Participatory Policy making, Ethics, and the Arts

The rise of coalition governments in South Africa following the 2021 municipal elections and later during the 2024 national elections has fundamentally changed the country’s political climate, presenting, of course, both opportunities and challenges for governance and socio-economic rights enforcement. The purpose of this study was to examine both the opportunities and challenges that emanate from coalition governments. Through a qualitative desktop-based methodology, this study examined how political fragmentation, coupled with coalition instability, disrupts municipal governance, subsequently leading to inefficiencies within resource allocation, inconsistent policy implementation overall throughout, and diminished access to key basic services, such as water, housing, also healthcare. Although coalition politics can indeed improve democratic pluralism, this paper argued that the absence of a structured legal framework to govern such arrangements has substantially weakened governmental stability and service delivery, and furthermore, the fulfilment of constitutionally mandated socio-economic rights. The paper shows that unregulated coalition dynamics worsen many administrative issues, unfairly affecting marginalised communities dependent on state services, especially for the realisation of their socio-economic rights. In response, this paper proposes a more thorough institutionalisation of what is a legally binding type of framework to thoroughly regulate coalition formation, proper functioning, and eventual dissolution. Such a mechanism would serve to lessen party disagreements, increase accountability, and thereby ensure continued service irrespective of political changes. By dealing with this legislative gap, South Africa can strengthen local governance, safeguard socio-economic rights, and uphold constitutional obligations in an evolving multiparty democracy. Keywords: Socio-Economic Rights, Service Delivery, Coalition Government, South African Constitution, Local Governance, Public Administration.

Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, face various political challenges, including internal reforms, government stability, and democratic transformations. Each of these countries experiences unique political processes that vary depending on their historical and cultural context. This article explores the changing security policies and international relationships of Central Asian countries in response to recent geopolitical events, notably the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. It discusses how these nations are expanding their diplomatic, economic, and security ties beyond their traditional dependence on Russia. The paper highlights key diplomatic efforts, such as the first US-Central Asia Summit in 2023 and increased engagement with China, while addressing the complex security challenges they face, especially in relation to terrorism threats from Afghanistan. The analysis shows how Central Asian states are navigating relationships with major powers like Russia, China, and the US, as well as engaging with regional players such as Turkey, Iran, and India. The article underscores the impact of commitments to the Collective Security Treaty Organization and how the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has prompted these nations to reassess their security alliances and pursue greater autonomy in their foreign policy choices. This strategic shift reflects a broader trend towards multi-faceted diplomacy as Central Asian countries strive to safeguard their sovereignty while balancing diverse international interests in the region. Understanding the political processes in Central Asia is important for developing effective strategies to support stability and sustainable development in the region, such as Regional Security, Terrorism and Extremism, Ethnic and Religious Conflicts, Border Security, Resource Competition, External Influences, State Fragility and Governance Challenges.

Ngovo Cave (DRC) is a site of exceptional ecological and heritage significance, home to the blind fish Caecobarbus geertsii and rich prehistoric deposits. While cave tourism is growing, there is a lack of structured frameworks for evaluating such fragile karst systems in Central Africa. This study addresses this gap by assessing the cave’s ecotourism potential through a SWOT analysis to support sustainable management. A mixed-methods approach combined direct observations with surveys of 50 participants (tourists and residents). Results highlight substantial scientific and ecological assets, but reveal constraints such as limited accessibility and infrastructure. Opportunities include scientific collaborations and cultural valorization, while threats involve environmental degradation and governance challenges. Methodologically, this research demonstrates how SWOT-based frameworks can effectively bridge geological conservation with community-based development in under-studied tropical regions. Recommendations focus on infrastructure, research programs, and participatory governance. By promoting a model of inclusive management, Ngovo Cave represents a strategic site for sustainable ecotourism in Central Africa, balancing conservation with socio-economic benefits.

