The administrative Francophonie in transition
La francosphère administrative en transition
Rethinking the balance between efficiency, complexity and simplification in public action
Repenser les équilibres entre efficacité, complexité et simplification de l’action publique
Published on Tuesday, December 02, 2025
Abstract
NPA's Francophone workshop welcomes researchers and practitioners interested in PA models and their renewal, legitimacy, and complexity, or in the simplification of public action in various policy fields. It invites empirical work and in-depth conceptual work from researchers, as well as critical feedback from managers and public administrators in the field.
Announcement
Argument
The administrative Francophonie in transition : Rethinking the balance between efficiency, complexity and simplification in public action
This year’s workshop theme is aligned with the ambitions of the first European Network of Public Administration (ENPA) congress, “Shaping the future of public administration”.
When referring to the Francophone world and its various traditions, this question raises issues about administrative cultures and models whose maturity is not devoid of limitations. Have the neo-Weberian state and its reinvented bureaucracy become too complex to ensure a peaceful working environment for their employees and managers (Bez s 2020) ? Is e-administration, which has been eagerly implemented and accelerated by the health crisis and the advent of AI, disrupting professions and undermining equal access by excluding citizens (Conseil d’Etat 2023) ? Does the major push towards new, multi-level and collaborative governance risk, in some cases, replacing the more transparent principle of subsidiarity with managerial complexity (Ansell & Torfing 2022) ? On a dynamic note, has the rapid pace of managerial reforms in recent years allowed enough space for evaluation (Bartoli & Blatrix 2022) ? Is this symptomatic of closer relations between the political and administrative spheres, or does it herald a weakening of administrative capacities at the service of public officials ?
Rethinking the future of the administrative Francosphere implies taking stock of recent developments in its models, while assessing their performance in light of the major current challenges of legitimacy, performance and resilience. Researchers and practitioners have been right to focus increasingly on the perceptions and behaviours of the beneficiaries of public action and, more generally, on the trust they place in public action in their countries, at both national and local level. While the transparency of public services has increased on average in our countries, does this herald quality and ease of use, or, on the contrary, complexity ? The trade-offs being sought are trying. With the rise of administrative democracy, who, from among the administration and its stakeholders, is better able to guide a better balance between effectiveness, efficiency, complexity, simplification, differentiation, uniformity, automation and participation ? For future guidance, the disciplines of public administration and management are called upon to assess how these developments have affected the ideological foundations and legitimacy of public action, as well as the relationships between political and administrative actors, and the stakeholders with whom they cooperate and whom they serve. Finally, they must also seek a balance between traditional administrative frameworks and the dynamics of innovation, exploration and experimentation, which are promising avenues for renewal and transformation.
The first edition of the ENPA’s Francophone workshop will investigate many of these issues. It welcomes researchers and practitioners interested in renewal, PA models, legitimacy, complexity, or simplification of public action in its various sectors of intervention. It invites empirical work and in-depth conceptual work from researchers, as well as critical feedback from managers and public administrators in the field.
In addition to the regular sessions, the Francophone Workshop will include a session dedicated specifically to the issue of administrative simplification and an annual meeting of the ADSIMPLI research project (Amidex - Aix-Marseille University).
Organisation
A/Several thematic sessions and a VARIA session
B/Academic papers session on Administrative simplification
The concern for administrative simplification embodies the aspiration for alleviated public regulations of economic activity, for the reduction of administrative burdens on businesses and citizens, and for the reduction of the real or perceived complexity of interactions with public services. A long-standing issue, it has seen a resurgence of interest in recent years thanks to the work of the OECD (2010), programmes launched by governments across political divides in France, Italy (Le Clainche 2024), and many other countries (Daigneault 2025, Herd and Moynihan 2019), or thanks to European Union initiatives to simplify the European Green Deal and strengthen the EU’s competitiveness (Favreau and Bastiège 2025).
