Call for Papers

13th Annual Fred Riggs Symposium

March 20, 2026, Hollywood, CA

Section on International and Comparative Administration (SICA)

«Global Strategies, Local Realities: Bridging Renewal and Resilience Through Comparative Lenses”

In conjunction with the theme of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Annual Conference «Building a Bridge to Renewal and Resilience,» the SICA Fred Riggs Symposium Committee invites scholars, practitioners, and students to submit paper proposals for the 2026 Symposium. The symposium brings together experts worldwide to critically discuss key issues facing comparative public administration.

Theme:

As governments and communities around the world confront growing social, economic, and environmental pressures. Associated changes often demand not only structural reform but also adaptive capacity. The ability of institutions and actors is expected to adjust, learn, and evolve in response to uncertainty. This symposium examines how different countries, administrative systems, and local contexts pursue renewal and resilience in governance. We invite proposals that offer comparative perspectives on how public servants uphold core public service values—such as equity, accountability, integrity, and responsiveness—while responding to change. By exploring how adaptation underpins resilience, the symposium seeks to advance cross-contextual understanding of what it means to build and sustain effective, legitimate governance in an era of disruption and transformation. 

Topics of interest:

We welcome proposals that analyze civil service systems, governance structures, frameworks, or cultures in a comparative manner. Such can address, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Strategies for renewal and resilience;
• Ethical approaches to studying renewal and resilience;
• Digital transformation (including AI) in public sector renewal and resilience;
• Leadership for renewal and resilience in the public sector;
• Leveraging trust to navigate challenges and build resilience;
• Human resource management strategies facing disruption and transformation;
• Changing roles of emergency and disaster management;
• Finance and budgeting for accountable continuity of operations;
• Global policy strategies to meet local realities;
• Climate change and adaptation for resilience;
• Public affairs education through agile and resilient pedagogies;
• Civil society and cross-sectoral collaboration;
• Challenges in democratic governance in community resilience for renewal.

Submission guidelines:

Individual Paper Proposal: Please submit an abstract not exceeding 300 words, your paper title, the author’s affiliation(s), and contact information for at least one author. The abstract should clearly outline the paper’s purpose, theoretical framework, methodology, and potential implications for comparative public administration.

Panel Proposal: Please submit the panel title along with the titles of 3-4 papers, the paper author names, affiliations, contact details, and the discussant for the panel. Each panel submission must also include the abstracts of the papers for each panel. Each abstract should not exceed 300 words.

Submission Process: All abstracts and panel proposals must be submitted via the ASPA website. Please name your submission with an indication of ‘Riggs Symposium/SICA’ and select the Riggs Symposium from the options when you submit through the ASPA website: https://www.aspanet.org/. The submission deadline is September 19, 2025.

For questions or additional information, please contact Co-chairs, Jungwon Yeo at  Jungwon.Yeo@umbc.edu and Charlene Roach at Charlene.Roach@uwi.edu. 

If your paper abstract or panel is accepted, your full paper for the ASPA Conference is due one week before the conference start date. Accepted paper authors must register for the conference via the ASPA website. All full papers submitted for the Riggs Symposium will be considered for SICA’s Garcia-Zamor Best Paper Award.

Important dates:

Abstract submission deadline: September 19, 2025

Notification of abstract acceptance: mid-November 2025

Full paper submission deadline: March 13, 2026

Symposium date: March 20, 2026

Selection criteria:

Papers will be selected based on their relevance to the symposium theme, theoretical and methodological rigor, potential for contributing to the field of comparative public administration, and overall quality of writing and analysis.

Publication opportunity:

Selected papers from the symposium may be considered for publication in a special issue of a leading public administration journal (to be announced) or in a special issue of the Occasional Paper Series. We look forward to your contributions to this important dialogue in public administration and digital transformation across diverse global contexts.

2026 Fred Riggs Symposium Committee

Co-Chairs: 

Jungwon Yeo, Ph.D., University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Charlene M. L. Roach, PhD, The University of the West Indies 

Members: 

Cristina Stanica, PhD, Northeastern University, SICA Chair 

Aroon P. Manoharan, PhD, Suffolk University

Bok Gyo Jeong, PhD, Kean University 

Sombo Muzata, PhD, James Medison University 

Samanta Varela, PhD, El Colegio Mexiquense