LIST OF PANELS

Robust politics and governance in turbulent times

Eva Sørensen, Jacob Torfing and Christopher Ansell

We live in turbulent times trying to cope with challenges such as pandemics, global warming, financial crises, race conflicts, opioid crisis, global migration, and international terrorism. Such turbulent problems—characterized by being complex, changing, inconsistent, uncertain and unpredictable—call for forms of politics and governance capable of responding effectively and legitimately to an unclear and moving target (Newland, 2008; Asselt and Renn, 2011; Ansell and Trondal, 2018; Ansell, Sørensen and Torfing, 2020).

When dealing with turbulent problems, elected politicians and civil servants cannot rely on predefined policy programs and emergency procedures alone, but depend on their capacity to adapt and innovate public policies and governance to fit the emerging challenges in volatile contexts.

Traditional models of party government and public bureaucracy tend to assume that politicians and civil servants know where they want to go and how to get there, and that they can reduce uncertainty through the deployment of standard operational procedures and incremental decisionmaking (Schattschneider, 1960; Tullock, 1965; Downs, 1967). Criticisms of this assumption from theories of policymaking and policy implementation, over the organizational economics supporting the New Public Management, to theories of collaborative governance tend to stress the complexity and irreducible uncertainty of public governance (Rittel and Webber 1973; Kingdon, 1984; Head 2008; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017; Peters 2017).

These strands of research aims to show how public authorities can promote legitimate and effective governance in the face of complex and uncertain problems, but they have only paid scant attention to the pressing issue of turbulence and the impact of turbulent problems on democratic politics and public governance. However, a promising attempt to address the role and impact of turbulence is found in the new and emerging research on robust politics and governance that emphasizes the need for flexible adaptation, agile modification, and pragmatic redirection of policy and governance solutions (Ferraro et al, 2015; Capano and Woo, 2017; Howlett, Capano, and Ramesh 2018).

This panel aims to explore what the concept of robust politics and governance has to offer when attempting to tackle turbulent problems and what robust politics and governance looks like in practice. Robust politics and governance refers to a systemic capacity to realize key agendas, functions, and values in the face of particular challenges, stressors, and threats, some of which are surprising or unexpected (Ansell, Sørensen and Torfing, 2020). Robustness is a property of political and administrative institutions, regulatory processes, and policy instruments.

The purpose of this panel is to bring together researchers in conceptual and theoretical discussion of issues related to turbulent problems and robust solutions and in practical reflections on the results of empirical analyses of how robust politics and governance contribute to enhancing the effectiveness and legitimacy in turbulent times.

References

Ansell, C., and Trondal, J. (2018), ‘Governing turbulence’, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance 1(1): 43‒57.

Ansell, C., Sørensen, E., and Torfing, J. (2020), ‘Covid19 as a game changer for public administration and leadership’, Public Management Review, Online First.   

Capano, G., and Woo, J.J. (2017), ‘Resilience and robustness in policy design’, Policy Sciences 50(3): 399‒426.

Downs, A. (967), Inside Bureaucracy, Boston: Little.

Ferraro, F., Etzioni, D., and Gehman, J. (2015), ‘Tackling Grand Challenges Pragmatically’, Organization Studies 36(3): 363‒90.

Head, B.W., (2008), ‘Wicked Problems in Public Policy’, Public Policy 3(2): 101­‒118.

Howlett, M., Capano, G., and Ramesh, M. (2018), ‘Designing for Robustness’, Policy and Society 37(4): 405‒21.

Kingdon, J. W. (1984), Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, Boston: Little.

Newland, C. (2008), ‘Public Administration Amid Turbulence’, International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior 11(3): 326-353.

Peters, B.G. (2017), ‘What Is So Wicked about Wicked Problems? Policy & Society 36(3): 385‒96.

Pollitt, C., and Bouckaert, G. (2017). Public Management Reform, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rittel, H.W., and Webber, M.M. (1973), ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’, Policy Sciences 4(2): 155‒69.

Schattschneider, E. E. (1960), Party Government, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Tullock, G. (1965), The Politics of Bureaucracy, Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press.

We live in turbulent times trying to cope with challenges such as pandemics, global warming, financial crises, race conflicts, opioid crisis, global migration, and international terrorism. Such turbulent problems—characterized by being complex, changing, inconsistent, uncertain and unpredictable—call for forms of politics and governance capable of responding effectively and legitimately to an unclear and moving target (Ansell and Trondal, 2018).

When dealing with turbulent problems, elected politicians and civil servants cannot rely on predefined policy programs and emergency procedures alone, but depend on their capacity to adapt and innovate public policies and governance to fit the emerging challenges in volatile contexts.

Neither traditional models of party government and public bureaucracy, nor New Public Management and collaborative governance have paid scant attention to the pressing issue of turbulence and the impact of turbulent problems on democratic politics and public governance. However, a promising attempt to address the role and impact of turbulence is found in the new and emerging research on robust politics and governance that emphasizes the need for flexible adaptation, agile modification, and pragmatic redirection of policy and governance solutions (Ferraro et al, 2015; Capano and Woo, 2017; Howlett, Capano, and Ramesh 2018).

This panel aims to explore what the concept of robust politics and governance has to offer when attempting to tackle turbulent problems. Robust politics and governance refers to a systemic capacity to realize key agendas, functions, and values in the face of particular challenges, stressors, and threats, some of which are surprising or unexpected (Ansell, Sørensen and Torfing, 2020). Robustness is a property of political and administrative institutions, regulatory processes, and policy instruments.

The purpose of the panel is to bring together researchers in conceptual and theoretical discussion of issues related to turbulent problems and robust solutions and in practical reflections on the results of empirical analyses of how robust politics and governance contribute to enhancing the effectiveness and legitimacy in turbulent times. We invite theoretical as well as empirical papers that address questions related to understanding what turbulence entails for politics and governance, what characterizes robust responses to turbulence, and the implications of turbulent strategies for our institutions, processes and policy tools.

References

Ansell, C., and Trondal, J. (2018), ‘Governing turbulence’, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance 1(1): 43‒57.

Ansell, C., Sørensen, E., and Torfing, J. (2020), ‘Covid19 as a game changer for public administration and leadership’, Public Management Review, Online First.   

Capano, G., and Woo, J.J. (2017), ‘Resilience and robustness in policy design’, Policy Sciences 50(3): 399‒426.

Ferraro, F., Etzioni, D., and Gehman, J. (2015), ‘Tackling Grand Challenges Pragmatically’, Organization Studies 36(3): 363‒90.

Howlett, M., Capano, G., and Ramesh, M. (2018), ‘Designing for Robustness’, Policy and Society 37(4): 405‒21.