I would like to extend my thanks to Étienne Charbonneau and his colleagues and to Eric Zeemering for their articles on the reception accorded to scholarly articles in Canadian Public Administration (CPA) and to Michael Howlett, Susan Phillips, and Al Roberts for their commentaries. In my view, even though one could get lost in further debate on the salience and meaningfulness of impact factors, that is far less important than the implication: we need a forward-looking discussion on the future of Canadian public administration scholarship, where investments need to be made to selectively focus scholarly effort, and how to foster renewal as public administration and governance challenges continue to multiply. In what follows I propose that thought leaders in public-service institutions and partner organizations such as The Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) to work systematically with leading scholars and the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPA) to explore collaborative models which fit with the pace and incentives of their respective work environments. A long line of editors have tried to ensure that CPA is relevant to scholars and practitioners alike in Canada, and to showcase the range of work undertaken by Canadian public administration scholars and to encourage practitioners to contribute to the literature as well, and occasionally to stimulate debate. As editor, my goal has not been to move the impact factor rankings,1 despite being well aware of them; rather the goal has been to showcase the eclectic range of public administration research and thinking in Canada. To do otherwise would make the journal into a different kind of publication, favouring certain kinds of scholarship over others, when an ever-expanding array of journals exist precisely as outlets for specific kinds of scholarship. We have encouraged more comparative articles with Canadian case studies and more articles on Indigenous governance and administration against the backdrop of Canada’s system of multi-level governance, and we have tried to showcase emerging currents in scholarly work with the New Frontiers series. Reflecting how scholarship has evolved in Canada, CPA has not had a succession of heavy-duty quantitative studies like those appearing in Public Administration Review, Journal of Policy Research and Theory, and several other highly ranked international public administration journals, but we have published several more focused quantitative studies. Nor has CPA been a site for sharing new theories of public administration and policy-making, but Canadian scholars do draw on these theories in the pages of this journal to inform qualitative and quantitative empirical studies. However, it is important to point out that, Canadians such as Michael Howlett, Jeremy Rayner, and Adam Wellstead—to name only a few—have been at the forefront of international efforts to push theoretical boundaries either by creating new journals (e.g., Politics & Society) or working through established journals (e.g., Policy Sciences, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Governance in the case of Al Roberts, Nonprofit Quarterly in the case of Susan Phillips) to pursue these lines of inquiry. While Charbonneau et al. (2018) and Zeemering (2018) examine in different ways the international interest in articles published in CPA, neither directly explores the impact of the full corpus of work of Canadian public administration scholars, which would include articles in international journals, books, and chapters in book collections. Nor do they explore the extent to which Canadian scholars have and are either serving as lead editors or on the editorial teams of leading international journals in our field, let alone serving on editorial advisory boards. For this observer, what is most interesting about the Australian experience is the country’s explicit ratings of journals for its Excellence in Research in Australia (ERA) initiative and anticipation of its impact on domestic journals, such as The Australian Journal of Public Administration which works with different incentives, and some protection, and different content.2 In Canada the focus on impact factors has been round-about and bottom-up, with certain departments and universities focusing heavily on impact factors when evaluating the portfolios of junior and mid-career scholars up for promotion, as well as overall international university rankings. We simply operate with different incentive systems and supports. However, for years—and even decades—developing scholars have known that they should diversify their publication portfolios with a mix of articles in domestic and international journals in their field. Over the last thirty years, there has been an extraordinary increase in the number and range of journals in every field reflecting ever-increasing specialization in distinct substantive, epistemological, and methodological approaches. The overlapping fields of public administration and public policy are no different. It is to be expected that aspiring and established scholars submit more of their articles in specialized journals which match their research interests. The implication, of course, is that scholars focusing on studies (qualitative or quantitative) of Canadian national institutions and policies, or comparisons among provinces, territories and municipalities, and increasingly Indigenous governance and administration, would find their way into a domestic journal like Canadian Public Administration. Another implication is that publications in CPA represent only a fraction of most productive scholars’ work. If journals largely reflect the manuscripts which come their way, and if CPA’s mandate is to showcase applied research and thinking on Canadian public administration, this begs the question of the trajectory of Canadian scholarship, and how it has been evolving and the directions it could take. We are seeing the last of an incredibly productive generation of public administration scholars leave our field (the very ones who modernized our field in the 1970s). Most of my generation of now “senior” scholarly colleagues across the country through teaching, consulting and research activities are well aware of the current and emerging challenges for Canadian public administration. We can see that huge domains (e.g., regulation, Crown corporations, financial management and budgeting, the effects of digital tools on all aspects of public administration, to name only a few) have not benefited from systematic research, let alone emerging governance and public administration priorities. And, despite increasing emphasis on publishing in peer-reviewed journals with higher impact factors, my sense is that most Canadian scholars in public administration believe that good research is applied research and this should involve engaging, often collaborating with and influencing practitioners who themselves are busier than ever. This, interestingly, is the direction that the research evaluation framework of the UK and Australia have been moving towards (Gunn and Mintrom 2018; Australian Research Council 2017). Making credible and timely efforts to address contemporary governance challenges in public administration will require larger multi-disciplinary, multi-method, and multi-generational teams (comprised of established scholars and PhD and post-doctoral students from across the country). Furthermore, we will need more creative and time-sensitive means for connecting scholars with public servants (executives, senior managers, and innovators) which address the respective incentive systems and faster-paced environment in which both work.3 Both communities should recognize that important spin-offs will be more fundamental and longer-term research projects from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grants and PhD dissertations which enrich the field for decades to come but also lead to more up-to-date materials for instructors to use in MPA and MPP programs across the country. Such research, even if geared to Canadian challenges, promises to be internationally significant. Making this happen will mean rediscovering and tweaking institutional repertoires, perhaps in a cross-institutional manner. For years, IPAC organized study teams with scholars and practitioners to explore issues, which led to many publications, often engaged new scholars, and lasting relationships with practitioners; and the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) during the late 1990s invested in what were essentially study teams with leading Canadian and international scholars informing roundtables with top officials and in the early 2000s the action-research roundtables, led by ADMs, which also explicitly engaged promising young public servants and graduate students. These important means for addressing emerging issues and gaps in the literature have fallen by the way for several years, but remain salient. Those who have tried to secure SSHRC partnership grants for more comprehensive research initiatives in public administration find that the LOI process and lead times take far too long and the success rates too low in fast-moving areas of inquiry, but SSHRC does have repertoires such as its Imaging Canada’s Future initiative works with federal departments for identifying selected scholars to undertake literature views and discussion papers on priority topics. The drawback here, though, is that the field tends to be pulled in selective ways, when we need to develop a rolling, whole-of-field perspective on what needs to be accomplished across the waterfront of public administration. There is great potential to work across these institutions to sponsor agile high-impact research and interactive processes with practitioners, and that partnerships across CSPS, IPAC, SSHRC, and, Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA) can point the way requiring only modest resources. We can take inspiration from countries like Australia and New Zealand which through ANZSOG and partner national and state governments have directly supported building applied research capacity, and the Netherlands, where government seems to regularly support leading-edge research initiatives with teams of scholars, which have greatly raised the profile of Dutch public administration scholars, in addition to their curiosity-driven research. It is my hope that the exchange in this issue about whether articles in CPA have high journal impact factors instead serves to stimulate a broader strategic conversation about the trajectory and strategic support for applied public administration scholarship in Canada. By making time-sensitive investments in multi-institutional and multi-generational collaboration with practitioners, I am confident that the fruits of such investment will affect the trajectory and breadth of scholarship in the field of Canadian public administration, particularly with regard to emerging issues, which will eventually be reflected in the pages and impact factors of this journal. EAL

