Global Public Policy and Governance - Call for Papers: National Planning Processes: Linking Big Challenges to Public Administration and Governance

NATIONAL PLANNING PROCESSES:   (this opens in a new tab)

LINKING BIG CHALLENGES TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (this opens in a new tab)

AND GOVERNANCE (this opens in a new tab) 

“The Sustainable Development Goals and targets are integrated and indivisible, global in nature and universally applicable, taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities. Each Government will decide how these aspirational and global targets should be incorporated into national planning processes, policies and strategies.” (United Nations SDGs resolution, 2015).

Submission of proposals: Feb 28, 2024

Submission of full papers: August 1, 2024

Selected papers will be invited to participate in a workshop organized by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA, Washington, D.C.) in the second semester of 2024 to advance thinking on NP and improve the quality of symposium papers.

Guest editors

Evan Berman, Fundação Getúlio Vargas/EAESP (Brazil) & National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)
Daniel Guttman, New York University & National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)
Fabian Telch, George Mason University

Background and purpose

Studies show that countries are increasingly adopting national planning (NP) processes in their development, rising from 62 countries in 2006 to 135 nations in 2018 (Chimhowu et al., 2019; Munro, 2020). Encompassing nearly 80% of the global population, countries have turned to NP in recent years to address challenges posed by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to increase the capacities of their national and subnational governments addressing health, economic development, and public safety, and other purposes. They also adopted NP in as well as in response to setbacks caused by the hyper-liberalization reforms of the 1980s and 1990s.  This increase of national planning processes is a stunning reversal of trends since the 1980s that considered national planning, often linked to national development planning, as an overly bureaucratic and ineffective way addressing national development and other challenges. 

Despite recent increased interest and use, research is very scarce about NP. What do we know about NP processes? How effective are they? What is new about them? How diverse are they? This symposium defines as NP as ‘any time-bound national-level plan that addresses a major country challenge with a set of coherent objectives that integrates and mobilizes different levels of governments and agencies and in pursuit of shared goals and vision.’ Today, such national plans are sometimes articulated around specific SDGs, the development of specific industrial sectors or technologies, or societal problems. We invite contributions to this Special Issue that informs how these efforts in any sector transform aspirations into effective results, identifying and addressing challenges in their consensus-building and implementation. Papers may pay special attention to the institutional arrangements and capacity, leadership, coordination of organizational actors, democratic and other turnover, and the strategic management and implementation of results. 

Individual papers might address any of the following questions:

• Using NP for advancing SDGs (e.g., in hunger, health, education, water, sanitation, energy, labor, infrastructure, peace and justice). 
• Implementation of national plans at the regional and local levels (any sector). 
• NP as a tool for strengthening institutional capacity and the rule of law.
• A systematic review of NP plans, challenges, and outcomes 
• Practices and challenges of monitoring, evaluation, and accountability of NP
• Use of NP in national development processes 
• Strategic planning and implementation of development plans.
• Diversity of NP institutional frameworks 
• Coalition development and succession in multi-year NP processes  
• The role of international organizations and regional bodies in promoting and/or discouraging NP policies (e.g., UN, World Bank).
• The use of new technologies in NDP processes (e.g., social media, artificial intelligence).
• The role of civil society in NDP policies
• Anything else that helps inform about effective NP practices.

Methodology/analytical frameworks: We welcome a broad range of scholarly frameworks and methods that advance knowledge. Whatever approach authors choose, academic rigor is expected. More than description is expected.  

References:

Chimhowu, A. O., Hulme, D., & Munro, L. T. (2019). The ‘New’ national development planning and global development goals: Processes and partnerships. World Development 120:76-89.

Munro, L. T. (2019). The resurgence of national development planning: how did we get back here? International Development Planning Review 42(20):1-12.

Working Plan

Feb 28, 2024:  Proposals should be submitted to Prof. Evan Berman at: evan.berman@fgv.br (this opens in a new tab)  Proposals shall be 1-2 pages and include author names, affiliations, titles, emails, and the research ideas including topic, research question, theoretical framework, methods and preliminary conclusions.

May 2024: Invited authors will be invited to present online about their paper in a forum provided by National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)

August 1, 2024: Final papers should be submitted through the online submission system of GPPG for peer review. Prior to this, authors may solicit comments and inputs from the guest editors.  The format of research papers should comply with the styles of GPPG, with APA reference style and a word limit of 10,000 words. More details will be provided later.

Guest editors  

Fabian Telch is a public administration and development pracademic affiliated with the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. His research centers on national development planning, institutional capacity, international development, governance, and Latin America. He has published on national planning strategies, international development, governance, public organizations, and civil society.

Evan Berman is Professor Titular of Public Management at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (EAESP) in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Adjunct Fudan Chair Professor at the Institute for Global Public Policy (Shanghai). His research areas are public performance, public leadership, and comparative public administration. He is author of 15 books and publications has published in major journals. Evan spent 15 years in Asia-Pacific and 20 years in the U.S. at major universities. He is recipient of major research awards, including the Fred Riggs Award for lifetime career achievement in international and comparative public administration from the American Society for Public Administration. He is also visiting professor at the University of Indonesia.

Daniel Guttma is teacher, lawyer and has been a public servant. He develops comparative programs in environment, law, and governance and practices law in the U.S. He has been a China Fulbright scholar, has served as Executive Director of a Presidential Advisory Commission on bioethics, was Presidentially appointed Commissioner of the US Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission, directed US Senate investigations and hearings on U.S. government energy and environmental management, and was UNDP “foreign expert advisor” on China environmental law. He is an adjunct professor at the Institute for Global Public Policy of Fudan University.