LIST OF PANELS

The multidimensional aspects of the COVID crisis demanded a call for action from many societal and policy sectors. To respond to the urgencies that have extrapolated the health sector, new ties have been bonded and new governance forums have been instaured, presenting practices and senses still waiting for academic interpretation. Putting in place, among other initiatives, safe education, and basic need for homeless, have called for stronger connections between front line workers and managers. At the same time, the voice of the population calling for more equity and doubting the efficiency of governmental measures became louder.

This Panel recognizes contemporary changes in our societies that are reframing the State. We are interested to address how the citizens needs  are captured to adjust and improve complex intersectorial policies (Smits et al, 2016; Smits 2018) in time of crisis.

Methodologies to foster a direct involvement of citizens into public decisions have changed or mitigated during the COVID pandemic. Participatory-deliberatory institutional arrangements, such as the Brazilian councils and conferences (Cruz 2020), have given place to online meeting platforms, many times deepening the gap on digital disparities. Initiatives multiplies, with disappointments and complexities regarding how to keep mechanisms time efficient for the population and for managers and policy makers (Cunill-Grau, 2014).  

Challenges to keep both voices in balance, policy makers and the population, are numerous. Methodology-wise, one needs to capture precise information from the population. Also, the question of best instruments to enable authentic participation is relevant (Halpern, Lascoumes, Le Galès, 2014). Value-wise, one has to combine potentially divergent set of opinions . Ethically-wise, great care has to be taken to prevent the population cooptation by interest groups. Time-wise, the covid pandemic demonstrated that States can navigate narrow windows of opportunities to propose new policies before the population runs into crisis fatigue and lack of confidence in institutions.

We intend to generate debate around empirical and/or theoretical advances with respect to structural/cognitive/ethical aspects of governing intersectoral policies with the population, sharing arguments on new axis for research. We will prioritize papers on review, multiple cases and comparatives cases, intriguing or disturbing single case studies are also welcome. 

Therefore, the panel questions are:

In time of crisis,

1.    What has changed in the production of sociostate and multisectoral relations?  

2.    Which are the  structures, practices and values to enable governance of intersectorial policies with the population? 

3.    Who is able to participate? Why? How? 

4.    In which settings are complex policies proposals being designed with or for the population?

5.    How does digital technologies enables and/or constrain deliberative practices in the pandemic context? 

6.    Which  instruments are being mobilized to link actors and projects from multiple sectors, institutions and branches? 

7.    Which relations are produced among the actors involved in intersectoral management policies? How? 

8.    Which results have risen up from the mobilization of the population in intersectoral initiatives?

9.  What has changed in the research agenda on intersectoral policy governance with the population?

10. What theories are informative to understand the governance of intersectoral policies with the population? 

Many crisis have emerged from the coronavirus pandemic. If the health sector has received most of the attention given its core relevance to cope with the emergence, many other areas have also been challenged, for example: social assistance, due to the increased unemployment rates and new dificulties for informal workers; policies for women, specifically attention to violence against women, considering the incidents risen by the social isolation recomendation; development of specific areas of the economy, responding to the new safe sanitation practices; education, considering, among other factors, the use of digital technologies and its limits in an unequal world. Perhaps with the exception of environmental pollution, all policy areas have been facing emerging or increased problems, demanding dialogic and intersectoral responses.  This Panel recognizes contemporary changes in our societies that are reframing the State. The classic fragmented and hierarchic State structures face a hard time in the tackling of new challenges deriving from the pandemic. Public policy intersectoral management have been approached by researchers and managers as a relevant path to solve multidimensional problems. There are many inquiries regarding strategies to overcome complex (or wicked) public issues, observing coordination, instrumentation, mainstreaming, governance, common goals, articulation, decision-making or bureaucratic organization. Considering both the relevance of intersectoral management to produce effective social policies, the quest for more authentic public participation in framing public policies, and the importance of academic reflexion to understand and improve these initiatives, we encourage academic-practitioners to engage in writing their experiences, and also authors of applied researches to share their discoveries into the authentic involvement of the population in the design of complex intersectoral public policies. In order to host a forum that recognizes initiatives from around the globe, we welcome papers on specific or compared local, regional, national and also transnational population-centered intersectoral management.