Topics of interest within the field of Public Policy and Administration are institutional development, politics of public administration, and reform and policy-analyses. Within these areas of study there is a tendency towards increasing focus on multilevel-governance and mechanisms for interaction across levels of governance, with the latter including consequences of European integration. Research focuses too on challenges at the point of intersection between the fragmentation of the civil service and the need for cross-sectorial cooperation and coordination. Lastly, there is an increasing research interest concerning the problems of democratic participation.
Institutional development, politics of public administration and reforms
This area encompasses studies at local, national and international levels. There is great focus on a macro-level perspective of the driving forces of the development in public administration, as well as effects of various forms of organization on conditions for influence and the content of politics. It is a time of change for this area of study: theoretically through new institutional approaches, and empirically by New Public Management-reforms gradually being replaced or supplemented with new forms of administration and regulation.
Policy-analysis
Policy-analysis is a field wherein the focus of studies is on the shaping, implementation and evaluation of public policies. Implementation of public policy is a field demanding complex models for analysis of cross-institutional interaction. Public policy-typologies are the starting point for hypotheses on systematic correlations between patterns of pressure groups, forms of decision and institutional models. Studies of the evaluation of public policy focus on the effects of public policies.