Comparative Public Administration and Policy

Abstract

The participants of this panel will discuss some actual trends in public policy and administration using comparative approach. Three main issues are into consideration: (1) what are the relations between a formal policy process and real behavior of the civil servants; (2) how incomplete structures of ‘open government’ influence on network learning; (3) are the reforms in university governance mediated by different politico-administrative regimes. The comparative contexts of the first issue include an original large-scale e-survey in the federal and regional Belgian ministries which replicates the questions of the Canadian surveys on policy analysis (Howlett et al. 2014). The analysis shows that formal policy analysis is not much in policy work. The second issue is analyzed on the Russian case of ‘open government’. Using network clustering method the author demonstrates five visible and invisible clusters of Russian ‘open government’ with different resources and knowledge control. The third discussion issue is based on the analysis of decision making in 26 universities of eight European countries based on data from a comprehensive survey of university managers. The authors develop two dimensions, engagement in and decentralization of university governance, in different politico-administrative environments.

Title	Details
Comparing Policy Work in Bureaucracies in Belgium and Canada: Is Decision-making Rational or Incremental?	View Paper Details
Clustering Russian ‘Open Government’: Building Designs of Participatory Procedures for Inclusion	View Paper Details
Political-Administrative Regimes and University Governance	View Paper Details