Chairs:
Toon Kerkhoff (Leiden University, The Netherlands) a.d.n.kerkhoff@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Andrei Poama (Leiden University, The Netherlands) a.poama@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Hester Paanakker (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands) h.l.paanakker2@vu.nl
Marjolein Heerings (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) heerings@eshpm.eur.nl

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 individual public servants as holders of specific public offices; concerning the design, implementation and reform of specific governmental practices, as considered in the context of reasonable moral disagreement about the scope and content of the said policies and concerning the design and ordering of specific government institutions and organizations, as considered in the context of complex multi-governance networks. 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: the application of ethical principles. Possibilities are:

1. Ethical reflection on specific individual or systemic actions by public actors, their displayed behavior , etc.
2. 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. Possibilities are:

1. Research and/or ethical reflection on (causes and consequences of) value pluralism
2. Research and/or ethical reflection on specific cases of (lacking) integrity or anti-corruption
3. Research on and civil service and/or public sector reform and political-administrative relations
4. Research on public servant craftmanschip

Theme 3: meta-theoretical analyses. Possibilities are:

1. Discussions on a move from descriptive empirical research to making normative ethical claims about the quality of governance.
2. Discussions on methodology of ethical and/or normatively driven research, such as historical archival work, ethnographic research or experimental design.
3. 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!

Chairs:
Bram Klievink (Leiden University, The Netherlands) a.j.klievink@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
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
Shirley Kempeneer (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) s.kempeneer@tilburguniversity.edu

Description of the panel and themes

The work of government is increasingly digitised and automated. The process has been ongoing for decades and is still in full swing, with new innovations and old systems presenting opportunities and challenges. For instance, governments on all levels increasingly use algorithms – a set of defined steps structured to process instructions/data to produce an output (Kitchin 2017) – for their services and their decisions, as part of a wide push for data-driven and learning-based techniques. Especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets a lot of attention. In past years, both promises and concerns of AI use are widely described in the literature. AI may serve public values by making governments more effective and efficient. However, AI may be a threat to public values as well, as they may prove imperfect or biased and its inherent inscrutability may hamper transparency and accountability of governments using AI.

The anticipated effects of AI use by governments are still high. Some authors argue that AI radically alters the nature of the public sector and leads to algorithmic governance, based on its transformative and disruptive character. Nevertheless, the impact of AI can also be heavily constrained by institutional structures in place leading research increasingly to the assumption that its transformative and disruptive character is determined by policy context (e.g. Beer, 2009; Musiani, 2013). Specifically for automating decisions, some scholars point towards the limitations of AI linked to discussions around accountability and clarity of how decisions are made (e.g. Diakopoulos 2013).

Research on AI use in the public sector is maturing quickly. In the past, important groundwork has been done on potentials and concerns based on anecdotes and exploratory case studies. As AI use by governments is slowly leaving its infancy, the debates about AI can increasingly be fueled with solid empirical work. Furthermore, it can be better connected to the rich body of work done on digital government, information- and innovation management, and data use in government. This gives inspiration for second order questions that go beyond general promises and concerns of AI use, and embed them in a more integrative view on digitization and government.

Emerging approaches increasingly crosses disciplinary borders, to tackle more nuanced question, such as:

1. What can public administration learn from fields of research such as humanities, law, and computer sciences? (Seaver, 2017; Yeung, 2018);
2. How can AI practices account for existing biases in data as well as marginalized developments and cultural factors (Treré and Milan, 2021);
3. What political or organizational institutions affect tradeoffs between effectiveness and transparency on multiple organizational levels;
4. How do public organizations deal with challenges related to personnel management, the organizational embedding of AI expertise, and a gap between technical experts and decision-makers.
5. What socio-material practices are used in public organizations to adopt machine learning algorithms, work with algorithms, and address unintended consequences (Christin, 2020);
6. What are the specific ethical or operational challenges faced by individual public servants as a result of (big) data and algorithmic governance;
7. Finally, how can one ‘engineer’ (semi-)algorithmic services that are based based on citizen input and short feedback loops?

For more engineering-oriented scholars more integrative approaches can be used, bridging engineering, law, institutions, policy making, and implementation.

There is still lots to discover. This panel aims to explore and investigate these second order questions and to provide answers about the role, use and effects of AI in the context of a digitizing public sector.The panel welcomes empirical and theoretical papers, and is also open to more normative and reflective work. It especially welcomes interdisciplinary contributions and transdisciplinary work. On the basis of a set of diverse contributions, we aim to engage in an academic debate on the state of the art of AI use and its consequences for a digital government. In this way, we hope to contribute to the ongoing debate as to advance the maturing academic field of Algorithms and Digital Governance.

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

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

Chairs:
Amandine Lerusse (Leiden University, The Netherlands) a.v.lerusse@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Robin Bouwman (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) bouwman@essb.eur.nl
Rosanna Nagtegaal (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) r.nagtegaal@uu.nl
Glenn Houtgraaf (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) houtgraaf.essb.eur.nl

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 psychological insights within the field of public administration. This includes the attitudes and judgments of citizens, elected and non-elected public sector workers, including the influence on their decision-making and behaviors.

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).

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.

Currently, the behavioural public administration field is maturing into a field with different subtopics such as administrative burden and the inclusion of micro insights with meso and macro phenomena (Christensen et al. 2020; Roberts 2020). We welcome papers dealing with such topics as well.

The central question we pose is: How can we understand the attitudes and behavior of individual citizens, civil servants, and elected officials in the public domain?

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:

1. Papers from national and international scholars
2. Papers that employ cognitive micro foundations of behavior to study the behavior of individuals; citizens, elected and non-elected public sector workers
3. Papers that use sophisticated methods using the experimental logic of enquiry and other techniques of measurement or reflect on this
4. Papers that focus on the discrepancy between (self) reported and actual behavior within the realm of public sector organizations
5. Papers that explore meso and macro-level public administration theories with micro-level (individual) data
6. Papers that investigate the effects of choice architecture, organizational structure and practices on behavior in the public sector

In terms of topics, we – for instance – welcome papers that focus on:

1. Citizen-state interactions
2. Administrative burdens
3. Judgment and decision-making in public organizations
4. Citizen satisfaction and trust in government
5. The interpretation of performance information by citizens/public managers/politicians
6. The effects of administrative reforms on citizens/public employees
7. Human-computer interactions
8. Public servants’ competencies and (individual) performance
9. The use of behavioral science by and on public officials (for instance through nudges)
10. Psychology of and pressures on public employees
11. Use of evidence by public officials and citizens

Chairs:
Lianne Visser (Leiden University, The Netherlands) e.l.visser@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Simone van de Wetering (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) s.a.l.vdWetering@tilburguniversity.edu
Lars Dorren (Leiden University, The Netherlands) l.dorren@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Emily Wolff (Leiden University, The Netherlands) e.a.wolff@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

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 be strongly grounded in fieldwork, with scholars studying the different levels of administrative, political, or organizational life up close and personal. They zoom in on daily practices, framing and narratives of diverse actors – whether representatives, public managers, 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, and citizens feel more and more alienated from their government or other societal groups. The rise of a post-truth era challenges the status of ‘knowledge’, academic and otherwise. Simultaneously, populist regimes undermine the bureaucratic, administrative state. This calls for a critical assessment of the effects of the way states and social groups exercise power, but also of interpretive understandings of those in both vulnerable positions and positions of power. 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. 

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. 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.

