P02 SIG Complexity & Network Governance
Panel chairs
- Prof. Joris Voets (Corresponding & Review Group Chair), Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University (joris.voets@ugent.be)
- Prof. Robyn Keast, School of Business and Tourism, Southern Cross University
- Prof. Erik-Hans Klijn, Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences
- Prof. Chris Koliba. Edwin O. Stene School of Public Affairs and Administration University of Kansas
- Prof. Robin Lemaire, E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University
- Prof. Mary-Lee Rhodes, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin at the University of Dublin
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- Panel Overview: The SIG C&NG aims to connect scholars and practitioners studying complexity and network governance worldwide. At the annual IRSPM-conference, we organize panel sessions dealing with theoretical, empirical, methodological, and practice-related topics. The SIG also encourages members to organize ‘current issues’ sessions within the broader panel call.
- Special issue session: This year’s current issue session is on “social capital in networks” as related to the core theme of the conference (Civic engagement and social capital in contemporary public management: facing the challenges of social equity and environmental sustainability”).
For the 2025 C&NG panel, we welcome papers that:
- Introduce, discuss, develop, and apply established and new theoretical perspectives in studying complexity and network governance, including social capital in networks.
- Raise questions, offer new insights, and encourage debate as to which established perspectives prove valuable to tackle questions about how network governance can be organized and managed, (the lack of) performance(s) of collaborative arrangements, to understand and develop complex adaptive systems, etc.
- Identify and discuss methodological challenges and new ideas on how to develop our knowledge on C&NG: e.g., are new QCA-approaches being used? Has the behavioural and experimental trend in PA also extended into C&NG-research? To what extent are methods like agent-based modeling being developed further and applied?
- Bring new and interesting empirical studies to the table, especially studies that showcase the extent and reach of novel empirical work that substantiates or even questions what we think we know about C&NG.
- Inspire and reflect on knowledge in action, what practitioners ‘do’ with academic C&NG-insights in the real world, identify the conditions for making such knowledge transfer work, and how practitioners can become more active co-producers of C&NG.
- Discuss how C&NG are functional in understanding and solving main societal issues like climate change, loss of biodiversity, integrated care, global security, and social (in)equity.
Format for Abstracts:
Authors should follow the standard instructions provided by the IRSPM Conference guidelines for submitting their abstracts through the ExOrdo system.
How the panel will operate:
Authors will present accepted papers in thematic panel sessions, and discussants will be appointed to ensure relevant feedback (each paper presenter will be responsible for reviewing at least one other paper in their session). Panel session chairs will also formulate more overarching insights and challenges to broader discussions around these main categories and themes. We will actively engage with the editors of the journal ‘COMPLEXITY, GOVERNANCE & NETWORKS’ to explore opportunities for a special issue from this panel and also to build robust connections with the ASPA Section on Complexity and Network Studies to strengthen the broader collaboration between it and our SIG