The challenge of societal turbulence and the need for robust public governance

This chapter urges us to stop and think about how we can best respond to disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the spate of similar crises we are currently facing in modern societies. It argues that theories of public administration and governance are essentially “good weather” theories that fare badly when we are hit by crisis. To improve the capacity of the public sector to deal with crisis-induced turbulence, the notion of robust governance is introduced and briefly explained. To provide an initial understanding of how we might advance robust governance in the future, the chapter refers to collaborative governance and institutional design as two levers of robust governance. The chapter is concluded with an outline of the edited volume and a discussion of its scholarly contribution.