Public Organization Review - Call for Proposals: Special Issue on Natural Disasters and Public Administration
Natural Disasters and Public Administration Capacity Building: Key Challenges and Lesson Drawing
*Extended Deadlines
The Public Organization Review: A Global Journal (POR) invites article proposals for a Special Issue Symposium on “Natural Disasters and Public Administration Capacity Building: Key Challenges and Lesson Drawing.” This Special Issue will be co-edited by Ali Farazmand, Elina De Simone and Giovanni Gugg.
Proposals should be submitted to Prof Elina De Simone (elina.desimone@uniroma3.it) and Giovanni Gugg (giovanni.gugg@unina.it) by January 31, 2024.
Manuscripts developed from accepted proposals must be submitted through the POR portal (https://www.springer.com/journal/11115) by June 30, 2024.
"Today, perhaps the biggest challenge in public administration and governance is how to manage the obstacles of this hyper-turbulent environment of chaotic changes and uncertainties" (Farazmand, 2009, p. 1008). This is particularly true in the case of natural disasters which “have the potential to reveal crucial failures in crisis management capacity” (Christensen et al., 2016, p.891). Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts have become more frequent in recent times and ask for a timeliness and effective responses by both central and local administrators: however, in many cases, the recovery strategies are poorly implemented and turn to be slow and inadequate, harming the resilience and adaptation process to turbulent environments.
The weakness of the existing governance capacity framework or the complete lack of capacities are, indeed, considered to be a central component of vulnerability to climate hazards (Kuhlike et al., 2011). Some examples can be the lack of prevention and critical decisionmaking, centralized responses without coordination among different levels and actors involved, opacity in the procedure for resource assignment, lack of accountability and citizens’ responsabilisation.
Literature has already emphasized the crucial role of governing capacities to secure government resiliency in the aftermath of a disaster, like in the case of Covid-19 (Dzigbede et al., 2020) or Hurricane Katrina in the United States (Waugh 2006). However, in the light of the increasing occurrence and magnitude of natural disasters worldwide, a deeper theoretical and empirical speculation on the issue is considered pivotal to assist policymakers and practitioners in improving preparedness of public administration to cope with such unpredictable events. Proposals should address experiences with and lessons learned from local and central government hierarchical solutions concerning the planning and building capacity to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to and/or recover from natural disasters world-wide. Proposals for articles must offer useful perspectives, insights, strategies, approaches, and/or models of integrated responses developed by Public Administration to counteract the effects of natural disasters. This special issue should be considered complementary to the one on “Public-Private Partnerships Essential Collaborations for Mitigating against, Preparing for, Responding to, and Recovering from Natural Disasters” which, on the other hand, is more focused on hybrid arrangements characterized by transfer of risks and responsibilities across public-private boundaries. In the more advanced versions of emanation of public administrations that is 'civil protection,' reflection is moving beyond the ability to cope with emergencies alone, increasingly posing the question of what an acceptable level of risk is (Di Bucci et al. 2019), crossing psycho-behavioral and socio-anthropological perspectives.
Proposals for scholarly papers on a wide range of sub-topics using quantitative and/or qualitative analysis approaches will be considered, including rigorous scholarly research, strong theoretical works, single-site case studies, and comparative case studies. Scholarly manuscripts must be grounded in theory/literature and empirical evidence, and use sound analytical methods. Findings should be generalizable. Single-site case studies will be subject to more practical review criteria.
Suggestive (but not exhaustive) list of possible sub-topics:
Corruption risks and opportunities and the governance of natural disasters
Climate risk management
Critical tasks in crisis management: strengthening administrative capacity in a poly crisis context
Disaster resiliency of local governments: exploring successful mechanisms of bureaucratic performance and policy implementation
Disaster recovery service delivery: learning from state and local governments’ successes and failures
State-Citizens' Co-Production on Disaster Management
Mitigation strategies and the role of emergency management in Public Management: lessons learned and issues at stake
Socio-economic consequences of natural disasters: challenges and innovative policy solutions
Articles in this Special Issue will be published Online first (iFirst) as they are accepted, and the print volume will be published in the December 2024 issue.