This means that papers can cover a wide array of topics, from ethnographic accounts of front-line practices to reflective 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.

In addition to this general call, this year we particularly welcome papers that address issues of knowledge production and practices of power in current turbulent times or explore the role of PA scholarship within it. In addition, we invite studies that apply or reflect on innovative or transformative interpretive methodological approaches – like, for instance, art-based methods or hybrid ethnographic research.

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

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 are slowly unfolding, such as climate change and biodiversity loss or democratic backsliding, whereas others present themselves in the form of urgent crises, such as the refugee crisis and the war in Ukraine.

At the same time, effective collective problem-solving is complicated by the decline of permissive consensus, the upsurge of Eurosceptics and populism, and the strong politicization of EU governance at the national level. This contestation hampers further sovereignty transfers to the EU level and makes effective collective action problematic, especially in domains that touch on core state powers and involve distributional conflict.

As a consequence, the EU is confronted by an increasingly pressing governance paradox: member states’ desire to solve common problems without surrendering too much power to supranational institutions. This paradox, or even contradiction between collective action and member state control, 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.

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 (geo)politicization of the European Commission by Juncker and 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 was the case in the field of the Common European Asylum Strategy until recently. In other areas, rapid and unprecedented collective action ensued in response to crisis, as evidenced by the Recovery and Resilience Fund and the recent Green Deal.

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

1. The domestic public and political attitudes to European 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 variant EU’s 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
Charlotte Wagenaar (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) c.c.l.wagenaar@tilburguniversity.edu
Kristof Steyvers (Ghent University, Belgium) kristof.steyvers@UGent.be
Liese Berkvens (Ghent University, Belgium) liese.berkvens@UGent.be
Krista Ettlinger (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) k.m.ettlinger@uu.nl

Description of the panel and themes
In light of dissatisfaction with the functioning of the democratic political system, many countries have developed innovative ways to let citizens participate in the political process. Examples include the national citizen assembly in Luxembourg on climate policy or the combination of a citizen assembly and referendum in Ireland on the issue of abortion and on constitutional provisions about family and care. At the local level, there are many more examples. These include citizen assemblies, referendums, participatory budgeting, e-democracy platforms, right to challenge procedures, and all kinds of combination of these. In this panel, we aim to bring together scholarship from various fields and subfields that study such phenomena in order to foster intellectual exchange to strengthen connections between scholars working on such themes and the research they do.

Scholars can study these democratic institutions and processes from different perspectives. Some may be interested in how they match with core values of the democratic system, shedding light on such new initiatives from the angle of the values highlighted in classic democratic theory. This matches well with the perspective of a philosopher. Others may focus on the design of such democratic innovations and come up with proposals of how they could best be designed. This matches well with the perspective of an engineer. Still others may be interested in the extent to which these initiatives succeed to include citizens with different demographic backgrounds, and if they improve citizens’ trust in the political authorities. This matches well with the perspective of the empirical political scientist. Yet others may develop insights regarding how democratic innovations are implemented in practice by the political-administrative system and how civil servants deal with them. This matches well with the public administration scholar. Still others may approach these topics from their expertise in a particular policy area, and reflect on how citizen participation can improve (or harm) more traditional modes of decision-making. Self-evidently, these are just some of the examples of the rich way in which academic scholarship can enlighted us on 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. The topics that they could focus on include, but are not limited to, the following:

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 matters are most successful in involving them.
7. The effect of democratic innovations that focus on citizen participation on the role in democracy of organized interests and civil society organisations

This panel focuses primarily on democratic innovations in the Netherlands and Belgium, but contributions dealing with other contexts are most welcome too. The 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 of further facilitating participation and deliberation.

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

Types of papers and topics expected as submissions to the panel:
The main category of papers to be expected are 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 also 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:
Vidar Stevens (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) v.stevens@uu.nl
Petra van den Bekerkom (Leiden University, The Netherlands) p.e.a.van.den.bekerkom@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Tanachia Ashikali (Leiden University, The Netherlands) t.s.ashikali@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Sandra Groeneveld (Leiden University, The Netherlands) s.m.groeneveld@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Daphne van Helden (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) vanhelden@essb.eur.nl
Sheeling Neo (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) neo@essb.eur.nl

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 “race, gender, 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 representation (bureaucracy) 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 they are 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), underlying the need for safe spaces to express one’s individuated self and experience belongingness in the workplace (Cunningham, 2019).

There is a growing need for nuanced understanding of and responsive strategies to ensure inclusivity and representation within administrative services. Understanding how organizations could address these issues, the factors influencing their approaches, and the broader societal impact at different (organizational) levels is essential. Consequently, diversity, representation, and inclusion have become prevalent topics in the contemporary public administration discourse. At the same time, a notable fragmentation in research concerning diversity, representation, and inclusion is apparent. The fragmentation, both in theory and in practice, poses a significant challenge to addressing evolving research problems and practical issues effectively. Fragmentation hinders policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in effectively addressing and facilitating diversity and inclusivity in public services. In moving forward scholarship must build on existing commonalities between these topics. 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.

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

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.

Disclaimer: This panel overlaps with panel 13 ((Re)considering design in public administration). Since both panels would like to start a community around the topic design and PA, the panels will be merged/programmed together during the conference.

Chairs:

Lisa De Roeck (University of Antwerp, Belgium) lisa.deroeck@uantwerpen.be
Eva Wolf (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) e.e.a.wolf@tilburguniversity.edu
Cato Janssen (University of Antwerp, Belgium) cato.janssen@uantwerpen.be

Description of the panel and themes

With society facing many intertwined and wicked problems and crises, public administration scholars and policymakers turn to different types of knowledge production and practices to tackle these challenges head-on. Increasingly, arts- and design-based practices within public administration research and policymaking itself have been acknowledged as having the potential to create new ways of thinking and doing, needed for these impeding societal transformations (Casey & Murray, 2022; Howlett, 2020; Buchanan, 1992; Desmedt & Borch, 2021).

Arts-based practices can disrupt everyday (policy) practices, problematize settled routines, and can thus play a vital role in challenging hegemonic regimes as well as offering new institutional arrangements (Mouffe, 2013, Rancière, 2013). These practices can be performative (including applied theatre) or involve visual arts, the setting up of exhibitions, cooking, creating of materials, etc. Design-based practices, such as design thinking and systemic design can also promote innovation and install new ways of participatory policymaking (Brinkman et al, 2023; Blomkamp, 2021).

However, the integration of arts-based and/or design practices within PA research and practice also constitutes challenges. These interventions are often regarded as an interesting and ‘fun’ addition to the everyday reality of (studying) policymaking but face re-occurring questioning of their actual functionality and relevance. Arts- and design-based practices are often characterized by being experimental, open-ended in nature and having a process-oriented approach rather than being results-oriented, which might make them at times difficult to reconcile with the practices of public administration.

Furthermore, artistic practices are also criticized, for example when used to simply gloss over certain inequalities and to assume greater community involvement, without this truly being the case (Sachs Olsen & Van Hulst, 2024). Design-based practices are criticized for sometimes having a short-term focus and in certain instances also reinforcing, rather than challenging existing inequalities. Besides this, arts-based practices face the danger of being instrumentalized by other actors and potentially losing their capacity to critically engage with and challenge current modes of policymaking, which is also seen as a threat to their significance.

