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INTRODUCTION OF GUEST EDITOR
INTRODUCTION OF GUEST EDITOR
The articles of the Issue reflect the current research directions in the area
of public administration and public policy. Three waves of research have intersected recently and, in future can overlap and create some cumulative effects:
1. Research of governance in the age of Covid-19. Covid-19 has changed substantially the conditions and priorities of governance. Its impact on national legislations, on the sets of administrative measures, on economic, social and cultural behavior of people (described as the country case in the Issue in the article from Vietnam), should be analyzed comparatively and implemented into theoretic frame of innovative governance. The agile governance, flexibility and localization of decision-making, evaluation of the quality of restrictive measures and their impact on economics, creation of aid packages for most affected by Covid-19 groups of people and businesses, targeted re-shaping of national systems of healthcare, social protection and education, have become the new reality of governance. The new approaches toward risk governance based on data and objective trends description instead of a deliberative approach should be developed. Definitely, this is a challenge for existing theories of governance, especially for NPM and NPG paradigms.
2. Research of digitalization of governance through the scope of existed theories. The second wave of research is concentrated around more traditional for public administration and public policy theories, namely, organizational theory in its public organizations aspects, administrative reforms, motivation theories including PSM and commitment constructions, budgetary theories, etc. It is presented in the articles of Issue that are dedicated to administrative reforms in Indonesia, organizational commitment in China, specificity of PSM in Ghana, and fiscal "fine tuning" in Russia. In comparison with previous conditions of named theories one can see the shift of focus in these theories towards the new instruments of research, such as data analysis, and strong attention to digital instruments of governance that create new possibilities of its improvement. For the Issue, the research of governance digitalization is reflected in some subjects that show
Public Administration Issues. 2020. Special Issue II
the specificity of governance digitalization in the countries of the region from Asia and Africa to Eurasia, and Eastern and Central Europe.
3. Research of sectoral and local governance. In the Issue such a research is embracing the cases from Central and Western Europe that show the new trends in sectoral governance (time-terminated contracts for teachers in public universities, Slovakia) and in regional governance (public spaces as the role of public sector in provision of welfare services, Spain; specificity of administrative silence as not fulfillment of administrative duties by officials of local administrations in Poland). The articles, presented in the Issue, have a clear orientation to the usage of qualitative methods (data, surveys analysis, interviews), and general awareness of all authors about an improper situation and worsened conditions of governance, that are reflected in a low quality of existing administrative procedures, the improper relationships with other actors, and of weak legislation and regulatory rules.
The interference of the research waves, that are described here, can be named as the next step for public administration and public policy science: for example, the national governance cannot be aimed at pandemic risks downsizing without using the digital instruments of analysis, and it is especially vital for sectoral policies in social sphere for local initiatives evaluation. It is a new frontier for researchers who work in an extraordinary condition of governance that have become right now much more dependent on different kinds of threats, risks, on new digital instruments of decision-making, on governance that is now less sustainable and more fragmentary in its regional and sectoral aspects.
Guest editor - Alexey G. Barabashev
