Problems of governance are a recurring theme in research on metropolitan areas, yet the role of politicians, bureaucrats, and political-administrative relations remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap by analyzing political-administrative relations in the governance of Czech metropolitan areas. As metropolitan areas in Czechia were established relatively recently, it is possible to observe the dynamics between politicians and civil servants from their inception. Based on semi-structured interviews with politicians and civil servants from two metropolitan areas, the findings suggest that civil servants hold a relatively strong position due not only to their expertise and knowledge of EU funding opportunities and project management, but also to the limited interest of politicians in the metropolitan agenda. Politicians' low engagement appears to result from a focus on immediate economic benefits and difficulties navigating issues beyond electoral district boundaries. This passive political role contributes to the uncertain status of metropolitan areas, which lack strong political advocacy.

Due to recent crises, public sector organisations worldwide have been increasingly confronted with unexpected and turbulent events characterised by high complexity, uncertainty and divergence. They have differed in how they respond to, overcome, and learn from them. In this article, we present the results of our research on factors influencing organisational resilience in selected Czech ministries and agencies that differ in their levels of bureaucracy during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used the model to identify factors and compare organisational resilience that helped us show how different organisational contexts determined the ability to respond and recover from the COVID-19 crisis. The findings confirmed our initial assumption that situations characterised by high levels of complexity, uncertainty and divergence are better handled by organisations that are non-bureaucratic and have higher levels of digitalisation and flexibility among line workers and managers.

This article examines the European governance failures that occurred during the 2015-16 refugee crisis through the lens of robust crisis governance. The article asks whether these failures can be explained by a failure to meet the double criterion for robust governance proposed by Ansell and colleagues, which is (i) creating adaptive or innovative crisis responses and (ii) doing so while maintaining legitimacy. To answer this question, the article takes three main steps. First, the article develops the legitimacy dimension of Ansell et al.'s robust governance framework by integrating Beetham's three-dimensional concept of legitimation as legality, justifiability and consent. Second, the article applies the resulting augmented framework to three national case studies, each of which demonstrate a different route to failure, namely: institutional inertia (Spain), unlawful neglect, (the Czech Republic), and opportunistic agility (Denmark). Third, the article conducts a historical analysis of European migration policy to understand how incoherences between the three dimensions of legitimation contributed to the failures at robust governance observed in the case studies. By examining cases of failure through a legitimation lens, the article puts meat on the bone of Ansell et al.'s previously underdeveloped assumption that legitimacy is a necessary condition for robust crisis governance. The analysis implies that, to a degree not generally recognized by the crisis management literature, robustness in national crisis management relies on the preexistence of coherent legitimation structures, i.e., structures that explicate and manage contradictions among legal frameworks, policy goals and stakeholders.

This article explores how small municipalities in Czechia adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukrainian refugee crisis, and thus contributed to governance robustness. Through 24 semi-structured interviews with mayors, we examine local challenges and responses, revealing how these crises exposed weaknesses in public administration, particularly in decision-making, coordination, and communication at the outset. Mayors played key roles, making swift, independent decisions to meet urgent needs, often bypassing standard municipal procedures. Community engagement such as volunteer networks and collaboration with local organizations proved essential in managing both crises, and horizontal cooperation with neighboring municipalities and regional authorities bolstered their response capacity. The findings underscore the importance of strong local leadership, adaptability, and multi-level governance in handling complex crises while highlighting systemic challenges in national-level crisis coordination. This research emphasizes the critical role of small municipalities in maintaining the robustness of local governance during large-scale crises, especially in their beginnings.

In this article, we present findings of a systematic review and qualitative analysis of legal documents adopted by national bodies in Czechia in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal was to fill the gap in existing research that focused mainly on restrictive and coercive measures that have impacted the society as a whole until now and paid less attention to changes expected in public administration by laws adopted during the pandemic. Our research showed that the executive branch took the leading role in solving the COVID-19 crisis in Czechia, as in other countries. However, the difference can be seen in that the key executive organs that shaped the organization of state administration were the government and the Ministry of Health, which participated in creating documents focused on health protection. The secondary law was used as the key format for the regulation of issues related to the functioning of the state administration and specifically to the reduction of personal contacts and service provision, ensuring protective equipment and the use of electronic communication channels needed for work from home (for which a new, not yet existing regulation was created). Moreover, the systematic review of the national legal documents showed that while the elements “People” and “Processes” were significantly affected by them, the element “Technology” was minimally affected, even though the level of digitalisation in Czechia has been below the average of EU countries in recent years. The prevalence of work from home was carried out both by the relaxation of existing administrative processes and by extensions of deadlines for various administrative tasks.

