IASIA at 50: Challenges and Ways Forward for Public Administration Globally
In the course of the 2011 Conference, the IASIA will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Specific sessions will address the accomplishments of the past 50 years. This will be a chance to recall the original spirit of the IASIA founding father, Donald Stone, that is to keep on improving capacity-building, while enhancing PA performance through education and training in all parts of the world, all this resulting in mutual enrichment. It will also allow participants to review the history of the IASIA as well as that of Public Administration education, training, and training needs.
In a second part, the Conference will focus on more specific issues requiring interdisciplinary contributions thus involving the various Working Groups. In 50 years and over 5 continents, many different theories have been raised and many experiments conducted in order to establish the role of State on the one hand, and society on the other, when it comes to public interest. The question is, what are the lessons to be drawn from so many different experiences?
While most countries rely for a large part on administration, some count more on it, while others try to get rid of the big state. Therefore, under which circumstances is administration the right answer to citizens’ needs? Which inherently public tasks, if any, should always be assigned to administration? How is the financial crisis affecting the role of State?
Many countries grant a strong role to citizens’ associations. But, can civil society prove as effective as is expected from administration? How to regulate and control such public interest collective initiatives? Shall we expect a virtuous competition between public agencies and private organizations? And what organizational adjustments should be made by governments when intending to regulate rather than operate?
Because such issues are addressed in very different ways according to different regions and different political contexts, abstracts describing the cultural, economic, political and ideological features of certain areas or countries, resulting in a specific distribution of administrative tasks between the public and the private sector are encouraged. The underlying issues will have to be addressed, and the different experiences confronted.
According to an interdisciplinary approach, the reports should address the challenges faced by public administration under different perspectives: economic (public administration and public economics), legal (administrative law), managerial (organizational issues), and cultural (regional approaches).
In a third part, the conference will then focus on the IASIA main concern, that is civil service education and training in an Internet driven society. Exemplary standards in both education and training should be set concerning issues like CV, best practises, capacity building, interdisciplinary approaches, education and training methods, as well as delegating authority. Abstracts are again expected to describe national and regional experiences all the while addressing the main underlying issues.