POR is an “exceptionally strong performing” quarterly scholarly journal with an ESCI & Q2 status, and soon to receive Q1 & ISI/SSCI status. It provides a global forum for academicians and practitioners in diverse areas of public administration and public policy, governance, organization theory and behavior, public management, nonprofit administration, budgeting and finance, economic and social development, strategic studies, globalization, crisis and emergency management, and more. POR publishes only highest quality manuscripts that stand: (a) the rigor of a demanding double anonymous review process, (b) a selective acceptance rate of about 15% per year, and (c) groundbreaking theoretical as well as practical ideas that advance knowledge and improve practice. POR publishes 4 issues per year with Publication Online first (iFirst), followed by print publication. POR is published by Springer.
Proposals and Manuscripts
Proposals should clearly and succinctly present: (1) a descriptive title; (2) a statement of purpose that includes a problem statement; (3) research questions; (4) a sound conceptualization of the study with theoretical/literature grounding if appropriate; (5) the ‘originality’ and significance of the paper; (6) a brief methodology statement that includes, for example, sources of data, tools and methods; and (7) the paper’s potential contributions to knowledge (generalizability). Proposals should not exceed our 2- page limit.
Completed manuscripts should not exceed 35 pages double spaced (or 8000 words), inclusive of all tables, figures, and charts. APA style with third person writing—only—is required. Style guidelines are on the POR website.
Timetable to Publication
Interested scholars are invited to submit proposals of approximately 800 to 1000 words by January 31, 2024. Proposing authors will receive a response with feedback as they are received and no later than February 10, 2024. A positive response to a proposal does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript.
Manuscripts (complete copy) from well-received proposals are due by May 10, 2024.
Authors of draft manuscripts will receive review comments by June 15, 2024. Reviews will include:
(1) a recommendation to complete the manuscript with suggested revisions; (2) a recommendation to revise and resubmit with more substantive required revisions; or (3) a decision that the manuscript will not be accepted – the author(s) might consider submitting it to a different journal. A review with a (1) or (2) recommendation does not guarantee acceptance of the final manuscript.
Final revised manuscripts are due by July 30, 2024. Final manuscripts will be double-anonymous reviewed through the POR review process as they are received.
Final reviews by POR reviewers and publication decisions will be posted on POR’s Editorial Manager’s Site by September 30, 2024.
The Special Issue will be published in POR: Articles will be published Online as they are accepted (iFirst) and in print, in the December 2024 issue.
Proposals and manuscripts should be submitted to Professor Elina De Simone, Co-Guest Editor of the Special Issue: elina.desimone@uniroma3.it
Giovanni Gugg, Co-Guest Editor of the Special Issue: giovanni.gugg@unina.it
For more information, see below:
Questions about the substance or process for proposals, manuscripts, or the Special Issue should be submitted to Co-Guest Editor—Elina De Simone at: elina.desimone@uniroma3.it
or Co-Guest Editor Giovanni Gugg at: giovanni.gugg@unina.it
The Editor-In-Chief of Public Organization Review (POR) is Professor Ali Farazmand, Florida Atlantic University. afarazma@fau.edu
Special Issue Guest Editors:
Professor Ali Farazmand
Professor Elina De Simone
Dr. Giovanni Gugg
For authors:
1. Submit proposals to Professor Elina De Simone: elina.desimone@uniroma3.it
and
Dr. Giovanni Gugg: giovanni.gugg@unina.it
2. Submit full/complete manuscripts to POR: https://www.springer.com/journal/11115
References
Christensen, T., Lægreid, P., & Rykkja, L. H. (2016). Organizing for crisis management: Building governance capacity and legitimacy. Public Administration Review, 76(6), 887-897.
Di Bucci D., Dolce M., Salvadori L. (2019). Deciding (or not) on the acceptable level of seismic risk: first behavioural considerations on the L'Aquila trial. Bollettino di Geofisica Teorica ed Applicata, 60 (2), 337-358.
Dzigbede, K. D., Gehl, S. B., & Willoughby, K. (2020). Disaster resiliency of US local governments: Insights to strengthen local response and recovery from the COVID‐19 pandemic. Public administration review, 80(4), 634-643.
Farazmand, A. (2009). Building administrative capacity for the age of rapid globalization: A modest prescription for the twenty‐first century. Public administration review, 69(6), 1007-1020.
Kuhlicke, C., Steinführer, A., Begg, C., Bianchizza, C., Bründl, M., Buchecker, M., ... & Faulkner, H. (2011). Perspectives on social capacity building for natural hazards: outlining an emerging field of research and practice in Europe. Environmental Science & Policy, 14(7), 804-814.
Waugh , William L., ed. 2006 . Shelter from the Storm: Repairing the National Emergency Management System after Hurricane Katrina . Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 604 : 10 – 25 .