La administración pública desde la perspectiva de la prevención de atrocidades en las respuestas a la COVID-19: Aprovechar la pandemia para lograr mayor equidad social

The pandemic is already forcing many individuals, businesses, and governments to rethink much of what they do and how they do it. As such, it presents an opportunity for public administrators to reimagine the criteria they use when designing and implementing programs and policies, and to more actively engage in prevention of identity-based violence. In this contribution, we suggest a new analytical lens to guide public administrators’ decision making, one informed by the theory and practice of mass atrocity prevention. This perspective recognizes that the decisions and actions of public administrators in response to the pandemic will influence whether individual countries and the global community writ large will be at increased risk of mass atrocities or if they will be more resilient and better positioned to prevent such atrocities. The COVID-19 pandemic represents both an imperative and an opportunity to reduce risks of mass atrocities, and public administrators have a vital role to play in this process.

The pandemic is already forcing many individuals, businesses, and governments to rethink much of what they do and how they do it. As such, it presents an opportunity for public administrators to reimagine the criteria they use when designing and implementing programs and policies, and to more actively engage in prevention of identity-based violence. In this contribution, we suggest a new analytical lens to guide public administrators’ decision making, one informed by the theory and practice of mass atrocity prevention. This perspective recognizes that the decisions and actions of public administrators in response to the pandemic will influence whether individual countries and the global community writ large will be at increased risk of mass atrocities or if they will be more resilient and better positioned to prevent such atrocities. The COVID-19 pandemic represents both an imperative and an opportunity to reduce risks of mass atrocities, and public administrators have a vital role to play in this process.

Article 47 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 has constitutionalised the right to be given written reasons for administrative actions and decisions. The same has been set out in Sections 4 and 6 of the Fair Administrative Action Act 2015. Based on the amber light and public administration theories, this paper argues that the right to be given reasons for decisions taken by administrative authorities has not only been used as a tool to offer legal protection to individuals adversely affected by administrative action but also helps in enhancing good public administration in Kenya. On the one hand, courts of law have considered the right to be given written reasons both as a constitutional ground for judicial review of administrative action under Article 47 of the Constitution and as a remedy available in judicial review as stated in Section 11 of the Fair Administrative Action Act. It has provided affected individuals with a basis to challenge an administrative action and decision through a judicial review process that not only preserves but also develops and progresses relevant common law principles. On the other hand, courts of law have viewed the right to be given written reasons as a tool aimed at enhancing public administration by ensuring that public administrators reflect on the lawfulness, quality, rationality, and fairness of their actions. However, the objective of Section 6 of the Fair Administrative Action Act may not be fully achieved because it does not expressly require public ad-ministrators to give adequate reasons to persons whose rights have been adversely affected by administrative action. Besides, it does not provide the criterion to be used to determine when the departure from the requirement to provide reasons for administrative actions is reasonable and justifiable.

The principle of responsibility in the Soviet and post-Soviet administrative law is primarily considered from the perspective of responsibility of a citizen to the state, rather than the responsibility of the state to a citizen. The doctrine of Russian administrative law is still based on the approach of sufficiency of restoration of formal (objective) legality through the cancellation of an unlawful administrative act by an administrative body or its invalidation by a court decision. However, for the valid restoration of rights in the sphere of public administration it is not enough to recognize such an act as illegal, it is necessary to provide valid compensation to the citizen for the harm caused by the unlawful act. Establishment in article 53 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 of the right of everyone to compensation by the state for damage caused by illegal actions (or inaction) of public authorities or officials created a constitutional basis for the development of the principle of property responsibility of public entities as a general principle of modern administrative law. This requires overcoming the dominant civilistic approach. The core of the principle is an unlawful administrative act. Consequently, the implementation of this principle directly depends on the level of development of administrative law, rather than civil law doctrines, particularly the doctrine of subjects carrying out public administration, legal forms of public administration, including the doctrine of invalidity of administrative acts. Digitalisation of public administration has a significant impact both on the organisational and legal forms of public administration and on the classical tools of public administration. Public administration, implementing functions with the use of information technologies, is characterised by a significant diversity of actors, each of which implements part of a single public function. The distributed implementation of public administration functions should not lead to the dilution or complete elimination of the property responsibility of public entities. Digital management products (algorithms, information systems, automated administrative acts) should be treated on par with classical forms of public administration (normative acts, administrative acts), which will allow applying the principle of responsibility when digital technologies are being used in public administration. Thus, the impact of digitalisation on public administration entails the need to adapt public tort law.

