LIST OF PANELS

At the end of the twentieth century, reformist processes spread over many countries aimed at undertaking changes in the state apparatus in order to make it more efficient, drawing on practices originating in private organizations. This movement, well known as New Public Management (NPM), obtained quite different outcomes, which have been explained by the diversity and complexity of the goals, as well as by the pre-existing institutional framework in the countries that influence the scope of the desired structural changes.

It is undeniable that these reforms, throughout the years, have evolved and incorporated new principles and guidelines. However, major contemporary reforms continue to employ the fundamental logic of NPM, in part because of the challenges more radical change would generate. It is also noteworthy that, given the high transaction costs and disappointing outcomes of such reforms, governments have begun to focus their efforts on pragmatic strategies of incremental changes, that is, micro-improvements or innovations in processes and services that increasingly play a central role in the public sector.

In the current age of innovation, governments focus on improving public deliveries, in a fast and effective way, in the midst of considerable economic, social, political and technological changes; increasing expectations and demands for high-quality services to citizens; enhanced demands for transparency; and budget constraints.  Additionally, the challenges of multijurisdictional issues as well as complexity and uncertainty (wicked problems) require adaptive, multidimensional, and intertemporal responses of the public officials.

In such a context, two interrelated issues stand out in the contemporary public policy debate: governance and state capacities. Both, although broad and complex research agendas, are crucial for advancing the understanding of how the public sector currently are operating and innovating in the policymaking.

Governance is probably the most emblematic feature of current public management. In different arrangements, it manages to aggregate significant trends of the post New Public Management (Cavalcante, 2017). As stated by Menicucci and Gontijo (2016, p.17): “the term has a very heterogeneous form, entrepreneurial governance, cooperative governance, good governance, participatory governance, local governance, and sociopolitical governance, among others [...] in general, governance refers to the redefinition and expansion of the forms of relationship between the State and society or between government, private agents and society, having as a distinct aspect the relational dimension” (2016, p. 17).

The emergence, diffusion and increasing use of the concept are due to processes of transformation in different types of organization. In this sense, the proliferation of meanings and uses of the term governance among academics and practitioners is associated with at least three main aspects: i) overcoming the unique responses to public issues typical of the traditional bureaucratic management; ii) growing perception of the complexity of problems, possibilities of solution and meanings of performance and accountability in the public administration; iii) negative effects of NPM reforms which led governments to rethink their intra and intergovernmental coordination strategies and their forms of articulation with the private and nongovernmental sectors.

The idea of governance gains strength by being associated with innovation in the forms of integration, coordination and articulation of governmental activities. These institutional arrangements (formal and informal) organize the relational dynamics between the multiple actors involved in the policymaking in order to produce the necessary capacities for the policy effective implementation (Capano, Howlett, Ramesh, 2014). The field of study addresses, precisely, this relationship between state capacities and policymaking.

State capacities is, at the same time, a prominent topic in the research agenda of policy analysis (Cingolani, Thomsson and Crombrugghe, 2015) as well as a critical element for fostering social, economic, environmental outcomes of the public sector (Rothstein, 2011; Fukuyama, 2014). It is closely related to the concept of effectiveness, that is, the translation of the government ability to mobilize multiple resources to achieve organizational goals (Christensen and Gazley, 2008). In this sense, the issue appears as a source of strengthening government performance, shaping policy implementation and its final outputs.

Despite the issue’s multidisciplinary status, more recently, the discussion of state capacities has reached a prominent position within the many dimensions of governance (Cingolani, 2013). Thus, the focus rests on analyses that seek to understand how these capacities, i.e., one or a combination of dimensions of state power (political, economic, administrative, innovative, etc.) are built in a governance context. In addition, other scholars aim to identify and measure government capacity deficits of the policy and decision making processes in the different combinations of possible modes of governance - hierarchy, market and networks (Howlett and Ramesh, 2015).

Therefore, the research questions that this panel addresses are: how have governments innovated in terms of capacity building and governance arrangements to deal with current and dynamic challenges? What management trends are incorporated into policymaking in the Age of Innovation? What skills and competences are required to build capacity in the state bureaucracy? How have governments been investing in generating examples of good practices of innovation in public policies in the governance context?

In the current age of innovation, governments seek to improve public service delivery in the midst of considerable economic, social, political and technological change. Citizens increasingly expect high-quality services and transparency, even as governments face budget constraints.  Additionally, the challenges of multijurisdictional issues as well as complexity and uncertainty (wicked problems) require public officials to provide adaptive, multidimensional, and intertemporal responses. In such a context, two interrelated issues stand out in the contemporary public policy debate: governance and state capacities. Both, although broad and complex research agendas, are crucial for advancing the understanding of how the public sector currently operates and innovates.

This panel addresses the following questions: how have governments innovated in terms of capacity building and governance arrangements to deal with current and dynamic challenges? What management trends are incorporated into policymaking in the Age of Innovation? What skills and competences are required to build capacity in the state bureaucracy? How have governments been investing in generating examples of good practices of innovation in public policies in the governance context?

With the intention to contribute to this relevant debate, this panel welcomes papers with different approaches – theoretical, methodological and empirical, that cover the variety of issues concerning innovation in government; governance arrangements and processes; state capacity; decision making; management of public servants; bureaucracy and coordination instruments. Additionally, we encourage researchers to present papers that discuss detailed cases studies or comparative approaches of countries or subnational levels.