This article examines the legal and socio-political dimensions of superstition-related offences in Kenya and Seychelles, highlighting how cultural beliefs intersect with crime, law, and state power. Rather than viewing witchcraft and superstition as mere cultural relics, this analysis underscores their entanglement with modern political agendas and governance challenges. Legal responses to superstition, including anti-witchcraft laws, may paradoxically reinforce societal fears and legitimise witch hunts, fostering cycles of persecution. Drawing on Foucault’s theories of power and knowledge, this article argues for a nuanced legal approach that differentiates between harmful acts and legitimate expressions of belief. A balanced framework must protect citizens from harmful practices while upholding fundamental freedoms, aligning with international human rights standards. This article is divided into four parts: first, a conceptual map of superstition, religion, and witchcraft; second, Foucault’s power/knowledge as an analytical framework; third, the statutory and case-law frameworks in Kenya and Seychelles; and finally, a comparative synthesis and implications for reform.

This paper examines the political and identity-based consequences of the 2019 Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP), where three historic towns were merged into a single unitary authority. Contrary to claims that LGR typically weakens local and independent representation, findings from BCP suggest that reorganisation spurred resistance and reassertions of local identity, which in turn mobilised support for independents and cross-party alliances. This paper explores how discontent with both local and national politics, strong town-based civic identities, and a perceived imbalance in power, fuelled enduring tensions. These dynamics, compounded by political instability and governance challenges, reveal how top-down amalgamation can deepen rather than resolve intra-local divides. In BCP, LGR became a site of political transformation, not merely administrative reform, highlighting the importance of identity, place, and local agency in shaping post-reform governance across England’s evolving subnational landscape.

