DESIGNING RESILIENT INSTITUTIONS FOR TRANSBOUNDARY CRISIS MANAGEMENT: A TIME FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

TLDR

Crises and disasters dominate global political agendas, yet public administration remains focused on routine governance, leaving the design of institutions to protect against transboundary threats largely unexamined. The article urges public administration scholars to embed crisis and disaster management into their research, aiming to design institutions that balance transparency, citizen empowerment, and coordinated responses while bridging theory and practice.

Abstract

Crises and disasters feature high on political and public agendas around the world. Practitioners wrestle with the challenge to provide protection while maintaining legitimacy. They pine for insights that lie at the heart of public administration: designing effective institutions and preserving transparency; enabling and empowering citizens without undermining a coordinated response; balancing long‐term risks against short‐term needs; bridging the divide between theory and practice, and between the public and private sectors. But in the debates about designing institutions that protect against transboundary threats and critical infrastructure failures, the public administration community is strangely absent. It has parked itself on the sideline, concerning itself with the routine processes of governance. In this article, we argue that the time has come for public administration scholars to incorporate crisis and disaster management into the main research agendas of the field.