Futures for the Public Sector

initiative to invite international fellows for a research stay in Leuven, which has resulted in influential publications. Initially, his focus was mainly on OECD countries, but soon this was extended to all continents. As chairman of the VVBB (the Flemish Association for Public Administra- tion), he has taken a leading role in the community of Public Administration experts, both scholars and practitioners, in Flanders/Belgium. This has 10 Annie HondegHem And Trui STeen resulted in long-term research programmes funded by the Flemish govern- ment (from 2001 to the present), which enhanced Public Administration in Belgium as a discipline, but also prompted academics to step out of their ivory tower. As chairman of the EGPA (European Group for Public Administration), Geert has transformed the organisation into a research community by setting up study groups in various domains, which are now the forums par excellence for researchers to present their work. He has set up dialogues with other Public Administration communities which have made it possible to transcend Eurocentrism: the Trans-Atlantic Dialogue (TAD) with the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the Trans-European Dialogue (TED) with the Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe (NISPAcee), and EURO MENA with the Middle East and North Africa Public Administration Research network (MENAPAR). As chairman of the IIAS (International Institute of Administrative Sciences), Geert was strongly focused on broadening the membership of countries worldwide, with the goal of realising mutual, bi-directional learning. This broadening was also aimed at building stronger governance systems, based on the conviction that good governance is a necessary basis for performance and sustainability. Finally, as vice-chairman of UN/ECOSOC (CEPA), Geert introduced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to the discipline of Public Administration. Building effective, accountable, and inclusive governance institutions not only is one of the SDGs, but also forms the basis for achieving the other SDGs. This is not only relevant for the Global South, but also for Western democratic systems, which are increasingly under pressure. The core areas of Geert’s research during his academic career were public management reform, performance management and financial management, and trust. The most visible output for the first theme is the book with Chris- topher Pollitt, his friend and companion de route. The book Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis, four editions of which have been published by Oxford University Press, has been translated into eight languages (including Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Italian) and is one of the classics in the field of Public Administration worldwide. Geert has always linked performance management, as one of the major innovations of New Public Management, to innovations in the financial systems of government. After all, performance information should feed the financial cycle of budget, accounting, and audit. However, such systems do not achieve their purpose if there is no trust. Geert’s merit has been to expand the concept of trust in government. In addition to citizens’ trust in government, PreFAc e 11 which is essential for legitimacy, there is also the trust of government in the citizen, and trust within government, both in and between organisations. The issue of trust has been acknowledged more and more in recent years as a critical success factor for public organisations, as illustrated by the recent OECD publication Government at a glance (2023). For these achievements (and many others that we do not mention in the scope of this preface, since otherwise this text would become a book in itself), Geert Bouckaert has been awarded eight honorary doctorates and numerous prizes. Honorary doctorates have been awarded by Aix-Marseille University, France (2008), Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia (2008), National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania (2010), Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary (2010), Université de Lausanne, Switzerland (2014), Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2014), Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania (2014), and Université du Québec (ENAP), Canada (2023). Of the numerous prizes, we mention only the two most recent ones: the Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration (2023) and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the VVBB (2024). In addition to his excellent performance as a researcher, we also mention Geert’s role as a coach and mentor for young colleagues. As promotor, he has supervised 26 PhDs that were successfully completed. Many of his PhD students have dispersed and now hold important positions. Most of them still consult Geert regularly on important decisions in their careers. This also holds for many other researchers and colleagues. Geert’s efforts also apply in particular to researchers from the Global South. For example, Geert has set up a 10-year collaboration with Ethiopian universities, which resulted in the handbook Public Administration in Ethiopia (2020), strengthening the discipline in education, and starting the Ethiopian Public Administration Association. The present book before us is in line with the intellectual path that Geert has walked in recent years. This path took him along a search for new concepts, analytical models, and normative systems to understand and guide govern- ments in a changing context. This immediately raises the question of how the discipline of Public Administration can be strengthened in the future. A previous result of this trajectory was the book European Perspectives for Public Administration: The Way Forward (2020), published by Leuven University Press and co-edited with Werner Jann. As the European version of the Minnowbrook conferences in the US that reflect on the discipline, the book outlined four major dimensions for our discipline: more attention to future thinking, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and the connection to practice. 12 Annie HondegHem And Trui STeen Geert’s current intellectual passion lies in further developing the model of the Neo-Weberian State. The idea is that the relationship between hierarchy, market, and networks needs to be re-examined to address the challenges of today’s society. Global crises related to democracy, climate, migration, health, inequality, etc. call for a renewed role of the state: ‘the return of the state’. To quote Geert himself: “We claim and hypothesise that NWS, much better and even contrary to NPM (market-driven) and NPG (network-driven), will ensure the three core functions of a whole of government strategy within a whole of society context: performing, inclusive and equitable service delivery, resilient crises governance, and effective innovation for government and society” (Bouckaert, 2023, p. 45). The current book continues by discussing future trends for the public sector and will hopefully inspire many scholars and public servants. Finally, Geert’s approach to Public Administration scholarship is also influenced by his broader interest in art, culture, politics, and society in general. Not only does his strength as an academic scholar builds on his in-depth knowledge of Public Administration as a subject area and his experi- ence in conducting robust social-scientific research, he also understands the functioning of Public Administration in its broader social context. We hope (and assume) that the Public Administration community, both scholarly and professionally, will be able to build on Geert Bouckaert’s scholar- ship for many years to come. This is what we wish him and the community. Prof. dr. Annie Hondeghem, Director of the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, 2013–2024 Prof. dr. Trui Steen, Director of the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, 2024–present Reference Bouckaert, G. (2023). The Neo-Weberian state: From ideal type model to reality? Max Weber Studies, 23(1), 13–59. INTRODUCTION Looking at futures for the public sector by Geert Bouckaert In line with the German philosopher Kant (1724–1804), we all need to ask ourselves three questions: What can we know? What should we do? What may we hope for? These are also three key questions for social scientists. When we transfer these three questions to our academic field of public policy and its governance, we need to take uncertainties and disruptions into account which encompass not only the known unknown, but even more so the unknown unknown. The question of what we should do is complicated in environments of populism and illiberalism, which also triggers the question of who should do what? Since social sciences are likewise