Comparative Public Administration Research Articles

Devolution and local government: 25 years beyond the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement

ABSTRACT In the 25 years since the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, there has been an extensive focus on the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland. However, less attention has been paid to the subsequent overhaul of the wider system of public administration in the province, in particular local government. In 2015, a reformed local government system was introduced in Northern Ireland (NI), supposedly heralding a period of ‘super councils’. Using a framework developed by Kuhlmann and Wollmann (2019 [Introduction to Comparative Public Administration. 2nd ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar]) for the comparative study of public administration, specifically local government, the article evaluates the significance of the reforms in Northern Ireland and the possible further enhancement of local authority powers, particular during the continued disruption in, or absence of, devolved institutions. In highlighting what continues to be a fundamental imbalance in regional governance within Northern Ireland, the article concludes that the system remains characterized by marginalized local government, with a consequential impact on the quality of public services and associated outcomes.

History of Comparative Public Administration

This paper seeks to assess the history of comparative public administration and considers some of the main explanations for the importance of comparison in public administration and the development of comparative studies after World War II. It also explains the characteristics, decline, future expectations, and options that highlight the development of comparative politics and public administration. The study revisited the historical development of comparative public administration in many ways in academic literature, including scientific and modern eras, and analyzed previous research and theories. After examining various dimensions, the study argues that there is a dearth of data regarding the history of comparative public administration in less developed countries, but that the majority of these nations are eager and persistent to apply the existing administration systems developed by western countries. The study revealed that Britain, India, and France have significant bureaucrats who have stronger authority than elected officials in terms of administrative and policy decisions.

The Global Survey of Public Servants: Evidence from 1,300,000 Public Servants in 1,300 Government Institutions in 23 Countries

AbstractUnderstanding how public administrations around the world function and differ is crucial for strengthening their effectiveness. Most comparative measures of bureaucracy rely on surveys of experts, households, or firms, rather than directly questioning bureaucrats. Direct surveys of public officials create granular data for analysis and government action, so are becoming a cornerstone of public sector management. This article introduces the Global Survey of Public Servants (GSPS), a global initiative to collect and harmonize large‐scale, comparable survey data on public servants. The corresponding GSPS data set currently contains responses from 1,300,000+ bureaucrats in 1,300+ government institutions in 23 countries. The surveys measure both employee attitudes (such as job satisfaction and motivation), and their experience with management practices (such as recruitment and performance management). This harmonized data enables governments to benchmark themselves and scholars to study comparative public administration and the state differently, based on micro‐data from actors who experience government first‐hand.

Perbandingan Sistem Kepegawaian Aparatur Sipil Negara Jepang dan Indonesia

Comparing the civil service system is a topic of discussion in comparative public administration. This article compares the civil service systems in Japan and Indonesia in order to draw some useful conclusions for the latter. The Indonesian civil service's total staff, independent institution in charge of the civil system, merit-based hiring, performance-based promotions, and salary structure based on workload, responsibility, and work complexity are all beneficial lessons. Workplace culture is a means of constructing good governance, specifically, a solid and responsible development management that adheres to democratic principles. Efficient market, avoidance of erroneous investment fund allocation, good political and administrative practices in the fight against corruption, implementation of budgetary restraint, and development of a legal and a political framework for expanding the scope of work.

Administrative characteristics and timing of governments' crisis responses: A global study of early reactions to COVID-19.

In a crisis, fast reaction is key. But what can public administration tell us about this? This study develops a theoretical framework explaining how administrative characteristics, including fragmentation, capacities, legacies and learning, affect governments' response timing. The COVID-19 pandemic is exploited as a unique empirical setting to test this framework and its scope conditions. Region fixed-effects models and survival analysis of partly hand collected data for more than 150 national governments confirm some limited predictive power of administrative structures and traditions: Especially in developing countries, governments with a separate ministry of health adopted binding containment measures faster. Countries with hierarchical administrative traditions, for example, socialist, adopted some interventions like school closures faster than more liberal traditions, for example, Anglo-American. These characteristics increase threat perception and availability of a response, respectively. Results also suggest that intracrisis and intercrisis learning supply governments with response options. The study advances comparative public administration and crisis research.

Introduction to the symposium on international and comparative public administration education

Introduction to the symposium on international and comparative public administration education

Pedagogical approaches to comparative public administration and policy: A study of NASPAA programs with a specialization in global/comparative administration

ABSTRACT This paper describes the pedagogical efforts of 67 NASPAA programs offering a specialization in global/comparative administration and policy. A web content analysis of course and concentration titles, course descriptions and syllabi of 67 programs with this specialization showed that across all programs, 52 unique concentrations were offered, and graduate students had access to 279 courses as core and elective offerings. This paper explores the specific pedagogical efforts undertaken to introduce comparative administration and policy concepts to graduate students. Implications of this study for graduate education in public affairs are discussed.

