studies, storytelling analysis, interviews, surveys, and experiments.

Since public administration is an interdisciplinary field, we welcome insights from different disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, criminology, and organizational studies. Contributions from other relevant fields are also welcome.

Submitted papers can be full manuscripts, research proposals (including PhD proposals or research designs), or anything in between.

We welcome both empirical and/or theoretical submissions. The research scope of our panel includes the micro-level focus of frontline decision-making, behavior and routines, and also welcomes contributions that focus on the meso and macro contexts in which these decisions, behaviors and routines take place.

Furthermore, we welcome submissions from a multitude of research philosophies and (quantitative and qualitative) methods. Methods can include discourse analysis, ethnographic studies, storytelling analysis, interviews, surveys, and experiments.

Since public administration is an interdisciplinary field, we welcome insights from different disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, criminology, and organizational studies. Contributions from other relevant fields are also welcome.

Submitted papers can be full manuscripts, research proposals (including PhD proposals or research designs), or anything in between.

Chairs:
Peter Scholten (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) p.w.a.scholten@fsw.eur.nl
Annie Hondeghem (KU Leuven, Belgium) annie.hondeghem@kuleuven.be

Language: English
Key words: discrimination, racism, governance

Description of the panel and themes
Discrimination and racism are amongst today’s most complex but also most contested social challenges. There is much research on understanding patterns of discrimination and racism, but to what extent do we also understand the governance of anti-discrimination and racism and its implications? Recent cases such as the incidents with discrimination in the monitoring of social benefits in the Netherlands , or the backsliding of diversity policies in (but not limited to) the US, show the relevancy of understanding the governance of anti-discrimination and racism. The aim of this panel is to bring together work on the governance of anti-discrimination and anti-racism as revelatory case studies for theoretical developments in governance studies, policy studies and public administration, and in view of policy developments after all.

In spite of societal urgency for tackling discrimination and racism, knowledge production (and utilization) on the governance of these pressing issues seems to have remained limited. Yet, across organizational contexts, and at various levels of government (although especially locally), policies have been put in place to cope with discrimination and racism. This often involves a strongly intersectoral approach, spanning the boundaries of policy areas and policy programs, reflecting the often strongly intersectional nature of racism and discrimination. In literature, attention has been devoted to some policy developments in particular, such as positive action programs, policies against ethnic profiling, policies on the social-structural conditions behind patterns of discrimination and racism, etc.

To advance public administration research on the governance of discrimination and racism, we will focus on five themes (which often are integrated in different ways);

– What knowledge is produced on the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policy practices in the area of anti-discrimination and anti-racism? Can we come to a systematic knowledge synthesis on what works and what doesn’t work and under which circumstances?
– How and why do policies address specific forms of discrimination and racism? This includes attention to various diversities (ethnicity, color, migration-related diversity, religion, gender, class, sexuality, handicap) but also to superdiversity (intersectionalities across diversities).
– How and why do different governments or (semi-) public organizations choose different approaches towards discrimination and racism? What can we learn from systematic comparative research?
– What is the role of NGO’s in shaping policies at local, regional or federal levels of government? Which strategies do they deploy?
– What does this policy issue ‘reveal’ to broader theoretical developments in policy theory? This includes (but is not limited to) theoretical developments around complexity governance, wicked policy problems, street-level bureaucratic practices, politicization, institutional responsiveness, multi-level governance and policy implementation.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
This panel is open for papers in various stages of development, from new or early work to papers almost ready for publication. In the panel we aim for a constructive dialogue across the papers. We will explore options for a joint special issue publication afterwards.
Within the broad focal area of anti-discrimination and anti-racism, we invite the following types of papers (but we are open to other approaches as well):
– Empirical studies of the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policies and policy practices in the area of anti-discrimination and anti-racism.
– Studies on how specific forms of discrimination and racism are addressed across specific policy /governance approaches. This includes attention to various diversities (ethnicity, color, migration-related diversity, religion, gender, class, sexuality) but also to superdiversity (intersectionalities across diversities).
– Studies of how and why different governments or (semi-) public organizations choose different approaches towards discrimination and racism.
– Studies on the role of NGO’s and the strategies they deploy for shaping policies at different levels of government.
– Theory-oriented contributions that connect the governance of anti-discrimination and anti-racism to broader theoretical developments in policy theory, such as on complexity governance, wicked policy problems, street-level bureaucratic practices, politicization, institutional responsiveness, multi-level governance and policy implementation.

