Public Administration for Development: Trends and the Way Forward
| Published date | 01 May 2015 |
| Date | 01 May 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1716 |
| Author | Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira,Yijia Jing,Paul Collins |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION FOR DEVELOPMENT: TRENDS AND THE
WAY FORWARD
JOSE A. PUPPIM DE OLIVEIRA
1,2
*, YIJIA JING
3
AND PAUL COLLINS
4
1
United Nations University (UNU-IAS), Japan
2
Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV/EBAPE)
3
Fudan University, China
4
University of Birmingham, UK
SUMMARY
For more than six decades, Public Administration and Development has witnessed the way practitioners’and scholars’
understanding of public administration for development has evolved. This issue has the objective of reviewing the general trends
and knowledge gaps and pinpointing new research topics. Several key aspects of public administration for development were
discussed in the ‘Symposium on Public Administration for Development: Trends and the Way Forward’. It was held at Fudan
University in Shanghai in May–June 2014 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the journal. This opening essay captures the
global trends, setting out its implications for the search into alternative models of public administration and development, par-
ticularly reflecting on Asia. The forthcoming Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
promoted by the United Nations will pose major challenges as the public administrations are ill-prepared to deal with it. The
seven essays themselves engage in key areas of unfinished businesses in setting a research agenda for debates in the future.
The authors present a comprehensive, state of the art of the knowledge and the main debates in their areas of expertise. In doing
so, they cover a wide range of topics that are relevant for practitioners, students and scholars interested in public administration
in both transitional and developing countries. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—public administration; public policy; management; capacity building; governance; China; Asia; Post-2015
Development Agenda; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
INTRODUCTION
The role of public administration in support of governance institutions is essential to steer society on its chosen de-
velopment path. It is one of the main organisational pillars for delivering an ever widening range of public services
and goods to an ever multiplying and diverse citizenry in a changing complex environment with new challenges
ahead. With the Post-2015 Development Agenda on the table, there is a need for greater effectiveness in public
administration as well as more democratic institutional mechanisms in practice at the different levels in order to
bring about a more sustainable development. Nevertheless, many of the public policies, organisations and institu-
tions still operate in the old paradigms. Change is required to create the capacity effectively to deliver what soci-
eties expect from the public sector. Moreover, institutions at the national and sub-national level need to interact
with other and often new stakeholders (e.g. minorities, immigrants) to make management and administration work
more inclusively and efficiently.
Over the past decades, Public Administration and Development (PAD) has reported on and examined a number
of institutional innovations at the local, national and global level to improve public administration. We need to un-
derstand how those innovations come about in order to tackle the current and future challenges in creating (where
absent or not fully developed) effective, efficient, accountable and transparent public administrations. Thus, we
brought to Fudan University in Shanghai (China) from 30th May to 1st June 2014 some of the best scholars in their
fields to reflect upon the state of the art in their domain of expertise. The objective of the symposium was to analyse
*Correspondence to: J. A. Puppim de Oliveira, United Nations University (UNU-IAS). 5–53–70 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8925,
Japan. E-mail: puppim@unu.edu and japo3@yahoo.com
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 35,65–72 (20152015)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1716
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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