Street-level bureaucracy in weak state institutions: a systematic review of the literature

The study of street-level bureaucracy has been dominated by research from the Global North. Mainstream conceptualizations are, therefore, based on observations from institutional contexts that may vary significantly from the working conditions of frontline workers elsewhere. This article takes stock of the growing body of literature on street-level bureaucracy in weak institutional contexts and brings together relevant insights from comparative political science and public administration into a coherent analytical framework. We identify four institutional factors that shape frontline working conditions and three behavioral patterns in frontline worker agency. These patterns in frontline agency – ranging from policy improvisation to informal privatization – can be understood as an institutional waterbed effect caused by institutional deficiencies, such as resource scarcity and accountability gaps: if the complexity of public service provision is not tackled at the institutional level, it is pushed towards the street-level where frontline workers cope with it in highly diverse ways. Points for practitioners Frontline workers in weak state institutions are commonly faced with highly precarious working conditions. If the structural preconditions for policy implementation and rule enforcement are unresolved, these complexities are pushed towards frontline workers that cope with them through informal privatization, policy improvisation, or alienative commitment focused on mere job survival. Frontline agency is an indispensable factor for understanding the selective and often distributive nature of service delivery and rule enforcement in the Global South.

Globalizing public affairs education: The role of comparative public administration in the MPA classroom

ABSTRACT Master of Public Administration (MPA) alumni face increasingly diverse and global professional expectations. Public affairs specialists generally go on to manage complex partnerships that involve a wide array of participants. Public administration education ought to do its part to ensure these graduates succeed. In this sense, we offer comparative public administration (CPA) as an effective, multipurpose tool for disassembling public monuments to parochialism and sculpting competent practitioners that reflect our stated desires for a more inclusive orientation. First, we seek to define CPA and consider its relative importance. Next, we assess how CPA is currently taught in Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs within the United States. The focus then shifts to discussing how MPA programs should be teaching CPA and proposes learning outcomes. Finally, we offer tools for attaining these outcomes.

The Role of Comparative Public Administration in the Development of Public Institutions: The Nigerian and Britain Example

Comparative Public Administration and Public Administration are identified as branches of Political Science. While public administration is more attached to the action part of government policies and Implementation, comparative public administration dwells more on research endeavors as a practical field of assessing regular patterns and differences of cross-cultural administrative structures among countries. The paper is a descriptive and comparative analysis of Nigeria and Britain Public Administration to develop critical institutions for better performances. Thus, selected institutions in Britain were made the flagship of comparison with Nigeria, to discover the pattern of similarities and differences that can help to retool Nigeria’s public institution for better effective service delivery. It was discovered that good governance and public service delivery would be unimpressive due to the weakness of Nigeria's institutions that have been perverted by corruption, selfish idiosyncrasies of leadership, ethno linguistic sentiments, and lawlessness among other challenges which are not entrenched in Britain. In solutions, concerted efforts towards building strong institutions, advocacy for due process in policy formulation and implementation, the entrenchment of patriotism in public service, and encouragement of research in Comparative Administration are recommended

Activation and new governance of labor market policies in Central and Eastern European Countries

1. Ágh, A. (2013). Bumpy Road of the Hungarian Administrative Reforms: From Political Over-Centralization to Public Policy Failures. Croatian and Comparative Public Administration, 13(4). Google Scholar

Teaching international comparative public management through a development lens

The article tackles the question, how to provide students with a comparative orientation to public administration. We eschew the older tradition of comparing major systems such British parliamentary system or French bureaucratic approaches to organizations’ structure. Rather, we seek to understand public administration in countries with different cultures, histories, and political regimes by focusing on international development. Our students are drawn from the Master of Public Administration degree program and the Master of International Affairs degree program. What unites them is an interest in international affairs and the desire to work internationally; international students take what they learn and apply it in their home countries. We ground the course on a model of international development with a strong focus on development in governance. We spend the first third of the class creating a development lens for understanding global practices in public management in which they use what they learned in the first part of the course to analyze a range of public management issues within governmental institutions and/or in working in the nongovernmental organizations and intergovernmental organization sectors. We use detailed case studies drawn from several case data banks to apply some of the core concepts of public administration such as leadership, stakeholder analysis, complexity, and implementation to development challenges such as fiscal issues, poverty alleviation, interorganizational collaboration, and human rights. We do this with a range of in-class exercises and assignments that students do out of class. One goal we have is to provide students with knowledge and skills to enhance their ability to work internationally since many have gone on to work for donor and various implementing organizations in international development. We believe that this is a reasonable measure of success of the approach we have taken to comparative public administration.