value-driven, it is important to make explicit what we may hope for. Realising the Sustainable Development Goals while keeping a rule-of-law-framed democracy is under pressure from crises and system quakes. As academic social scientists, we need to know how we should organise ourselves to answer or at least discuss these possible futures. It is a com- mon saying that we often neglect strategic and systemic topics since we are absorbed by urgent and operational issues. In the 20th century the number of dystopias was much larger than the number of utopias. Just like Malthus (1766–1834) or the Club of Rome, which was founded in 1968, there is a kind of evidence-based pessimism which is fuelled by chronic crises, political polarisation, and unreachable sustainable objectives linked to people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships. Another dimension in this academic debate is about a grounded belief in our capacity and agency to effectively change realities in fields of hunger, poverty, climate, peace, inclusion, and all the related policies. This is about voluntarism versus fatalism. Voluntarism and optimism are a moral academic duty, I believe, and therefore we need to push the relevance of our social sciences in general, and the field of Public Administration in particular, since the public sector should be part of the solution and of possible futures. In this book, it is our ambition to map and discuss important topics on ‘futures for the public sector’, and how this affects social sciences in general, 16 geerT Bouck AerT and our academic field of Public Administration in particular. It always was my conviction that the academic field of Public Administration needs to be ahead of problems and should anticipate possible futures, rather than just studying what happened. When, not if, we want to be relevant, we need to be prospective with our questions, and push to be self-fulfilling with our answers. Obviously, we are not the first to discuss such a strategic topic. The most significant effort in the second half of the 20th century has been the Minnowbrook conferences, which have taken place every 20 years, starting in 1968, and then in 1988, and 2008, with a celebratory event on the 50th anniversary of Minnowbrook, in 2018 (Nabatchi and Carboni, 2019). The fourth Minnowbrook will be in 2028. On the European side, and as former president of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA), I also wanted such a future-oriented fundamental European debate (see also Bouckaert and Van de Donk, 2010). In 2018, Werner Jann and myself launched, embedded in the EGPA, the European Perspectives for Public Administration (EPPA) initiative (Bouckaert and Jann, 2018), also intended to happen every 20 years, we hope, and alternating with the US-based Minnowbrook. The next EPPAs should be in 2038 and 2058. Reflecting on the future is risky business when it becomes speculation. It certainly requires critical observations and reflections on the past and the present. There is always the risk of a blind spot in observing and reflecting when the ‘known unknown’ is bypassed by the ‘unknown unknown’. Mapping the ‘known known’ was done by the American Society for Public Administration’s (ASPA) stock-taking on its 75th anniversary (Guy and Rubin, 2015). The Minnowbrook events involve all frontline US researchers in Public Administration. Perhaps that selection was already a source for a structural blind spot on the future (see Bouckaert and Jann, 2018). From the Minnowbrook I perspective (1968), according to Marini (1971, p. 353), there was a major shift in Public Administration to post-positivism, relevance, adaptation to turbulence (including the Vietnam War), and the emerging new organisational formats with a client focus. However, what Minnowbrook I totally missed, probably because new schools of economists were not part of the debate, was the emerging economics revival focusing on public choice, and in its wake the new competition in public policy analysis. From the Minnowbrook II perspective (1988), interdependence and interconnectedness of policy issues, private–public organisations, and nation- states, combined with a cultural diversity in a variety of forms (workforce, public, and the world in general), became a central concern. This resulted in a focus on a central actor taking on several new roles such as facilitator, negotiator, and ameliorator, resulting in a renewed paradigm, which also Looking AT FuTureS For THe PuBLic Sec Tor 17 emphasised a feminist view on and in Public Administration (Bailey and Mayer, 1992). However, what Minnowbrook II missed was the emerging New Public Management. This was probably because the debates were too US-centred, suffering from a lack of international comparative research, and therefore ignoring key developments within the OECD, and also because political philosophers which could have observed the emerging neoliberal movements were absent. From the Minnowbrook III perspective (2008), the main topics that emerged were the impact of globalisation, collaborative governance, and information technology. A major observation was made by O’Leary “that while governance has become more global, diverse, and represented by complex gov- erning arrangements and value, it also has departed from the long dominant norms embedded in Western notions of democratic governance” (O’Leary et al., 2010, pp. 284–285). However, what Minnowbrook III missed was the 2008 global economic and financial crisis and its impact on the public sector. The question here is whether this was ‘known but unnoticed’, or a genuine ‘unknown unknown’. Consequences of massive structural and institutional deregulations, including in the banking sector, obviously enhanced major risks, especially since these practices were subject to organised blind spots. From these three Minnowbrook meetings, it seems that combinations of disciplinary blindness, ignored or unnoticed consequences of ideological dominance, and unexpected chance events resulted in a lack of fundamental visions and their impacts. A derived question for academic visions for the future in all disciplines should therefore be how to create a burning platform and a sense of emergency which feeds an academic FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), by conducting relevant research. How can we anticipate these futures, or how can we be ahead of crises and trends, or even better, how can we as an academic field of Public Administration set trends ourselves? In authoritarian systems, the official future is always certain and bright; however, the official past is always difficult to predict. Democratic countries’ pasts, presents, and futures are different due to their checks and balances, their constitutional protection of the rule of law, their conception of responsibility and accountability, and their interactions with their administration (Koliba, 2024; Bertelli and Schartz, 2022; Bertelli, 2021). One consequence is that futures are permanent and dynamic, and therefore our critical reflections on futures within Public Administration should also be permanent, dynamic, and forward rolling. By 2030 17 SDGs should have been realised, or at least we should have made significant progress on most of them (2015–2030). There are thus five more years to go. Will we have the strength and the willingness, after the 18 geerT Bouck AerT Millennium Objectives (2000–2015) and the Sustainable Development Goals, to mobilise and launch a subsequent global Programme for People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships? The recent COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that we have shifted from solving a crisis to handling crises (plural), to coping with system quakes. It proves that risk calculations are blended with uncertainty, and that environments, knowledge quality, degrees of dependence, and degrees of sustainability of ‘solutions’ make not just a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous), but are also blended with a TODO world (Turbulent and disruptive environments, Oscillating/Unpredictable/Unknown knowledge quality, Dominos falling in an unknown sequences of interdependence, and Opposing/Disputed/ Wicked ‘solutions’) (Bouckaert and Galego, 2024). In January 2024, in Leuven, this academic ambition to reflect on futures for the public sector brought together a group of researchers to discuss our administrative systems, which are in political turmoil, if not a political vortex. It raises questions of how contingencies of politics, technology, and crises affect fragility. It demonstrates tensions between the branches of our states, and within our societies. It invites us to think critically about our research strategies in terms of topics, disciplines we need in our teams, or data and communication to gain trustworthiness and legitimacy, not only