Hybridity in the face of crises - use of mixing and matching to answer the “who”, the “how” and the “what”

Turbulence has become a constant for public administrations, as they struggle to adapt to modern policy-making and service provision. Central to this unpredictability are changes in modern crises that have become transboundary or creeping. This requires public sector to balance between short- and long-term value prioritisations – with legitimacy, transparency, accountability, efficiency critical. This has led public administrations to search for approaches that meet both needs. Instead of devising new ideal types, this drive has been conceptualised as establishing the manageability of the possible combinations. The transition itself is context-dependent with the initial systems shaping possible alternatives for hybridisation leading to acceptable, yet non-optimal decisions. This has been exhibited within existing literature with dominant narratives for responses varying considerably - decentralized, participatory arenas vs centralized, closed decision-making. The emphasis on mono-paradigmatic normative forms has led to a research gap regarding the possible hybrid configurations. The paper focuses on emergent forms of hybrids in crises from ideal types of governance, democracy and law. The paper consolidates the state-of-the-art research in public administration and crisis management literature through desk research. The desk research will involve a two-stage search strategy. The search strategy relies on seed papers and will be complemented by a search string in Scopus and Web of Science. The paper highlights the current developments regarding hybridity and limitations due to the strong reliance on single ideal types.