Comparative Studies in Public Administration: Intellectual Challenges and Alternative Perspectives

AbstractIn the current age of globalization, there is a greater need for comparative studies in public administration to explore cross‐national variations in adopting new global models. Many of the major challenges impeding the intellectual promises of earlier waves of comparative administration continue to affect the contemporary state of the field. As a part of the PAR Symposium on Comparative Public Administration, this short article explores the ideational, epistemological, structural, and institutional challenges to comparative administration and briefly suggests some remedial alternatives.

Comparative Public Administration in a Globalized World: Moving Beyond Standard Assumptions Toward Increased Understanding

AbstractToday's globalized world calls for a deeper understanding of how and why administrative practices differ across regions and what that means for theory and practice. However, empirical comparative studies in public administration incorporating local and regional particularities in their design, constructs, and interpretation of results are scarce, with the exception of studies on specific constructs such as public service motivation, professional values, and emerging approaches to non‐Western public administration. Consistently, scholars engaged in comparative studies highlight theoretical, methodological, and empirical difficulties in comparing public agencies, employees, and practices as the research instruments and assumptions used often originate from Western countries. Thus, there is a serious need today for adopting more context‐sensitive and balanced approaches to advance our scholarly understanding of systems and practices in different regions. This symposium aims to advance comparative public administration by bringing together novel empirical comparative contributions from scholars from different parts of the world.

Revisiting Fred W. Riggs’ Model in the Context of ‘Prismatic’ Societies Today

F. W. Riggs initiated seminal areas of enquiry and research right from the beginning of his journey as an author and a theorist in public administration. His lifetime publications testify to a search for an ‘authentic’ model for analysing the administrative structures and behaviour of developing countries since the 1960s. Riggs pursued what is known as the ‘ecological’ study of public administration which presumes that public administration, functioning in different environments, influences and is influenced by the environment in which it functions. Scholars of comparative public administration have long been familiar with the ‘fused– prismatic–diffracted model’, which was later reformulated by Riggs to exert enormous influence on the understanding of public administration and organisational behaviour in different parts of the world. In the wake of the tremendous transformation with diverse developmental strategies in the Third World and South Asia in particular, in the last fifty years, it becomes important to re-examine Riggs’ models both in the Indian and other developing country contexts today.

Career advancement comparative perspective study of university lecturer

Globalization and international standard universities trend drive the higher education system to become more dynamic and innovative. The lecturer is a profession that drives and encourages university competitiveness. Therefore, better career advancement and development are vital in encouraging higher education competitiveness. The United States of America (USA) is currently a world-class university orientation, followed by Australia. Hence, other countries, especially developing countries, should know the USA and Australia higher education system, especially in the lecturers’ career advancement and development. This study is necessary to answer research questions about comparing academic career advancement systems in the USA and Australia. This study will give other countries new insight into academic career advancement. The researchers apply the findings from a systematic review. This study focuses on six aspects discussed: regulations, educational qualifications, lecturer obligation status in the higher education, career ladder, career advancement stages, and the lecturers' duties also responsibilities in lecturer career advancement in the USA and Australia. This study examines the gap between lecturers' career advancement systems in the USA and Australia comprehensively. The researchers observe by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the lecturer career advancement system in the USA and Australia. Also, the researchers compare the results using comparative public administration theory.

Taking Context More Seriously: Managerial Networking and Performance in American and Korean Hospitals

While extensive literature on public management has suggested that management matters for performance, the role of national context in this mechanism has been significantly understudied. This article examines whether and how the impact of management on performance varies across national settings by conducting a comparative analysis of U.S. and Korean hospitals. Based on a parallel hospital manager survey and archival database in the two countries, we find that managerial networking contributes to performance in both U.S. and Korean hospitals, but its functional form varies between the two countries. These findings imply that management is the key to enhancing performance, but the effective strategy can vary depending on the national context. This study highlights the role of national context and advances the field of comparative public administration.

