Norbert
Kersting, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Westfälische
Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany
E-mail:norbert.kersting@uni-muenster.de
Marijana
Grbeša Zenzerović, Faculty of Political Science,
University of Zagreb, Croatia;
E-mail:mgrbesa@yahoo.com
Anamarija
Musa, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia
E-mail: amusa@pravo.hr
Frans Jorna, Saxion, University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
E-mail:f.b.a.jorna@gmail.com
Transparency and openness of
public administration constitute the cornerstone of the European administrative
space concept. Provision of information to public and citizens’ participation
in decision-making are considered as necessary administrative practices for the
purpose of legitimising administrative decisions and building public trust in
institutions.
Transparent and open
governments thus continuously provide information to the public, make
information available at the request of citizens and ensure channels for
participation of the public in the decision-making processes.
In addition, public
administrations nowadays face enormous pressure to present themselves and their
decisions to the public using effective public relations. Communication with
the public ranges from the provision of basic information to the implementation
of strategically tailored information campaigns and the use of sophisticated
forms of political public relations. Communication methods and channels which
ensure transparency, openness and effective communication are supported by the
fast developing digital technologies which open up new possibilities for
communication with the public.
The panel chairs invite
papers of theoretical or empirical relevance based on comparative or case study
research that analyse following topics:
- transparency and open government,
- political
communication, strategic government communication and public relations in
government and public administration,
- digital
technology (ICT) support for transparent and open government and public
communication in government.
The papers written in
cooperation between researchers and practitioners, as well as the research
papers which focus on communication practices at different levels of government
in Europe – local, regional, national or European - are particularly welcome.