• Julia Dahlvik, University of Applied Science FH Campus Wien, Public Management, Vienna, Austria, julia.dahlvik@fh-campuswien.ac.at

• Michal Sedlacko, University of Applied Science FH Campus Wien, Public Management, Vienna, Austria, michal.sedlacko@fh-campuswien.ac.at

Michal Sedlačko is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Applied Sciences FH Campus Wien, where he also coordinates the Competence Centre for Administrative Sciences. His research interests include knowledge practices in public administration and policy, teaching PA, and systems thinking for sustainability.
 

Aims of the panel

The aim of the panel is to create exchange amongst researchers and practitioners on the "new” public value paradigm in administration and governance, its implications and challenges on different levels.

Social wealth and the wellbeing of the individual have many sources, amongst them public services, contributions of private households, and also civil society and private companies as well as services related to public goods. Public value represents a public administration paradigm and a governance approach, which focuses on the collective aim of public value and processes for reaching this aim, and which highlights the role of the state in these processes. The focus is placed on civil society and the relationship between citizens and the state, which were neglected in the New Public Management approach. Citizens are no longer conceived as passive recipients or consumers, but are supposed to (have the possibility to) participate in public value, generating political processes in diverse ways and making active contributions. Public Value Management can be understood as a reaction of neoliberal deficits of New Public Management, since public managers also play an active role in this perspective. Public managers’ tasks now include the steering of networks of deliberation and service provision and the maintenance of the overall system capacity. Public value orientation aims at strengthening the public sphere and at a fair distribution of goods and services, as well as at developing mechanisms that enable deliberation about values and value preferences.

 

Although the public value concepts were developed without explicit connection to discourses on sustainability, ecological economy or political ecology, there are links to topics such as distribution equality within and beyond generations, quality of life and ecological sustainability. One implementation approach is thus an orientation of politics between absolute planetarian borders and humane, social minimum standards. The role of the public value approach is not only to define and create concrete values, but also to delimit the area of environmentally safe and socially just values with these two absolute borders in order to create an ecologically sustainable and fair society. Such a public value orientation of the state, in which participatory processes of value definition are combined with socio-ecological aims, is also crucial for the freedom to think of new forms of society and economy.

Focus of the panel, suggested topics

Papers on the following topics/addressing the following questions are particularly welcome:

A.    Power and interests
i.    Who are the stakeholders and which interests do they represent? How can the interests of ‘silent’ stakeholders (future generations, marginalised groups, ecological entities, be articulated and included?
ii.    Who decides which values are prioritised in decision-making processes? How are value and interest conflicts solved? How does the public value approach guarantee democratisation, in particular with regard to power and access differences amongst stakeholders?
iii.    How is public value realised in the context of limiting conditions of administration activities, systematic inequalities and conflicts of interest?

B.    Administration and context
i.    To what extent does the implementation of public value depend on the respective politico-administrative system? To what extent can public value be implemented incrementally through single leaders’ management practice?
ii.    How does public value as a discourse and reform programme contribute to change in the cultural dimension of administration and governance? What are the ideological and normative foundations of public value?
iii.    Which practical tools enable the implementation of abstract objectives of the public value paradigm into concrete practice?

C.    Implications of the public value paradigm
i.    Which role(s) do public value managers play in the intersection of politics and (technocratic) administration?
ii.    Which role(s) does expertise and scientific knowledge ("scientific policy advice”) as well as actors of science, play in public value processes?
iii.    How are public values created and measured? Who defines the criteria?

Requirements for the contributions

This is an open call which invites theoretical and empirical, as well as practical contributions, on the multi-dimensional issue of public value. The above mentioned questions and other issues raised by presenters, discussants and the audience, serve as a starting point for a discussion on public-value oriented models and practices of public administration.
Paper proposals follow the usual NISPAcee requirements. You are also welcome to contact the panel convenors prior to submission.