Melbourne School of Government - Research Publications

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    Rising to Ostrom's Challenge: An invitation to walk on the bright side of politics, governance and public service
    Douglas, S ; Schillemans, T ; ‘t Hart, P ; Ansell, C ; Bøgh Andersen, L ; Flinders, M ; Head, B ; Moynihan, D ; Nabatchi, T ; O'Flynn, J ; Peters, BG ; Raadschelders, J ; Sancino, A ; Sørensen, E ; Torfing, J ( 2021)
    As a group of fifteen scholars from different sub-fields, countries, and generations, we argue that public administration would benefit from launching a self-conscious and cohesive strand of ‘positive’ scholarship, akin to social science subfields like positive psychology (Seligman & Csikshikszentmihalyi, 2000), positive organisational studies (Cameron & Dutton, 2003, p 4), and positive evaluation (Nielsen, Turksema & van der Knaap, 2015). We call for a program of research devoted to uncovering the factors and mechanisms that enable high performing public problem-solving and public service delivery; procedurally and distributively fair processes of tackling societal conflicts; and robust and resilient ways of coping with threats and risks. The core question driving positive public administration scholarship should be: Why is it that in a universe of like cases, specific public policies, programs, organizations, networks, or partnerships manage do much better than others to produce widely valued societal outcomes?
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    Collaborating After Crisis: How Public Administration Scholars and Practitioners Can Work Together
    O'Flynn, J (Melbourne School of Government, 2020)
    Key Points This Policy Brief makes the following key points: (a) COVID-19 has laid bare the capacity challenges faced by governments and exacerbated entrenched disadvantage and inequality. The pandemic has acted as an accelerant of many problems that confront governments, shining light on how decades of reform have eroded government capacity and bought to the fore deep divisions in society. (b) Practitioners and scholars can work together on big challenges that confront us during the crisis and in the aftermath. We need a pivot from ‘big questions’ towards ‘big challenges’, so that public administration and management scholars can work closely with practitioners to address these challenges in real time. (c) To make a difference we need new ways of working collaboratively. If we are keen to collaborate in this crisis and beyond it makes more sense to look to successful collaborations rather than dwell on supposed tensions between scholars and practitioners.