Few studies have examined the longevity of Covid 19 driven changes in public bodies-whether they continued after the crisis and why. This article explores organizational changes in three Czech ministries and two national agencies, comparing their responses and long-term adaptations. The authors identify key intra-organizational factors-especially culture and people-as drivers of both change and its durability. Ministries often reverted to pre-crisis routines, while agencies embraced greater flexibility and digitalization. The article is particularly relevant for senior and mid-level public managers, civil service executives, and professionals in organizational development, crisis management, and digital transformation. It offers actionable insights for practitioners aiming to institutionalize innovations and build resilient, adaptive public organizations capable of learning from crises. While grounded in the Czech context, the findings hold broader relevance for reform-oriented public sectors globally. Although some literature mapping Covid 19 induced changes in public administration is available, few authors have focused on the longevity of these changes, i.e. whether the changes were temporary or continued after the pandemic and why. In this article, the authors explore what Covid 19 induced changes were made in three Czech ministries and two national agencies, if they have endured and what has determined their longevity. The selection of these organization types was deliberate, with the expectation that ministries would be more bureaucratic and agencies more flexible. To identify specific determinants/factors, the authors used individual elements included in the organizational model of Nogra & scaron;ek and Vintar (2014), which views an organization as a system composed of 'people', 'structure', 'processes', and 'culture' interconnected by the element of 'technology'. The data obtained through 33 semi-structured interviews indicate that the main intra-organizational factors driving the changes and their longevity are related to people and culture.

This article maps and discusses the state of public administration education in the Czech Republic. The main method is the multiple case study, covering three topics. The first case enhances information about the scope and scale of public administration in the country. The data suggest that, especially at public schools, the number of students is continuously falling, and public administration did not develop as a specific discipline. The second case focuses on scientific output and internationalization of public administration education, and the last one on the impact of public administration programs on the public sector and national policies. We can observe a gradual convergence toward Western PA standards, which, however, lags behind economic and social developments. The main causes of this lock-in in the past are the legacy of economic transformation, a demand-driven approach, inappropriate funding of science, the accreditation system, and the influence of professional organizations.

How do the strategies that governments employ when they encounter crisis-induced turbulence affect the robustness of the political regime in which they operate? Comparative studies of the connection between government strategies and political regime robustness under different cultural and institutional conditions are few and far between. This article studies the vaccination strategies that governments in Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, and Italy employed in their respective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it assesses how these strategies affected the robustness of their political regimes in terms of citizen trust in government and public administration. The study finds that all five governments used a variety of strategies in their dealings with the pandemic; that citizens in different countries did not react in the same way to similar government strategies; and that strategies that get an incumbent government re-elected may not be politically robust for the political regime or serve to uphold democratic principles.

In the paper we use a mixed-methods approach to qualitatively research and analyze selected GPP practices in Czechia. We extended our analysis to the documents usually not included in available quantitative GPP studies and, leading to incorporating different levels of GPP use into our methodology. Our findings show that although the GPP principles have been formally introduced in Czechia relatively recently in 2021, its use in contract notices and tender-related documents is growing. Still, GPP is not something automatically included in new tender documents.

This manuscript maps the modes of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic by two public organizations in the Czech Republic from its beginning to the present day to identify the final form of their organizational resilience and key factors that influenced it. The Nogra & scaron;ek and Vintar organizational model, which relies on the crucial role of ICT and its dependence on people, processes, structure, and culture, was utilized to achieve this objective. Data were gathered from interviews, organizations' websites, and internal statistics. The results show both organizations are characterized by "bounce forward" resilience influenced by a high level of digitization, democratic/emancipatory leadership style, professional staff, and supportive organizational culture.

In this introduction to the special issue 'The New Public Management: Dead or still alive and co-existing? State of play at 40+' we suggest that we are witnessing two principal developments when it comes to NPM: its endurance in practice and reconsideration in theory. Building on recent research, we argue that NPM ideas and practices continue to be adopted, used, and tailored to meet reform requirements and preferences, resulting in enduring forms of NPM. Given its lasting influence on administrative practice, we propose the need for a reconsideration of the NPM paradigm within public administration scholarship. We conclude that NPM is a remarkable case of how management and governance ideas endure, leading to important implications for the conceptualization, research, and assessment of administrative movements and governance paradigms as they develop over time.

