Improving the Quality of Public Services - A Multi-National Conference

Public desire for better services from government is universal, but the approaches taken to improve public services, and the outcomes achieved, vary dramatically from country to country. Researchers and practitioners around the world have learned much about the factors that influence efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and responsiveness in public service design and delivery across different contexts. Lessons emerging from developing and transition countries have potential to shed new light on longstanding questions about public service performance.

In an effort to consolidate these lessons, the Higher School of Economics (HSE), the Russian Federation Ministry of Economic Development, and the University of Maryland School of Public Policy (UMD), in collaboration with the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), will hold a conference in Moscow June 27-29, 2011. The conference is designed to attract a worldwide audience, including academics and professionals from universities, think tanks, government agencies, the private sector, civil society, and beyond.

Papers are solicited on all aspects of public policy and public management associated with improving the quality of public services at the local, sub-national, national, and regional levels. Cross-national and comparative papers are encouraged, as are papers that explore the exigencies of public administration in the Russian Federation while advancing concrete proposals to improve public services for Russian citizens. Papers will be presented in topic-oriented panels with presenters and discussants.

The conference agenda is broad. Possible topics for papers include, but are not limited to the following:

• Reinventing public service design and delivery
• Measuring performance (using administrative and other data)
• Governance, leadership, and financing
• Roles of formal and informal institutions, especially in developing and transition countries
• Transparency, integrity, and anti-corruption initiatives
• Collaboration across agencies, sectors, and federal systems
• E-government
• Citizen and community engagement
• Globalization and the role of international organizations
• Lessons from experiments: Contracting out, public-private partnerships, quasi-markets, specialized agencies, etc.
• Beyond policy and public management fads:  What works under varying conditions?