for the state and its administration, but also for our teaching, research, and service to communities. This book collects the outcomes of these discussions in six different clusters. In the first cluster of contributions, the embeddedness of the administrative system in a changing political environment is discussed. There is emerging and dominant populism which, once in power, explicitly wants to deconstruct the administrative state. Moynihan’s discussion of what this entails in the US is very well corroborated by Riccucci. She shows how imbalances between the branches of the state, and especially the politicised judicial branch (the US Supreme Court), impacts and even reverses policies, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Bauer discusses strategies for democratic public administrations in this era of populism. Roberts demonstrates not only how ‘stable’ countries are not just a minority and therefore an exception in our global world, but that ‘fragility’ of states is, if not the norm, certainly very common. He also shows that most of our Public Administration research is on and organised within a limited and set of ‘stable’ countries, which blinds us as researchers to ‘fragile’ country models. This political populist pressure on public administrations is multiplied with a range of crises, disruptions, and hybridity. In the second cluster, Head shows clearly how multiple crises are not the exception anymore but have become Looking AT FuTureS For THe PuBLic Sec Tor 19 the new normal. In fact, in some illiberal countries these crises become a pretext for governments to even gain more control over administrations. As Randma-Liiv and Nõmmik state, it results in a rise of hybridity of hierarchies, markets, and networks, which affects mechanisms of responsibility and accountability. Special attention to cyberspace and digital environments and how this affects administrative systems is also needed. Nasi describes how cyber-attacks have become so disruptive for standard service delivery that a new approach is needed to ensure essential services. Moon, Lee, Park, and Park focus on how artificial intelligence also has a significant disruptive capacity, even when there is a potential benefit. In a political context of populism, cyberspace and artificial intelligence have a huge potential to be used against citizens, or certain groups of citizens, affecting their constitutional rights. Meijer discusses the digital transformation as a double governance challenge. There is the external challenge of societal transformation interacting with government, and there is the internal challenge for government itself. This combined environmental context of populism and crises or digitally driven disruption impacts the interaction of the state and its citizens, and therefore of the public sector in its interaction with citizens. In the third cluster Canel discusses what the impact is of the rise of sceptical citizens for public administration communication. Along the same lines, Lotta unpacks how politicisation and populism affect frontline public services and street-level bureaucrats’ behaviour. In the fourth cluster some aspects are discussed of how the above affects the administration of the state. Lodge focuses on how the nature of the regulatory state is being transformed and possibly could be reshaped. Van Thiel connects the old specialisation/coordination debate with public value. Dudau looks at how a renewed vision through the lens of ecosystems could be beneficial. The fifth cluster discusses the drastic impacts on the public sector itself. In line with weakening the public sector by reducing its capacity and numbers, contracting out has become a common practice for advice and design in strategic dimensions of many policies. Collington clearly shows how non-state experts and private consultants in public policy managed to trigger demand for their services, and also how they offer their own defined supply and capacity. This shift from internal to external capacity is significant and structural. For those who stay in the public sector, a shift to flexibility becomes obvious. Ritz, Ripoll, and Micacchi discuss in detail this shift towards flexibilisation of public sector work and the way it is managed. Once the flexibility is realised, another classical bureaucratic question is raised. Is ‘merit’ still the central focus in shaping a public sector, including beyond hiring people? Nistotskaya 20 geerT Bouck AerT discusses this in all its dimensions, and to the extent of how and under what conditions merit is functional. Bach complements this discourse by showing a shift within merit to functional politicisation, which may result in a kind of responsiveness that ultimately turns into a subservient bureaucracy. A crucial trend is described by Van de Walle, who surfaces the disappearance of lower-grade bureaucrats, with some serious consequences. The last cluster handles the debate of how this affects us as researchers of Public Administration. Maesschalck discusses how to upgrade research for the future and how this not only impacts Public Administration, but also how Public Administration can leverage critical thinking on possible futures. Olson emphasises that Public Administration should adjust and take interdisciplinary publication strategies into account to make sure it is a horizontal and consolidating academic field. Feeney demonstrates how open science and public access is the way forward to advance our field of study. Finally, in a concluding chapter, I try to show how these six clusters are interconnected and suggest possible futures. The perspective is not just to take stock, or to extrapolate a bit, or to just react according to a normative framework. The perspective is to be ahead of problems and tensions, or even to curb dystopian futures into desirable futures. This is what all participants in the Leuven 2024 seminar share. Based on a voluntaristic attitude, we have a strong belief that our research makes a difference and contributes to possible futures for public sectors in society. References Bailey, M. T., & Mayer, R. T. (Eds.) (1992). Public Management in an Interconnected World: Essays in the Minnowbrook Tradition. Greenwood Press. https://archive.org/details/publicmanage- ment0000unse_l1m1/page/n7/mode/2up. Bertelli, A. M., & Schwartz, L. J. (2022). Public Administration and Democracy: The Complementarity Principle. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009217613. Bertelli, A. M. (2021). Democracy Administered: How Public Administration Shapes Representative Government. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316755167. Bouckaert, G., & Galego, D. (2024). System-quake proof “Systemic Resilience Governance”: Six measures for readiness. Global Policy, 15(S6), 97–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758- 5899.13433. Bouckaert, G., & Jann, W. (Eds.) (2020). European Perspectives for Public Administration: The Way Forward. Leuven University Press. https://doi.org/10.11116/9789461663078. Bouckaert, G., & van de Donk, W. (eds.) (2010). The European Group for Public Administration (1975–2010): Perspectives for the Future / Le Groupe Européen pour l’Administration Publique (1975–2010): Perspectives pour le Futur. Bruylant. Looking AT FuTureS For THe PuBLic Sec Tor 21 Guy, M. E., & Rubin, M. M. (2015). Public Administration Evolving. From Foundations to the Future. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718958. Koliba, C. (2024). Liberal democratic accountability standards and public administration. Public Administration Review, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13831. Marini, F. (Ed.) (1971). Toward a New Public Administration: The Minnowbrook Perspective. Chandler Publishing. Nabatchi, T. & Carboni, J. L. (2019). Assessing the Past and Future of Public Administration: Reflections from the Minnowbrook at 50 Conference. IBM Center for the Business Government. https://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/Assessing%20the%20Past%20 and%20Future%20of%20Public%20Administration%20-%20Reflections%20from%20 the%20Minnowbrook%20at%2050%20Conference_0.pdf. O’Leary, R., Van Slyke, D. M., & Kim, S. (Eds.) (2010). The Future of Public Administration around the World: The Minnowbrook Perspective. Georgetown University Press. https://www.jstor. org/stable/j.ctt2tt4cr. PART 1 FUTURES OF THE POLITICO- ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM Strategies for democratic public administration in an era of populism by Michael W. Bauer 1. Introduction The surge of political illiberalism is a manifest trend haunting democracies in general and administrative systems more specifically. This chapter examines the challenges deriving from this trend, delving into its nature, and exploring the repercussions it holds for Public Administration (PA) as a discipline, and