scholarly journals Assessing the State of Public Administration Research in Mainland China: Prospects and Challenges

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Evan Berman

The rapid modernization and globalization of mainland China has resulted in impressive new practices and expectations for public administration (PA), including public administration research and education. Chinese universities have created new master in public administration (MPA) degree programs that already rival U.S. MPA programs in enrollment, with about 15,000 to 20,000 students annually. In 1999, PhD programs in public administration were first established at Fudan University, Renmin University, and Sun Yat-Sen University. Since then, Chinese ministries and universities have ratcheted up quality expectations for university-based public administration research. At the top universities, faculty are increasingly expected to publish in journals that are part of the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) to keeping pace with similar expectations for quality in neighboring Asian countries and, indeed, around the world. Beyond this, public administration researchers are also expected to contribute to empowering a new generation of public managers and guiding modernization efforts in Chinese public service. There are high expectations for sure.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Zhang ◽  
Yuanyuan Shang ◽  
Ying HUANG ◽  
Gunnar Sivertsen

The past 40 years have witnessed profound changes in the international connectivity and competitiveness of Mainland China’s scientific research. Based on publication data about Chinese researchers in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) from the Web of Science (WoS), this study aims to provide a birds-eye view of how social science research in Mainland China has internationalized over the past four decades. The findings show that the number of social science articles published by Chinese authors in international journals has experienced a noticeable increase over the period and the collaboration networks of researchers from Mainland China have broadened, with the number of articles with a Chinese first author showing a strong upward trend. In addition, findings show that Chinese scholars are published in a wider range of journals and there has been a steady increase in their appearance in higher impact journals (influenced in part by certain journals). Finally, different social science disciplines show various degrees of internationalization, with Psychology and Business, Economics, Planning accounting for a high proportion of international collaboration articles, while the proportion of Mainland China-led articles and Q1 articles are relatively higher in the areas of Education, Media & Information, and Community & Social Issues. This study provides a broad view from which to examine the internationalization process in Mainland China’s social science landscape in the last four decades while also noting some of the possible underlying explanations for these changes, thereby deepening our understanding of social science research stemming from the region.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Valeriy HEYETS ◽  

Self-realization of the individual in the conditions of using the policy of “social quality” as a modern tool of public administration in a transitional society is largely related to overcoming the existing limitations of the individual in acting in such a society and economy transitioning to a market character. Given that, in particular, in Ukraine the market is hybrid (and this is especially important), the existing limitations in self-realization of the individual must be overcome, including, and perhaps primarily, through transformations in the processes of socialization, which differ from European practices and institutions that ensure its implementation. Thus, it is a matter of overcoming not only and not so much the natural selfish interests of the individual, but the existing gap in skills, which are an invisible asset to ensure the endogenous nature of economic growth. It is shown that there is an inverse relationship between the formation of socialization and the policy of “social quality”, which is characterized by the dialectic of interaction between the individual and the group and which is a process of increasing the degree of socialization. The latter, due to interdependence, will serve to increase the effectiveness of interaction between the individual and the group, which expands the possibilities of self-realization of the individual in terms of European policy of “social quality” as a tool of public administration, whose successful application causes new challenges and content of the so-called secondary sociology. The logic of Ukraine's current development shows that new approaches are needed to achieve the social development goals set out in the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union and to minimize the potential risks and threats that accompany current reforms in Ukrainian society. They should introduce new forms of public administration to create policy interrelationships of all dimensions, as proposed, in particular, by the social quality approach to socialization, the nature of which has been revealed in the author's previous publications. As a result, the socio-cultural (social) dimension will fundamentally change, the structure of which must include the transformational processes of socialization of a person, thanks to which they will learn the basics of life in the new social reality and intensify their social and economic interaction on the basis of self-realization, thereby contributing to the success of state policy of social quality and achieving stable socio-economic development.


