Access Under Duress

This paper examines the rapid turn to remote public meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a mix of archival materials, participant observation, and interviews within and around two mid- to large cities in the Rust Belt and Midwest regions of the United States, we consider how public officials introduced digital meeting platforms and surveys in place of traditional forms of in-person public consultation. We also examine emergent strategies of residents as they worked to have their voices heard and concerns met during a time of compounding crises (e.g., pandemic, economic recession, racial violence). Drawing from this case study, we articulate the concept of disruptive testimony, forms of public witnessing that trouble established hierarchies of power, surface conflict, and open opportunities for social change. We argue consideration for collective counter-power is increasingly important to GROUP scholarship as it attends to civic engagement beyond participation in formal, sanctioned government processes.

Public Justification Versus Public Deliberation: The Case for Reconciliation

Kevin Vallier has recently argued that the ideals of public justification and public deliberation should be separated. The link between the two, Vallier suggests, has been assumed without being properly defended. Once examined, the connection falls apart. In this paper, I argue that there is, in fact, a clear and convincing story available for why the two ideals should be treated as mutually reinforcing. Drawing on recent empirical evidence, I argue that the deliberative behaviour of citizens can have a clear and positive impact on the behaviour and policy choices of public officials.

Digital discretion and public administration in Africa: Implications for the use of artificial intelligence

The digitalisation of public services is implicated in fundamental changes to how civil servants make decisions and exercise discretion. Most significant has been a shift in responsibility away from ‘street-level bureaucrats’ to ‘system-level bureaucrats’; a technology-savvy community of officials, consultants and private enterprises involved in the design of information technology systems and associated rules. The relatively recent inclusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven algorithms raises new questions about the conflation of policy formulation and system development activities, but also intensifies concerns about the epistemic dependence and policy alienation of public officials. African public administrations are in an especially vulnerable position with respect to the adoption of AI, and so this chapter seeks to synthesise lessons from previous digital implementations on the continent, and considers the implications for AI use. Four broad considerations emerge from the review of literature: Integrity of recommendations provided by decision-support systems, including how they are influenced by local organisational practices and the reliability of underlying infrastructures; Inclusive decision-making that balances the (assumed) objectivity of data-driven algorithms and the influence of different stakeholder groups; Exception and accountability in how digital and AI platforms are funded, developed, implemented and used; and a Complete understanding of people and events through the integration of traditionally dispersed data sources and systems, and how policy actors seek to mitigate the risks associated with this aspiration.

The nexus between corruption and opportunistic crimes during Covid-19 in South Africa

Covid 19 in South Africa created opportunity for criminals to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor. Public and private sector officials benefited due to irregular tenders and overpricing of personal protective equipments in South Africa as reported on media platforms. This article explores opportunistic crimes associated with Covid 19 and their impact on the fight against the pandemic. This qualitative article adopted a non-empirical research design: Systematic review, indirect observation schedules to identify and describe available research literature ‘using systematic and explicit accountable methods and pre-specified formalised tools for searching and integrating literature. The data was collected from January-July 2021. The collected data was analysed through inductive textual content analysis. Findings revealed that public officials benefited from irregular PPE tenders as well as friends and families of politicians. The findings further indicate that billions of Rands were looted from funds which were meant to fight Covid 19 in South Africa. Lastly the findings show that law enforcement agencies are not effective in dealing with cases of Covid 19 crimes. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were developed: Law enforcement agencies should be equipped with resources to deal with Covid 19 crimes and ensure successful prosecution of those crimes, Competition Commission should investigate the companies which benefited from irregular tenders and overpricing of PPE’s so that they could be held accountable. Public participation should be strengthened to combat crime.

