Maatschappelijke bestuurskunde: Hoe verbindende bestuurskundigen (kunnen) inspelen op maatschappelijke vraagstukken

The field of Public Administration (PA) has proven itself. Through teaching and research programmes, academic networks, international associations, publications, conferences and awards, administrative sciences and public sector practices have been strengthened. The reach of PA scholars has widened. PA’s focus on government has been supplemented by a focus on social services, public-private partnerships, co-production of policy and services and public value creation. Moreover, PA scholars invest in generating societal impact.

This book moves beyond these efforts. The authors uncover a need for a more society-oriented or ‘societal’ public administration that more explicitly focuses on analysing and tackling societal issues. This is more than generating societal impact. It calls for connections with other academic disciplines and societal fields, in which tackling complex or wicked issues is taking place. Think of climate adaptation, sustainable agriculture, energy transition, migration, housing, equal opportunities, organized crime, sustainable care, and digitization.

Each of the chapters in this book focuses on one pressing societal issue. Author teams, with leading authors such as Paul ’t Hart, Jet Bussemaker, Edith Hooge, Mark Bovens, Halleh Ghorashi, Pieter Tops and Martijn van der Steen explore whether and how PA contributes to tackling, if not solving that issue. How can we understand the issue from a PA perspective? How does governance take place? What PA theories and concepts are relevant? Has PA contributed actively? How can PA improve its value and better respond to the issue?

In the introductory and concluding chapters, the editors discuss the emergence of Societal Public Administration (SPA) and draw conclusions. They show that the discipline is rather silent, hardly visible and passive when it comes to many kinds of societal issues. PA plays too safe and can become more exciting. This has implications for the skills and repertoires of what the editors call 'connective PA scholars' and ‘connective PA practitioners’.

This book is part of the 50th anniversary of the Dutch Association for Public Administration (Vereniging voor Bestuurskunde) in 2023.