Author(s):  
Ieva Rodiņa

The aim of the research “Historical Memory in the Works of the New Generation of Latvian Theater Artists: The Example of “The Flea Market of the Souls” is to focus on the current but at the same time little discussed topic in Latvian theater – the change of generations and the social processes connected to it, that are expressed on the level of world views, experiences, intergenerational relationships. Most directly, these changes are reflected in the phenomenon of historical memory. The concept of “postmemory” was defined by German professor Marianne Hirsch in 1992, suggesting that future generations are closely related to the personal and collective cultural traumas of previous generations, which are passing on the past experience through historical memory, thus affecting the present. Grotesque, self-irony, and focusing on socio-political, provocative questions and themes are the connecting point of the generation of young Latvian playwrights born in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including such personalities as Jānis Balodis, Rasa Bugavičute-Pēce, Matīss Gricmanis, Justīne Kļava, etc. However, unlike Matīss Gricmanis or Janis Balodis who represent the aesthetics of political theater, in Justīne Kļava’s works, sociopolitical processes become the background of a generally humanistic study of the relationships between generations. This theme is represented not only in “The Flea Market of the Souls”, but also in other plays, like “Jubilee ‘98” and “Club “Paradise””. The tendency to investigate the traces left by the Soviet heritage allows to define these works as autobiographical researches of the identity of the post-Soviet generation, analyzing life in today's Latvia in terms of historical memory. Using the semiotic, hermeneutic, phenomenological approach, the play “The Flea Market of the Souls” and its production in Dirty Deal Teatro (2017) are analyzed as one of the most vivid works reflecting the phenomenon of historical memory in recent Latvian original drama.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 82-118
Author(s):  
YANA TOOM ◽  
◽  
VALENTINA V. KOMLEVA ◽  

The article studies the main stages and features of the evolution of the public administration system in the Republic of Estonia after 1992. This paper presents brief geographical and socio-economic characteristics that largely determine the development of the country’s public administration. The evolution of the institution of the presidency, executive, and legislative powers are considered. The role of parliament and mechanisms for coordinating the interests of different groups of the population for the development of the country is especially emphasized. The authors analyze the state and administrative reforms of recent years, which were aimed at improving the quality of services provided to the population, increasing the competitiveness of different parts of Estonia, as well as optimizing public spending and management structure. The introduction of digital technologies into the sphere of public administration, healthcare, education, and the social sphere is of a notable place. Such phenomena as e-residency, e-federation, and other digital projects are considered. The development of a digital system of interstate interaction between Estonia and Finland made it possible to create the world’s first e-federation, and the digitization of all strategically important information and its transfer to cloud storage speaks of the creation of the world’s first e-residency, a special residence of data outside the country’s borders to ensure digital continuity and statehood in the event of critical malfunctions or external threats.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-97
Author(s):  
KONSTANTIN A. KORSIK ◽  
◽  
ANASTASIYA A. PARFENCHIKOVA ◽  

The article is devoted to the review of current changes in the legislation on notaries related to the development of electronic civil circulation, analysis of existing digital risks and assessment of the role of notaries in combating them. In modern economic realities, a significant expansion of the sphere of competence of the notary is carried out by introducing completely new notarial actions into the scope of the notary’s terms of reference. At the same time, the notary does not just follow the general ‘digital’ trend, but independently makes significant efforts to effectively perform the tasks of the social sphere regulator assigned to it by the state. The creation of the Unified Notary Information System as part of the formation of the technological infrastructure to ensure the security and stability of legal relations in the context of electronic civil circulation takes to a new level the quality of notarial services and the security of legally relevant information. The role of notaries significantly increases in conditions when the use of digital technologies in the economy, public administration, social sphere becomes one of the main vectors of world development, and society and the state inevitably face the flip side of this process – digital risks that jeopardize the safety of participants in civil turnover and their property. In 2020, as part of the implementation of the national program ‘Digital Economy’, it is planned to introduce a number of innovations that will create the basis for a stable and secure ‘digital’ turnover.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2566
Author(s):  
Isabel Marques ◽  
João Leitão ◽  
Alba Carvalho ◽  
Dina Pereira

