Polarization in public policy reform and innovation: Findings on inner-administrative perspectives towards digitalisation in public administrations

This paper emphasizes the public employees’ perspectives towards the innovation reform process of administrations’ digitalisation, in order to understand their kind of mindsets to digital reforms and what circumstances do possibly shape digital innovation policies. In the administrative case it is the specific bureaucratic institutional context which often gets in mind when it comes to implementation problems in innovative public (reform) policies. Complaints about the slow pace and inefficiency of digitisation are part of common negative stereotypes about the public administration. This connotation not only hinders a problem-solving orientation, but increases the level of public and media polarization about the digital functionality of the public sector. Such a polarized perspective could have a direct impact on employees in public administrations, since the responsibility for missing success in digitalisation could potentially be attributed to them. A successful reform governance in the case of public sectors’ digitalisation requires collaboration and interaction between the administrative, the business, and the societal sides. Public administration as the main implementation institution in the political-administrative system, is a key actor which is focused particularly. Here, there seems to be a "blind spot" as to what kind of inner-administrations perspectives can be identified towards the innovation policy of government digitalisation and how they correspond to the stereotypical polarized discourse in the public space. For policy research and an effective policy making, it is important to get answers on the following questions: how do public administration employees evaluate the policy innovations of digitalisation in their working context, in what way do polarized public arguments occur in these positions, and how does the diffusion of digital innovations take place within the public administration? With reference to a research project and empirical data on public administrations’ personnel at the municipal level in Saxony, Germany in 2023, findings on administrative actors’ evaluations and the interlinks to public discourses will be provided. Additionally, the paper will formulate assumptions towards an innovative policy governance and administrative reform processes. The first steps towards creating more transparency in innovative policy implementation involve mapping the inner-institutional views on administrative digitalisation and identifying external collaborations with non-administrative actors. By revealing potentials and obstacles from this internal perspective, policy research can help to reconstruct and evaluate the polarized public debates in the needed reform of digitalisation in public administrations. One hypothesis is that a deeper understanding of the public actors’ perceptions in digital implementation is essential for its successful policy output, outcomes, and impact. Besides, this understanding may constructively address polarization discourses and the public stereotyping towards public administration and its role in reform processes.