Rising to Ostrom’s challenge:An invitation to walk on the bright side of public governance and public service

In this programmatic essay, we argue that public governance scholarship would benefit from developing a self-conscious and cohesive strand of "positive" scholarship, akin to social science subfields like positive psychology, positive organizational studies, and positive evaluation. We call for a program of research devoted to uncovering the factors and mechanisms that enable high performing public policies and public service delivery mechanisms; 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 particular public policies, programs, organizations, networks, or partnerships manage do much better than others to produce widely valued societal outcomes, and how might knowledge of this be used to advance institutional learning from positives

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in Political Science: A study of media effects on the policy agenda

Qualitative comparative analysis is a relatively new research method in political science and public administration to find patterns in qualitative data in a small to medium-sized set of cases. In my PhD research, I used this method to study under what conditions media coverage for policy issues is associated with changes on the policy agenda. My research focused on the policy agenda of immigration. This contribution outlines reasons to choose qualitative comparative analysis, different types of qualitative comparative analysis, the process of conducting qualitative comparative analysis and lessons learned on benefits and limitations of this method. Qualitative comparative analysis offers advantages when comparing a relatively large number of cases, when testing configurational hypotheses and when assuming a non-linear notion of causality. In my research, I applied the most basic type of crisp set qualitative comparative analysis. Multi-value and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis allow for comparison of case characteristics in more detail. The process of conducting qualitative comparative analysis can be visualized as an hourglass process, starting and ending with the richness of qualitative case data with minimalization of the logical pattern in a comprehensive formula in between. The main benefit of qualitative comparative analysis is supporting the process of systematically comparing complex qualitative cases by keeping focus on the research puzzle at hand. Most important lesson is to not to get caught up in the qualitative comparative analysis technicalities. Qualitative comparative analysis is a means for interpretation of qualitative data and not a goal in itself

Introduction to the Digital Government and Artificial Intelligence Minitrack

The role of technology in the public sector continues to evolve. Digital government has emerged as an important research and pedagogical topic in diverse disciplines, including information systems, public administration, computer science and political science. Given the increasing amount of data available to organizations and constituents, exploring the role of artificial intelligence (AI) is imperative for the effective, efficient and ethical use of government resources

De Verbindende Kracht van Ambigue Beleidsframes: Een frameanalyse van lokaal integratiebeleid in Antwerpen en Rotterdam

Een belangrijke aanname bij beleidswetenschappelijke frameanalyse is dat beleidsframes hun overtuigingskracht ontlenen aan het feit dat het coherente en eenduidige interpretaties van een beleidsprobleem zijn. Het zijn vaste sociale constructen van een probleemdefinitie en een bijpassende beleidsoplossing en beleid wordt slechts door één frame tegelijkertijd gestuurd. In beleidsdocumenten komen de frames echter niet altijd als vaste constructen voor. Probleemdefinities worden soms gekoppeld aan beleidsstrategieën van een ander frame en in verschillende gevallen wordt alleen de beleidsstrategie gedefinieerd, waardoor het frame incompleet blijft. Terwijl men zou verwachten dat de frames hierdoor aan overtuigingskracht inboeten, laat dit artikel zien dat dit niet het geval is. Het is gebaseerd op een analyse van beleidsframes in het lokale integratiebeleid van Antwerpen en Rotterdam van 1998 tot 2018. Het beleid in beide steden maakt gebruik van bekende frames in dit beleidsdomein (multiculturalisme, assimilationisme, segregationisme en universalisme). Juist in een veranderlijk en gepolitiseerd beleidsdomein als integratie, zijn ambigue frames krachtige representaties van het beleidsprobleem, die voorheen verdeelde actoren achter het beleid scharen. Dit artikel beargumenteert dat frameanalyse oog moet hebben voor ambigue beleidsframes en biedt inzicht in de redenen waarom deze in beleid voorkomen

The communicative model of disinformation: a literature note

In recent years, academic research and policy circles alike frequently identify disinformation and fake news as a growing problem in western democracies. This has prompted calls for regulatory intervention. In the name of protecting the circulation of factually correct information and truth, and to protect and facilitate public debate, many public authorities are proposing steps for the regulation of information flows or their platforms. Before the appropriateness of regulatory measures however can be properly assessed, a more fine-grained understanding of the phenomenon of disinformation is required. In this light, this note discusses some recent academic literature, in search of answers to three topical questions from the perspective of policy makers: (1) Does the online mode of communication alter the nature and functioning of disinformation? (2) How do the institutions for creating (and maintaining trust in) public information relate to disinformation? and (3) How do motives other than malignant intentions cause or exacerbate the disinformation phenomenon? The note relies on the concepts of ‘information ecologies’ (Nardi and O’Day, 1999) and ‘flat ontologies’ (Latour, 2005) as heuristic devices to structure recent academic insights regarding disinformation. Accordingly, disinformation is approached as a communicative phenomenon consisting of an ‘assemblage’ of people, practices, values, and technologies. The note describes the basic features of the late modern disinformation phenomenon, discussing in turn the actors, technological features, and drivers that are implicated in it