Call for Papers

Governments and societies are nowadays increasingly challenged by new and disruptive problems (Boin&Lodge, 2016; Ansell et al., 2017; Ansell & Trondal, 2018; Boin et al., 2021; Gofen et al., 2021) which are often referred to as turbulence (Ansell and Trondal 2018). There is widespread consensus around the need to address such turbulence through robust actions (Leifer, 1991; Padgett & Ansell, 1993; Capano and Woo, 2018; Ferraro et al., 2015; Howlett et al., 2018; Ansell et al., 2020), i.e. actions that are able to “uphold or realize a public agenda, function, or value in the face of the challenge and stress from turbulent events and processes through flexible adaptation, agile modification, and pragmatic redirection” of policies and governance practices (Ansell et al., 2020, p. 952).
 
Drawing from different disciplines and perspectives, scholars have explored different dimensions of robustness, including robust politics, to pragmatically formulate and re-formulate policies in the face of change (Ansell & Trondal, 2018; Capano & Woo, 2018; Howlett et al., 2018); flexible organizations based on decentralized networks (Padgett & Ansell, 1993; Kenis et al., 2019); and communication strategies fostering a sense of civicness and citizens' support despite continuous change (Boin et al., 2021). One such perspective looks specifically at robust governance, which aims at agile modification and flexible adaptation of strategies and decisions (Ansell, Sørensen and Torfing, 2020; 2022). The ability to promptly re-invent, adapt and innovate policies and practices, so as to provide effective and rapid responses to always new unforeseen and unpredictable needs, seems, in fact, to have become a critical issue for governments (Ansell et al. 2020).
 
Moreover, as noted by Ferraro et al. (2015, p. 380), “solutions to grand challenges will necessarily involve individuals, companies, governments and institutions”, with a growing need to “rethink how to conceptualise the role of large corporations in this network of action”. One of the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is that going back to the way things were is sometimes neither possible, nor desirable. In these situations, a shift from “bouncing back” to “building back better” seems to be necessary, together with a change towards robust governance (Ansell et al. 2022). How to build such robust governance, therefore, is now of critical importance from the viewpoint of both academics and practitioners.
 
This sub-theme aims to explore how robust governance may be designed, created and/or co-created, facilitated, and assessed, with a particular focus on the structures, processes and leadership roles and practices that characterise it. Moreover, while these three conceptual dimensions are to be kept distinct for analytical purposes, they are obviously closely related, and therefore likely to combine in ways that may be beneficial – or detrimental – to robust governance. The exploration of possible combinations of such factors and their components, for instance through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) (Rihoux & Ragin, 2009; Schneider & Wagemann, 2012), is therefore desirable. It also reflects the effort embodied by the general theme of the conference, aimed at focusing on the dynamics that may arise at the crossroads of different objects, so as to improve our knowledge and understanding of such dynamics. A better understanding of how structures, processes and leadership – and especially their combination/interaction - influence robust governance will ultimately contribute to actors’ ability to face current and future turbulence.
 
We welcome theoretical and empirical papers focusing on issues such as:

• The transformation of structures and processes, both at the intra- and inter-organizational level, in a direction that supports a more robust governance, and the determinants of such transformation (Steelman et al. 2021; Cristofoli et al 2022; Trondall, 2022).

• The evolution of political and organizational leadership towards ‘distributed’ (Bolden, 2011) ‘horizontal’ (Van Wart, 2013) and ‘integrative’ (Crosby et al. 2017) models and practices, and how such evolution impacts on robust governance.

• The use of platforms (digital and/or physical) which may be relied upon both at the intra- and inter-organizational level to facilitate the establishment of robust governance by providing resources, infrastructures and direction (Ansell and Gash, 2017).

• The relationship between administrative robustness, as capacity to “continue to get things done” in the face of turbulence, and political robustness, as capacity to respond to political struggles when new forms of political agency emerge (Sørensen & Ansell, 2021).

• The effect of individual-level variables such as values (Esteve et al. 2015), personality traits (Hirsh and Peterson 2009) and affective states (Barsade and Gibson 2007; Casciaro et al. 2015) on inter-organizational collaboration and robust governance.

