The author declares no conflicts of interest.

ABSTRACT Innovation is desirable for the public sector. Yet understanding what and how some innovation projects survive and thrive in a competitive landscape—or public sector innovation—is often challenging. The challenges not only rest in the invisibility of the features of an innovation to human eyes but also in the lack of their accessibility for analysis. This study showcases a methodological framework using a generative pre‐trained transformer (GPT) for scale development and synthetic data generation to measure, predict, retrodict, and calibrate innovation outcomes using real‐world and synthetic data and a human‐in‐the‐loop process. This study demonstrates the epistemic gains of the framework in predicting and manipulating competitive texts to simulate the past, present, and possibly the future. The approach offers avenues for future research on a wide range of competitive phenomena using large‐scale text analysis across the social sciences.

ABSTRACT Democratic backsliding raises new challenges for bureaucracies as politicians undermine democratic institutions and the rule of law. Although bureaucracies can play a central safeguarding role, little is known about the organizational conditions that foster resistance to undemocratic pressure. This study tests whether organizational networks (peers and professional associations) and resources (expertise and voice mechanisms) influence bureaucrats' willingness to oppose undemocratic demands from political superiors. Drawing on a preregistered conjoint survey experiment with Brazilian bureaucrats ( N = 2481; 14,886 evaluations), we find that support from peers, professional associations, and credible voice channels increases open resistance, whereas peer disagreement reduces silent resistance. This study is among the first large‐scale survey experiments to manipulate organizational attributes in democratic backsliding. We advance scholarship by developing a meso‐level organizational framework that connects networks and resources to micro‐level resistance, bridging research on democratic backsliding and behavioral public administration, and providing practical guidance for strengthening democratic guardianship in organizations.

ABSTRACT Public services, public servants, and the study of Public Administration are operating in a context of global turbulence. Our review of the state of the discipline suggests that a core strength of British Public Administration has been the complementarity between scholarship and practice, responding to existential threats. We analyze changing relationships between the discipline and practice in British public administration over three eras: Applied, fragmented, and impactful. The applied era saw mutual exchange, but a lack of criticality. The fragmented era was one of a retreat to over‐specialization and identity crises. The impactful era has tried to revivify synergies but has struggled for coherence and criticality. Looking to the future, the nascent sub‐field of Positive Public Administration is identified as providing an opportunity to radically redefine the scientific quality and social relevance of the discipline due to the way it blends constructive engagement with independent criticality.

ABSTRACT We examine how formal and informal institutional logics interact to shape the effectiveness of Collaborative Environmental Governance (CEG). Using fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of 34 CEG projects in Indonesia, we identify three distinct pathways to effectiveness: co‐faith‐based, multifaith‐collaborative, and secular‐market, each reflecting a unique configuration of authority, market, and social and community logics. Importantly, our findings challenge essentialist views of religion by reconceptualizing it as a context‐dependent institutional logic that can enable or constrain collaboration depending on its institutional embeddedness. Religion represents a dynamic informal force, especially salient where formal institutions are underdeveloped or contested. These insights extend theories of institutional design and collaborative governance, particularly in culturally diverse and institutionally uneven settings. Our study offers practical implications for designing context‐sensitive CEG systems, emphasizing the importance of inclusive leadership and institutional alignment.