for public management as a practical enterprise. It demands increased intellectual efforts to innovate administrative legitimacy and foster a more democratic and responsive public administration aligned with its pluralistic mission. The illiberal challenge is a trend that will not end any time soon; it is fuelled by the structural shortcomings of existing liberal democracies. The positive effects of the trend are hard to discern and might emerge only if ongoing transformations were to lead to innovative and greater democratisa- tion of executive policymaking. PA as a discipline is called upon to improve the participatory and interactive basis of how “democracy administered” (Bertelli, 2021) works in the 21st century and, by teaming up with political philosophers and pioneers of new forms of legitimacy in complex governance configurations, to provide realistic models to experiment with (even) more collaborative and inclusive forms of public administration in practice. Because the only realistic solution for strengthening democratic administration under illiberal pressure lies in further democratising it (Zeitlin et al., 2023; Trondal, 2023; Torfing et al., 2024). With a view to contributing to this necessary debate, this chapter proceeds as follows. Section 3 sketches the reasons behind the rise of authoritarian populism which, once in government, constitutes the illiberal challenge referred to in the chapter’s title. Following cleavage theory in its structural argumentation, there appears to be little hope that populist success is ephem- eral and will end soon. What authoritarian governments do once they have executive power to transform liberal institutions (Peters and Pierre, 2020; 26 micHAeL W. BAuer Peters, 2023), policy substance, and the administrative system is briefly outlined in section 4. Two ensuing dilemmas such state transformation poses for PA and democratic bureaucracy are then discussed in section 5. Section 6 examines the ethical and normative implications of the illiberal challenge for PA as a discipline. The conclusions summarise the main argument and discuss implications for our research agenda. It is, however, the concept of illiberalism that needs to be addressed first. 2. Political illiberalism on the rise Conceptual and theoretical discussions about ‘illiberalism’ – aiming to establish and explain the concept on its own terms – usually distance it from being merely the opposite of liberalism (Waller, 2023; Sajó et al., 2019; Plattner, 2000; Wagrandl, 2021). The definitional complexities are compounded by the fact that some controversial leaders – first and foremost Victor Orbán in Hungary – have embraced the labels ‘illiberal’ or ‘illiberal democracy’ to characterise their own political visions of regime transformation (Hajnal, 2021; Hajnal and Boda, 2021; Zakaria, 1997, 2002; Bustikova and Guasti, 2017). However, in most instances, ‘illiberal’ and ‘illiberalism’ serve as descriptors for populist movements or regimes, particularly those of a right-wing, authoritar- ian nature (Holmes, 2021; Inglehart and Norris, 2016; Schäfer, 2022). This chapter adopts the same stance, conceiving illiberalism as a pivotal element within the political ideology of authoritarian populists.1 Authoritarian populists’ illiberalism runs on what can be called ‘political negativism’ (see Urbinati, 2019a, p. 22; Zürn, 2022). It is anti-elitist (the ‘old’ elites are corrupted); it is anti-internationalist (membership in international organisations and treaties bind the nation unfairly); it is anti-pluralist (proce- dures are deemed unimportant and an imagined homogenous notion of the ‘majority’ is advocated); and it is also anti-liberal. The latter concerns the lack of respect for individual and minority rights and for the rule of law (Plattner, 2020; Sajó, 2019). The ‘illiberal challenge’ embodied by authoritarian populists in government comprises all those features (Schäfer and Zürn, 2023).2 In summary, the chapter shares concerns about the increasing fragility of our Western liberal-democratic regimes (see also the contributions by Roberts, Moynihan, and Lotta in this volume). This being so, it argues that the illiberal challenge makes it necessary for PA to engage (yet again and more eagerly, see Waldo, 1952) in a dialogue with political philosophy and other (normative) political and social sciences about the potentials and limits of democratic administration in the democracies of the 21st century (Bertelli, STrATe gieS For democrATic PuBLic AdminiSTrATion in An erA oF PoPuLiSm 27 2021), and about how public administration can contribute to safeguarding popular trust in the liberal-democratic project (Bouckaert, 2012; Yesilkagit et al., 2024). Against this background, democratic bureaucracy under populist rule faces tough choices. If ‘democracy’ is conceived primarily as popular sovereignty and as a chain of command deriving from elected government down to implementation (Finer, 1940; Bertelli and Schwartz, 2022; Jackson, 2009), then, under authoritarian populist rule, bureaucracy is in danger of becoming an accomplice of illiberal regime transformation (Bauer, 2024a). This means that the natural tension between the ‘liberal’ parts of our democratic regimes (in the form of counter-majoritarian components) and its features of ‘electoral sovereignty’ – which have so successfully been balanced in the second half of the 20th century – are dramatically reappearing in the current age of the rise of populism (Krastev, 2011; Heath, 2020; Bertelli, 2021).3 In straightforward terms, PA must therefore re-examine fundamental value questions, which have been neglected while the discipline’s main focus was, rather, on more pragmatic aspects of optimising bureaucratic management (as discussed by Roberts in this volume; see also Stoker, 2021). Thus, there is a need for PA to contemplate its ethical and deontological ideals to a much greater extent than has been done in recent decades (du Gay, 2020; Cooper, 2012; Spicer, 2015; Bertelli, 2021; O’Leary, 2013, 2017). The question might be whether public administration theorising ought to conceive ‘democratic’ in a popular-electoral or in a liberal-pluralist sense (Bertelli and Schwartz, 2022; Heath, 2020; Manow, 2021; Schäfer and Zürn, 2023; Koliba, 2024), i.e. whether bureaucracy’s main role is (limited) to be an instrument of the elected leadership or whether it needs (to be extended) to become (and be understood accordingly as) an institution of pluralist govern- ment in its own right; and how to balance unavoidable tensions between these two legitimating principles (majoritarian will versus deliberating expertise) in bureaucratic practice (Dean, 2023).4 3. Evidence of authoritarian populism in action: more than a political strategy Without being able to review the whole debate about the new populism here (but see Moffitt, 2020; 2016; Norris and Inglehart, 2019; Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2012; Müller, 2016), it is important to note that populism is typically debated with re- gard to its definition, its substance, its ability to mobilise citizens and antagonise societal groups, its impact on party systems, and political radicalisation (Kriesi, 28 micHAeL W. BAuer 2014). The nexus and impact of populist governments on public administration has only recently received more attention (Rockman, 2019; Spicer, 2018; Bauer et al., 2021; Peters and Pierre, 2020; Bauer, 2024a). The point is that the public administration system in general, and the state bureaucracy in particular, are the first institutions of the democratic state to ‘suffer’ populist rule while also, at- tributable to their mission, having to ‘serve’ their new masters (Bauer and Becker, 2020). It is argued that populist governments – in particular under what is called charismatic, one-person leadership – can become dangerous for democracy when the connection between leader and people remains unmediated for a longer period of time, thus bypassing and surpassing mediating institutions, among which one can also count, implicitly at least, the bureaucracy (Urbinati, 2019a, b; Mansbridge and Macedo, 2019). In other words, the populist leader draws on the core antagonism of ‘the good people versus the corrupt elite’, thus justifying impatience with the necessary compromises and frustrations of procedural democracy and its constraining checks and balances. The top ranks of the bureaucracy, if not the whole public administration system, are seen by populists as being part of this ‘corrupt’ elite, fighting against which constitutes the core mandate of populists elected to power. For some observers, populism, particularly when emanating from the opposition, is viewed as a necessary political force that provides neglected segments of the electorate with a renewed representation (Mouffe, 2018; Moffit, 2020). Yet there is a broad consensus