References

• Ansell, C, Sørensen, E, Torfing, J. (2017). Improving policy implementation through collaborative policymaking. Policy & Politics, 45(3): 467–86.
• Ansell, C. & Gash, A. (2017) Collaborative platforms as a governance strategy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 28 (1), 16–32.
• Ansell, C., Sørensen, E., Torfing, J. (2020). Covid19 as a game changer for public administration and leadership. Public Management Review, 23(7): 949-960.
• Ansell, C., Trondal, J. (2018), Governing turbulence. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 1(1): 43‒57.
• Barsade, S. G., & Gibson, D. E. (2007). Why does affect matter in organizations? The Academy of Management Perspectives, 21(1), 36–59.
• Boin A., McConnell A., 't Hart P. (2021). Governing the Pandemic. The Politics of Navigating a Mega-Crisis. Palgrave Pivot.
• Boin, A. and Lodge, M. (2016), Designing Resilient Institutions for Transboundary Crisis Management: A Time For Public Administration. Public Administration, 94(2): 289-298.
• Bolden, R. (2011) Distributed Leadership in Organizations: A Review of Theory and Research. International Journal of Management Reviews. 13 (3), 251–269.
• Capano G., Woo J.J. (2018). Designing policy robustness: outputs and processes. Policy and Society, 37(4): 422-440.
• Casciaro T., Sigal G. Barsade, Amy C. Edmondson, Cristina B. Gibson, David Krackhardt, Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca. (2015). The Integration of Psychological and Network Perspectives in Organizational Scholarship. Organization Science. 26 (4), pp. 1162-1176.
• Cristofoli D., M. Cucciniello, M. Micacchi, B. Trivellato, A. Turrini, G. Valotti (2022). “One, none and a hundred thousand” recipes for a robust response to turbulence. Public Administration, 1– 8. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12870.
• Crosby, B.C., ‘t Hart, P. and Torfing, J. (2017) ‘Public value creation through collaborative innovation’, Public Management Review, 19: 655-669.
• Esteve M, van Witteloostuijn A & G Boyne. (2015). The effects of public service motivation on collaborative behavior: evidence from three experimental games. International Public Management Journal, 18: 2.
• Ferraro F., Etzion D., Gehman J. (2015). Tackling Grand Challenges Pragmatically: Robust Action Revisited. Organization Studies, 36 (3), 363-390.
• Gofen, A., Lotta, G., & Marchesini da Costa, M. (2021). Working through the fog of a pandemic: Street-level policy entrepreneurship in times of crises. Public Administration, 99(3), 484– 499.
• Hirsh, J. B., & Peterson, J. B. (2009). Personality and language use in self-narratives. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(3), 524–527.
• Howlett M., Capano G. & Ramesh M. (2018). Designing for robustness: surprise, agility and improvisation in policy design. Policy and Society, 37:4: 405-421.
• Kenis P., Schol L.G.C., Kraaij-Dirkzwager M.M. Timen A. (2019). Appropriate Governance Responses to Infectious Disease Threats: Developing Working Hypotheses. Risk, Hazards & Crisis, Public Policy, 10(3): 275-293.
• Leifer, E. M. (1991). Actors as observers: A theory of skill in social relationships. New York, NY: Garland.
• Padgett, J. F., & Ansell, C. K. (1993). Robust action and the rise of the Medici, 1400–1434. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 1259–1319.
• Rihoux, B. & Ragin, C.C. (Eds.). (2009) Configurational comparative methods. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and related techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Schneider, C.Q. & Wagemann, C. (2012) Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences: a guide to qualitative comparative analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Steelman T., Nowell B., Velez A., Scott R. (2021). Pathways of Representation in Network Governance: Evidence from Multi-Jurisdictional Disasters, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 31(4): 723–739.
• Sørensen, E., & Ansell, C. (2021). Towards a Concept of Political Robustness. Political Studies, 0(0).
• Trondal, J. (2022). “Let's organize”: The organizational basis for stable public governance. Public Administration, 1– 20. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12858
• Van Wart, M. (2013) Lessons from leadership theory and the contemporary challenges of leaders. Public Administration Review. 73 (4), 553–565.
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