Within this panel, we thus want to explore the various ways in which policymakers and public administration researchers work together with artists and designers and employ or incorporate artistic- and design practices in their work. We focus on what these collaborations mean in practice and what the different values of working together are. We also want to discuss the potential pitfalls for scholars, artists, designers and policymakers in engaging with each other and each other’s work. We thus aim to critically reflect upon the place of arts- and design-based practices within the broader realm of public administration research and policymaking. Furthermore, we welcome all papers and contributions that use creative methods within their work and who share a willingness to reflect upon them.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

We welcome different types of submissions that touch upon or relate to the following elements (this list is not exhaustive):

1. Empirical papers focusing on the collaborations between artists, designers, researchers and governance actors in local, regional and/or national policymaking.
2. Submissions focusing on the potential challenges, pitfalls and opportunities when using arts-based and/or design-based practices within public administration research and practice.
3. Submissions critically reflecting on the engagement of public administration researchers with artists and/or designers and their practices.
4. Theoretical papers focusing on what the future of arts-based practices and design-based practices within public administration can be, as well as what the shared assumptions between these various actors are.
5. Submissions focusing on the potential of arts- and design-based practices in public administration in times of large societal transformations.

Chairs:

Thomas Hoppe (Universiteit Twente, The Netherlands) t.hoppe@utwente.nl
Frans Coenen (Universiteit Twente, The Netherlands) f.h.j.m.coenen@utwente.nl
Anieke Kranenburg (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) a.kranenburg@tilburguniversity.edu

Description of the panel and themes

Agreements have been made in Europe to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The EU Member States have agreed that the EU must emit at least 55% less by 2030. The Netherlands has even set the objective of becoming climate-neutral by 2050. Achieving this objective poses a considerable challenge of high complexity. This requires attention from the public, private and civic sectors, with multiple stakeholders having interests, with different agendas, and involvement in decision-making. Moreover, low carbon energy transition spans multiple levels of governance and calls for coordination. In summary, low carbon energy transition may be classified in terms of ‘wicked’ or at least ‘poorly structured’ problems. This calls for coordinative and collaborative action and governance arrangements that deal with this complexity. However, the current governance arrangements and organisation of the Dutch energy sector and other economic sectors that are subject to energy transition, are not adequate for transitioning towards reaching the 2050 goal. Additionally, there are considerable societal and political tensions that make this process even more challenging, such as the recent Dutch government coalition’s decision to terminate net metering).

Nonetheless, the challenge ahead calls for action. This includes adapting current governance arrangements, regulatory frameworks and policy mixes. As traditional institutions are considered ineffective and failing to address tensions regarding conflicting public values (e.g., sustainability vs. affordability), there is a need for (re-)design of current frameworks, which also calls for innovation in governance and policy. This can be done by for example organising experiments with novel governance arrangements (top-down, bottom-up, public-private partnerships) and policies (either single policies or in terms of ‘mixes’), learn from them, and program ways to scale good practice. These experiments may entail new forms of citizen participation, empowering of energy communities, co-design and co-production of new energy services, and collaborative governance. One should also not forget that, in recent years, the Netherlands has seen a number of large-scale experiments and innovations, such as regional energy strategies (RES), the natural gas-free neighborhoods program (PAW), experimentation schemes for pilots with smart grid technology (e.g., IPIN, legal sandboxes), and innovative research schemes financed by the EU, RVO and NWO towards energy transition in which public and civic sector parties play a major role (e.g., Local4Local).

Questions that can be addressed in papers in this panel are required to address innovation in governance in the low carbon energy transition domain but can be of different nature. For example, What modes of innovation in governance are observed in the low carbon energy transition domain? What is the meaning of innovation in governance in low carbon energy transition domain? What does governance entail in response to technological and/or social innovation? In what ways do innovative modes of governance balance public values like effectiveness vs. justice? How to design innovative governance arrangements to guide the low carbon energy transition? What innovation in governance arrangements are observed using a multi-level governance perspective? How does low carbon climate policy evolve in terms of policy fit between new climate policy packages and incumbent policy mixes? What tensions are observed when reflecting on democratic values in low carbon energy transition issues? Or: In what ways can innovation in governance contribute to achieving the 2050 low carbon energy transition goals?

Types of papers and themes we welcome

We welcome papers addressing these kinds of questions. We are open to a variety of research designs, from qualitative to quantitative studies, from empirical to normative studies, from international to national, regional, local and comparative studies, from case studies to statistical studies, or agent-based modelling.

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
Benjamin Leidorf-Tidå (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands) b.j.a.leidorf-tida@vu.nl

Description of the panel and themes

Public organisations are currently functioning in an environment marked by societal changes challenging their legitimacy. For example, political polarization is suggested to be increasing while public trust in government is eroding. Populism is on the rise and many Western democracies face (the threat of) democratic backsliding. Moreover, recent technological advancements have accelerated developments toward further digitalisation of society, and public organisations are increasingly reliant on digital and algorithmic tools for both decision-making and service-delivery. This is all taking place against the backdrop of an inflation of crises. This is evident in the Netherlands where the government has seemingly jumped from crisis to crisis – allowing government very little time to reflect upon and learn from them.

Fast-paced and impactful societal changes as those mentioned above challenges the legitimacy of public organisations, putting bureaucracies under pressure to expertly navigate and manage new political realities, dealing with both politicians and citizens that at times treat them as the enemy. Furthermore, public organisations need to acquire and showcase sufficient capabilities and expertise to keep up with societal developments, such as new technologies, and be able both use and regulate them effectively as well as responsibly.

With organisational legitimacy being recognized as crucial to the effective functioning of public organisations, for example ensuring that citizens and other societal stakeholders trust and accept governmental advice and decisions (think for example about willingness to follow vaccine recommendations), questions around how public organisations can stay legitimate in an era of turbulence is of utmost relevance for public administration scholars. This panel welcomes contributions that deal with these questions. That is, how societal changes affect the legitimacy of public organisations and/or how public organisations react and respond to these challenges to secure their legitimacy. We particularly (but not exclusively) welcome contributions that deal with one of the three following challenges: (1) political polarisation, (2) digitalisation, and (3) crises.

Political polarisation
Political polarisation forms an important trend in many Western democracies. Although there are still notable differences between countries with regards to actual levels of polarisation, it seems that almost no country is immune to it. Polarisation, as well as its impact on democracy and democratic governance, provides public organisations with multiple challenges. For instance, bureaucratic agencies face growing pressures from their political principals, and they can become subject of populist critique on their functioning and policies. They are also confronted with a growing diversity of citizens’ expectations. How can public organisations still be legitimate in the eyes of politicians, stakeholders and citizens when their authority becomes increasingly politicised? And what role can public organisations play in safeguarding democratic governance, in an era in which democratic principles might be more contested due to polarisation? This panel welcomes papers that aim to better understand the phenomena of political polarisation, its causes and consequences. We are particularly open to contributions that zoom in on the consequences of polarisation for public organisations and how public organisations could respond to polarisation and related political trends (i.e., politicisation, the rise of populism, and democratic backsliding) to secure a legitimate reputation.