that populists in government pose a threat for the proper functioning and even for the future of democracy (Galston, 2017; Peters and Pierre, 2020; Bauer et al., 2021; Askim et al., 2022; Bellodi et al., 2022).5 The pivotal questions then become: why are populists so successful, and is populism, especially authoritarian populism, merely a mobilising strategy to seize political power, or are there functional or structural features aiding its ascent (Manow, 2021)? Why such a presumably political science question is also of interest for PA is obvious. If populism is merely a transient political trend, the situation may potentially revert once the electorate’s attention shifts elsewhere. However, if there are structural reasons behind the success of populists – and I agree that there are – then public administration must also undergo a more profound re-evaluation of its role under populist governments and determine the stance it legitimately can and wishes to adopt amid ongoing transformations of the politics–administration relationship (Stoker, 2021). Regrettably, the latter scenario appears to be the reality, as indicated by a majority of the literature on the current wave of populism, particularly within cleavage theory (Marks et al., 2021). In essence, the argument revolves around the growing incapacity of our representative democracies to present STrATe gieS For democrATic PuBLic AdminiSTrATion in An erA oF PoPuLiSm 29 disadvantaged segments of the electorate with a genuinely political choice, because of the liberal embeddedness of the nation-state in inter- and supra- national regimes and the delegation of decisions to non-majoritarian national institutions (Schäfer and Zürn, 2023). This increasing incapacity, coupled with the entrenched effects of prior policy and institutional decisions (which are difficult to change subsequently because of lock-in effects and the need for super-majorities, like, for example, establishing a transnational currency), tends to favour a specific ‘liberal’ spectrum of policy options in Western democracies, promoting neoliberal economic policies, libertarian societal models, and a general cosmopolitanism (Urbinati, 2019a, b). Consequently, those on the periphery or in opposition to these choices feel progressively less represented, and – aggravated by economic crises – feel existentially threatened and thus withdraw their support from the established institutions and policies of the system. This, at least, is the crux of the argument (Zürn, 2022). What is more, the rise of the new cleavage is said to have been propelled by the increasing similarity among political parties, transforming them into ‘catch-all parties’. Simultaneously, policymaking has faced escalating constraints from non-majoritarian institutions at both the national level (constitutional courts, central banks, regulatory agencies) and the international level (ECB, IMF, etc.) (Strijbis et al., 2020).6 “Unfavorable policies alone” do not “cause dissatisfaction, but the feeling that these policies cannot be changed within the ‘old system’” (Zürn, 2022, p. 790). Or, as Nadia Urbinati puts it, the confidence that “no majority is the last one” (2019, p. 91) has been lost.7 Consequently, this cleavage has become manifest, with authoritarian populism on one side (majoritarian, nationalist, anti-liberal) and liberal cosmopolitanism on the other (emphasising individual rights, open borders, and international integration) (Strijbis et al., 2020; Koopmans and Zürn, 2019; de Vries, 2018). The debates surrounding this development are more complex than can be addressed here. However, for the purpose of our discussion, a crucial point emerges: authoritarian populism should not be regarded as a transient or external phenomenon but as a novel political ideology inherent to the evolution that Western liberal democracies have undergone in the last decades (see Zürn and De Wilde, 2016; Schäfer and Zürn, 2023). The emerging cleav- age appears to be a lasting condition, shaping new political realities, and consequently, it also introduces a new context for politics–administration relations, particularly where populists successfully conquer executive power (Yesilkagit et al., 2024; Bauer, 2024a; Peters and Pierre, 2020). Before delving into what that development means for public administration, the question is: what do we know about the authoritarian populist agenda once these forces have seized control of executive government? 30 micHAeL W. BAuer 4. The authoritarian populist agenda: system transformation, illiberal policy change, and administrative deformation To state the obvious: governments, including authoritarian populist govern- ments, can only execute – in the sense of performing and implementing – decisions through their administrative apparatus. Consequently, any envisioned governmental action, beyond mere party political communication or grassroots mobilisation by a party that constitutes that government, must be meticulously outlined, and set in motion by segments of the bureaucracy. This underscores the critical role played by the bureaucracy in what is commonly referred to as democratic backsliding. To provide a brief reminder, democratic backsliding signifies the gradual deterioration of democratic institutions and norms, leading to the erosion of the democratic quality of a system and the concentration of power in the executive (referred to as ‘executive aggrandizement’) (Bermeo, 2016, 2022; Coppedge, 2017). Authoritarian populists contribute to this backslid- ing by undermining democratic checks and balances, restricting political pluralism, compromising electoral integrity, diminishing minority rights, and weakening the rule of law. There is also evidence suggesting that au- thoritarian populist governments promote nationalism and xenophobia, exacerbate corruption and cronyism, and, additionally, exhibit economic under-performance (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2015; Levitsky and Zib- latt, 2018; Biard, 2019; Peters and Pierre, 2022; Bellodi et al., 2024; Zhang, 2023). Beyond systemic-level change in the form of democratic backsliding, authoritarian populists in government also attempt to implement their preferred illiberal policies as well as to reform the state bureaucracy into a submissive instrument centrally steerable by their personal command (Peters and Pierre, 2019). Analysis of illiberal policy change has focused so far on how populist leaders engage in backsliding by manipulating bureaucratic capacities to bring about changes in public policies (see for an overview Morais de Sá e Silva and Gomide, 2024). These changes often involve covert and subversive methods to avoid public and institutional scrutiny. Examples include President Trump’s efforts to sideline the Environmental Protection Agency and weaken the capabilities of the US foreign policy bureaucracy (Dillon et al., 2018). The short-term tactics involve strategies to impede accurate bureaucratic manage- ment, such as publicly criticising administrators, dismissing experts, reducing budgets, and appointing loyalists. Over time, these administrative changes can significantly influence policy design, demonstrating how backsliders use STrATe gieS For democrATic PuBLic AdminiSTrATion in An erA oF PoPuLiSm 31 bureaucratic politics and reorganisation strategies as shortcuts to achieve their policy objectives through subterfuge. Propelled by distrust of what they perceive as a ‘runaway’ and ‘establish- ment-elitist’ civil service, populist administrative reformers also follow their anti-pluralist script when transforming democratic public administration itself. Such reforms usually have the ambition to transform bureaucracy into a mere instrument at the disposal of their leadership, and their leadership alone. Backsliders employ a variety of strategies to mould bureaucracies into instruments with which to execute their illiberal policy agendas. These tactics encompass centralising administrative structures, bolstering top- down control, implementing budget cuts, purging staff based on ideology, subverting democratic norms in civil service management, and diminishing external accountability and interaction with society (Bauer et al., 2021; Bauer and Becker, 2020). In recent years a rich body of PA literature has emerged covering illiberal policy change and administrative deformations as attempted by populists in government (see for an overview Yesilkagit et al., 2024; Bauer, 2024a). While the intensity and patterns of the achieved transformation vary, the intention and direction of authoritarian change, as well as the centrality of the bureaucracy as a means as well as an object of that change, can be taken for granted. This chapter can therefore explore the dilemmas that arise for democratic administration due to such developments. 