Editorial

The final issue of 2017 marks important changes for RAP, which celebrated its 50^th anniversary this year. RAP is now consolidated as a bilingual journal, published exclusively online.

In this editorial I discuss what the changes adopted during 2017 have meant for RAP and, especially, for the academic community around the journal as potential collaborators, reviewers and readers.

First, the number of papers submitted in other languages and by international authors has increased substantially. By December 2017, 60 papers were submitted in English and 14 in Spanish, representing together 21.7% of the total papers submitted to the journal. The growth is significant when compared to 2011, when RAP received only three papers in English and Spanish (1% of the total submitted).

More importantly, the journal attracted an increasingly international community of collaborators: 48 papers were submitted by authors living outside Brazil, representing 17 countries, as shown in chart 1. The data show that RAP is gaining importance in Portugal and in Latin America countries, due to the language and, above all, the institutional and cultural factors that connect these countries. We hope that this interest results in the consolidation of research networks that contribute to strengthening the field of public administration.

In order to understand the nature of the changes the journal went through in 2017, my analysis should be compared with that presented in the invited article in this issue: “An analysis of the profile of scientific production in the Journal of Public Administration (RAP) from 2003 to 2016”, by Felipe Smolski, Dionéia Dalcin, Monize Visentini, Joice Bamberg and Juliana Kern. Most of the dimensions related to internationalization changed during 2017 and the article reveals modifications related to other factors, such as the increase in the number of authors per paper and the greater participation of female researchers.

One important fact concerns a qualitative change in the degree of ‘endogenous publishing’ when it comes to the authors who publish in RAP. The invited article shows that most of the Brazilian authors who publish in the journal come from public institutions, revealing a substantial change in the rates of institutional representativeness. Previous work (see Peci and Fornazin, 2017) indicated the importance of institutions such as Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in the Brazilian academic publication in Public Administration and specifically in RAP. The internal measures adopted by Fundação Getulio Vargas to reduce ‘endogenous publishing’ - the publication of articles from authors hosted in FGV in its own journals - significantly influenced this change. I would like to emphasize the importance of fighting endogenous publishing that is so present in our field, considering that most of our academic journals are maintained by academic institutions. High rates of endogenous publishing in an academic journal indicate that other studies, perhaps of better quality, have less opportunity of integrating the journal’s publishing agenda.

Chart 1
Number of articles submitted per country

To reflect the changes adopted in 2017, this issue of RAP gathers a series of articles that illustrate the internationalization of contributions received. In this editorial, I will focus more on the group of authors and institutions that contributed to the issue, highlighting some important facts.

Portugal emerges not only as the origin of a great part of the authors, but also as a context of field research in collaborative work between Brazilian and Portuguese researchers. An example is found in the article “Role conflict and role ambiguity in the work of judges: the perceptions of Portuguese judges”, by Tomas Aquino Guimarães and Adalmir Oliveira Gomes, both from the University of Brasília, together with Pedro Miguel Alves Ribeiro Correia, from the University of Lisbon, and Ines Oliveira and Tânia Piazentin from the Ministry of Justice of Portugal.

The field of organizational behavior in the public sector is the research focus of two articles by Portuguese researchers: “Use of performance information by local politicians: a field study in the Portuguese context”, by Patrícia Gomes, Maria José Fernandes and João B. Carvalho; and “Differences in perceptions of organizational values of public managers in Portugal”, by Pedro Miguel Alves Ribeiro Correia and João Abreu de Faria Bilhim. The field of organizational behavior also brings together studies by Brazilian researchers, as presented in “Organizational commitment and job satisfaction: a study with municipal civil servants”, by Suzete Antonieta Lizote, Miguel Angel Verdinelli and Sabrina do Nascimento, as well as those produced by collaborative networks gathering Brazilian and foreign researchers, as in the article “Work and Its meanings: a study of forensic experts in the Federal Police”, by Andrea Leite Rodrigues, Alcides Barrichello, Hélio Arthur Reis Irigaray, Donaldson Resende Soares and Estelle M. Morin of the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, Canada.

Latin America is represented by two important papers of prominent academic institutions in Uruguay and Colombia: “Silent State reform? The political process of law on Public-Private Partnership in Uruguay”, by Guillermo Fuentes and “Resource appropriation and deviation strategies in Santiago de Cali’s Municipal Planning System”, by Leonardo Solarte Pasos, Álvaro Pío Gómez Olaya and Luis Felipe Sánchez Arias.

Brazilian researchers also contribute to this issue with two articles dedicated to the area of public health: “The polarized federalism in the health system in Brazil”, by Assis Mafort Ouverney and Sonia Fleury and “Implementation of public health policy and its challenges in the digital age” by Vera Lúcia Peixoto Santos Mendes and Fábio Campos Aguiar.

The study “Party ideologies in 140 characters: Twitter use by Brazilian congressmen”, by Marcelo Santos Amaral and José Antonio Gomes de Pinho was a feature of BBC Brazil (www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-39203682), indicating the relevance of the study beyond the academic arena.

Finally, Mattia Casula, from the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, from Italy, discusses political actors that determine public policies and the political influence of the new decision-making arenas in “Who governs in (local) governance? Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence”. The Italian context works as an empirical inspiration for the theoretical arguments developed during the study.

Another invited article in this issue was elaborated by professor Richard Stillman II, former editor of the Public Administration Review (PAR). The manuscript was presented at RAP’s 50^th anniversary seminar “Challenges in the field of public administration: education, professionalization and research” and deals with professionalism in the public sector: a cross-cutting theme that concerns the legitimacy of the public servant, and a theme that is in crisis and demand redefinitions in the contemporary world.

This year ends with another workshop “Trends in Public Administration Research and the Editorial Process” by Professor Bradley Wright, Editor of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), School of Public and International Affairs/University of Georgia held on December 7^th at FGV EBAPE.

Finally, happy holidays to the RAP’s community! I am counting on the collaboration of each of you to continue building a solid community of public administration research in 2018!

Editor-in-chief

Alketa Peci

Referência

• PECI, Alketa; FORNAZIN, Marcelo. The knowledge-building process of public administration research: a comparative perspective between Brazil and North American contexts. International Review of Administrative Sciences, v. 1, p. 1-21, 2016.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Nov-Dec 2017