Digitalisation
Technological advancements are widely recognised as playing a role in the increasing polarisation, with micro-targeting and social media bubbles created by algorithms fuelling these developments. This illustrates the need for public organisations to regulate the digital society, safeguarding important public values. Think for example of how Data Protection Authorities have had to adapt to the new data privacy challenges that the digital age has brought with it. An important challenge in this regard is that public organisations often find themselves at a significant disadvantage in terms of both information and expertise vis-a-vis the private sector actors that they are to regulate. At the same time, public organisations are to an increasing extent using digital and algorithmic tools for both decision-making and service delivery. While there are hopes that this could lead to more effective and efficient governance, serious questions have been raised about the legitimacy of digital and algorithmic governance. Public organisations need to show that they have sufficient in-house expertise and capabilities for dealing with these new tools in both an effective and responsible manner, ensuring that the use of digital tools does not lead to discriminatory outcomes. This panel welcomes papers that deal with these issues, focusing either on public organisations’ regulation of the digital society or their use of digital technologies.

Crises
Furthermore, recent technological innovations and growing global interconnectedness have introduced new risks in society that can seemingly instantaneously spawn deep crises in previously unthinkable ways. In this kind of world, an erroneous piece of code in an anti-virus software update for Windows machines can trigger a worldwide cyber-crisis that disrupts critical infrastructure such as airports, ports, hospitals, and public transportation. It is also a world where a zoonotic disease originating from a local market in China can travel to every corner of the globe in the blink of an eye. More locally, we have seen how recent crises often defy boundaries, whether they are jurisdictional, institutional, or temporal. Which sector should pay the price for excessive nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, and what strategies do public sector organisations employ to work towards an outcome that is acceptable to all parties involved? How can sufficient capacity be created for accommodating asylum seekers while also addressing the concerns of local residents who tend to oppose proposals to establish an asylum seekers’ centre in their immediate vicinity? What are fair and just policies for tackling the climate crisis at this moment, or are we already too late? In times of crises, public sector organisations often find themselves in the public eye, which can threaten their organisational legitimacy but also provide opportunities to develop new competences and build a stronger reputation. This panel invites papers that investigate how public sector organisations respond to crises, while not overstepping their authority, acting transparently, and being accountable.

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 changes. In particular, we welcome papers that focus on the three challenges listed above but remain open also to papers that focus on how public organisations can strengthen their legitimacy in the light of other urgent societal changes. Our panel is open to theoretical/conceptual, normative, and empirical (qualitative and quantitative) papers. We particularly welcome contributions that apply new and innovative methodological approaches to study these types of questions. We encourage the submission of papers from neighboring disciplines of public administration and political science, as well as contributions that are (co-)written by practitioners and public professionals.

Chairs:

Caroline Fischer (University of Twente, The Netherlands) c.fischer@utwente.nl
Brenda Vermeeren (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) vermeeren@essb.eur.nl
Martin Sievert (Leiden University, The Netherlands) m.c.g.sievert@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

Description panel and themes

Public employees are crucial in the provision of public services and have a considerable effect on the performance of public organizations (Leisink et al., 2021). For example, good teachers are crucial to the provision of high-quality education, professional health care workers are essential for high quality health care, and police officers are necessary for safe streets. As such, managing and leading employees has been considered one of the most important aspects of the management of public organizations and contemporary research (O’Toole & Meier, 2009).

In line with previous scholars (Knies et al., 2020; Leroy et al., 2018), we argue that research on both public (human resource) management and leadership should be integrated to learn from each other. Such integration allows a better understanding of the management of employees in public organizations. Therefore, our proposed panel welcomes research on both public (human resource) management and public leadership directed towards managing and influencing employees in public organizations.

While public management scholars have traditionally focused on senior managers in public organizations, we explicitly expand the panel’s focus to all hierarchical levels. For example, line managers play a crucial role in managing employees and therefore it is important to include line managers when interested in managing employees in public organizations (Boselie et al., 2019; Penning de Vries & Vermeeren, 2021). Moreover, as a result of processes of HR devolution and decentralization, line managers are gaining more and more responsibility for managing employees in public organizations (Brewster et al., 2015; Podger, 2017; Tessema et al., 2009). As such, the scholarly interest in line managers has increased over the years, and indicated that they have an influence on mission achievement (Knies et al., 2018), attitudes towards clients (Keulemans & Groeneveld, 2019), inclusive climate (Ashikali, Groeneveld & Kuipers, 2021), team performance (Penning de Vries, 2021) and organizational performance (Brewer, 2005; Vermeeren et al., 2014). In a similar notion, practice sees new forms of leadership evolving (e.g., bottom-up and shared leadership), which exhibit a strong impact on employee motivation and performance. Overall, accounting for the diversity of scholarly perspectives, our proposed panel welcomes papers interested in management and leadership across all hierarchical levels in public organizations.

Societal challenges

Even though we welcome papers from a broad range of topics, we particularly welcome papers that respond to societal challenges affecting the management and leadership of employees in public organizations. Below, we outline examples of these challenges.

As public organizations increasingly adopt technology to manage their human resources, new challenges have emerged that require further exploration. Be it the use of decision support systems in recruitment or job development based on algorithms, privacy and security concerns surrounding employee data, or the use of augmented or virtual reality in training – human resource managers need to be able to understand the implications of utilizing these technologies. In addition, the use of technology in work in general and the transition to virtual ways of working (Gartner, 2020; Kniffin et al., 2020) raise new challenges for leadership and management of personnel. How to lead successfully in a remote way, how to ensure work-life boundaries in more flexible setups of work and what are the implications of working virtually for teams? The panel welcomes papers that address how technology is impacting ways of working in public organizations as well as the particular impact of technology applied in public sector human resource management.

Societal diversity will continue to grow due to globalization and migration of large populations. As a result, public managers and employees need to be able to respond to complex issues and diverse stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization. Leadership is needed to address social processes to foster an inclusive work environment in which all organizational members are involved, can be their authentic selves, and reach their full potential (Ashikali et al., 2021; Randel, 2018). However, there is still limited research and theory on leadership approaches that address employee experiences of work group inclusion (Nishii & Mayer, 2009; Shore et al., 2018). The panel welcomes papers that address how management and leadership within teams and organizations contributes to valuing diversity and fostering inclusivity in turn affecting team processes and outcomes.

The public sector is also facing labor shortages, especially in professions such as education and healthcare. Organizations are encountering a range of challenges, including but not limited to the lack of qualified personnel, increased workload for existing staff, higher staff turnover rates, and difficulties in retaining staff. Labor shortages can negatively impact public service delivery, particularly in critical areas such as healthcare, education, social services, and public safety. This can lead to reduced access to services, longer waiting times, and decreased quality of service delivery. On the other hand, when public organizations are understaffed, existing staff may be required to take on additional responsibilities to fill the gaps. This can lead to increased workload, stress, and burnout, which can impact the health and well-being of employees. Decreased well-being can also increase staff turnover rates, as employees may leave to seek better job opportunities or working conditions elsewhere. This can further exacerbate labor shortages and create a vicious cycle of recruitment and retention challenges. The panel welcomes papers that address recruitment and public labor markets, as well as research addressing how management and leadership within teams and organizations can deal with and mitigate these challenges.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
We welcome a variety of submissions, ranging from theoretical/conceptual papers, empirical studies, and research proposals (for instance PhD proposals or research designs). We welcome submissions from a broad range of topics with regard to leading and managing employees in public organizations. We particularly welcome topics that connect management and leadership with societal challenges that public organizations are faced with these times.