Chairs:
Thomas Balbach (KU Leuven, Belgium) thomas.balbach@kuleuven.be
Jolien Grandia (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) grandia@essb.eur.nl

Language: English and Dutch
Key words: government contracting, public procurement, grantmaking

Description of the panel and themes
Public organisations increasingly rely on external actors to deliver goods, services, and policy outcomes—whether through government contracting for private or non-profit providers, public procurement, or through grantmaking to fund civil society and research initiatives. These instruments are not simply technical choices; they embed political, legal, and managerial considerations that shape the pursuit of public interest.

Over the past decades, government contracting, public procurement, and grantmaking have expanded in scope and scale. Governments now procure or subsidise not only traditional infrastructure and public services, but also innovation, environmental sustainability, social equity, and national security capabilities. This “beyond cost” turn has increased the demands on policymakers and practitioners to design, manage, and evaluate these arrangements in ways that balance efficiency with broader societal objectives.

By centering the notion of “public interest”, this panel combines perspectives from public administration, political science, law, and economics. We explicitly welcome conceptual papers on public interest goals in government contracting and grantmaking that expand, challenge or improve established theories, such as relational contracting theory, transaction cost theory or real options theory. We encourage submissions of papers that study government contracts and grants from various sectors (including defence) and countries (including non-Western countries).

Types of papers and themes we welcome

We welcome papers from scholars at all career stages—particularly early career researchers—that address the design, governance, and outcomes of government contracting and grantmaking. We are open to diverse methodological approaches, including quantitative, computational, design-oriented, qualitative, experimental, and mixed-methods research, as well as systematic reviews and theoretical/conceptual contributions.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
– Integration of broader policy objectives (e.g., environmental, social, innovation) into contracts and grants.
– Conceptual papers on the pursuit of public interest in contracts and grants, drawing on transaction cost economics, principal–agent theory, and other frameworks applied to public contracting/grantmaking.
– Comparative analyses of contracting and grantmaking arrangements.
– Digital transformation, AI, and data analytics in procurement and grant administration.
– Contracts and grants as instruments of industrial policy.

Chairs:
Igor Pessoa (University of Twente, The Netherlands) i.pessoa@utwente.nl
Andre Legarza (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) a.j.legarza@uva.nl

Language: English
Key words: urban governance, urban development digitalization

Description of the panel and themes
This panel seeks to critically explore the transformative impact of digital technologies on urban governance, planning expertise, and regulatory frameworks. Building on the themes outlined in the special issue call, the panel will bring together interdisciplinary perspectives to examine how emerging digital tools (particularly AI, predictive analytics, and platform infrastructures) are reshaping the division of labor, legitimacy, and authority in urban development.

The smart city agenda, once a dominant narrative in urban innovation, has evolved into a more embedded and technocratic paradigm. While early smart city initiatives often served as branding exercises or experimental platforms, the current wave of digitalization marks a deeper systemic shift. AI-driven decision-support systems, algorithmic zoning tools, and digital citizen engagement platforms are no longer peripheral, they are increasingly central to planning processes. This shift raises urgent questions about the redistribution of expertise, the role of market actors, and the capacity of public institutions to regulate and steer urban futures.

The panel welcomes contributions that address five interrelated themes:

1. Fragmentation of Governance through Digital Technologies
Digital platforms and data infrastructures are restructuring governance relations, often bypassing traditional scalar arrangements and introducing hybrid fields of authority. This fragmentation challenges the coherence of urban policy and planning, as municipal, private, and civic actors navigate new configurations of power and responsibility. Contributions will explore whether these technologies foster adaptive governance or exacerbate institutional disconnection.