The topicality of the topic is due to the entry into force of the Law of Ukraine "On Administrative Procedure", which establishes unified rules for making decisions by the public administration, which are generally called administrative acts. The purpose of the article is to study the nature of administrative acts by highlighting their features, which will have not only theoretical, but also practical significance. The research uses methods of legal analysis and synthesis, comparative-legal, systemic-structural. It has been established that the external orientation of an administrative act means that the administrative body addresses its prescriptions to a person who is outside the public administration and does not have a labor or official relationship with it. It was established that the administrative act is a legal act, as it is based on the prescriptions of legislative acts; on this basis, it differs from actual actions. The difference between administrative and technical acts or simple acts in the field of public law is indicated. It was determined that the decision to refuse to meet the requirements of a person is a negative administrative act. It is emphasized that an administrative act is a decision in the field of public law; the theory of interests, the theory of subordination, and the theory of subjects were used to distinguish between public and private law. The subject of the adoption of an administrative act is the body performing the functions of public administration. It is noted that the functional approach embedded in his understanding allows him to consider both subjects of delegated powers, specially created commissions, and private individuals, if the legislator has empowered them to carry out public administration. It is emphasized that the legislator determines which acts are not administrative. On the basis of the conducted research, conclusions were formulated regarding the features of administrative acts, which include the following: external orientation, legal act, sphere of public law, adopted by the body, applies to an individually determined person or persons, establishes, changes or terminates legal relations or establishes the actual state, is not one from the decisions specified in the negative part of the definition of an administrative act or the adoption of which is not covered by the law. Recommendations are given regarding the use in practice of the features of an administrative act as criteria for determining the nature of the body's decision/action.

Since the 1950s, a great deal of American public administrative practice has been constitutionalized, or regulated directly by constitutional (Rosenbloom, 1983). Concomitantly, the Supreme Court has emphasized that a reasonably competent public official should know the governing his and has ruled that almost all public administrators can be held personally liable for conduct that violates clearly established ... constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known (Harlow v. Fitzgerald 1982; 818). In recent years, however, the quest for clear constitutional principles in public administration has been frustrated by the Supreme Court's own fragmentation. In some cases, the justices, efforts to paper over the divisions in their ranks with general terms have led to decisions that dissenting justices have found devoid of any principles which will either instruct or endure (Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 1985; 562, Chief Justice Rehnquist), by rule, and hence ungoverned by law (Morrison v. Olson, 1988; 733, Justice Scalia), and so devoid of content as to produce[] rather than eliminate[] uncertainty (O'Connor v. Ortega, 1987; 73; Justice Scalia). Some of the Court's holdings have also been obscured by a plethora of separate opinions and partial concurrences and dissents. Consider, for example, the following headnote: O'Connor, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III-B, and IV, in which Rehnquist, C.J., and White, Stevens, and Kennedy, JJ., joined, an opinion with respect to Part II, in which Rehnquist, C,J., and White, J., joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts III-A and V, in which Rehnquist, C.J., and White and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Stevens, J.,...and Kennedy, J.,... filed opinions concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.... Marshall, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan and Blackmun, JJ., joined.... Blackmun, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan, J., joined ... (City of Richmond v. Croson, 1989). Key decisions during the October 1993 term illustrate the Court's tendency to couple constitutionalization with turbidity. The Court handed down groundbreaking decisions on the Fifth Amendment's protection of real property rights and on public employees' freedom of speech. But it articulated standards that are too fuzzy to be used effectively as a guide to administrative action. Further, based on the justices' voting, it appears that narrow majorities used the Fifth Amendment as a device to outlaw administrative action to which they are opposed without displaying a serious commitment to property rights per se. Although some ambiguity is inevitable and has always been present, vague constitutional standards and values are bound to be problematic when the administrative emphasis is on employee empowerment and public entrepreneurship. The Fifth Amendment: Take It or Leave It? Dating from the 1950s, the constitutionalization of new property, such as welfare benefits, public employment, and occupational and other licenses, has revolutionized American public administration (Reich, 1964; Rosenbloom, 1983). It is anomalous that property has sometimes enjoyed greater constitutional protection than traditional, or real property. During the 1993 term, the Supreme Court moved to restrain constitutionally administrative action in civil forfeitures and individual zoning decisions, thereby affording more protection to landowners in seizure and cases. However, the Court's standard with regard to takings is inherently unclear and openly invites litigation. Its divisions also reveal less interest in property owners rights than in constraining administrative action found objectionable by one or another line-up of justices. Consequently, its decisions do not clearly signal to public administrators that real property rights are to be highly valued. …