Chairs:

Natascha van der Zwan (Leiden University, The Netherlands) n.a.j.van.der.zwan@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Jasper Simons (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) j.p.simons@uu.nl
Ferdi De Ville (Ghent University, Belgium) ferdi.deville@ugent.be
Fabio Bulfone (Leiden University, The Netherlands) f.bulfone@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

Description panel and themes

The field of political economy focuses on the interplay between politics, government, and the economy. In other words, how do politics and policy shape the organization of the economy, and how does the economy influence politics and policy? Like many other major challenges facing society today, climate change – and related problems such as biodiversity loss or pollution – have their origins in the organization of the global market. After all, climate change is an outgrowth of the industrial economy and its expansion across the globe. Any solution to this major challenge must therefore involve policies, politics and ideas for transforming the economy, both nationally and across borders.

The term “green transition” is used to describe the path towards a sustainable economy, with a focus on climate neutrality by 2050, as set out in the Paris Agreement. The green transition is a multi-level governance challenge, requiring public interventions at all levels of government, from local municipalities to the federal level or in the supranational context of the European Union (EU). In recent years, there has been a proliferation of policy interventions and initiatives aimed at facilitating the economic transformations required by the green transition, such as the EU Green Deal or the US Inflation Reduction Act. This panel seeks to examine the politics, policies and governance of the green transition.

First, how are public institutions and agencies managing the green transition, both at the (sub)national level and across borders? The United States, for example, has created one of the largest investment programs in American history with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which includes billions of dollars in tax measures and subsidies for clean technology, green manufacturing, and sustainable agriculture. The EU’s Green Deal legislative package aims to facilitate increased investment in green technology research and innovation, the transformation of (energy-intensive) industries, and the society-wide adoption of renewable energy sources. But governments have also used other types of instruments, such as off-balance-sheet financial instruments or regulation of private markets, to achieve these goals. This myriad of policy instruments raises questions not only of effectiveness, but also of legitimacy and accountability.

Second, how do organized interests and stakeholders (such as business or labor groups, environmental organizations, or citizens) shape the trajectories of the green transition? Given the sometimes conflicting interests of these stakeholders, the green transition has proven to be highly contentious. Consider, for example, the conflict between environmental goals and the welfare and employment implications of the transformations imposed on high-emitting agri-food and petrochemical industries. This raises questions about the ability of policymakers to strike a difficult balance between addressing the problems associated with the green transition and the employment interests of “old industry” employers and workers.

Third, what are the obstacles to the implementation of the green transition and how can they be overcome? Among other things, the transition has proven to be highly dependent on path dependencies created by past institutional and policy legacies. It also depends on the availability of public funding and regulatory requirements such as stability and transparency. Uncertainties about market responses to policies, the market viability of cutting-edge technologies, and the availability of (critical) raw materials further complicate the complex implementation issues of the green transition.

The proposed workshop seeks to establish a conversation between scholars of political economy and scholars of public administration in their mutual efforts to answer these questions. Despite common interests – state institutions, the role of experts, political decision making and policy making – the two streams of scholarship have developed quite separately. Although scholars in both traditions use different theoretical lenses, the overlap in their research agendas provides fertile ground for a productive exchange of scholarly insights. To better understand and address the challenges of the green transition, we need interdisciplinary conversations between these two isolated strands of scholarship.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

Our workshop welcomes contributions from political economists and public administration scholars working on the politics, policies and governance of the green transition. These may include – but are certainly not limited to – topics such as industrial policy, circular economy, sustainable finance or eco-social policies. In particular, papers may focus on questions related to:

1. State-business relations
2. Lobbying and interest group politics
3. Policy and state capacity
4. Policy design and implementation
5. The structuring effects of institutional context
6. The impact of administrative and policy legacies

Our geographic focus is global, allowing participants to present work on countries, regions, or continents with different historical, economic, and institutional settings. Furthermore, we value theoretical and methodological pluralism and therefore invite studies with different research designs, ranging from (comparative) case-based or historical research to quantitative or experimental approaches.

Disclaimer: This panel overlaps with panel 8 (Doing PA differently? The role and critique of arts- and design-based practices in Public Administration). Since both panels would like to start a community around the topic design and PA, the panels will be merged/programmed together during the conference.

Chairs:

Maike Klip-Veltman (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands) m.m.veltman@tudelft.nl
Geert Brinkman (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) brinkman@essb.eur.nl

Description of the panel and themes
Design is a core task of public organizations, given that they design institutions, strategies, policies, and services to create a better society every day (Junginger, 2015). Yet, this does not mean that they are sufficiently equipped to do so.

To this day, most design work that is done in public organizations is underpinned by a rational-instrumental logic (Clarke & Craft, 2018) – i.e. it is approached in a scientific, analytical, and rather technocratic manner (Turnbull, 2018). As societal crises proliferate, awareness is growing that such a rational-instrumental approach to design is no longer fit for purpose (Harris & Albury, 2009). It neglects the complexity of present day’s public issues as well as the needs and concerns of citizens (Bason, 2010).

Consequently, design approaches such as design thinking (Kelley & Kelley, 2013), service design (Mager & Gais, 2009), social design (Tromp & Heckert, 2016) and systemic design (Blomkamp, 2022) have gained considerable interest in the past two decades within public organizations (van Buuren et al., 2023). These design approaches have crossed over from the creative disciplines and are underpinned by a creative-purposive logic instead (Sanders & Stappers, 2008). Design, as such, is approached in a more explorative, experimental, creative and collaborative manner (Razzouk & Shute, 2012). Accordingly, it is said that this creative-purposive orientation to design is well-suited to the complexity of present day’s public issues and in tune with citizen needs (Bason, 2010).

As can be seen, both logics are fundamentally different. This means two things. First, they are complementary; they address one another’s shortcomings and combining them bears considerable potential (Peters, 2018; Trischler & Westman Trischler, 2022). Second, they are antithetical; they represent opposing ways of doing design and are thus difficult to marry (Brinkman et al., 2023). Given that most public organizations are geared towards rational-instrumental design approaches, creative-purposive design approaches generally do not fare well in the public sector (Klip-Veltman et al., 2023).

A significant amount of research has already been conducted on the challenges and barriers associated with combining these two design logics (Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018; Kimbell & Bailey, 2017; Sangiorgi et al., 2019; Lewis et al., 2020; Pirinen et al., 2022). In order for public organizations to accommodate creative-purposive design approaches, they require new organizational capabilities (Malmberg, 2017). Some authors suggest this may give rise to a new ‘human-centered’ governance model altogether, in which both design logics are merged (Bason & Austin, 2022). As of yet, there are only a few documented examples of what such a governance model could look like and knowledge about how such a governance model can be realized is limited (Brinkman & Kim, 2024).

The aim of this panel is therefore to delve into the possible ways in which a synergy between both design logics can be realized. How can these two design logics mutually strengthen each other? What kind of institutions can facilitate their integration? What kind of organizational and methodological changes are necessary for a productive interaction between both design logics? What kind of institutional work is needed to realize this?

Our main question in this panel is: How can we (re)consider design in public administration in the present era? We would like to establish a network and community of scholars who are directly or indirectly researching this topic. By exchanging insights and ideas, we hope to explore research directions, identify gaps, and shape future studies to further advance this interdisciplinary field. We warmly invite scholars from both public administration and design disciplines to contribute. Submissions can be full papers as well as research proposals, including PhD proposals.

