The Good Administration Congress 2027 brings together diverse perspectives on one of the central questions of contemporary public administration: What constitutes good administration, and how can it be conceptualized, explained and implemented?
The scientific programme is organised around three complementary perspectives that reflect the conference's overarching theme of Conceptualizing – Explaining – Implementing Good Administration while also providing the narrative structure for the three conference days.
The thematic areas are intended as orientation rather than rigid categories. We welcome empirical, theoretical, conceptual, comparative and practice-oriented contributions from different disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary and cross-cutting perspectives. Contributions may be submitted as presentations or posters.
The programme will be complemented by keynote lectures, parallel paper sessions, panel discussions, poster presentations and networking opportunities, fostering exchange between researchers, research-oriented practitioners and early-career scholars.
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Explaining Public Administration – Where We Stand
- Drivers of administrative behaviour and decision-making (micro-level)
- Organisational structures, capacity and reform dynamics (meso-level)
- Governance systems, reform trajectories and crisis dynamics (macro-level)
- Causes and consequences of administrative reforms
- Performance, effectiveness and administrative capacity
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Conceptualizing Good Administration – What We Want to Achieve
- Legal principles, the rule of law and procedural justice
- Legitimacy, trust and citizen perspectives
- Public values, accountability and transparency
- Stakeholder expectations, competing demands and governance trade-offs
- Normative foundations and conceptualizations of better public administration
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Implementing Good Administration – How We Get There
- Digital transformation and AI in administrative practice
- Implementation of reforms and organisational change
- Co-production, collaborative governance and citizen engagement
- Innovation under institutional constraints
- Resilience and adaptive capacity of public institutions
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Cross-Cutting Perspectives
- Negotiating expectations in public administration
- Balancing competing demands and governance trade-offs
- Governance under uncertainty and multiple crises
- Interdisciplinary approaches
- Evidence-based policymaking and administrative learning