Counternarratives as Critical Perspectives in Public Administration Curricula

Confronting the big challenges of our time: making a difference during and after COVID-19

“…While such tensions are inherent in any field, they have been coming to the fore in recent times in ours. Various aspects of this are explored by Alexander and Stivers (2010), Blessett et al (2016), and Feeny, Carson, and Dickinson (2019). Carboni and Nabatchi (2019) recently reflected on how these tensions played out at the Minnowbrook 50 conference held in the USA.…”

Stepping up to the plate: Making social equity a priority in public administration’s troubled times

“…As encapsulated by Wright and Headley (2020), race is relevant when considering police-community relations. Recent police killings are the unjust outputs of systems that have been hallmarked from the beginning by racism and white supremacy; and the aloofness as well as dirty hands of public administrators must be met with an ethic of care, respect, and a rewriting of the social contract to ensure that everyone, not just the privileged, benefit from public policies (Alkadry & Blessett, 2014;Blessett et al, 2016;McCandless & Ronquillo, 2019).…”

CO‐DESIGN‐ing a morecontext‐based, pluralistic, and participatory future for public administration

“…Public administration (PA) as both a study and a practice is continually confronted with pressing societal issues. New and emerging challenges facing scholars and practitioners alike include addressing the climate crisis (Sachs et al, 2019), administrative burdens (Chudnovsky & Peeters, 2021; Herd & Moynihan, 2019; Moynihan et al, 2015; Peeters, 2020), structural inequities (Blessett et al, 2016), and discrimination (Jilke et al, 2018), in addition to understanding how the public sector can adapt to the digital age (Braams et al, 2021; Hood & Margetts, 2007; Trischler & Westman Trischler, 2021), overcome talent shortages (Asseburg & Homberg, 2020; Keppeler & Papenfuß, 2020; Linos, 2018), and prioritize conflicting goals (Chen & Jia, 2021). To confront these challenges and others, scholars are prompted to put forth practical and accessible solutions (Barzelay & Thompson, 2011) and practitioners are encouraged to work collaboratively with communities to implement them (Knight, 2021).…”