This paper examines the relationship between public administration and the principle of the rule of law, with particular attention to the interplay between legality and discretionary decision-making within administrative action and procedure. The underlying idea is that public administration is not merely an instrument of the executive branch or an apparatus serving the ruling elite, but one of the key bearers of responsibility for ensuring the rule of law in a modern society. Special attention is devoted to the question of how an administrative system can achieve a balance between, on the one hand, the need for efficient and flexible administrative decision-making and, on the other, the need to uphold the principle of legality and maintain oversight of administrative authorities. In this regard, the paper addresses several aspects, such as the theoretical reach of the concept of the rule of law, the normative framework of discretionary powers, as well as certain contemporary challenges related to legality and the rule of law. The aim of this paper is to examine how the rule-of-law principle shapes administrative procedure and standards of administrative action, while also highlighting specific risks and threats to rights, particularly in situations where, in the name of “efficiency” or various competing interests, departures from the principle of legality occur. The paper seeks to provide a general analysis of different aspects of the rule of law in public administration and to propose certain recommendations for improving the principle of legality and strengthening the rule-of-law framework in administrative action, with the objective of ensuring greater legal certainty and enhancing citizens’ trust in the work of public administration. In doing so, the paper emphasizes the significance of the rule of law as a key measure of legitimacy in administrative action within a modern constitutional state.

The purpose of the research is to find out the subject of regulation and scope of the Law of Ukraine «on Administrative Procedure», as well as the directions of activity where this law does not work. Methods. The research was carried out by means of the method of formal logic, formal-legal analysis, analysis of legal categories and understanding and their correlation, which allowed to give answers to the questions outlined in the purpose of this scientific investigation. Results. The importance of the Law of Ukraine «on Administrative Procedure» to regulate relations between public administration and private person is emphasized. Its European integration essence is underlined. The importance of administrative procedure for public administration is analyzed. The emphasis was placed on the need for law enforcement activities to define the subject of legal regulation and the scope of the law. Analysis of such fundamental provisions of the law on administrative procedure as administrative case, publicity of legal relations, rights, freedoms and lawful interests of the person, duties of the person, administrative body, functions of public administration, administrative act was made. Their essence and meaning is drawn. The position on the possibility of realization and protection in administrative proceeding of legal interests of the person is substantiated. An approach to understanding the administrative body in its functional context has been formulated. Types of administrative acts are given. The scope of the Law of Ukraine “on Administrative Procedure” and the exceptions to it are outlined. Conclusions. The definition of the subject of regulation and scope of the Law of Ukraine «on Administrative Procedure» is important for law enforcement, as it allows to outline the nature of public relations and the spheres of activity that will be regulated by the LAP. The category «administrative body» is characterized by functional purpose, which has a consequence of expansion of the circle of subjects whose activity is subject to regulatory influence on the part of the LAP. With the adoption of the LAP, the realization and protection of legal interests of the person through the implementation of administrative proceedings have received legal regulation. This opens up opportunities for the settlement of administrative cases involving interested persons, which will allow to take into account the interests of all participants of the proceeding and to adopt administrative act that will satisfy public interests and needs of persons. An administrative act should be understood as a decision or legally significant action on granting a person a right, its realization, assigning to a person the duty stipulated by the law, refusing to exercise the right, about early termination of the act, which is carried out by its cancellation, withdrawal or recognition as invalid. The scope of the LAP is public administration, with the exception of the relations established by the law from its effect.

The thesis aims at inquiring into the issue of innovation and organizational and institutional change in the public administration with regard to the increasingly massive adoption of participatory devices and practices in various arenas of public policies. The field of reference regards transformations of the types of public actions and regulation systems, concerning governance. Together with the crisis of the public function and of the role played by the insitutions what is emerging are different levels of governement, both towards an over national and a local direction, and a plurality of social interlocutors, followed by a post-bureaucratic pattern of the public administration that is opening itself in the direction of environment and citizens. The public adminstration is no longer considered an inert object within the bureaucratic paradigm but as a series of communicative processes, choices, cultures and practices that actively builds itself and the environment it interacts with. Therefore, the output of the public administration isn’t the simple service being supplied but the relationship enacted with the citizen, relationship that becomes the constituent basis of adminstrative processes. The intention of thesis is to take into consideration the relation between innovation of the public administration and participatory experimentations and implementations regarded as exchanges in which citizens and the public administration hold talks and debates. The issue of the organizational change of the public administration as output and effect of inclusive deliberative practices has been analysed starting from an institutionalist approach, in other words examining the constituent features of institutions, “rediscovering” them with regard to their public nature, their ability to elaborate collective values and meanings, the social definition of problems and solutions. The participatory device employed by the Forli city council that involved enterprises and cultural associations of the area in order to build a participatory Table, has been studied through a qualitative methodology (participant observation and semi-strutctured interviews). The analysis inquired into the public nature both of the participatory device and the administrative action itself as well as into elements pertaining the deliberative setting, the regulative reference framework and the actors which took part in the process.

