ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed changes on governments across the world. Scholars responded to this crisis with a wide range of comparative studies and theoretical alternatives that addressed “big questions” of public administration. To summarise what we now know about governments, citizens, and civil society as a result of this pandemic, we conduct a systematic review of 188 articles using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. While the range of topics addressed was broad, we began our review by narrowing our focus ex-ante to studies that addressed three “big questions” of public administration: (1) What are the instruments of collective action?; (2) How shall tensions between national and subnational governments be resolved?; and (3) How can processes of societal learning be improved? Two additional “big questions” later emerged from the review process itself: (4) How can public trust in governments be fostered? and (5) Do public services enhance social equity? Answers to each of these questions are reviewed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

摘要

COVID-19 大流行使世界各国政府发生了变化。学者们通过广泛的比较研究和理论替代方案来应对这场危机，以解决公共行政的“大问题”。为了总结我们现在对由于这种大流行而导致的政府、公民和民间社会的了解，我们使用系统评价和元分析的首选报告项目 (PRISMA) 指南对 188 篇文章进行了系统评价。虽然所讨论的主题范围很广，但我们开始审查时，先将重点缩小到解决公共行政的三个“大问题”的研究上：(1) 集体行动的工具是什么？(2) 如何解决国家和地方政府之间的紧张关系？(3) 如何改进社会学习过程？后来审查过程本身又出现了两个“大问题”：(4) 如何培养公众对政府的信任？(5) 公共服务是否促进了社会公平？每个问题的答案都在 COVID-19 大流行的背景下进行了审查。