5. The limits of the instrumental role One could argue that public administration as the instrument of the govern- ment of the day has to do what that government wants, provided that said government enjoys legitimacy based on fair elections (Finer, 1940). Even if one embraces such a purely instrumental role, there are at least two dilemmas for democratic administration under populist rule: an epistemological and a backsliding dilemma. The epistemological dilemma derives from the policy expertise vested in the bureaucracy and in individual bureaucrats. Expertise is almost by definition the basis of non- or even counter-majoritarian influence, and that makes the administrative elites (as part of the old elite against which populism campaigns) suspicious of populists in government. The bureaucracy is trained to be the guard of the kind of professional standards of policymaking populists detest because they understand them, most of the time, as constraints to their claim of an intuitive understanding of what is “the right thing to do” 32 micHAeL W. BAuer to “make things great again” (Urbinati, 2019a; Christensen, 2022). In view of the unprincipled demands of populists in power, civil servants will have to weigh to what extent they can implement populist policy choices that are in conflict with professional standards and scientific knowledge (Schuster et al., 2022; Kucinskas and Zylan, 2023; Story et al., 2023). The dilemma is: should bureaucrats acquiesce when asked to design and implement policies that are to the best of their knowledge ineffective or counter-productive in view of the problem to be solved, or potentially not in harmony with national laws or international commitments (Bertelli, 2021; Mosler and Potrafke, 2020; Dijkstra et al., 2022)? To what, in the first place, ought bureaucrats ideally be loyal – the elected government or professional standards? The backsliding dilemma has been debated more extensively and consists, as detailed in the previous section, in the risk of populists in government using their bureaucracies to dismantle liberal-democratic standards, procedures, and democratic political cultures (Bermeo, 2016, 2022). Not opposing such government action may make civil servants the accomplices of democratic backsliding. But again, the question is whether and to what extent bureaucrats can shed responsibility and do what they are told to do by their populist superiors when the latter go against liberal or pluralist values and established democratic culture. PA research has started to consider these aspects (Bertelli, 2021; Yesilkagit et al., 2024; Bauer, 2024a; Koliba, 2024). The dilemma is that in a traditional instrumental view on public administration, it is very difficult to justify bureaucratic counter-action, save, perhaps, when populist govern- ments clearly and ostensibly breach the constitution. It appears that without a robust and fundamental debate about the ethical principles underlying a good civil service and the nature of appropriate administrative behaviour in times of crisis, this dilemma remains intractable, or at least risks being shifted to the conscience of individual civil servants. Instead of leaving individual bureaucrats in a particular situation to figure out what to do, this problematic requires examining whether our current conception of a democratic public administration system is adequate to address such challenges and, if the conclusion is that it is not, how, potentially, to adapt it. The implied question is whether the liberal state is too liberal in the face of those who attempt to undermine the democratic constitutional order and thus whether the civil service needs to be enabled to act as a guardian (Raadschelders, 2022; Yesilkagit et al., 2024). At any rate, both the epistemological and backsliding dilemma point to the fundamental question of whether civil servants can uphold their neutrality when professional standards, or even the bedrock principles of their liberal-democratic order, are threatened by the very govern- ment they serve. STrATe gieS For democrATic PuBLic AdminiSTrATion in An erA oF PoPuLiSm 33 6. How to respond to the illiberal trend? Populism as an ethical challenge for PA If the previous argumentation has some validity, the illiberal challenge poses tricky ethical and normative questions for PA as a discipline (Stivers, 2008; Stivers and DeHart-Davis, 2022; Bertelli, 2021). How can the civil service be prepared to ‘stand up to’ the populist challenge, and what can be expected from individual democratic bureaucrats under pressure to advance illiberal agendas (Bauer, 2024a; Yesilkagit et al., 2024)? The orthodox image of bureaucracy as, first and foremost, an instrument of government seems too narrow (see Jackson, 2009), and so does the conception of the bureaucratic ethos as deriving exclusively from values like efficiency, neutrality, loyalty, expertise, hierarchy, and a chain of command from elected leaders to implementation (Cooper, 1990). Rather, what is needed is a renewal of the debate about administrative responsibility and the adequate kind of democratic ethos for modern public bureaucracies (Rohr, 1986, 1998; Bertelli, 2021; Meier et al., 2019; Brugué and Gallego, 2003; Železnik and Fink-Hafner, 2023; Bauer, 2024b). Such a debate needs to explore the fine balance between professional neutrality and the need for practical integrity if the democratic system itself is at stake. To what extent individual bureaucrats need to ground their behaviour on higher-order moral principles such as constitutionalism, citizenship, public interest, social equity, and justice in order to preserve the liberal-democratic order will have to be discussed (Nabatchi et al., 2011; Heath, 2020). Yesilkagit et al. (2024) have provided a manifesto for just such an active guardianship of democratic ad- ministration in the face of democratic backsliding by incumbent governments (see also Terry, 2003; du Gay and Lopdrup-Hjorth, 2022). Similarly, balancing the formal competences of civil servants, their necessary independence to do their job, and their duty to advance pluralist democratic values, Bertelli (2021, Ch 6) develops a ‘complementary principle’ as a normative orientation for individual ‘policy workers’ to remain truthful to democratic values in their governance work. According to such considerations, bureaucracy is not just an instrument, but a democratic institution with its own normative and organisational intrinsic values (which are usually shared with the society in which it is operating). The necessary legitimacy for the bureaucracy to act in such a way needs to be further discussed and probably spelled out more clearly than is currently the case in constitutional principles, rule of law, due process, and impartial expertise (Heath, 2020). In addition, if clashes with backsliding governments are to be expected, deontological ethical standards on which to base democratic administrative performance need to be developed and their practicability explored and assured (Stivers, 2008; Nabatchi et al., 2011). 34 micHAeL W. BAuer Beyond defending pluralist values against illiberal backsliders in govern- ment, a further point for consideration is that our ‘models’ of a bureaucracy in liberal representative democracies need to come to grips with the intensifying centrality of the executive in modern governance, and the challenge ever- greater executive powers pose for conceiving of adequate forms and ways to keep 21st-century government legitimate and democratic. This is probably via a mixture of increasing deliberative, participative, representative, and other forms and mechanisms of popular engagement and control. If there is any potentially positive impact of the current trend of rising authoritative populism, then perhaps it is to raise questions of how to further democratise public administration in practice. Only in the tradition of democratic administration thinking can one expect to find a solid theoretical basis for conceiving of active administrative responsibilities against the potential exaggerations of illiberal governments (Etzioni-Halevy, 2013; Brugué and Gallego, 2003; Wood et al., 2022; Železnik and Fink-Hafner, 2023). In particular, a shift of focus away from external controls towards internal responsibility would be necessary; and this would mean a shift away from concerns of hierarchical control and towards those of how to make civil services democratically resilient. Potential solutions might be to make it harder for incumbent governments to abolish the institutional accountability of the bureaucracy to parliament and organised society, to intensify the participation of citizens in the management of the res publica, and to ensure that recruitment and career progression cannot be monopolised by the political leadership of the day. Staff at all levels need to be trained in how to actively stand for democratic