Both bureaucratic and democratic ideals are essential elements of the public administration ethos, yet these two sets of ideals have not been effectively integrated in an ethic of public administration. Ethics has been approached primarily from a rule-oriented bureaucratic perspective that gives little guidance to administrators who wish to promote democratic ideals and function ethically in an increasingly political administrative role. This article suggests that ethics can be approached, instead from a political perspective that recognizes public administrators as political authorities legitimated and constrained by the same belief system that legitimates and constrains elected and judicial officials. Approaching ethics from a political perspective permits administrators to pursue democratic ideals by exercising political judgment and participating in the political process of policy making. At the same time, a political ethic of public administration establishes constraints on such administrative activity through a recognition that bureaucratic values are essential to the legitimacy of public administration. Therefore, active involvement in the political environment is ethical only in the pursuit of democratic values and only if it does not undermine the legitimacy of public administration. Professional ethics can be understood as the set of ideal standards whose purpose is to translate the profession's ethos (the fundamental principles, rules, and ideals that form its distinctive character) into everyday practice. Public administrators are still striving to develop an understanding of the ethics of their profession, not because it is so new, but because understanding of the profession and its role in government has changed dramatically over the years. The perception of administration as a managerial endeavor separate from politics has been largely abandoned in favor of the view that public administration is inescapably a part of politics; administrative action is no longer viewed as value neutral but rather as heavily value laden. Although the ethic of “neutral competence” effectively translated the ideal of a politics/administration dichotomy into practice, when that ideal was no longer accepted as descriptive of administrative reality, the search began for a new ethic of public administration. Such was the state of discourse about public administration ethics 20 years ago at the time of the original Minnowbrook conference. Then, a group of faculty members, denying the possibility of a value-free science of administration, set out to define a new, and more egalitarian, ethic of public administration. Since that time many others have joined in the effort to illuminate the meaning of the public administrator's role in government, the ideals associated with the profession, and its ethics and responsibilities. Even so, many still view public administration ethics as ambiguous and confusing. This article is an interpretation of the complex set of ideals that make up the ethos of public administration, followed by the suggestion that a different perspective on administrative ethics must be adopted if professional ideals are to be translated into practice. Such a change is needed to move public administration ethics beyond its present state of confusion.

Public administrators receive stories from variety of sources: other public administrators, elected officials, subordinates in their organizations and in other organizations, and citizens. By listening to stories, administrators can improve services, interactions with citizens, and the operation of their agencies. Public administrators can even become more responsive as they classify, react, and take action according to the stories that they hear. Hummel defines story as a report about an event, situation, little world, as seen through the of the story-teller who reports about his relations with an object or objects in that (1991, 37). Stories are form of knowledge through which public administrators can expand their worlds and modify their definitions of reality. This research examines public administrators' responses to stories told by citizens and addresses the following questions. What are the categories of knowledge public administrators can find in stories? Are certain types of knowledge more useful than others? How do public administrators react to stories? Are some reactions more appropriate than others? How does knowledge from stories get put into action? What, if any, are the links among the types of knowledge, reactions, and actions? The Stories Citizens' stories were collected in surveys and interviews as described in the methodology box. Two city managers and two assistant city managers (hereafter referred to as managers) received statistical reports about survey results and the texts of two types of stories. The first type was stories from the telephone survey. These usually consisted of brief responses to open-ended questions. The conciseness of the stories does not make them insignificant. In examining stories told by public managers about working with elected officials, Maynard-Moody and Kelly (1993, 72) say: Although they are often brief, they provide glimpse into the complex and cloudy world of public management. In total, these stories filled 239 pages. The second type of story came from the personal interviews. These stories were more complete, more thoughtful, and often filled with detailed experiences that the respondents had had with the cities. These stories filled 62 pages. Both types of citizen stories were received as credible sources of knowledge by the managers. Three of the four managers found the stories they received more informative than the statistical reports. One manager commented, It was all very helpful, but I used more of the open-ended comments, than I the percentage information. I used [the percentage information] in general, in the generalization of issues. Another manager commented: our overall perception from the statistics is that most of the citizens are happy with the services that we provide....[The statistical information] was tool to be used for policy, denoting the areas where the citizens were not satisfied. The comments [stories] allowed us to pinpoint exactly what it was the people were unhappy about. Categories of Knowledge from Citizen Information Few scholars devoted attention to categories of knowledge, and those who (e.g., Schmidt, 1993) have been largely ignored by scientists and positivist philosophers of science (White and Adams, 1995, 10). Lack of attention does not mean lack of importance. Our study documents that categories of knowledge exist, and different categories of knowledge lead to different administrative actions and reactions. Taken together, recognition of the categories of knowledge allows managers to learn through the eyes of the citizens. Our analysis of the stories and discussions with the managers revealed seven categories of knowledge, each of which will be discussed in the following sections. Crowd Knowledge Crowd knowledge parallels Schmidt's (1993) feel for the whole. …