The advent of the metaverse has given rise to metacrime, a novel category of criminal activities occurring in the metaverse, which not only challenges conventional digital criminality but existing law enforcement frameworks. To address the scholarship vacancy, this study examines the intersections and distinctions between metacrime and conventional cybercrime by employing a multi-disciplinary literature review and comparative analysis. We identified five shared characteristics between these two crime types: crime classification, continuous evolution, hyper-spatial-temporality (global reach), anonymity, and governance challenges. Crucially, our research highlights the distinct epistemological aspects of metacrime through its criminogenic, victimogenic, etiological, ethical, and regulatory dimensions, exemplified by virtual-to-physical attacks, immersive virtual reality attacks, victimization superrealism, complexities of human-avatar interactivity, excessive misuse of biometric data, increasingly vulnerable populations, and avatars’ liability. Our findings underscore the imperative need for tailored and forward-thinking regulatory responses to address the intricate challenges of metacrime, thereby ensuring the security and integrity of evolving digital environments.

This research investigated the extent of policy consistency in Ghana's national urban planning policy documents and development framework. It highlights the role of urban policies in enabling the implementation of sustainable communities. Adopting a qualitative content analysis method, the study analyses strategic alignment of seven policy documents using the PCD framework that focused on five drivers of sustainable communities, namely environmental conservation and resilience, social equity and inclusivity, economic prosperity and innovation, smart urban planning and design, and community engagement and participation. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework enabled the identification of alignment, fragmentation, and conflict across policy instruments and governance structures. The findings show some degree of policy coherence in promoting land use efficiency, minimising urban sprawl, fostering compact developments, and boosting local economic growth. However, significant gaps persist. These gaps include the absence of explicitly stated institutional mandates for the implementation of MUD, misalignment between urban and transportation policies, and social injustice and exclusion. Furthermore, the study divulges that the cross-referencing of policy documents is inadequate, resulting in disjointed implementation, fragmented development efforts and governance challenges. The study concludes that the inconsistencies in Ghana's national urban policies significantly impede the attainment of sustainable community development prospects.

The article provides an explanatory critique of the engagement of Education International in the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), a programme coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Drawing on research interviews, I adopt the framework advocated by Isabela and Norman Fairclough for analysing political discourse as practical argumentation, and the concept of institutional power resources. I show that the engagement of Education International in TALIS represents a strategy of getting involved in the politics of knowledge as a lever for teacher voice in transnational governance. On this basis, I discuss the space for challenge in transnational education governance, with a focus on the power capacity of Education International and the implications of enhancing institutional power resources within the context of an unfolding education policy field that is transnational in scope, thickening in its trajectory, and pluri-scalar in its nature.

Telemedisin in Indonesia was known a few years ago but unfortunately did not make progress in its implementation. As technology developed during the Industrial Revolution 4.0 era, Indonesia returned to pay attention to the telemedicine system. One manifestation is the enactment of Minister of Health Regulation No. 20 of 2019 concerning the Implementation of Telemedicine Between Health Service Facilities. In the preamble of this Permenkes, it appears that the spirit of doing telemedicine is in order to bring health services closer and improve the quality of health services in health facilities in remote areas that prioritize patient interests and safety. Despite the fact that telemedicine currently available in Indonesia is more personal between doctors and patients. Of course, this can be considered to violate existing regulations, because there are no rules that frame them. In addition to the benefits derived from telemedicine because health services for remote areas are increasingly affordable and faster, there are still many obstacles in terms of ethics and law. In legal matters, the lack of rules that frame the implementation of telemedicine can jeopardize the position of doctors in the event of a medical dispute. In terms of ethics, there are still a number of things that are not in accordance with the principles of bioethics, namely beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. It is feared that the doctor-patient relationship will fade in telemedicine. The doctor's professional standard is also the case, because a doctor may not be able to conduct a direct examination of patients. There are still many obstacles in the implementation of telemedicine that this should be a challenge for the Indonesian government through the Ministry of Health to pay more attention and make clearer rules to frame the implementation of telemedicine in Indonesia.

It has been argued that the challenges in electronic government are purely social: that existing methods and tools are perfectly adequate, and that electronic government projects fail because of people, not technology. While acknowledging that there are organisational and political challenges, this paper argues that there is also a significant, technical challenge, and a corresponding technology gap. It argues also that this challenge may be addressed through a combination of model-driven development and semantic technologies, and reports briefly upon a successful, prototypical application. © 2009 IEEE.