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

1. As design is a core function of public organizations, what capabilities do public managers and civil servants need in order to effectively apply it?
2. How can design capability development in public organizations be fostered?
3. In order to enable design in public organizations, what kind of organizational change is needed and what kind of organizational forms are suited?
4. Different governance paradigms advocate for different  governance models to create public value. How does this intersect with a human-centered governance model?
5. How can ‘silent design’ – i.e. design activities undertaken by professionals that are not aware that these are design activities – be recognized, what are examples of ‘silent design’, and what are the opportunities for further development?
6. What are the languages and language differences between the two design logics? And what could be the language of an integrated design logic?
7. What are the complementarities and overlaps between both design logics, and what are the opportunities to bring the two worlds together?
8. Design is an applied science in a specific context. Should the creative-purposive design logic be adapted in order to effectively operate in the public sector and how?

Chairs:

Wieke Pot (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) wieke.pot@wur.nl
Wouter Lammers (KU Leuven, Belgium) wouter.lammers@kuleuven.be
Barbara Vis (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) b.vis@uu.nl
Jorren Scherpenisse (Netherlands School of Public Administration, The Netherlands), scherpenisse@nsob.nl

Description of the panel and themes 

Since the future is inherently unknown, governments have always had to deal with many unknowns. But now, in the face of increasing turbulence, governments face an explosion of uncertainties. They need to cope with growing geopolitical tensions, rapidly evolving artificial intelligence applications, potential growth of infection diseases due to climate change, and fight global warming and biodiversity loss. Some of such problems present themselves as shocks and crises, whereas other issues such as climate change can be characterized as long-term problems. Long-term problems require governments to cross the regular organizational cycles of elections, decision making, planning, and budgeting (Pörtner et al., 2019) while acute shocks tend to absorb a lot of political attention and public sector resources – especially when they are a threat to national safety such as with a flood or pandemic. The turbulence that arises from a context with both acute and unexpected events and more slow burning crises and sustainability challenges, leads to uncertainty about the pace, magnitude and impact of events and the effectiveness of policy actions to fight sustainability challenges.

This turbulent problem context requires governments to prepare for the unknown future. It also requires them to find ways to steer transitions towards more sustainable future worlds – worlds in which we, for example, are climate neutral and climate robust. Head (2022) characterizes these grand sustainability challenges as exhibiting deep uncertainty, for example about the pace of melting glaciers causing sea level rise. Situation are characterized by deep uncertainty as “analysts do not know or the parties to a decision cannot agree upon (1) the appropriate models to describe interactions among a system’s variables, (2) the probability distributions to represent uncertainty about key parameters in the models, and/or (3) how to value the desirability of alternative outcomes” (Lempert et al., 2003: xii). This is roughly equivalent to the Knightian concept of uncertainty, as opposed to the more quantifiable concept of risk. This means that governments will face and need to deal with different types of uncertainties: substantive uncertainties, e.g. about the impact of melting glaciers on gulf streams, strategic uncertainties, e.g. about which actors are putting pressure on the government to maintain or adjust the status quo, and institutional uncertainties, e.g. about which layer of government is responsible and will take action (Koppenjan & Klijn, 2004; Dewulf & Biesbroek, 2018).

Within the literature, we can distinguish different strands in the literature on how policy makers deal or not deal with uncertainty.  For example:
– evidence-based policy making: focuses on informed policy-making and how evidence or information can help policy makers. But almost no evidence comes with full certainty, as scientific research is inherently uncertain.
– future studies and scenario thinking: scholars in future studies put forward different methods for developing plausible and preferred future scenarios to better grasp uncertainties or steer towards futures with more desired outcomes.
– robust and adaptive governance: the focus is on helping governments to maintain key systems functions under stress and/or to adapt to new circumstances. This literature typically emphasizes the importance of stress-tests and early warning systems, flexibility and learning.
– crisis and contingencies management: during and after crisis, uncertainties are abundantly present, it is interesting to see how these are dealt with
– not dealing with the deep uncertainties in their policy making, for instance by avoiding the deeply uncertain situation altogether or by downplaying the uncertainty (Vis. 2024)

In this panel we want to explore both the different approaches that allow governments to better deal with all sorts of uncertainties across their policy cycle and obtain more insights into when and why they refrain from dealing with them. Consequently, we are interested in bringing different strands in the literature for (not) dealing with uncertainty together in this panel. We aim to, for example, explore the use and impact of decision support methods and information during decision and policy making about acute shocks and long-term challenges; the capacities that governments develop to prepare for future climate extremes; how governments take decisions about sustainability transitions despite uncertainties and required transformative change of existing practices; the way politicians debate and communicate uncertainty about different policy problems and how they grasp but also ignore or limit uncertainties in their discourses; and how actors deal with uncertainty, if at all, in situations of high pressure and stress.

The panel is part of the NIG colloquium on Robust and Time sensitive governance and builds upon on several ongoing research projects about dealing with uncertainty. People working in domains of crisis management, adaptive and robust governance, evidence-based policy making, and political elites’ decision making under deep uncertainty are especially encouraged to submit their paper to this panel.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

The panel welcomes conceptual and empirical papers focused on the following research questions:

1. What type of evidence do we need to deal with short and long-term uncertainties in decision making?
2. How can experts such as planning agencies and scientists optimize communication of uncertainty towards policy makers?
3. What is the influence of decision-support methods for dealing with uncertainty within governmental policy-making processes? E.g. robust decision making, environmental or economic models, adaptation pathways, scenario methods, etc.
4. How can governments develop their adaptive capacities to strengthen learning, monitoring and reflexive approaches to deal with uncertainty?
5. How do governmental actors, both high-level officials and street-level bureaucrats, deal with uncertainty in their everyday environment, if at all?
6. How is uncertainty approached within governmental decision-making processes that have limited tolerance for uncertainty? E.g. tender and procurement processes?
7. How do political actors grasp and deal with uncertainty when debating and deciding upon policies for addressing long-term sustainability challenges?- What can we learn from dealing with uncertainty in crisis’ contexts for developing governmental capacities that are better prepared for future shocks and climate extremes?
8. How is uncertainty understood differently across different policy domains?
9. What does governments enable to tackle sustainability challenges in the here and now despite uncertainties?
10. How do automated decision models (help to) deal with uncertainties?

Chairs:
Joris Voets (Ghent University, Belgium) joris.voets@ugent.be
Duco Bannink (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The Netherlands) d.b.d.bannink@vu.nl
Chesney Callens (Antwerp University, Belgium) chesney.callens@uantwerpen.be
Scott Douglas (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) s.c.douglas@uu.nl
Patrick Kenis (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) p.n.kenis@tilburguniversity.edu
José Nederhand (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) nederhand@essb.eur.nl
Rianne Warsen (Erasmus Univeristy Rotterdam, The Netherlands) warsen@essb.eur.nl

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) 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 or even pool resources (e.g. financial resources, staff, expertise, competencies, legitimacy) to achieve a public purpose (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2016), managing networks and other collaborative arrangements has proven very 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 (e.g. health care service networks) including decision-making, structuring, managing the network, and the micro level of management capacity of public and non-public organizations to operate (in) networks (e.g. capacity of hospitals to engage 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 & J. Koppenjan (2016). Governance Networks in the Public Sector.
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: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/book/9781803923895/9781803923895.xml*

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:

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: the level of individual organizations & the level of the network as a whole
3. The democratic questions related to impact & governance capacity: how to deal with accountability & legitimacy concerning networks?
4. 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?
5. How can collaborations work on learning and innovating their practices? How can insights and lessons be identified in highly ambiguous task environments and be translated to highly diverse partner groups?
6. How to deal with the potential trade-offs between accountability, learning, and performance management?

