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P3: Panel : Administrative Crisis Management and Governance
Time:
Thursday, 07/Sept/2023:
4:15pm - 5:45pm
Session Chair: Prof. Rahel M. SCHOMAKER, German Research Institute for Public Administration, Speyer and CUAS Villach Session Chair: Prof. Sabine KUHLMANN, Universität Potsdam
Location:Room 221
Moderator : Alexa LENZ, Public Administration & Public Policy, Zeppelin University.
Session Abstract
Administrative Crisis Management and Governance : The peak of refugee migration in 2015/2016, the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020 onwards, natural disasters, or the war in Ukraine and its consequences - crises of different type and scope challenged the public administration systems of the European Union in the last decade.
While the root causes of these crises are very different, the consequences for the PA are not: Executing the necessary actions to ensure shelter for the refugees, tracking infections or supporting rescue action for individuals affected by natural disasters – such action takes focus and binds capacities, implying more tasks and responsibilities for local administrations: From an administrative science perspective, such situations are less exceptional than one might think. Technically speaking, administrations have had to deal intermittently with crises of different types over the last decades—and research on how administrations cope with and learn from such crises is growing.
The main questions arising in this context are:
which factors drive successful governance and organizational performance in times of crisis?
What makes public administration systems – particular in multi-level environments - resilient against crises, enabling them also to learn from crisis situation?
What is the role of networks with different non-state actor groups?
Which role does communication and information flows play, in particular against the background of increased digitalization?
How can we train public administrators for crisis reaction?
Scrutinizing inter alia such questions, the proposed panel seeks to address questions related to crises reaction of (local) bureaucracies.
We are particularly interested in theoretical and empirical papers that focus on the Member States of the European Union, analysing the role of networks and information flows in crisis reaction, preparedness, administrative learning and innovation arising from crises. Papers that focus on the patterns of crisis management in federal and multi-level systems are very welcome.
Presentations
Institutional Designs of Crisis Governance: European Local Governments Facing the Polycrisis
Sabine KUHLMANN, Jochen FRANZKE, Benoît Paul DUMAS, Niklas PETERS
University of Potsdam, Germany
Local governments all over Europe are particularly affected by the age of polycrises. In recent years, local governments were predominantly affected by challenges resulting from migration issues as well as by the Covid-19 crisis (Kuhlmann et al. 2019, 2022). Yet, the role of local governments in tackling polycrises remains an understudied field. Above all, this applies for the Covid-19 crises. Recent studies focus e.g. on the crisis governance in specific countries (see e.g. Benamouzig 2023 for the case of France, Tosun and Heinz-Fischer 2023 for the case of Germany) or comparative studies of crisis governance on the central state level (see e.g. Kuhlmann et al. 2021). In addition, it seems that the governance of the Covid-19 crisis was largely affected by policy instrument selections (above all: austerity policies) in earlier crises. Accordingly, the age of polycrises is not only characterised by overlapping crises, but also by interdependencies and path dependencies between successive crises. On the one hand, this means that policy failures from previous crises affected the preparedness and resilience for the Covid-19 crisis. On the other hand, it also means that the policy instrument selection during the Covid-19 crisis is decisive for the preparedness for future crises. For example, first analyses of the case of France reveal, that NPM and the crisis of public budgets resulted in austerity policies also in the public health sector. Due to these policy instrument selections, the storage of medical products was reduced, thus leading to shortages in equipment at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis (Du Boys et al. 2020: 280f).
In addition, first insights suggest, that there are differences between the role of local governments in tackling major crises. For example, the role of local governments was rather neglected at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in France (Kuhlmann et al. 2021: 566). Furthermore, it seems that the role of local governments has changed over the course of the pandemic, at least in some countries. Again, this can be illustrated by the case of France, where local governments became more important after the first lockdown, particularly for policy implementation (Du Boys et al. 2022: 262ff). Against this background, the questions emerge of whether this implies new approaches to policy design and policy implementation in cooperation with or on the local government level. In this context, we base our understanding of policy design on the assumption of institutional policies as “polity policies” (Wollmann 2000: 199). Hence, the analysis focuses on institutional and procedural characteristics of crisis policies on the local level as well as on governance arrangements of crisis policy design and the respective intergovernmental relations.
Talking the talk or walking the walk? Citizen perceptions of local administrative crisis management
Alexa LENZ1,2, Steffen Eckhard1
1Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen; 2LMU Munich
In crises and disasters, how citizens evaluate state action dominates the media and public discourse. However, the process of political attitude formation remains a black box. In particular, we do not know to what extent citizen perceptions form as a consequence of their crisis affectedness or because of the state’s actions. In addressing this gap, the paper examines local level administrative crisis management in the Covid-19 crisis in Germany, asking about the differential impact of crisis communication (talk) versus actual performance (walk). Using a unique combination of data from a citizen survey and a public administration survey in 19 corresponding districts, and applying multilevel analysis, we find that administrative action explains 8.2 percent of the total variation in perceptions, as compared to individuals’ crisis affectedness. Only local agencies’ crisis communication shows a significant effect, but not their organizational performance. These findings speak to an ongoing discussion in the literature regarding citizens’ perceptions of administrative action.
Speaker 3 : Administrative Crisis Management and Governance
Christina Astrid LOBNIG
German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Germany