Values guide actions and judgements, form the basis of attitudinal and behavioral processes, and have an impact on leaders’ decision-making, contributing to more sustainable performance. Through a bibliometric study and content analysis, 2038 articles were selected from Scopus, from the period 1994–2021, presenting global research tendencies on the subject of values, public administration, and sustainability. The results indicate that Sustainability is the most productive journal, the main research category is in social sciences, the most productive institution is the University of Queensland, the location with the most publications and research collaborations is the USA, and the authors with the greatest number of articles are Chung, from Chung-Ang University; García-Sánchez, from the University of Salamanca; and Pérez, from the University of Cantabria. Analysis of keywords shows that the most relevant are “sustainability”, “CSR”, “sustainable development”, “innovation”, and “leadership”. Time analysis of keywords reveals a tendency for lines of research in the social and work area. The results also provide data about the framing of studies in sustainability pillars and the types of values referred to and indicate the main areas of public administration studied. Finally, a future research agenda is proposed.


Author(s):  
Vivian Visser ◽  
Jitske van Popering-Verkerk ◽  
Arwin van Buuren

AbstractThe rise of citizens’ initiatives is changing the relation between governments and citizens. This paper contributes to the discussion of how governments can productively relate to these self-organizing citizens. The study analyzes the relation between the social production of invited spaces and the invitational character of such spaces, as perceived by governments and citizens. Invited spaces are the (institutional, legal, organizational, political and policy) spaces that are created by governments for citizens to take on initiatives to create public value. We characterize four types of invited spaces and compare four cases in Dutch planning to analyze how these types of invited spaces are perceived as invitational. From the analysis, we draw specific lessons for governments that want to stimulate citizens’ initiatives. We conclude with a general insight for public administration scholars; in addition to formal rules and structures, scholars should pay more attention to interactions, attitudes and meaning making of both government officials and citizens.


1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 226 ◽  
pp. 456-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Stepan ◽  
Enze Han ◽  
Tim Reeskens

AbstractEver since the introduction of the national political programme of “Building a new socialist countryside” (BNSC) in the early 2000s, renewed focus has been cast on how the Chinese government manages the gap between its rural and urban areas in the new millennium. Previous research has mostly studied the social and political consequences of the BNSC initiative without paying particular attention to its effects on public opinion. In this article, we present an analysis of the 2002 and 2008 waves of the mainland China subset of the Asian Barometer. Our results show a significant shift in the perceptions of the rural population in respect to how much impact government policies have on daily life. This shift brings rural perceptions more in line with those of the urban population in 2002. The paper concludes with the implications of our findings for the study of the relations between public opinion and public policy in China.


1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 660-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roscoe C. Martin

By tradition public administration is regarded as a division of political science. Woodrow Wilson set the stage for this concept in his original essay identifying public administration as a subject worthy of special study, and spokesmen for both political science and public administration have accepted it since. Thus Leonard White, in his 1930 article on the subject in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, recognizes public administration as “a branch of the field of political science.” Luther Gulick follows suit, observing in 1937 that “Public administration is thus a division of political science ….” So generally has this word got around that it has come to the notice of the sociologists, as is indicated in a 1950 report of the Russell Sage Foundation which refers to “political science, including public administration….” “Pure” political scientists and political scientists with a public administration slant therefore are not alone in accepting this doctrine, which obviously enjoys a wide and authoritative currency.But if public administration is reckoned generally to be a child of political science, it is in some respects a strange and unnatural child; for there is a feeling among political scientists, substantial still if mayhap not so widespread as formerly, that academicians who profess public administration spend their time fooling with trifles. It was a sad day when the first professor of political science learned what a manhole cover is! On their part, those who work in public administration are likely to find themselves vaguely resentful of the lack of cordiality in the house of their youth.


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