Calls for Papers
Special Issue of Public Policy and Administration
The emergence of Relational Public Services: Challenges for Public Policy and Administration
Guest Editors:
Rob Wilson ([email protected]) Professor, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Paula Rossi ([email protected]) Assistant Professor, University of Vaasa, Finland
Max French ([email protected]) Associate Professor, Northumbria University, UK
Jonathan Wistow ([email protected]) Associate Professor, Durham University, UK
Call for Papers
Politics, Public Policy and Public Administration are beset in recent times by seemingly endless turmoil affecting
legitimacy and its effectiveness. One of the proposed sources of ‘solutions’ has been social innovation. One
reading of this trend has been it is an attempt to innovate relationships as a means of tackling societies wicked
problems conducted via a range of scales macro, meso and micro and contexts ranging from policy making,
democracy, accountability, resourcing as well as issues such as wellbeing, social care, welfare, communities
and the environment.
These experiments have had mixed success (as anticipated) but innovations almost universally failed to break
through into mainstream public service delivery, and the means by which policy makers, leaders and managers
design, organise and resource outcomes from educational attainment to public health to environmental
sustainability. The challenge for those working in the area of Public Policy and Administration is to show that
alternative relational perspectives are both possible and effective in addressing the question of what would a
relational approach might look and feel like for policy makers, managers, practitioners and citizens. On the one
hand we have helpful theorising such as the work of Donati (2011) and Crossley (2011) in the development
relational sociology, heuristic synthesis of the literature from Bartels and Turnbull (2020) and framings of social
complexity from Castellani & Gerrits (2024). On the other is the phronesis of enthusiastic policy intent (Muir
and Parker, 2014; OECD, 2024); the emergence of practice tools such as Outcomes Star and Poverty Stoplight;
organising principles for working such as Buurtzorg; and methods such as Learning Partnering (Hesselgreaves
et al 2021) or Co-creation (Heimburg and Ness, 2021); and frameworks such as Human Learning Systems (HLS)
(Lowe et al 2021).
Building up the cases of success (Lowe et al 2021; Smith et al 2025, Wilson et al 2025) is key in the generation
of a sustained movement in delivery, management, policy, and scholarship to appropriately scale the public
outcomes that innovations in services are creating (Bartels & Turnbull, 2020; Wilson et al., 2024; Bartels et al.,
2024). Evidence from practice demonstrates how public services can be evolved across the public sector and
how relationality can be absorbed into the leadership, management, data and delivery practices of public
service (Lowe et al., 2021, Wilson et al., 2025). The spread of narratives surrounding relational practices are
increasingly emergent in academia particularly in the Europe and North America (Lamph et al., 2023, Wilson
et al., 2025) in what has been described as a relational ‘turn’ in public administration (Bartels & Turnbull, 2020).
It is also highly likely that a diverse range of African, Asian and other regional/national public traditions
significantly influence the ways in which relations between the governments, civil service and civil society
frame interactions between policy, public administration, practitioners and citizens.
There is a growing consensus that radical change is needed in the purpose, form and function of public
administration and governance. One set of critics have described the current mechanisms of public policy and
administration as a rationalist approach (French et al., 2023) which has manifestly failed to deliver on the
promises made of more efficient and effective services. These appear to have generated unintended
consequences in that they have solidified the current system in practice rather than supplanting it (French et
al. 2023). The persistence of the current orthodoxy in light of its problems and apparent role in partly causing
these problems over 30 to 40 years is quite remarkable. Such is the power of this conditioning that coherent
alternative narratives to neoliberalism which seize the imagination and bind together the lived experiences of
practitioners, citizens and communities and the needs of those working in policy and politics have yet to
meaningfully sustain (Baines et al 2024).
As ever scholars are prone to the dubitation of such emerging practices and their interpretation including
balancing the positive aspects of relationality and there are a number of concerns and challenges that lie ahead
(Wilson et al 2024; Regal and Fitzgerald 2025). We seek, through this Special Issue, to bring together new
conceptual insights, evidence and perspectives from academia on relational public services and management,
with the aim of landing the case for a significant reappraisal of the current ways and means of public
administration and public policy and how these need to evolve across a range of cultural contexts, political
perspectives and governance arrangements.
