24: Public Administration

Sharon Mastracci, University of Illinois, Chicago, mastracc@uic.edu

This year’s theme, "The Politics of Hard Times" provides a unique opportunity to examine the response of the public and nonprofit sectors to social and economic crisis. The Public Administration Section welcomes paper and panel proposals that address several questions posed by the conference theme, including: Do governments become more interventionist in hard times? What kinds of interventions are considered and implemented?

What happens with government spending and programs, including social welfare and infrastructure programs? What happens with government regulation and management? Do crises present opportunities for new cooperative endeavors, or do they undermine existing patterns of institutional cooperation? From a comparative PA perspective, Do centralized governments do better or worse than federal systems in times of crisis? We especially encourage proposals of innovative panel formats, as well as papers and panels that examine the contribution of Public Administration to policy development in hard times.