Chairs:

Margot Kersing (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) kersing@essb.eur.nl
Yinthe Feys (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) yinthe.feys@ru.nl
Kim Loyens (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) k.m.loyens@uu.nl
Nadine Raaphorst (Leiden University, The Netherlands) n.j.raaphorst@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Shelena Keulemans (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) shelena.keulemans@ru.nl
Lieke Oldenhof (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) oldenhof@essb.eur.nl
Vivian Visser (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, The Netherlands) visser@essb.eur.nl

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 (Nielsen et al., 2021; Oldenhof & Linthorst, 2022). Different types of street-level professionals are, indeed, perceived differently in terms of intention and ability by citizen-clients (de Boer, 2020) and this has consequences for service delivery. To illustrate, matching individual-level characteristics, such as gender, can increase efforts of both professionals and citizens (Guul, 2018). 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 (Dunleavy et al., 2006; Eubanks 2018). 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. 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?
3. To whom do street-level bureaucrats direct their efforts and grant access to public resources?

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.

De Boer, N. (2020). How Do Citizens Assess Street‐Level Bureaucrats’ Warmth and Competence? A Typology and Test. Public Administration Review, 80(4), 532-542.

Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. St. Martin’s Press.

Guul, T. S. (2018). The individual‐level effect of gender matching in representative bureaucracy. Public Administration Review, 78(3), 398-408.

Harrits, G. S. (2019). Stereotypes in context: How and when do street‐level bureaucrats use class stereotypes? Public Administration Review, 79(1), 93-103.

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 (30^th 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 and behavior, yet also welcomes contributions that focus on the meso and macro contexts in which these decisions and behaviors are performed.

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:

Annie Hondeghem (KU Leuven, Belgium) annie.hondeghem@kuleuven.be
Peter Scholten (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) p.w.a.scholten@fsw.eur.nl
Elien Diels (KU Leuven, Belgium) elien.diels1@kuleuven.be

Description of the panel and themes

The evolution of society, marked by trends such as growing polarisation and the emergence of political extremism, has once again brought the issue of antidiscrimination to the forefront of the political agenda. Despite the presence of antidiscrimination laws in all European countries, discrimination continues to be a harsh reality and a part of daily life for many individuals. To properly curb discrimination, policies targeting both macro and meso structures (cf. institutional discrimination), and individual emotions, cognitions and behavior (micro), should be combined. This has brought anti-discrimination into the heart of governance at various levels, including the local level as well as the national and European level. Furthermore, we see a clear connection between anti-discrimination governance and the rebuilding of trust in (government, political) institutions.

In this workshop, our primary focus will be on policies, institutions and actor networks in the field of anti-discrimination governance. Here are some specific areas of exploration:

1. Institutions: To achieve anti-discrimination objectives, European member states have been encouraged to establish independent Equality bodies that assist discrimination victims and monitor discrimination-related issues, as suggested by Equinet in 2019 and complemented by directives on equality bodies on May 7^th We will delve into how European-level policies have been put into practice within the member states. This will involve an examination of the effectiveness and implementation of these institutional mechanisms.
2. Policy Measures: Numerous policy measures have been employed in the fight against discrimination, such as quotas and ‘praktijktesten’ (practical tests). One of the most prevalent approaches is the use of awareness-raising campaigns. We will explore the outcomes and effects of these policy measures, seeking insights into their success or areas for improvement. This discussion will enable us to consider strategies for enhancing the effectiveness of anti-discrimination campaigns.
3. Networks: The governance of anti-discrimination is often situated in complex multi-actor and multi-level networks. This evokes key questions such as how such networks operate, what types of actors are involved and how, how policies are coordinated across levels and various types of actors, etc. What can we learn from network governance literature for the governance of anti-discrimination, and the other way around?
4. Evaluation of institutions, policy measures, network outcomes: In light of assuring progressive insight in each of the above mentioned aspects of anti-discrimination, evaluation is key. How do institutions evaluate their performance? How is campaign success assessed? And how can joint efforts of network collaborators be mapped (cf. collective impact)?

We especially welcome papers based on recent empirical research in the Low Countries, or based on comparative data in a European context.

The output of the workshop will be a special issue in a public administration or policy science journal.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
Important is that papers have a primary focus on the governance of anti-discrimination, so that the panel contributes to making meaningful connections between the theme of anti-discrimination and the broader literatures from public administration and political science.

We are thinking of the following types of papers:

1. Papers on the role of specific institutions in the governance of anti-discrimination such as the role of governmental bodies or anti-discrimination agencies.
2. Comparative papers on anti-discrimination policies, such as comparing between national policies, as well as between local policies, or multi-level analyses.
3. Papers on outcomes/effects of specific policy measures in the field of anti-discrimination.
4. Papers on governance/policy networks in the field of anti-discrimination.

Chairs:

Ben Kuipers (Leiden University, The Netherlands) b.s.kuipers@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Jean Hartley (Open University, United Kingdom) jean.hartley@open.ac.uk
Karin Lasthuizen (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) karin.lasthuizen@vuw.ac.nz
Rudolf Metz (Corvinus University, Hungary) rudolf.metz@uni-corvinus.hu
Richard Callahan (University of San Francisco, United States of America) rfcallahan@usfca.edu
Alessandro Sancino (University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy) alessandro.sancino@unimib.it

Description of the panel and themes

The leadership challenges in addressing the many societal issues we face place strong demands on both the science and practice of leadership. Traditional leader-centric beliefs and perspectives are still strongly represented in our current thinking and actions; however, they fall short in tackling the issues at hand and can even be considered dangerous (Haslam et al., 2024). To understand the functioning, antecedents, and impacts of leadership, especially within the public domain, much more attention is needed to the many aspects, multiple layers, and various levels of leadership, as well as the interactions between them (Kuipers & Murphy, 2023).

Leadership by nature should be considered a multi-level phenomenon. Processes of leadership addressing societal issues occur within and between political and governmental arenas, within societies and communities, and within public and private organizations and their networks. As a result, public and political leadership can be formal and informal, hierarchical and shared, centered and distributed, with interactions between them.

This panel, part of the PUPOL Colloquium of NIG, focuses on the various types of multilevel issues, contexts, and perspectives for both public and political leadership and their outcomes – good or bad. It aims to bring together multiple disciplines and a variety of research to stimulate an interdisciplinary dialogue that will support a richer understanding of leadership. Scholars studying political leadership at local, national, and international levels are welcome to contribute, as are scholars studying administrative or community leadership within organizations, networks, and societies. By combining a variety of both empirical and conceptual research on a range of leadership topics, we hope to add a few more pieces to the broad and intriguing puzzle of leadership.