Public administration pedagogy in India

ABSTRACT While the praxis of public administration in India is documented in the literature, its pedagogy, and the formal dissemination of its knowledge, is relatively unexamined. This study determines the status of public administration pedagogy in India through a review of the academic programs in public administration at accredited state, central, and deemed universities. After reviewing a sample of the syllabi of public administration programs, the academic context of the field, and the areas of key emphasis, this paper explores the conceptualization of public administration as an independent academic discipline in India. This study makes a significant contribution to global comparative public administration, and also contributes to developing the nascent literature on public administration pedagogy in present day India and South Asia.

KAMU YÖNETİMİ İNCELEMELERİNDE BİR ALT DİSİPLİN: KARŞILAŞTIRMALI KAMU YÖNETİMİ (KKY)

Bu makalenin amacı, Kamu Yönetimi incelemeleri içinde önemli bir alt disiplin olarak kabul edilen Karşılaştırmalı Kamu Yönetimi (KKY)’nin ortaya çıkışını, geçirdiği aşamaları, bu aşamalara katkısı olan bazı önemli düşünürleri ve kuramlarını ortaya koymaktır. Kamu Yönetimi yaklaşık iki yüzyıllık modern tarihinde disiplinler arası bir mahiyette gelişmiştir. Kamu Yönetimi bu özelliğini kuşkusuz karşılaştırmalı analiz yeteneğine sahip olmasına borçludur. Kamu Yönetiminin karşılaştırmalı yönü esasen doğasında var olan bir olgudur. Kamu Yönetiminin modern anlamda ele alınmaya başladığı ilk dönemlerden günümüze kullanılan karşılaştırma yöntemi, bir yandan disiplinin kurumsal yönüne katkıda bulunmuş, diğer yandan da dünyadaki emsallerinin benzeyen ya da ayrışan yönlerini ortaya koyarak analiz edilmesini kolaylaştırmıştır. Kamu Yönetimi biliminin karşılaştırmalı bir yöntemle incelenebilmesi de KKY ile mümkün olmuştur. Bu yönüyle KKY, geleneksel Kamu Yönetimi çalışmalarını destekleyen bir alt disiplini olarak görülmektedir. Metodolojik olarak ilk defa İkinci Dünya Savaşından sonra ele alınmaya başlayan KKY çalışmaları, Soğuk Savaş Döneminde olgunlaşmıştır. Teori ve disiplinin geliştirildiği Soğuk Savaş dönemi, aynı zamanda refah devletine yönelik düzenlemelerin de gerçekleştiği yıllar olarak hatırlanmaktadır. Dolayısıyla KKY çalışmaları bu yönde gelişme göstermiştir. Soğuk Savaş dönemde KKY çalışmalarının genellikle gelişmiş ülkelerin yönetim yapılarına odaklandığı görülmektedir. Soğuk Savaş sonrasındaysa Yeni Kamu Yönetimi Hareketi (YKH) çerçevesinde Küresel yönetişim ve liberalizm disipline damgasını vurmuştur. Küreselleşmenin de etkisiyle alana ait çalışmalar genişleme göstermiş, disiplinler arası bir mahiyet kazanarak bütün dünyada kullanılabilir hale gelmiştir. KKY çalışmalarının gelişimini tarihsel süreci içinde “Erken Dönem”, “Klasik Dönem”, “Modern Dönem” ve “Günümüz” olmak üzere dört döneme ayırarak ele almak mümkündür.

Public, private or hybrid? Providing care services under austerity: the case of Italy

PurposeThe paper examines the different trajectories of externalisation and the development of different kinds of welfare mix in three different sub-sectors of socio-educational services: long-term care for the elderly, early childhood services and kindergartens. By integrating the industrial relations and comparative public administration literatures, it analyses the different rationales underpinning contracting-out decisions of Italian local governments.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a multi-method, multi-level approach: quantitative data on the provision of socio-educational services and the nature of the providers are combined with the analysis of 12 case studies of municipalities through 80 semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis.FindingsThe paper argues that differentials in labour regulation across the public/private divide and the consequent possibility to access labour markets characterised by cheaper labour and higher organisational flexibility are a key explanation in local governments' decisions to outsource. Despite labour market factors playing a prominent role, their relevance is significantly tempered by political and social factors and particularly by the strong opposition of citizens, personnel and trade unions to pure market solutions in the provision of such services. However, the centrality of these factors depends on the nature of the services: political sensibility against privatisation proved to be stronger in kindergartens, while services for the elderly were more frequently and less contentiously privatised.Originality/valueThe main contribution is the integration of the two research traditions to analyse patterns of outsourcing in the socio-educational services in Italy, showing that neither of them is able, alone, to explain the different private/public mix characterising different social and educational services.