Problem Statement and Purpose
Against the backdrop of the discourse on democratic retrenchment, the proposed paper examines the organizational response of public administration to challenges emerging from populist movements, autocratic tendencies, and the raise of political radicalism, if not extremism, in fragmented societies. In this context, the paper addresses the question of how public sector organizations can strengthen their democratic resilience. In other words, what strategies can public administration pursue to develop the capacity to anticipate, cope, and adapt to stressful political environments while maintaining democratic values, the rule of law and high standards of professional integrity.
From a theoretical point of view, the paper is geared to explore the manifold meanings of the concept of “resilience” when applied to public sector organizations which operate in increasingly complex policy environments and often fragmented and polarized political habitats. Democratic resilience may impact on a range of managerial and/or policy-related functions, which cover both internal and external relations of government bureaucracies, including mechanisms for organizational control and accountability, as well as policies on the recruitment, selection, training of public sector personnel. In exploring various strategies towards democratic resilience, the paper adopts a genuinely comparative perspective across types of public bureaucracies in contemporary liberal mass democracies.
Methodology
The paper is designed to make a theoretical and conceptual contribution to the debate by exploring the meaning of democratic resilience for public sector organization with particular reference to police authorities and law enforcement agencies. From this theoretical and analytical perspective, the paper identifies different dimensions of democratic resilience and corresponding reform approaches, which will be illustrated by examples drawn from the field of policing and law enforcement in Germany.
Findings
Sketched in a broad-brushed manner, possible reform measures tend to fall in different categories of policy instruments: While some approaches primarily rely on government authority and rule-setting (exemplified by regulatory and disciplinary measures that govern or sanction administrative behavior), others build upon the power of persuasion (such as communicative strategies, information campaigns and training programs often designed as preventive measures) and still others prefer structural and procedural responses as their reform instrument of choice (illustrated by networked approaches of collaborative arrangements with partners inside and outside of public bureaucracies or internal units for strategy development, administrative control, and self-reflection)
Proposals
Based on theoretical expositions and empirical examples, the paper suggests a mixed and balanced approach in making public sector organizations more democratically resilient. In particular, the reform measures to public sector governance have to balance internal leadership styles and control instruments with external oversight and accountability mechanism. The paper argues that internal approaches towards democratic resilience (often based on leadership styles, procedural changes and strategies based on cognitive and cultural changes) are particularly sustainable.
References
Bauer, M. W., Peters, B. G., Pierre, J., Yesilkagit, K., and Stefan Becker (eds) (2021). Democratic backsliding and public administration. How populists in government transform state bureaucracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peters, B. G. and Pierre, J. (2019). Populism and public administration: Confronting the administrative state. Administration & Society, 51(10), 1521–1545.
Saxlund Bischoff, C. (2022). Between a rock and a hard place: Balancing the duties of political responsiveness and legality in the civil service. Public Administration, 101(4), 1481-1502
Story, J., Lotta, G., and Tavares, G. M. (2023). (Mis)led by an outsider: Abusive supervision, disengagement, and silence in politicized bureaucracies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 33, 100–101.
