Pathways to Positive Public Administration

Edited by Patrick Lucas, PhD candidate, School of Business, University of New South Wales Canberra, Australia, Tina Nabatchi, Joseph A. Strasser Endowed Professor in Public Administration and Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, US, Janine O’Flynn, Professor and Director, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Australia and Paul ’t Hart, Member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy of the Netherlands, and Professor of Public Administration, Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Contents
1 An optimistic state? Pathways to positive public administration 1
Patrick Lucas, Tina Nabatchi, Janine O’Flynn and Paul ʼt Hart
PART I FOUNDATIONS
2 Positive public administration’s long history 23
Grant Duncan
3 Beyond the binary: understanding success and failure 40
Matthew Flinders
4 A configurational approach to positivity: analyzing
pathways to success and achievement in public administration 58
Fernando Nieto-Morales and Liesbet Heyse
Insight 1 Positivity in public administration: what’s love
got to do with it? 78
Susan Keim
PART II PRACTICES
Insight 2 Reducing administrative burdens: the case of
the US student loan forgiveness website 83
Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan
5 Burkina Faso’s surprisingly successful effort to abandon
female genital mutilation and cutting 88
Susan L. Ostermann and Josephine Wouango
6 Making Indigenous self-government happen in Canada 109
Mason Ducharme, Susanne Thiessen and Evert Lindquist
7 Puerto Rico’s independent community aqueducts: service
delivery in a complex setting 128
Omar Pérez Figueroa and Nicola Ulibarri
8 Positive public administration for sustainable
development: the crucial role of municipalities in driving success 143
Jonas J. Schoenefeld, Friederike Edel, Iris Behr, Birte
Frommer, Michèle Bernhard and Britta Stein
9 What explains the performance of participatory governance? 165
Nicolas W. Jager and Jens Newig
10 Improving the public purse: the Kenya Revenue Authority
as an example of positive public administration in Africa 187
Gedion Onyango
11 Delivering immigration services: a case of positive public
administration in Kenya 205
Eric E. Otenyo
12 Understanding and learning from positive policy
interventions in the context of Latin American public
administration 222
Pablo Sanabria-Pulido and Cristian Pliscoff
13 Pandemic partnerships: politicians, public servants, and
the people of Aotearoa New Zealand 239
Verna Smith, Lesley Middleton, Jocelyn Cranefield and Lina Guo
14 Positive public administration in developing countries
during crises: the case of Covid-19 in Pakistan 257
Usman W. Chohan
15 Bhutan’s pandemic response and vaccination campaign:
lessons on positive public administration 274
Sigay Dem
Insight 3 Disruption, iteration, and policy success:
lessons from six US cases 292
Richard F. Callahan and John Kirlin
PART III TOOLS
16 Transnational approaches to improving public services:
the case of the open government partnership 300
Alex Ingrams, Suzanne J. Piotrowski and Daniel Berliner
17 The Aarhus Model: countering the global wicked problem
of radicalization with local pragmatist collaborations 320
Scott Douglas
Insight 4 Leveraging public–private partnerships for
positive public administration in South Africa 335
Ndangwa Noyoo and Minenhle Matela
18 Power to the stakeholders: how co-production turned
around a green energy blunder in Ontario, Canada 339
Matt Wilder
19 Sensegiving in multicultural contexts: the role of cultural
chameleonizing in the implementation of Mauritius’s light
rail transit system 361
Emamdeen Fohim, Adeelah Kodabux and Amar Kumar Seeam
20 The role of cultural competency in crafting and delivering
public services 379
Cynthia Barboza-Wilkes and Thai V. Le
21 The party politics of policy endurance: parliamentary
settlements in Norway, 1980–2021 400
Jostein Askim, Bjørn Mo Forum and Bent Sofus Tranøy
22 From brown to green: repurposing public procurement 424
Ana-Maria Dimand and Milena I. Neshkova
23 All together now: sustainable solid waste management
through interlocal collaboration in Mexico 441
Alejandra Medina and José Sánchez
Index 462