The independent regulatory agency (IRA) model, a cornerstone of modern public administration since the Progressive Era, faces structural disruption as artificial intelligence (AI) and drone technology converge in environmental enforcement. This paper argues that AI and drone deployment do not merely augment agency operational capacity but fundamentally reconfigure the foundations of expertise, transparency, procedural due process, discretion, and accountability on which IRA legitimacy rests and extends this analysis to functionally analogous environmental enforcement bodies that vary considerably in their degree of formal independence and enforcement competence. Through a comparative analysis of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the European Union's (EU) environmental regulatory institutions, and China's MEE—three bodies that occupy markedly different positions on a spectrum of institutional independence and enforcement authority—the paper demonstrates that divergent institutional responses reflect deeply embedded administrative traditions rather than technical necessity and that this institutional variation is itself the analytical lever through which the paper isolates the sources of legitimacy disruption. It proposes a four-pillar reform framework (encompassing algorithmic transparency and expertise redesign, procedural protections for automated enforcement decisions, institutional redesign for algorithmic accountability, and international regulatory harmonisation) grounded in existing legal instruments including the EU AI Act and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development AI governance principles. The paper contributes to the International Review of Administrative Sciences centennial conversation on regulatory state evolution by demonstrating that preserving IRA legitimacy in the AI era requires institutional adaptation as profound as any in the agency model's century-long history.
This study examines the determinants of digitalisation and internal control in the public sector, with a particular focus on Japanese local governments. Although research on digitalisation and digital transformation (DT) in local governments has expanded in recent years, the adoption of DT and its effects on internal control remain underexplored. In this context, we address the following research question: What factors enhance DT and internal control in local governments? Based on an integrated framework of legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory, this study highlights the role of human errors in information systems and the pressures exerted by key stakeholders on local governments that implement DT for internal control purposes. Using survey data, we find that local governments with experience in human errors and those facing stronger stakeholder pressures, including lawsuits from residents, are more likely to establish internal control systems through DT. The results indicate that local governments develop and adopt internal control systems through DT primarily to defend their legitimacy and respond to the oversight of citizens as key stakeholders. These findings demonstrate that the integrated framework effectively explains the development of DT for internal control, where the goals and expectations often present a paradox.
The COVID-19 pandemic required governments to balance restrictive containment policies with measures to mitigate their socioeconomic consequences, raising questions about the relationship between these policy responses and public confidence and trust. Existing research has largely examined containment and economic support separately, often within individual countries or during the pandemic's initial months. We constructed a global country-level panel by integrating administrative policy data with survey measures of public confidence from the Gallup World Poll, covering 144 countries from 2006 to 2023. Using regression models with country and pre-pandemic year fixed effects, this study examined how changes in institutional and government confidence were associated with lockdown trajectories (sustained low-level, rapidly easing, and sustained high-level) and the scale, breadth, and composition of social protection responses. We found that countries following sustained high-level lockdown trajectories generally experienced less favorable changes in confidence than those following rapidly easing trajectories. Under sustained high-level lockdowns, greater social protection spending and a larger number of social protection measures were generally associated with more favorable changes in confidence. Income protection spending was more positively associated with institutional confidence than job protection spending under sustained high-level lockdowns, but this distinction was not supported for government confidence or trust. These findings highlight the importance of considering containment and social protection jointly and suggest that income protection may be particularly relevant to institutional confidence during prolonged restrictions, with broader implications for governing large-scale crises.Points to Practitioners
Subjective well-being (SWB) has become an important indicator of societal progress in cross-national research, yet substantial variation persists even among countries with similar levels of economic development. Existing studies increasingly recognize the role of governance quality in shaping well-being outcomes but often rely on linear models and average effects that overlook institutional heterogeneity across countries. This study uses cross-national panel data covering 163 countries from 2011 to 2024 to examine how governance indicators relate to SWB. Drawing on complexity-oriented and configurational perspectives, we conceptualize governance as a multidimensional system and classify countries into four institutional configurations based on government effectiveness and voice and accountability. Using ensemble models with SHapley Additive exPlanations-based attribution, we find that SWB can be predicted with high accuracy. While economic conditions remain fundamental predictors, the relative salience of governance indicators differs across institutional contexts. In governance-deficit settings, government effectiveness serves as the primary governance predictor, suggesting that output-based performance is particularly relevant where institutional capacity is weak. In capacity-dominant regimes, economic conditions dominate. In balanced regimes, voice and accountability and rule of law gain prominence, reflecting a shift toward input-based legitimacy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this pattern intensifies: Rights-based and procedural indicators become the leading predictors, suggesting that procedural safeguards gain salience under crisis conditions. These results suggest that the governance-well-being relationship is not universal or additive; rather, it varies across institutional contexts and shows non-linear patterns. This supports a configurational perspective and highlights the need to align policy priorities with countries' institutional configurations.Points to practitioners This study highlights that governance reforms should be tailored to institutional context rather than following a uniform template. In settings with weak administrative capacity, prioritizing basic service delivery and government effectiveness is essential for well-being. Where administrative capacity exists but accountability mechanisms are limited, strengthening economic security and labor market resilience may yield greater returns. In contexts with open participation but limited capacity, anti-corruption efforts and procedural transparency become central. Where both capacity and accountability are relatively strong, reforms should emphasize participatory and legal-procedural dimensions. These findings underscore that aligning policy priorities with a country's institutional configuration is critical for improving societal well-being.
Over the past decade, cities have emerged as centres of economic, social and environmental development. Challenges such as an ageing population, issues of inclusion, evolving poverty, migration patterns and environmental preservation are among the issues urban areas faced. In such a complex environment, municipalities are expected to play a pivotal role in territorial governance. The increasing responsibilities and the reduction of financial resources often generate financial crises for municipalities. In this scenery, a smart city framework, based on innovative collaborative governance and the use of technology, offers a potential roadmap to guide public administrations in overcoming urban crises. Focusing on the case study of Parma and its transformation into a smart city, the paper witnesses a potential blueprint for administrations seeking to implement virtuous processes capable of establishing an efficient and effective model for smart services. Parma, which represents the second largest city in the Emilia-Romagna region, in northern Italy, and a key hub for food production in Europe, offers a fascinating example. In fact, Parma has not only managed to overcome the crisis but, since 2017, has also become one of the top smart cities in the annual “ICity Rank index”. Furthermore, the smart city framework has provided Parma with an urban ecosystem that has strengthened its resilience. This paper examines how a near-default financial crisis triggered the implementation of a smart city model, and how a collaborative governance model, operationalised through a smart city strategy used as a window of opportunity, supported both financial recovery and cross-domain administrative reform.