2. Changing Expertise in Urban Planning and Policy
The rise of algorithmic modeling and data science is redefining what counts as planning expertise. Traditional roles are being supplemented (or displaced) by technologists, engineers, and platform developers. This topic focuses on how professional boundaries are shifting, what new alliances are forming, and how education is responding to these changes.

3. Performative Actions of the Public Sector
Governments increasingly use digital tools to signal innovation, responsiveness, and efficiency. Yet these performative deployments often mask deeper challenges related to institutional capacity, legitimacy, and public trust. These possible contributors will examine how digitalization affects the perception and reality of governance, and whether it is being used to legitimize controversial projects or meet policy targets in symbolic ways.

4. Figurative Actions by the Private Sector
Private actors are not merely service providers, they are shaping urban imaginaries and influencing planning decisions through digital platforms. From real estate analytics to neighborhood scoring apps, these tools serve to visualize and valorize urban space in ways that align with market logics. This theme invites critical analysis of the political economy of platform capitalism and its implications for democratic urban governance.

5. Transformation of Planning Tools and Procedures
The digitization of zoning, permitting, and environmental assessments is altering the procedural landscape of urban planning. These changes affect the temporality, transparency, and accountability of decision-making. Panelists will explore whether digital workflows depoliticize urban governance and planning or open new arenas for contestation and negotiation.

By engaging with these themes, the panel aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of how digitalization is rewiring urban governance, not only in terms of technical efficiency but also in relation to power, legitimacy, and democratic accountability. We invite contributions that combine strong theoretical framing with empirical insights from diverse geographic and institutional contexts. The goal is to foster dialogue across disciplines and sectors, and to critically assess whether current trends represent a surface-level shift or a deeper transformation in urban governance.

This panel will be of interest to scholars in urban studies, planning theory, public administration, and science and technology studies (STS), as well as practitioners navigating the evolving landscape of digital urbanism.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
This panel invites submissions that critically examine how digital technologies (such as AI, predictive analytics, and platform infrastructures) are reshaping urban governance, planning expertise, and regulatory practices. We welcome papers that engage with one or more of the following themes:
– Governance Fragmentation: Analyses of how digital tools restructure urban governance, disrupt scalar arrangements, or create hybrid fields of authority involving municipal, private, and civic actors.
– Shifting Governance and Planning Expertise: Explorations of how algorithmic systems and data science are redefining professional roles, education, and the legitimacy of traditional expertise.
– Public Sector Performance: Reflections on how digital platforms are used to signal innovation and efficiency, and how they affect perceptions of fairness, trust, and legitimacy in public institutions.
– Private Sector Influence: Investigations into how real estate, infrastructure, and tech firms use digital tools to shape planning decisions, investment narratives, and urban imaginaries.
– Transformation of Planning Procedures: Studies on how digital workflows (e.g., e-permitting, algorithmic assessments) alter the transparency, temporality, and accountability of planning processes.

We strongly encourage submissions from practitioners, policymakers and public servants, alongside academic researchers. Contributions may take the form of empirical case studies, conceptual essays, comparative analyses, or reflective practice-based essays.

By fostering dialogue across disciplines and sectors, this panel aims to illuminate the political, institutional, and socio-spatial implications of urban digitalization.

Chairs:
Petra van den Bekerom (Leiden University, The Netherlands) p.e.a.van.den.bekerom@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Viet Seger Weaver-Stevens (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) v.stevens@uu.nl

Language: English
Key words: Diversity, Representation, Inclusion

Description of the panel and themes
Contemporary societal changes and technological advancements have significantly reshaped the landscape of public service delivery. Society is evolving towards increasing complexity and diversity, encompassing a broad spectrum of factors such as “ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, political affiliation, educational attainment, religion, physical ability, and even generational cohort” (Sabharwal et al., 2018, p. 249). Unsurprisingly, this increasing complexity received widespread, yet fragmented attention in contemporary research. The panel provides room to present and discuss current theoretical and empirical research focusing on diversity, representation, and inclusion in and across public sector organizations.