Ensuring the inclusiveness of public services remains a critical challenge in urban governance, particularly in decentralized regions characterized by unequal access and service quality. This study evaluates the level of public service inclusivity across sub-districts in Medan City using the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach, specifically the Combined Compromise Solution (CoCoSo) method. The evaluation is based on ten inclusivity criteria covering physical and digital accessibility, service availability for vulnerable groups, service quality, transparency, community participation, and service innovation. The study employs primary data obtained through direct observations and semi-structured interviews with service users and stakeholders, as well as secondary data derived from official statistics and government documents. CoCoSo integrates the Weighted Sum Model (WSM) and Weighted Product Model (WPM) to generate stable and objective rankings of 21 sub-districts. The final CoCoSo scores range from 0.7262 to 10.7427. The results indicate that Medan Maimun and Medan Petisah achieved the highest and identical scores of 10.7427, reflecting strong performance in accessibility, service quality, and supporting infrastructure. In contrast, several sub-districts exhibit relatively low inclusivity scores, highlighting persistent disparities in service distribution and limited community participation. These findings underscore the need for targeted infrastructure development, expansion of inclusive digital services, and strengthening participatory feedback mechanisms to enhance equitable public service delivery. This study contributes a structured evaluation framework that can support evidence-based policymaking and regular monitoring of public service inclusivity at the local government level.

Participatory approaches within development programs involving common-pool resources are intended to revive a community’s role in managing these resources. Certainly, to ensure the successful and equitable use of such resources, community participation is essential. However, in many cases, attempts at applying a participatory approach often fail to genuinely engage all subgroups within a community due to assumptions of homogeneity and a lack of understanding of the deep socio-political divisions between people. As a result, development programs can be plagued by these pre-existing power relations, potentially resulting in tokenistic community participation and the continuation of elite capture of natural resources to the same extent or worse than before a development program has begun. This in turn can negatively impact good governance and the fair distribution of a common pool resource. This paper explores the use of participatory approaches in water projects, assessing to what degree power relationships impact water management programs. Using a qualitative approach, the paper identifies key challenges of participatory water governance through case studies from Turkey, India, and Sri Lanka, exploring: lack of social trust, elite capture of participatory processes, power heterogeneity and imbalances at the micro-level, and a lack of inclusive participation in decision-making. Based on the analysis of these case studies, this paper argues that it is essential for participatory development interventions to understand socio-political power relations within a community—an inherently complex and contested space. The so-called “exit strategy” of a community project play a key role to decide the project sustainability that grants the “community ownership” of the project. Such an understanding can bring about greater success in development interventions attempting to address water-related issues.

As a prominent form of the platform economy, short‐term rentals have reshaped global tourism and urban space, making their sustainability impacts a core concern for scholars and policymakers. Using PRISMA 2020, we systematically screened 3495 records from Web of Science and Scopus, identifying 100 high‐quality core studies for thematic analysis. We develop an original analytical framework of the “digital sustainability paradox” to unpack the intertwined positive and negative effects of short‐term rentals across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The findings suggest that sustainability in this sector is less a technical or market issue than a governance challenge, whose trajectory depends on power relations and institutional arrangements among platforms, governments, communities, and users. We propose an adaptive governance framework that transcends “one‐size‐fits‐all” regulation, advocating context‐sensitive, multi‐level, and participatory policy design to balance innovation, justice, and resilience.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in local governments has gained increasing attention as a means to enhance civic engagement and streamline public participation. This study examines how local governments utilize AI-powered platforms for civic engagement, exploring the perspectives of public servants and developers on the implementation of AI, its benefits, challenges, and ethical considerations. With a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with developers, product designers, public servants, and decision-makers involved in developing and using the AI-powered platform for civic engagement initiatives. Thematic analysis was employed to identify key themes related to AI functionalities, user experiences, and governance challenges. The preliminary results reveal that four distinct types of AI applications have been employed, including AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR), AI-based content moderation, AI sensemaking, and AI-driven translation. These AI tools facilitate efficiency in data processing, enhance accessibility, and support decision-making. However, concerns regarding AI transparency, data privacy, and public trust remain significantly challenging. Additionally, public servants emphasized the need for AI literacy training and the development of ethical guidelines to ensure the responsible use of AI in local governance. This study contributes to the growing discourse on AI in civic engagement by offering insights into the practical and ethical dimensions of AI adoption in local governments. The findings underscore the need for policy frameworks, digital inclusivity measures, and ongoing capacity-building efforts to enhance AI-driven public participation.