Welcome to the “Journal of Policy & Governance”!
In my opinion, an editorial may reflect the general direction of the journal, values, strategy, priorities, goals and objectives, and so on. This is the first edition of the Journal of Policy & Governance where I act as the Editor-in-Chief. The title of the journal includes two key concepts, the "Policy" and the "Governance", and they are crucial for the target audience of the journal. That is, the field of "Policy Science": policy cycle, problem identification for analysis, policy environment, resources, stakeholders’ analysis, communications (strategic, multilevel, etc.), policy tools and evaluation, etc. Also, these are values, objectives and methodology of the research and policy analysis, policy as the process and reasons for state intervention, evidence-based policy, quantitative and qualitative methods of data processing and the formation of evidence in the policy process and so on.
The field of governance is also valuable for research: democratic, good, sensitive, multilevel, digital, and so on: Service State, public consultation, and interaction between government, business and civil society in the policy-making process. Common decisions, power and out of power policy makers, leadership, analysts and policy actors also require semantic and empirical content in the articles of the journal.
Promising areas of research would be multilevel governance and balanced social development, cohesion policy, vertical-horizontal interaction and networks in the multilevel governance, digital multilevel governance, etc. An interesting example would be benchmarking of global and multilevel governance: supranational, national, regional and local levels in their interaction. Also, the "Spiral of Success" as a follow-alternative to linear model of policy making is worth mentioning. As an applied aspect it would be desirable to show different types of policy documents in the articles. Public administration, gender aspects, microeconomics for policy analysis, finance and budgeting, local self-government, administrative behavior, policy paradoxes, urban planning, etc. are important areas of research in the articles of this journal. Special emphasis should be placed on policy and governance monitoring and evaluation, performance audit, governance forecasting and diagnosis, and policy measurement indicators. Multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity are the basic and main components for promising cross-researches of "Policy" and "Governance" areas. Ethics and morality as well as effectiveness, efficiency, economy, balance and publicity of policy are necessary components of research in the published articles. These are promising and urgent directions for studying in the articles of our journal.
I believe that strategic public management in the context of governance would be an innovative area for research in future articles. Moreover, such threads would be important, such as strategic public management, planning, forecasting, target programming and public policy, governance and operational management, research of information and technical support for policy-making, change management and public policy and governance.
Of course, the above thoughts only clarify the formulated purpose of the journal. Innovation, interdisciplinary benchmarking and a cross-cultural approach to public policy and governance will contribute to the quality of the journal. I hope that this first edition of “Journal of Policy & Governance" and subsequent editions will meet the high standards of quality articles and content of promising research. I would like to wish the authors bring a sustainable and evidence-based content to the future articles. The Editorial Board, following the principles of the academic integrity, will support and encourage authors for innovative and promising articles.
I wish all the success and inspiration to the authors and journal staff.
Politics, power and public policy-making: a response to Karen Baehler