values. Grasping the democratic mission of public administration and upholding trust in professional standards can empower staff to recognize when it is appropriate to resist the demands of political superiors—a complex challenge for public sector leadership. Taking actions along these lines could potentially ‘toughen up’ the bureaucracy and thus make it harder for anti-liberalists to succeed (Yesilkagit et al., 2024). At any rate, in times when populists take over government with the aim of using the executive to implement an illiberal transformation in order to accomplish democratic backsliding, the responsibility of the bureaucracy for the liberal order as such appears to point in the direction of overcoming a purely instrumental conception of bureaucratic loyalty. Perhaps only a stern change of perspective can help, one that conceives of democratic bureaucrats in the first place as “the servant and guardian of legal and professional rules and a constitutional order, not of the rulers” (Olsen, 2008, p. 17; Yesilkagit et al., 2024). STrATe gieS For democrATic PuBLic AdminiSTrATion in An erA oF PoPuLiSm 35 7. Conclusion The illiberal challenge has tangible consequences for public administration by elevating authoritarian populists to positions of power in liberal democracies, exposing our political systems to the perils of deliberate democratic regression, policy dismantling, and administrative deformation (Box, 2017). From the perspective of Western democracies, the unprecedented situation is that danger to the liberal order comes ‘from within’, from its elected government itself; that public administration, as part of the executive government, may potentially suffer an illiberal transformation itself while being in danger of becoming a tool to execute authoritarian ambitions (Bauer, 2024c). What one expects from PA in such dire times depends, first and foremost, upon whether one adheres to a popular-electoral or counter-majoritarian conceptualisa- tion of the role of bureaucracy in politics–administration relations. While democratic bureaucracy alone is unlikely to save bureaucracy (Yesilkagit, 2021), it is necessary – normatively speaking – for PA to reconsider the role and commitment of existing public administration systems to constitutional values and to work out prospectively how best our bureaucracies can become part of what can be conceived as a “Guardian State”, if need be (Yesilkagit et al., 2024; Bertelli, 2024). If there is a call for the PA research agenda, then it comes from this direction. Unfortunately, the evidence from empirical studies on the reactions of civil servants in authoritarian regimes so far provides little hope for substantial administrative guardianship but rather suggests that even in the best-case scenario, the bureaucracy may only be able to moderate the anti-liberal effects of authoritarian rule, perhaps delaying its transformation. However, in a direct confrontation with an elected government, democratic public administration seems unlikely to prevail, especially if that government has gained popular legitimacy through successive electoral cycles (Schuster et al., 2022; Story et al., 2023; Lotta et al., 2023; Kucinskas and Zylan, 2023; Guedes-Neto and Peters, 2021). Therefore, placing the fate of representative democracy solely on the shoul- ders of civil servants would be not only unfair but also short-sighted. This is not to imply that democratic civil servants should not be held accountable for upholding the political integrity of the system to which they have pledged their allegiance (Terry, 2003, 2015). Quite the contrary, PA should, of course, debate how democratic administration can be encouraged and reformed to stand by the liberal-democratic order. However, if it is correct that authoritarian populism is a structural phenomenon, occasional individual administrative resistance will not be enough. 36 micHAeL W. BAuer From that point of view, the rise of authoritarian populism must be put into the context of an intensifying crisis of representative democracy, which seems correlated – and this is important from a PA perspective – with the increasing dominance of the executive branch vis-à-vis other Montesquieuean powers. While citizen engagement and participatory mechanisms have expanded over the years (Ansell et al., 2023), no consensual model has yet emerged for how representative democracy under 21st-century executive dominance should be redesigned. In such a model the executive – and the bureaucracy as its core component – would continue to play a crucial role. Major questions would however be how public management can be further ‘democratised’, while PA is to contribute to the strengthening of the liberal-democratic quality of the political system that it is itself part of. PA must therefore engage in a dialogue with political philosophy, other social sciences, and practice to explore frameworks for producing a liberal theory of public administration able to help revitalise the representative liberal-democratic model (Heath, 2020). That might be by transforming the bureaucracy from a mere instrument of representative government into a platform for intensified and novel forms of citizen participation with which we can forge new avenues for legitimacy in republican governance (Rosanvallon, 2011; Heath, 2020; Bertelli, 2021; Ansell et al., 2024). Notes 1. This means left-wing populism and left-wing or liberal populist governments are put aside most of the time for the argumentation. That seems justified as – perhaps with the excep- tion of Macron in France – the success of these movements has not so far been able to match authoritarian right-wing populists’ successes. It also does not contradict the general definition of populism, i.e. that populism can be seen as an ideology with a ‘thin core’, i.e. it can combine with many specific political programmes, denouncing the political elite as corrupt and claiming to re-empower the true people by vesting leadership in an untainted leader who promises swift solutions to the unfairly neglected ‘true’ majority (see Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2012; Müller, 2016; Norris and Inglehart, 2019; Mansbridge and Macedo, 2019; Lotta, 2024). 2. It would probably be more precise to speak of a comprehensive ‘anti-liberalism’ instead of ‘illiberalism’ to catch the negativism behind this ideology (Holmes, 2021; Waller, 2023; Ur- binati, 2019b; Zürn, 2022). But for the sake of comprehensibility and following established custom, this chapter sticks to the ‘illiberalism’ terminology. 3. Let me just remind the reader that classical democratic theory used to be full of distrust of popular sovereignty – for example in the form of universal suffrage – specially to avoid the excesses of the French Revolution. STrATe gieS For democrATic PuBLic AdminiSTrATion in An erA oF PoPuLiSm 37 4. To oversimplify polemically, PA may need to choose between Caesarism and constitu- tionalism as the ultimate frame for defining its future institutional design and mission (Arato and Cohen, 2021; Zürn, 2023). See Max Weber’s endorsement of ‘Caesarism’ as the ultimate political power against runaway bureaucracy (Caspar, 2007); and for an advocate of administrative constitutionalism, Spicer, 2015. 5. See also Laclau, 2025; Kriesi, 2014; Müller, 2016; Mansbridge and Macedo 2019; Norris and Inglehart, 2019 for the broader debate. 6. See Zürn and de Wilde, 2016, p. 282: “Peter Mair identifies three separate components that need to be present in order for a conflict to be a cleavage: a structural component, an organizational component and a normative component: ‘In other words, the shift from society to politics occurs when a particular social divide [structural component] becomes associated with a particular set of values or identities [normative component], and when this is then brought into the political world, and made politically relevant by means of an organized party or group [organizational component]’”. See also Schäfer and Zürn, 2023 for further references to the cleavage argumentation. 7. To simplify: a new cleavage arose because policymaking realities are constrained by an international (often neo)liberal consensus from which nationally, at least unilaterally, it is difficult to escape. 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Each modern state consists of a governmental apparatus that asserts control over a defined territory and claims the loyalty of people living in that territory, as well as recognition of its authority by other states. There are roughly 194 states in existence today. The number varies slightly because countries disagree about whether a small number of aspiring states ought to be admitted to the global community of states. The world of states can be divided into three groups. According to research by the Fund for Peace, about 30 states are very stable, while 80 are very fragile. Another 70 exist in a liminal condition between stability and fragility (Table 1). Less than 10% of the world’s population lives in very stable states, located mainly in the Global North. 