Types of papers and themes we welcome

For the panel, we welcome a broad range of papers that focus specifically on leadership in the public and political domains. We encourage participants to connect to the general theme. Types of papers and topics include, but are not limited to:

1. Contributions of leadership (e.g., political, administrative, community) to solving societal issues
2. Outcomes of leadership and effects or impacts on others (e.g., within organizations, networks, societies)
3. Dark sides of leadership or “bad” leadership and possible negative effects on society and democracy
4. Studies of both formal and more traditional forms of leadership, versus informal, shared, and distributed forms of leadership
5. Public and political leadership in various or differing contexts (e.g., comparing sectors and countries)
6. Analyses of leadership and their interactions on multiple levels
7. Novel conceptual and empirical approaches to studying public and political leadership

Chairs:

Alexander Hoppe (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) alexander.hoppe@uni-due.de
Sebastiaan Princen (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) s.b.m.princen@uu.nl
Femke van Esch (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) f.a.w.j.vanesch@uu.nl

Description of the panel and themes
European democracy is under pressure. From the outside, autocrats try to undermine European democratic governance. From within, populist and anti-democratic parties challenge established political parties and traditional (democratic-representative) governance. Those challenging European representative democracy can thrive due to an ever-growing discontent with democratic governance in (parts of) the European population. And while democracy is still by far the most popular form of government in Europe and beyond, critics point out various problems and challenges, from insufficient outputs to a growing “gap” between those who govern and those who are governed. Decreasing rates of participation through conventional instruments, especially elections, support calls for democratic innovation: the idea that established democracies need to develop new forms of involving citizens in governance processes in order to foster their legitimacy and citizen allegiance.

In response to these challenges, citizen participation has become a popular concept among academics and policy-makers alike. Promising a boost in legitimacy as well as a remedy for the growing alienation between citizens and political elites, policy-makers are eager to develop and implement instruments involving citizens beyond the sporadic vote in elections. At the same time, participatory instruments themselves face numerous challenges if they are to be more than mere window-dressing. These challenges include reaching a diverse and representative set of citizens, especially those who tend not to engage politically, as well as giving citizens the right amount of power over specific policy issues without undermining the legitimacy of existing representative structures.

Although these challenges affect participatory initiatives at each level of governance, they become even greater when participatory initiatives are part of complex, multi-level political processes. In these processes, the voice of citizens is easily lost in the maze of connected decision-making arenas and the plethora of actors and interests that play a role in them. At the same time, it seems essential to “bridge the gap” and involve citizens more directly in multi-level politics, to increase support for and strengthen the resilience of these multi-level systems in times of severe global crises. Moreover, while their complexity poses specific challenges to democratic innovations, the existence of multiple political levels also offers ample room for experimentation and learning.

In this panel, we therefore want to focus on the practices and challenges of, and the opportunities for, citizen participation in multilevel governance systems such as the EU and federal nation states. How does the embeddedness of decision-making processes within multilevel systems affect the operation and effectiveness of citizen participation? How can citizen participation be made to work in those systems? And what does this require in terms of the design of participatory processes and the way they are linked to decision-making processes?

In asking these questions, we take a broad conception of ‘multilevel systems’, as a multilevel-character has by now become a feature of politics and policy-making within as well as beyond states. There is hardly any area of policy-making that is exclusively decided at one level of governance, so that policy-making processes and the participatory initiatives associated with them usually take place in the context of related processes at other levels. By choosing this focus, we hope to bring together scholars that study citizen participation at the local, regional, national, European and (possibly) global levels, as well as the interaction between those levels.

At each of these levels, we seek to assemble conceptual frameworks and empirical studies that illustrate how citizen participation is realized, facilitated, and hindered. Conceptually, questions of democratic legitimacy may take centre-stage: is democratic innovation useful to enhance the legitimacy of multi-level systems and under which circumstances? What is a desirable role of citizens in multi-level systems? And what does participation require from policy-makers and citizens? Empirically, we invite analyses of instruments for citizen participation across different levels. The instruments and mechanisms studied can vary, from more traditional forms of participation (public consultations, referenda) to innovative forms such as citizen assemblies, or hybrid and mixed approaches at specific levels of governance or spanning multiple levels.

Types of papers and themes we welcome
We invite both theoretical and empirical (qualitative and quantitative) papers. Among others, they can

1. Conceptualize citizen participation in multi-level systems
2. Assess opportunities and challenges of instruments of citizen participation in light of legitimacy and other qualities of policy-making
3. Analyse the specific roles of different actors (citizens, policy-makers, participants) with regard to citizen participation
4. Analyze and assess existing instruments of citizen participation
5. Assess the impact of (new forms of) citizen participation on established mechanisms of representative democracy

Chairs:
Igor Pessoa (University of Twente, The Netherlands) i.pessoa@utwente.nl
Barbara Tempels (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) barbara.tempels@wur.nl
Danielle Chevalier (Leiden University, The Netherlands) d.a.m.chevalier@law.leidenuniv.nl
Tobius Arnoldussen (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) n.t.arnoldussen@tilburguniversity.edu
Tuna Tasan-Kok (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) m.t.tasankok@uva.nl

Description of the panel and themes
Cities around the world are pushing for higher densification to tackle mobility challenges, reduce environmental impact and improve life quality. Concepts like the 15-minute city became popular visions for urban policies. At the same time, in this growing densified and diverse urban environment, polarization has grown in different levels. From social and economic inequality to political fragmentation, studies have shown that polarization has been growing in cities. Living in growing densified urban areas does not necessarily lead to less polarization. The understanding of urban governance in a time of densification and at the same time polarization becomes fundamental for academics and policymakers.   

In this panel, we will look into Governance using an urban lens to address a large array of challenges related to densification and polarization. We are a multidisciplinary group, and we welcome research on, as an example but not limited to, the governance of housing provision, inclusive urban participatory methods, overcoming spatial segregation and inequality, mistrust and collaboration in cities. A few examples of questions that we will focus on are: What innovative governance models exist to manage the challenges of densification and polarization in urban environments? How can policymakers balance the need for densification with the preservation of community character and affordable housing? How extremely diverse cities are developing governance arrangements to accommodate such diversity? How does urban densification impact socioeconomic polarization in cities? What role does public infrastructure play in addressing or exacerbating urban polarization? What are the environmental implications of urban densification, and how do they intersect with issues of social equity?

Types of papers and themes we welcome
The panel welcomes a diverse array of contributions that reflect the multifaceted nature of urban governance challenges. We are open to receiving traditional academic papers that offer research and theoretical analysis, providing in-depth insights into the issues of urban densification and polarization. Additionally, we encourage submissions from practitioners who can share applied experiences and case studies, illustrating practical challenges and innovative solutions from on-the-ground perspectives. To foster a holistic and stimulating dialogue, we also invite thought-provoking essays that may not fit the conventional academic format but offer critical reflections, visionary ideas, and conceptual explorations. This blend of scholarly work, practical insights, and creative thought pieces will enrich the discussion, offering attendees a comprehensive understanding of the topic and inspiring new approaches to urban governance. It will be organized by members of the Urban Governance Research Network (UGoveRN), which has members from the fields of Public Administration, Urban Planning, Urban Design, Law, and Political Science. Most of the members are based in The Netherlands and Belgium, but we encourage the participation of researchers also with international case studies.

We propose a list of the topics to the Urban Governance Panel (non-limiting): 

1. The Impact of Urban Densification on Social Inequality and Exclusion
2. Political Polarization in Urban Governance
3. Affordable Housing Strategies in Densifying Urban Areas
4. Civic Participation and Governance in Polarized Urban Environments
5. Resilient Governance: Strategies for Managing Crisis and Conflict in Dense Urban Areas
6. The Role of Active Mobility (Cycling and Walking) in Reducing Urban Polarization
7. The Role of Public Spaces in Fostering Social Cohesion in Dense Urban Areas 
8. Urban Data Governance 

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

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 take stock of 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: What is the current state of democratic reform and backsliding, including the rise of competitive authoritarianism? Which domestic and international factors and actors impact on democratisation and public and administration reforms, and how effective is EU democracy support, given a variety of interal and external factors weaking the EU’s transformative power? What effects have 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 drawing on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches.