🔔 New Issue: Are public officials really more risk-averse than private sector employees? A study of 1,582 officials and employees finds they're not uniformly more risk-averse.

🔔 New Article: 💫 Who is really held accountable when citizens meet the State? A critical ethnography of the UK Tax Credits system finds encounters can reverse the accountability chain. Facing an unaccountable State, claimants became accountable for hardship inflicted on them.

🔔 New Issue Alert: 💫 What makes accountability actually work at the street level? An ethnography of Danish care agencies finds formal accountability becomes action-guiding only when workers can justify their choices across three reference points: institution, others, and self.

🔔 New Issue Alert: 💫 Does common method variance really inflate correlations in self-reported data? Five preregistered studies with 3,100+ UK & Chinese civil servants test the classic PSM-performance link.

🔔 New Issue Alert: 💫 What keeps long-term suppliers from raising prices in public contracts? A study of 430 Indiana legal service contracts finds relational history pushes prices up over time.

🔔 New Issue Alert: 💫 When public services fail, do citizens punish politicians who shift the blame? A new UK survey experiment (n=955) finds citizens generally disapprove of blame shifting but soften when they already see the service provider as more at fault.

🔔 New Issue Alert – Editor's Choice: 💫 Do people decide a program is "worth the effort" before they open the application? A new study runs three survey experiments on a grocery benefit and tax rebate. Heavier documentation lowers willingness to apply.

📑 🧵JPART Introduces a Submission Cap Pilot Beginning July 1, 2026 Like many journals, JPART has seen a sharp rise in submissions, and our data point to GenAI as a major driver.

💫 New Issue Highlight: How do public agencies decide which programs to prioritize when their budgets get cut?

How do public agencies respond to budgetary control? A theory of strategic task portfolios in public administration

Abstract. How do public agencies manage diverse programs under limited budgets? Resource constraints force agencies to prioritize tasks, requiring strategi

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💫 How does partisan control of governors shape how hard state agencies work to detect program errors? A new study of UI programs in all 50 states (2002–2021) finds Republican-appointed agencies pursue ~$2.65M more in overpayment detection per year than Democratic-appointed ones.

#Wilmasreview Wilma 🐶 is blown away 🤯 because HER paper just won the Beryl Radin Award for the best article in the @jpart1991.bsky.social 1/🧵

💫 Does paying public providers for performance actually deliver better results? A new meta-analysis of 740 observations across 38 studies finds the average effect is small and not significant. What matters is design: outcome-based measures outperform process/output metrics.

💫 Does simply recalling an interaction with a government program leave a psychological mark? A new SNAP survey experiment (n=3,812) finds that recalling encounters increased negative affect, even though most reported low burden. Negative experiences leave a stronger imprint than positive ones.

💫 When federal agencies say they "heard" the public, does that mean they actually listened? A new study of 854 federal rules finds regulatory text rarely changes between proposal and finalization.

Peer review is the backbone of academic quality, and JPART is fortunate to have an exceptional reviewer community. We're delighted to announce the recipients of the 2026 JPART Outstanding Reviewer Award, recognizing outstanding reviewing work done in 2025.

🚨 Our editorial team (editors and associate editors) has released a statement on maintaining academic quality in the age of generative AI, published in PMRA's Management Matters. We expect to launch concrete initiatives this summer, in dialogue with PMRA. Full statement linked below!

JPART on Generative AI | Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

🚨 JPART submissions have roughly doubled in just a few years, from under 600 annually to a projected 1,200+ this year, a surge we attribute largely to the growing use of generative AI. Our editorial...

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💫 When local governments plan for the future, do they actually see the disadvantages their communities face? This study of 462 municipalities finds manager-led cities plan broadly but underprioritize social vulnerabilities,

💫 Can specialized institutions really change behavior on the ground? A new study, by Yuhao Ba, uses China's environmental courts as a case of policy venue specialization.

💫 New Issue Highlight! Control or discretion? A new field experiment in 250 Danish schools (~17,000 students) tested two implementation support approaches for a reading intervention. Teachers preferred the fidelity approach. But families benefited more under professional responsibility.

💫 New issue alert: Analyzing ~20,000 utterances from 154 recorded public service encounters in Germany, this study finds bureaucrats speak more complexly and emotionally to male clients than female ones. The bureaucrat's own gender? No effect. By Laurin Friedrich & Steffen Eckhard

💫 New Issue Highlight: What if reducing red tape were as simple as rewriting an ad? A new study tested this with 75,451 participants. Clearer ads about services and eligibility drew significantly more women to active labor market programs.

New Issue Highlight: Is street-level responsiveness a solo choice between "client" or "rules"? A new ethnography of Amsterdam home care says no, it's an organizational achievement. Workers and managers do boundary work together, breaking and restoring institutional limits.

New Issue Highlight: How do collaborations between police and mental health organizations stay strong in turbulent environments? "Cultivating collaborative resilience amid volatility: implementation partnerships between law enforcement and mental health organizations"

New Issue Highlight! Ever wondered why some city governments outperform others, even with equally talented leaders at the top?

New Issue Highlight! What happens when a mostly White fire department is led by a Black fire chief, and how do Black and White firefighters actually view racial diversity under that leadership?

New Issue Highlight: Could adding more accountability (more checks, more evaluations, more oversight) actually make public employees work less hard?

New Issue Highlight: Could better teaching be as simple as giving teachers the right information—no rewards, no pressure, no oversight?

New Issue Highlight! What if the key to sustaining public sector collaboration isn’t eliminating tensions, but managing them?

New Issue Highlight! Can accountability to external bodies induce performance turnaround in struggling public services?

Low-stakes accountability and public service turnarounds

Abstract. Can accountability to external bodies induce performance turnaround in struggling public services? And if so, must account-holders use incentives

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Have you ever wondered how military occupation reshapes the work of teachers and other public servants on the ground?