Authors with promising Full Draft papers will be invited to participate in a Special Issue paper development
workshop (scheduled for late June 2026 in Manchester, UK prior to the annual Towards Relational Public
Services (TRIPS) 2026 conference)
Submission Process
Full Draft Papers should be initially submitted by prospective authors to the Special Issue Guest Editors for
consideration at the SI Workshop (see deadlines below). For informal inquires related to the Special Issue,
proposed topics and potential fit, please contact the Guest Editors via email.
Final Full Papers will be reviewed via Public Policy and Administration double-blind review process.
Submissions should be prepared using the Public Policy and Administration Manuscript Preparation Guidelines
(https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/ppa).
Submission of Full Papers for the Special Issue will be via the Public Policy and Administration Submission site by September 2026.
The first review cycle is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026 with a further round of reviews during Spring 2027.
Key dates:
31st March 2026 – Submission of Draft Papers to the Special Issue Guest Editors
31st April 2026 – Initial Feedback and invitation to the Manchester SI Workshop
22nd June 2026 – SI Workshop in Manchester
30th September 2026 – Submission of Final paper to PPA submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ppa
References:
Baines, S., Wilson, R., Fox, C., Aflaki, I. N., Bassi, A., Aramo-Immonen, H., & Prandini, R. (Eds.). (2024). Co-creation in public services for innovation and social justice. Policy Press. Bristol, UK
Bartels, K., Heimburg, D. V., Jordan, G., & Ness, O. (2024). Debate: A relational agenda for changing public administration research and practice. Public Money & Management. https://doi.org/10.
1080/09540962.2024.2402873
Bartels, K., & Turnbull, N. (2020). Relational public administration: A synthesis and heuristic classification of relational approaches. Public Management Review, 22(9), 1324–1346
Regal, B & Fitzgerald C (2025) Relational Reforms: Unpacking the Gendered load. Public Money and Management https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2025.2550638
Castellani, B. & Gerrits, L. (2024) The Atlas of Social Complexity. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing
Crossley N. (2011) Towards Relational Sociology Routledge, London, UK
Donati P. (2011) Relational Sociology: A new paradigm for the social sciences Routledge, London, UK
French, M., Hesselgreaves, H., Wilson, R., Hawkins, M., & Lowe, T. (2023). Harnessing complexity for better outcomes in public and non-profit services Policy Press, Bristol, UK.
Heimburg, D., & Ness, O. (2021). Relational welfare: A socially just response to co-creating health and wellbeing for all. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 49(6), 639–652
Hesselgreaves, H., French, M., Hawkins, M., Lowe, T., Wheatman, A., Martin, M., Wilson, R. (2021) ‘New development: The emerging role of a ‘learning partner’ relationship in supporting public service reform.’ Public Money and Management, 41(8) pp. 672-675.
Lamph, G., Nowland, R., Boland, P., Pearson, J., Connell, C., Jones, V., Wildbore, E., Christian, D. L., Harris, C., Ramsden, J., Gardner, K., Graham-Kevan, N., & McKeown, M. (2023). Relational practice in health, education, criminal justice, and social care: A scoping review. Systematic Reviews, 12(194).
Lowe, T., French, M., Hawkins, M., Hesselgreaves, H., & Wilson, R. (2021). New development: Responding to complexity in public services—The human learning systems approach. Public Money & Management, 41(7), 573–576.
Muir, R., & Parker, I. (2014). Many to many: How the relational state will transform public services Institute for public policy reform. https://www.ippr.org/files/images/media/files/publication/2014/02/Many-to-many_Feb2014_11865.pdf
OECD Global Trends in Government Innovation: Fostering Human-Centred Public Services (2024) https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/global-trends-in-government-innovation-2024_c1bc19c3-en/fullreport.html
Smith, M., Hesselgreaves, H., Charlton, R., & Wilson, R. (2025). The ‘liberated method’ – A transcendent public service innovation in polycrisis. Public Money and Management, 1–9. https://
doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2025.2456120
Wilson, R., French, M., Hesselgreaves, H., Lowe, T., & Smith, M. (2024). New development: Relational public services—Reform and research agenda. Public Money & Management, 44(6), 553–558
Wilson R, Hesselgreaves H, French M, Hawkins M, Jamieson D, King M, Kimmitt J (2025) Futures in Public Management: The Emerging Relational Approach to Public Services. Critical Perspectives on International Public Management (vol 8). Emerald, Leeds, UK