Abstract
This is my last editorial as editor-in-chief of the International Review of Administrative Sciences. Having succeeded Christopher Pollitt in 2013, I will have completed more than 10 years when I stand aside on 31 December 2023. At the time of writing, I do not know who will occupy the editor's chair, but whoever they are, they have my support and confidence. Over the last decade, IRAS has grown in strength, coverage and scientific integrity. I cannot take credit for this as I inherited a journal in robust good health, an integral part of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences and its constituent entities – the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA), the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA), the Latin American Group for Public Administration (LAGPA), and the Asian Group for Public Administration (AGPA) – thanks to the outstanding skill and commitment of my predecessor. Furthermore, during my tenure we have worked as an editorial team and my fellow editors deserve much of the credit:
Gene Brewer of the University of Georgia, USA Shamsul Haque of the National University of Singapore, Singapore Sabina Kuhlman of Potsdam University, Germany Martial Pasquier of the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Lausanne, Switzerland. Isabella Proeller Yves Emery.
And previous fellow editors:
In all of this and over several editors-in-chief, the incomparable Catherine Humblet has led, managed and steered the journal as it climbed the rankings and contributed to its global task to explore and explain the importance of public administration (PA) to deliver good governance in all its manifestations and innovations.
IRAS is unique in that it is also published in Chinese and in French, reaching a global audience. Over the last decade, one of our primary goals has been to ensure that the journal became sincerely global and published leading research and theory from across the world representing those of many faiths, methodologies and philosophies or none. We have made good progress and it is for my successors to decide the direction this must now take in order to promote and build upon the impact of IRAS and its representation of the many approaches found in public administration. We have published leading work on (amongst others):
E-government Co-production and co-delivery Smart cities Digital government Participatory governance and budgeting Gender budgeting New public management (NPM) and post-NPM Innovative public administration COVID-19 responses and wider emergency planning and strategies. Brazil New Zealand Belgium France Canada China South Africa Mexico Israel Hungary Greece South Korea Japan Netherlands Czech Republic Australia Turkey Hong Kong.
All of this from a range of perspectives and countries as well as theoretical and methodological standpoints. In this we are assisted and advised by the members of the Global Editorial Committee, whose participants currently represent (in addition to the countries from where the editors are drawn):
Teachers of public administration, academics, practitioners, practitioners who are also academics and academics who are also practitioners are all involved in discovering, testing and applying the great melee of examples, theories and innovations found in modern public policy and administration. We have attempted to bring these to the global family of public administration and I am grateful to everyone who has been involved during my term of office.
Looking forward, there are many challenges to address in public administration, often referred to as wicked issues or wicked problems. These include climate change, mass migration, financial turmoil, the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), understanding and regulating artificial intelligence and data-based governance, and the continuing scourge of corruption which often contributes to global inequalities. All of which present a range of challenges to policy makers and administrations. Often it can be seen that ameliorating one problem, such as climate change through (for example) seeking zero net emissions of CO2, can in fact exacerbate aspects of poverty in an unequal world. And no real progress can be made unless and until greater attention is paid to advancing genuine good governance. There are many suggestions as to how this may be attained from looking to past approaches and bringing to the fore new versions of neo-Weberianism, or de-privatisation, or conversely pressing further with dismantling what remains of the Weberian state and moving further into market-based solutions to the delivery of goods and services. There is not the space in this valedictory editorial to discuss these approaches and suggested solutions, or even to reference them all, but we are seeing the call for entrepreneurial and innovative bureaucracies and new-Weberian approaches bubbling up into contemporary literature.
I should request the forbearance of my readers at this point by finishing this editorial with further reference to Christopher Pollitt, my esteemed predecessor. Christopher always searched for ‘real world’ solutions to real-world problems and this was reflected in his copious output of learned books and articles. For Christopher, the purpose of research was to make the world a better place. In his obituary, we noted: Christopher began his professional career as a civil servant, one of the bright young people selected to enter the UK ‘Fast Stream,’ a gilded cohort that was inculcated into the culture and practice of Northcote Trevelyan in those pre-Fulton, pre-New Public Management days. He was never to forget the importance of research and analysis related to the problems of the real world and the need to evaluate what it is that the public sector actually does, rather than what it thinks it does. (Bouckaert and Massey, 2018) to say something about the field of scholarship in which I have spent three quarters of my adult working life. My belief is that, in parts of Europe at least, it is in some peril, and that we have a role to play. An EGPA survey and interview conceived by Geert Bouckaert was carried out eight years ago and showed that a strong majority of PA scholars believed both in the scientific study of the subject AND in its values and ethic of improved services for citizens from respected, well-trained and remunerated public servants. As do I. Yet today, we face rising populism, nationalism and racism. The authority, expertise and impartiality of civil servants is under attack on all sides, but what we see in academic PA is too often a retreat into scholasticism or, at the other extreme, a kind of highbrow management consultancy. Of course we need both these types, but we also need a solid core of PA scholars who practice independent, high-quality critical analysis of big things which are happening now and will happen in future (climate change, demographic change, migration). Scholars who will build and find funding for ambitious projects aimed at those issues, simultaneously growing networks of concerned scholars across disciplines and fields. And – most importantly – who communicate, not only in learned journals, but also on websites and blogs, radio and TV and the press. Many citizens really are interested in why their schools are failing or their police are corrupt, and far less so in what celebrity politicians said to each other yesterday. We should be a respected voice addressed to that appetite. (Bouckaert and Massey, 2018)