The Trudeau government and GIC appointments in Canada

PurposeAccording to the traditional view of public administration, a critical component of good policy formulation is the provision of frank and fearless advice to elected decision-makers. This advice can be provided by permanent public officials or by the people selected by the elected governments to fill key and continuing posts. However, there are major questions as to whether new Governor-in-Council (GIC) appointment processes rooted in new public governance (NPG) are yielding the expected results promised, such as less partisanism, as a consideration for appointment.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a mixed methods approach to examine the GIC process as it is used in Canada. In using these methods, the authors employed interviews with senior officials, governmental documents review and expert validation interviews to triangulate its main findings.FindingsThe paper uses the case of the revised appointment process for GIC appointments in Canada and suggests that the new arrangements do not deliver on merit-based criteria that ensures independence is protected between political executive and senior bureaucratic officials. Although new processes may be more open and transparent than past processes, the paper suggests that such processes are more susceptible to partisan influence under the guise of being merit-based.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was limited to one country context, Canada. As such, it will be necessary to expand this to other Westminster countries. Testing whether manifestations of new public governance in appointment processes elsewhere will be important to validate whether Canada is unique or not.Practical implicationsThe authors are left to wonder if this innovation of merit-based appointments in the new administrative state is obscuring the lines of accountability and whether it forms the basis for good policy advice despite promises to the contrary.Social implicationsTrust in the government is affected by decisions behind closed doors. They appear partisan, even when they may not be. Process matters if only to highlight increased value placed on meritorious appointments.Originality/valuePrevious studies on GIC appointments have generally been to explore representation as a value. That is, studies have questioned whether diversity is maintained, for example. However, few studies have explored appointment processes using institutional approaches to examine whether reforms to such processes have respected key principles, such as merit and accountability.

Trends in The Adoption of New Geospatial Technologies for Spatial Planning and Land Management in 2021

Changes in spatial planning and land management practices, regulations and operations have frequently relied on the uptake of innovations in geospatial technologies. This article reviews which ones the spatial planning and land management domains has effectively adopted and which new ones might potentially disrupt the domain in the near future of 2021 and beyond. Based on an extensive concept-centric trends synthesis and meta-review, the analysis demonstrates that whilst geospatial technologies are clearly gaining wider societal recognition and while private companies are indeed developing promising applications, its adoption in office work of public officials and public decision makers remains almost as limited as before. The potentially most disruptive technologies for the domain are however BIM, Block chain and Machine learning.

Ethics and Integrity Training for Czech Public Officials

The purpose of the contribution is to present a newly designed training programme for public administrators in ethics and integrity. The programme was developed based on a broad empirical research among public administrators at the central and local levels of public administration aiming at identification of core values, major ethical issues, attitudes, and ethics instruments in place on the one hand and the training needs of civil servants and other public administrators on the other hand. Attention was paid to differences among rank-and-file administrators and managers and to differences between men and women where relevant.

Legal Framework on the Implementation of the Human Resource Management Reforms in the Philippines After the Marcos Era Up to the Duterte Administration

This study is aimed at filling the gap and will discuss the overview of both the legal reform processes happening in the public sector of the Philippine government and of recent developments and challenges initiated by the Civil Service Commission of the Philippine government as its Central Personnel Agency. This chapter will cover the years commencing 1986 up to the present dispensation of the Duterte administration where the primary goal is to study and suggest the approaches to reforming the Civil Service system and its decision-making process. It also outlines the discourses on the reform of public service among educators and public officials in the Philippines. Then, it elaborates on the laws and institutional measures introduced for an effective public personnel administration system in the country. A documentary analysis on the successful practices of public personnel administration will be used to evolve on the possible steps/strategies to further enhance the delivery of personnel services of the government sector workforce in the Philippines.

Higher Public Officials on Direct Citizen Participation in Turkey

Governments are expected to introduce public policies to empower citizens to engage in government business for various reasons including trust building. This chapter presents enablers/barriers before direct citizen participation (DCP) in Turkey by employing interviews conducted with higher public administrators at the ministerial level. The results reveal that DCP is mostly used for informing and consultation purposes rather than fostering a citizen deliberation. The main barriers before DCP are found as centralized bureaucratic structure, lack of administrators' awareness for DCP, and a lack of participation culture. The authors argue that DCP could be fostered where public officials are curious rather than institutionalized.

Mining and Water Supply in Marginalised Communities

The extractive industry and water security nexus for vulnerable communities that surround a mine has been a subject of debate in the Global South. The study aimed to identify and explain the impact of mining on the ability of vulnerable and marginalized communities to secure adequate and safe water. The study focused on Anglo-Platinum Mogalakwena Platinum on Ga-Molekana Village in Mogalakwena Municipality, Limpopo Province of South Africa. Key informant interviews were administered with community leaders, local community-based organizations, local councilors, and public officials at the national level. Focus group discussions were also conducted for older women and youth to share current experiences. The Mogalakwena Municipality provides water to the Ga-Molekane Community and the Mogalakwena Platinum Mine also intervenes by providing support in this regard. Perceptions about the adequacy of water to meet their household needs were varied, with some being positive considering their situation to be better than others, while some said water had become inadequate.