This study investigates the teleworking experiences of public servants amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on insights from surveys conducted during the early stages of the pandemic, we explore the advantages, challenges, and variations in telework policies across government organizations. Our findings underscore the significance of telework satisfaction in influencing employee performance and reveal gender differences in telework preferences, particularly concerning family responsibilities. The study emphasizes the need to evaluate pandemic telework experiences to inform policy adjustments in public administration and businesses. Flexibility in work arrangements can enhance talent retention, employee satisfaction, productivity, and organizational resilience, crucial aspects for businesses navigating a post-pandemic world. Effective telework implementation requires not only technological upgrades but also shifts in corporate culture to create conducive conditions.

Purpose Scholarly research on e-procurement has been limited and, like e-government, e-procurement has been researched primarily from the perspective of adoption/non-adoption. This paper aims to focus on public administration employees’ perceptions of the quality of národní elektronický nástroj (NEN) – the Czech national e-procurement tool they are required to use. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based primarily on statistical analysis of data obtained through two questionnaire surveys addressed to contacts from of all Czech central state administration bodies using NEN; 175 completed questionnaires were gathered in 2020 and 128 in 2022 and subjected to statistical analysis in SPSS. Findings NEN was launched as fully operational in August 2015. The research indicates that in 2022 there were still important gaps in the quality of NEN as perceived by public employees. Social implications The paper has important practical implications for e-procurement policymakers. It shows that making the e-procurement system compulsory is not sufficient. The government needs to guarantee that it would be competitive with tools that would otherwise be preferred. Otherwise, the application of the digital-by-default principle may lead to institutionalisation of services that are not user-friendly. This has important implications for e-government/e-procurement management and change management. Originality/value Little is known about public employees’ perceptions of the quality of e-government and e-procurement. Although e-procurement is an area where the digital-by-default principle was implemented rather early, the quality of e-procurement has still received limited attention in research.

The pandemic disrupted previous operational models and led to changes in public administration. The academic literature on the impacts of the pandemic on public administration and management is growing. To date, no literature review outlining the findings of the published research has been made available, to our knowledge. This article summarises the findings of a systematic literature review outlining changes in public administration that can be attributed to the pandemic. It also points out gaps that should receive attention in future research (for example the longevity of changes).

This chapter outlines findings of the research that focused on how ICT are used in municipal PB in Czechia. As such it connects participatory budgeting and e-participation. We looked at web pages dedicated to PB of all 66 municipalities that implemented PB in 2020 (using the same research protocol, we mapped situation either on official web pages of the municipalities or on their special web pages dedicated to PB). We found that ICT were clearly supporting PB processes in Czech municipalities and the analysis highlighted several interesting features of ICT in municipal PB in the country. Municipalities not only use the web pages for informing about PB; most of them also use online tools for voting. On the other hand, public hearings are organized online only scarcely.

Abstract Research on PB in CEE has been rather fragmented and has focused on the diffusion of PB, and sometimes on determinative factors inside the countries. Some comparative studies exist but address primarily initial steps of PB. This paper presents the outcomes of a research that focused on the design of participatory budgeting in the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia). The main method is a secondary comparative analysis of existing literature and information on the subject. The findings are based on recently published country studies and other available information related to the national context in the countries. We use the country studies as input for a multi‐case study analysis (Zongozzi & Wessels, 2016) to make comparisons and, if possible, generalize some of the findings, but also to point out specifics determined by the context in which PB is being implemented and practiced. As the subsidiary method we used expert evaluation. To obtain extra information we consulted experts in all selected countries during July and August 2022. Analyzing PB processes in these countries showed similar features and that, on the whole, PB processes still belong to the group o the Porto Alegre model adapted for Europe as concluded in the literature published almost a decade ago. But this is only valid at a more abstract level of PB designs. Looking at PB processes in practice, it is seen in the V4 region that the actual practices vary over municipalities, even within one and the same country.

Brno is well known in Czechia for its new participatory approach to strategic planning and is the only statutory city to have implemented participatory budgeting on a city level. The main question addressed in this chapter is how these two participatory initiatives were leveraged by ICT tools. The research indicates that despite being exceptional participation cases in the context of Czechia, the e-participation tools were made limited use of in the case of strategic planning project Brno 2050 but played a more central role in the participatory budgeting project. By comparing the two initiatives, the chapter discusses the reasons behind the patterns of uptake and the use of e-participation solutions in the same context.