ARPA Calls for Commentaries on Government Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic
Posted: 4/14/2020 (Conference and Local Events)
The American Review of Public Administration, a leading SSCI journal in the field, is calling for commentaries on the relationships between the practice of public administration and the field of public health in the context of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
In particular, and on a comparative basis in terms of country level responses in China, South Korea and throughout the world, we are interested in hosting a practitioner-academic dialogue that addresses significant lessons going forward:
- Have tensions between political leaders and administrative professionals limited the efficacy of public health initiatives?
- Have strategic planning and management systems proven adequate to address this pandemic? What are the elements of such processes that must be improved to avert future crises?
- To what extent is the response to the crisis driven by evidence-based decisions? Or are factors such as political priorities, idiosyncratic beliefs and feelings of being invulnerable effectively conflicting with science-based approaches?
- Are too few public servants willing to “speak truth to power” in terms of their messaging to the public? To what extent has the bureaucracy evidenced leadership in the crisis?
- Are government’s budgeting and fiscal management systems flexible enough for the short-term responses necessary in a pandemic situation?
- Have capacity-building and service-delivery performance measures been evident in planning for such an epidemic? Would a broader range of measures, and the data necessary to populate them, have been advantageous?
- Were public organizations adequately and comprehensively modeling the necessary plans, supply chains and resources for a pandemic? Were they sufficiently and safely staffed at the federal, state and municipal levels for such a disaster response?
- Are we facing a federalism crisis? If the federal government fails to come to the aid of states and localities during a pandemic, for which state and local governments do not have the resources to respond effectively, has the American President and the executive branch he leads abandoned its constitutional and moral obligations to the citizenry?
- Any other issues of similar relevance.
Please submit manuscripts of no more that 5000 words as early as possible, but no later than May 15th. Co-authoring is encouraged, including academic-practitioner partners. Authors are encouraged to reflect on and draw upon their experiences during the Coronavirus epidemic and over the course of their careers. They are encouraged to draw upon relevant literature, with appropriate citations. All manuscripts will be reviewed on an expedited basis. We expect to publish this dialogue as soon as June.
Manuscripts should be submitted directly to Stephanie Newbold at stephanie.newbold@hotmail.com
Questions and intentions as to appropriate topics should be addressed to us:
Stephanie Newbold
Rutgers University
Co-Editor
Marc Holzer
Suffolk University
Co-Editor
Deadline: 05/15/2020