RC32 - Public Policy and Administration

Dates have been announced for -

• the second International Conference on Public Policy (following the first in Grenoble in 2013), which will be in Milan from 1-3 July 2015

• the tenth Interpretive Policy Analysis Conference, which will be held in Lille (NE France) from 8-10 July.

More detail later.

The Central European Journal of Public Policy has just published its latest issue at http://www.cejpp.eu/index.php/ojs. Editor-in-Chief Martin Nekola invites you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit the journal's web site to review articles and items of interest.

Cambridge Studies in Comparative Public Policy is a new series established by Cambridge University Press to promote and disseminate comparative research in public policy. Edited by M. Ramesh, Wu Xun and Michael Howlett, the series welcomes proposals for new books from established scholars and first-time authors alike.

The Causes and Consequences of Private Governance: The Changing Roles of State and Private Actors 6 – 7 November, 2014 in Mannheim, Germany A conference hosted by the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de and co-sponsored by European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) within the Action IS1309 “Innovations in Climate Governance: Sources, Patterns and Effects (INOGOV)” http://www.cost.eu/domains_actions/isch/Actions/IS1309 Conference organizers: Sebastian Koos, Jennifer Shore, and Jale Tosun Overview: The two-day conference will serve as a platform for an interdisciplinary exchange on the causes and consequences of private governance, bringing together international scholars from multiple academic fields. We seek a variety of contributions for the workshop: First, we will examine works that highlight the emergence and diffusion of private governance systems. Second, we turn to the effects of private governance, both for societies, but also for businesses, standards organizations, and governments. We welcome both theoretical and empirical contributions. Although the study of private governance is by no means a new area of investigation, the research field remains quite fragmented in terms of both its objects of interest and disciplinary foci. Against this background, the workshop pursues a twofold goal: 1) to take stock of the large volumes of research on the topic of private governance and 2) to systematically map out the road ahead in order to identify which questions remain unanswered and where the new frontiers lie. We are especially but not exclusively interested in contributions that shed light on private governance in the fields of environmental protection and climate change, labour standards, and product quality and safety.

A Policy Studies Research Group has been formed within the Australian Political Science Association and will gather for the first time at the APSA Conference in Sydney in September.

WIPCAD Midterm Conference (4 - 6 December 2014) “Contested Public Organizations: Knowledge, Coordination, Strategy” Organizations commonly operate under conditions of high complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Rapidly changing environments exert pressures to which organizations have to respond in order to gain and maintain legitimacy. Public organizations are particularly exposed to such external demands because they are typically embedded in a complex nexus of stakeholders, which often have inconsistent expectations and are ultimately assessed by political criteria. Emergent tensions may not only destabilize organizational structures and routines, but call into question conventional methods of administration. Contestation occurs in at least three areas of core organizational activity: knowledge use and transfer; internal and external coordination; and strategy building.

The WIPCAD Midterm Conference invites researchers to submit proposals for papers that critically examine the dynamics between environments and organizational core activities. The conference theme focuses on how public organizations deal with changing conditions in terms of: (1) knowledge use and transfer; (2) coordination; and (3) strategy building. How do they react to and/or proactively seek to shape environmental conditions in order to gain legitimacy and maintain effectiveness?

Moshe Maor and Jale Tosun invite you to submit a paper proposal for the workshop on the Politics of Non-Proportionate Policy Response, which will take place as part of the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, at the University of Warsaw, Poland, from 29 March - 2 April 2015. Registration for paper proposals will open on August 1, 2014, and close on December 1, 2014.

Social Innovation Research Conference (SIRC):

Innovations in public and social policy and in public services delivery - policy and management perspectives on reforming the delivery of public services

Hosted by the School of International Affairs and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

21st – 22nd May 2015

The Department of Government is seeking to appoint a Lecturer to conduct research and teaching in the field of political theory at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The successful candidate will also supervise undergraduate projects, M.A. and PhD dissertations, and contribute to the successful administration and management of the Department. We welcome applications from candidates working in any field of political theory, but we are particularly interested in candidates who can contribute to teaching on our new degree in Political Theory and Public Policy at last - HC.

September 25-27, 2014 Brown University