55% live in very fragile states located mainly in the Global South. As we shall see later, though, the experience of fragile states is largely overlooked in top-ranked Public Administration journals. The scholarly field of Public Administration, as it is usually defined, is concerned mainly with the governance of very stable states. The bubble of stability that has enveloped countries in the Global North over the last 70 years is historically unusual. Moreover, it is unlikely to persist. A critical trend in the coming decades will be the decline of political and social order around the world, including in the Global North. Fragility will become a universal concern. Leaders and citizens in the Global North, like those in the Global South, will worry more about fundamental problems of state integrity, societal cohesion, and public order. Even today, the field of Public Administration ought to show more concern for problems of governance in fragile states. This is a matter of simple justice, because most people live in such countries. The case for taking fragility seriously within the field will become stronger as stability 46 AL ASdAir roBerTS in the Global North declines. It is relatively easy to identify the ways in which scholarship ought to change if fragility is to be taken seriously. We can enumerate the topics that require more attention. The harder question is whether scholars and institutions within the field of Public Administration are willing to make the adjustments necessary to preserve its relevance in the coming decades. Table 1. Fragility of states Fragile States Index category Number of states Share of world population Very stable or better 28 6% Stable or more stable 37 11% Warning 31 28% Elevated warning or worse 81 55% The Fragile States Index categorises 178 countries that account for more than 99% of the global population. The 11 FSI categories have been reduced to four in this chart. Source: Fund for Peace, 2023a. 2. Explaining the trend toward fragility A fragile state is one in which governments struggle to perform the basic functions associated with statehood. A government may find that its capacity to exercise physical control over territory is compromised, perhaps because the governed population no longer acknowledges that government as the rightful authority. Or a government may become paralysed, in the sense that it is incapable of making decisions or translating those decisions into action. A national government may also lose the capacity to engage constructively with governments of other countries and retain their respect (Brinkerhoff, 2007, Ch 1; Brock, 2012, Ch 1; Fund for Peace, 2023b). It is tempting to ask: what makes a state fragile? But this may be putting the question the wrong way around. As I have already noted, fragility is the natural condition for states. Stability, rather than fragility, is the anomaly that must be explained. Of the 20 most populous countries, accounting for 70% of the global population, only three – Germany, Japan, and the United States – could be counted as very stable in 2023, according to the Fund for Peace. Twelve of those 20 countries – including behemoths like India, Nigeria, and Brazil – were so fragile in 2023 that the Fund for Peace put them on its THe Tr end ToWArdS FrAgiLiT y in THe 21ST cenTury 47 warning list. Many of these states are not merely fragile, but also relatively young. They were created when European empires collapsed after World War II. Indeed, most countries that exist today are less than 65 years old. Even in the Global North, stability is a relatively new phenomenon. Con- sider, for example, the set of powerful countries that make up the G7. Since 1900, all these countries have been convulsed by wars, economic crises such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, and waves of internal unrest and domestic terrorism. The Federal Republic of Germany is less than 80 years old. In 1991 it absorbed the remnants of a failed state, the German Democratic Republic, which had survived for only 40 years. The current French Republic, established in 1958, is the fifth in that country’s history. The Italian and Japanese states are also post-World War II constructions. The United Kingdom has spent the last century dismantling its empire, a painful and often violent process. The territory of the United Kingdom itself has shrunk by almost 25% since 1900. Canada escaped disaster when a referendum on the secession of Québec was narrowly defeated in 1995. Scholars who study Public Administration in the Global North tend to underestimate the tenuous condition of the states within which they work. A scholarly career lasts 30 or 40 years, and the current generation of scholars may take stability for granted because they have not personally experienced disruption. But this is not the whole explanation for our neglect of fragility. If scholars of Public Administration were trained to think historically, and to recognise the state as a unit of analysis, evidence of fragility would be easy to see. However, academics in the Global North are generally not trained to think this way. Instead, they are encouraged to focus on lower-level problems of policy design and management, with an emphasis on the recent past (Roberts, 2019, Introduction and Ch 12). Even so, it has been hard for scholars in the Global North to avoid evidence that the brief epoch of stability in that region is coming to an end. Since 2000, countries in the Global North have faced a series of major crises: a resurgence of terrorism between 2001 and 2005, an international financial and economic crisis between 2007 and 2012, the COVID-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2022, and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Middle East. Other disruptive forces are also at work. Faith in the neoliberal economic formula has given way to anger about inequality and precarity. Governments have struggled to manage a surge in unauthorised immigration, which has often triggered a populist backlash. The quality of public discourse has been corroded by the rise of social media and the collapse of traditional journalism. Jürgen Habermas has recently warned that technological shocks are shredding the “delicate fabric” of political culture in the Global North. He warns that 48 ALASdAir roBerTS Western democracies have already entered “a phase of increasing internal destabilization” (Habermas, 2023, pp. 22 and 28). Habermas is not alone in his warning. The 2023 report of the Fund for Peace rejects the “facile notion” that fragility is a problem only in poor countries. Western democracies, it says, may also be “more fragile than we think” (Fund for Peace, 2023a, p. 10). After conducting its 2023 global survey, the Edelman Trust Institute found a worldwide decline of faith in societal institutions, “triggered by economic anxiety, disinformation, [and] mass-class divide.” The Global North was not exempt from this global trend. Every G7 country except Canada was found to be severely polarised, or in danger of severe polarisation (Edelman Trust Institute, 2023, p. 16). Decay in political stability is especially marked in the United States. The ideological gap between major political parties has widened substantially over the last 30 years (Moskowitz et al., 2019). Ideological polarisation has a clear regional basis: conservative and liberal states are demarcated more sharply than they have been in many decades. Among conservatives, antipathy toward Washington – expressed as hostility toward the ‘deep state’ or ‘administra- tive state’ – has deepened. One result of polarisation is political gridlock in Washington. Gridlock is one of the main indicators of fragility. Another is political violence. In a 2023 survey, one-quarter of Americans agreed that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country” (Public Religion Research Institute, 2023, p. 6). One-third of Republicans felt that way. One expert observed in 2022 that the United States was “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe” (Walter, 2022, p. 159). A former chair of the US National Intelligence Council agreed: “It seems plain that a civil war is coming, and the only ques- tion is whether it will be fought with lawsuits and secessions or with AK-15s” (Treverton and Treverton, 2021). The United States, Stephen Marche observed in 2022, “is a textbook case of a country on the brink of civil conflict” (Marche, 2022). Instability in the United States can be expected to increase following Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president in January 2025. Instability and governmental dy