Increasing discussion of a process-oriented public administration can be found in the theoretical literature as well as in empirical research and prescriptions for practice. We see an emerging role for public administration as the convener and facilitator of collaborative, deliberative processes in which citizens self-govern. Whether it is through participatory budgeting and policy analysis or community-based planning and coproduction of public goods and services, the focus is on the process as opposed to predetermined substantive values, evaluative criteria, or specified rule-bound procedures. Simultaneously, we find an increased focus on the relationship between administrators and citizens, as opposed to the politics/administration dichotomy. This reflects increased concern with the relationship between government and society as opposed to the relationships inside government of both an intraorganizational (e.g. organizational behavior) and interorganizational nature (e.g. governmental relations, collaborative public management, and joined-up government). 

Given the importance of these concerns in a democratic context, it is somewhat surprising that a dynamic process-oriented, relational approach to governance has not captured stronger footing in the field. One explanation might be that there is little in the way of philosophical grounding for these ideas to be found in liberal political ontology. In other words, the ideas and practices are incoherent with the western worldview and the forms of government it prefigures. For this reason, some scholars are looking for alternative philosophical groundings for a process-oriented public administration. Such theoretical development may provide more robust foundations from which to not only critique liberal political ontology and its representative form of government, but perhaps more importantly, to explicate an alternative to affirm. This symposium invites papers that contribute to this project. 

The coordinator of this symposium is Margaret Stout, West Virginia University. Proposals should be submitted to Dr. Stout via email (Margaret.Stout.@wvu.edu) and the editor no later than July 1, 2011 and should include a working title and a brief abstract in addition to organizational affiliation and contact information for the author(s). An invitation to participate in the symposium does not guarantee publication. Full papers should not exceed 9,000 words and will be double-blind peer reviewed. Initial papers will be due December 1, 2011 and final manuscripts will be due April 15, 2012. This collection will appear in the September 2012 (Volume 34, 3) issue of the journal.