Scholars commonly refer to this mix of characteristics as “diversity,” focusing explicitly on diversity in organizations and workplaces (Roberson 2019). As such, diversity has become a prevalent topic in contemporary scholarship, building the groundwork for several neighboring topics. It is important for public organizations to ensure that societal diversity is represented in their workforce and accounted for in their management and leadership practices. In other words, public organizations should reflect the varied backgrounds and identities present in society and make efforts to include people from all these different groups in their operations and decision-making processes (Bishu & Kennedy 2020).

In addition to societal and workforce diversity, we explicitly focus on the concepts of bureaucratic representation and inclusion in and across public organizations. Representative bureaucracy refers to the general idea that “bureaucracy in the aggregate should look like those it serves because this is one way to ensure that diverse interests are considered in the decisions made by government organizations” (Meier, 2019: 39). Inclusion refers to “the degree to which an employee perceives that he or she is an esteemed member of the work group through experiencing treatment that satisfies his or her needs for belongingness and uniqueness” (Shore et al., 2011: 1265), highlighting the importance of safe spaces where employees can express their unique identities while feeling a sense of belonging in the workplace (Cunningham, 2019).

There is a growing need for nuanced insights into how administrative services can foster inclusivity and representation. This includes understanding the strategies organizations adopt, the factors shaping their approaches, and the broader societal implications. At the same time, research on diversity, representation, and inclusion remains fragmented—both theoretically and practically—hindering efforts to address emerging challenges. This fragmentation limits the ability of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to effectively advance inclusive public services. Moving forward, scholarship must build on shared foundations across these domains.

The panel, part of the NIG colloquium “Diversity, Representation, and Inclusion,” aims to address this disconnect by providing a platform for collaboration and knowledge exchange, ultimately contributing to the development of more inclusive and effective public service delivery that promotes equality and equity.

References:

Bishu, S. G., & Kennedy, A. R. (2020). Trends and gaps: A meta-review of representative bureaucracy. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 40(4), 559-588.

Cunningham, G. B. (2019). Diversity and inclusion in sport organizations: A multilevel perspective. Routledge.

Meier, K. J. (2019). Theoretical frontiers in representative bureaucracy: New directions for research. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2(1), 39-56.

Roberson, Q. M. (2019). Diversity in the workplace: A review, synthesis, and future research agenda. Annual review of organizational psychology and organizational behavior, 6(1), 69-88.

Sabharwal, M., Levine, H., & D’Agostino, M. (2018). A conceptual content analysis of 75 years of diversity research in public administration. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 38(2), 248-267.

Shore, L. M., Randel, A. E., Chung, B. G., Dean, M. A., Holcombe Ehrhart, K., & Singh, G. (2011). Inclusion and diversity in work groups: A review and model for future research. Journal of management, 37(4), 1262-1289.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
The panel invites papers on three broad themes:

1. How do (public) organizations address issues of diversity, representation, and inclusion?

This question forms the cornerstone of our investigation, probing into the strategies, policies, and practices organizations employ to manage diversity and foster inclusive, safe, and representative environments. Understanding how public organizations negotiate the opportunities and challenges of diversity and implement inclusive practices is pivotal for evaluating their efficacy and pinpointing areas for improvement.

2. The interplay between issues of diversity, representation, and inclusion and societal and technological changes.

In today’s interconnected world, societal and technological changes exert profound influences on organizational and individual behavior and decision-making. We explore the dynamic interplay between external factors—such as demographic shifts (e.g., aging populations), cultural changes (e.g., changing norms), technological advancements (e.g., AI)—and organizational responses. Understanding these changes enables us to see how organizations adapt and leverage new technologies to enhance inclusion and representation.

3. The impacts of (the management of) inclusion, diversity, and representation on the macro, micro, and meso levels of society.

To realize inclusive and responsive public service delivery, we need to know whether and how (the management of) diversity, representation, and inclusion affect outcomes on different levels. On the macro level, they influence economic systems, political frameworks, and cultural norms. At the meso-level, they shape organizational and community variables, while at the micro-level, they impact individuals and interpersonal interactions.

These perspectives aim to explore various dimensions of diversity, representation, and inclusion within organizational contexts, considering both internal organizational dynamics and external societal influences. They also seek to understand the broader implications of these factors across different levels, sectors, and realms of society.