2013 anel on How to Get Published in Public Administration: Do’s and Don’ts: P The session was an interactive dialogue on publishing in our field. After an overview of “tips for success” and some “pitfalls” to avoid, participants engaged in a discussion of their own strategies for getting published Commemorative Ceremony for Professor O.P. Dwivedi: The Plenary Session Commemorating Professor Dwivedi’s life and career highlighted his many contributions to the profession of public administration, his many academic articles and books in a wide range of subjects in the field of public administration, and to furthering IASIA’s impact in its role in perpetuating the contributions of academic scholarship and the teaching of public administration to advancements in the development of societies through good governance and administration Panel on Middle East Public Administration Research: In the midst of fast evolving changes in the Middle East, on different fronts, be it the organization of the political and governance systems, the basic economic models adopted, the failure of the welfare system, the widespread popular contestations, and a myriad of challenges that past and current governance systems have failed to cope with, it has become critical for PA to reform in order to address the region’s unique history and rapidly evolving systems of government; which calls for a focused effort to understand governance in times of transition and to support this reform with local research, global experience, and new thinking. Executive summary of the debates for the IIAS Project and Study Groups PG IV: Security The group met in Bahrain and a key outcome of the meeting was the endorsement process for a peer review by the members of the group of chapters in line of a publication in 2014 on the subject of emergency planning and crisis response. The target audience for the publication would be: government practitioners in the crisis management field, academic researchers, teachers and graduate students in the field of crisis management, and crisis management courses sponsored by international organizations such as the World Bank and by International Development Agencies.
SG IV: Quality of Governance The newly established group met in Bahrain after a successful first meeting in 2012. Spread out over two days, the group hosted three different sessions: Challenges for Good Governance; Good Governance and Public Values in Context and Quality of Governance in Asia. Many topics were discussed, such as how to measure and categories quality governance, the role of values (including trust and legitimacy) and value research (including value conflict) in quality of governance issues, ad how to steer public sector reform to improve quality of governance. The relationship between quality of input, quality of throughput (the process) and the quality of output and outcomes as different related phases of governance was a recurring topic. Further information can be found via the following link: http://www. iias-iisa.org/groups/study-groups/sg-iv-quality-of-governance/ SG IX: Civil Service and Politics: A Kick-off Panel introducing the new group was organized during the congress on the theme “Political-administrative relations in times of heightened pressure on executive government” Executive governments are faced with increasing societal and political pressures. Such pressures may derive from, amongst other factors, increased electoral volatility and polarization, changes in mass media and communications, increased freedom of information and government transparency, and the internationalization of policy challenges. Presidents, prime-ministers and cabinets have found and indeed used different responses to such pressures, many of which include either attempts to delegate responsibility outward (such as privatization, agencification, decentralization, Europeanization), and/or attempts to increase grip on their sphere of responsibility (such as performance management, audits, politicization, increased media management). Each of these responses may have substantial consequences for the interaction between politicians in government and their civil servants, and for the positioning of civil servants vis-à-vis their political superiors. The panels addressed the following questions: n What is the impact of the heightened pressures on the executive on the relationship between civil servants and politicians? n To what extent are changes in political-administrative relations similar across countries and continents? annual report 2013
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