Mass atrocities constitute a “wicked” problem that warrants greater attention from public administration scholars. The role bureaucrats have in committing or contributing to mass atrocities is well documented, yet bureaucrats also have the potential to play crucial roles in stopping current, preventing future, and responding to past atrocities. Despite the central role of public administrators in mass atrocities and prevention, public administration scholarship is largely silent on such topics, effectively ceding this problem to other disciplines and professions. Using three pressing challenges facing atrocity prevention practitioners and scholars as examples, this article illustrates how public administration theories and public administrators in practice can contribute to prevention by focusing their attention on upstream (before conflict) stages. The overarching goal is to frame atrocity prevention in terms that will resonate with public administration scholars while also providing a roadmap for the field's engagement with these issues.

The article deals with the public administration of the local executive authorities in the context of European in-tegration and decentralization of power. The implementation of public administration by local state administrations involves satisfying the basic needs of society, the balance between the rights and interests of those to whom the actions of public administration are directed, and the interests of society as a whole.It is noted that public administration of the local executive authorities is carried out through executive and ad-ministrative activities and the provision of administrative services. Through public administration, local public ad-ministrations ensure an open process of policy-making and implementation, involving individuals and civil society, which contributes to greater openness, accountability and responsibilityIt is concluded that public administration by local state executive authorities is an external form of exercising power in the relevant administrative-territorial unit, which ensures compliance with Ukrainian legislation, law and order, observance of citizens’ rights and freedoms, implementation of state and regional programs of socio-econom-ic and cultural development, environmental protection programs, the implementation of other powers granted by the state, as well as those delegated by the respective councils. Attention is drawn to the fact that, in connection with the decentralization of power, to improve the system of ter-ritorial organization of power and improve the management of public development, from the beginning of January 2022, public administration by the local executive authorities will be limited exclusively to executive management. In addition, in the context of European integration the transposition of European standards to the activity, the im-plementation of State policy and national programs of economic, scientific and technical, social, ethnic and cultural development and environmental protection by the relevant administrative and territorial unit are a priority for the effective operation of local executive authorities

In recent decades, technological innovations have significantly changed the behavior of the state and society. Consequently, technological development has had a huge impact on public administration activities, since the development of technology and their integration are mostly related to the need for electronic governance[1]. Digitization of processes, switching to electronic forms, and sometimes automation have become necessary. Digitalization and automation must be discussed independently of each other as digitalization of the same digital governance is an important prerequisite for automating the public administration process[2]. The article analyzes the extent to which the automated decision meets the requirements of the administrative act and how the automated actions of the state affect the procedures and its basic principles. The article refers to the importance of automated production and the forms of applying an administrative act on its basis, definitions of electronic and automated acts, and the difference between them. The special focus is on the legal problems and challenges of a fully automated act issued by an administrative body in implementing public administration, and its constitutional-legal grounds [1] E-governance, or digital governance, is associated with the introduction of innovations and technologies in the field of public administration. [2] Tskhadadze K., E-Government Implementation on the Example of Georgia, TalTech Journal of European Studies, 14(1), 2024, 254.

The literature in public administration advances three important values for public administrators. In their roles as technical experts, public administrators are professionals whose decisions are guided by the norms and principles of the public administration profession. In their roles as appointed officials, public administrators are expected to be responsive to their elected superiors. As representatives of the community, they are expected to voice the concerns and demands of citizens. Professionalism, responsiveness, and representation all are considered fundamental values that must be reflected in administrative decisions and actions. Despite the importance of these three values for public administration, insufficient empirical research has been done to examine what these values mean for public administrators. That is, the critical question that remains unanswered is: “What activities of public administrators are associated with these three values?” Based on a nationwide survey of city managers, this article identifies critical activities in which public administrators get involved, then reduces these activities into factors (dimensions), and finally examines the correlation of these factors with attitudes of city managers towards professionalism, responsiveness, and representation. The findings of this research help make these three values more concrete by associating them with major policy and political activities of city managers.