This session will welcome papers that examine administrative simplification as a practice and aim of the public sector, both past and current. It encourages submissions from a range of contributing disciplines (public management, public law, public policy evaluation, digitalisation and information systems) as well as interdisciplinary work. Recognising the European and international scope of this issue, it also invites the submission of comparative studies.[1]
C/Annual meeting of the ADSIMPLI research project (Amidex - Aix-Marseille University)
This working meeting marks the second year of work on the interdisciplinary ADSIMPLI project (Emergence of unique Administrative Simplification practices during the COVID crisis : Inventory, analysis, and ex post facto diffusion and digital enhancement) led by the AMIDEX foundation of Aix-Marseille University (AMIDEXAMX-22-RE-AB-003). It includes a review of the first Work Package (Identifying the COVID inflection point in administrative practices ? innovations, inventory, and diffusion ? and prolongations in current simplification projects) and progress reports for WP2 (public law and administrative simplification), and WP3 (case studies).
Submission guidelines
Interested authors may submit an abstract of 600 words or more, in French or English, accompanied by a brief bibliography, on the platform.
Contributions should be submitted to this platform: https://enpaconference2026.exordo.com/ before 15 January.
Evaluation process
Proposals for papers will be evaluated in a double-blind review process by the scientific committee's reviewers after submission on the platform.
Scientific committee
- Corina Paraschiv, Université Paris Cité, France, corina.paraschiv@u-paris.fr
- Léonard Gourbier, Université Paris-Dauphine PSL, France, leonard.gourbier@dauphine.psl.eu
- Jihane Sebai, UVSQ Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France, jihane.sebai@uvsq.fr
- Jan Mattis, L’Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, jan.mattijs@ulb.be
- Stéphane Nahrath, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, Stephane.Nahrath@unil.ch
- Emil Turc, Aix-Marseille University, France, emil.turc@univ-amu.fr
Bibliography
Ansell, C., & Torfing, J. (2022). Introduction to the Handbook on Theories of Governance. In Handbook on theories of governance (pp. 1-16). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Bartoli, A., & Blatrix, C. (2022). Le Grand Livre du management public : Performance et sens, modernisation et évaluation, défis et log. Dunod.
Bezes, P. (2020). Le nouveau phénomène bureaucratique. Revue française de science politique, 70(1), 21-47.
Conseil d’Etat (2023). Étude annuelle 2023. L’usager du premier au dernier kilomètre de l’action publique : un enjeu d’efficacité et une exigence démocratique. Les rapports du Conseil d’État.
Daigneault, P. M. (2025). Administrative burden revisited : Advancing research and practice. Canadian Public Administration, 68(1), 159-172.
Favreau, F., & Bastiege, M. (2025). Paquet « Omnibus » : quelle simplification pour le Pacte vert européen ?. Politiques & management public, 42(1), 93-100.
Herd, P., & Moynihan, D. P. (2019). Administrative Burden : Policymaking by Other Means. Russell Sage Foundation
Le Clainche, M. (2024), Regards sur 50 ans de simplifications administratives : « Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ? », Séminaire du cercle de la réforme de l’Etat sur les simplifications administratives.
OCDE (2011), Éliminer la paperasserie. Pourquoi la simplification administrative est‑elle si compliquée ? Perspectives au‑dela de 2010, Paris, 156 pages
[1] L’organisation des séances B et C bénéficie d’une aide du gouvernement français au titre de France 2030, dans le cadre de l’Initiative d’Excellence d’Aix-Marseille Université – AMIDEX AMX-22-RE-AB-003 ; This work received support from the French government under the France 2030 investment plan, as part of the Initiative d’Excellence d’Aix-Marseille Université – AMIDEX ” AMX-22-RE-AB-003
Subjects
- Political studies (Main category)
- Society > Economics > Management
- Society > Political studies > Governance and public policies
- Society > Political studies > Political institutions
Places
- ASE, Piața Romană 6, București 010374, Roumanie
Bucharest, Romania (010374)
Date(s)
- Thursday, January 15, 2026
Keywords
- administration publique, management
Contact(s)
- Emil Turc
courriel : emil [dot] turc [at] univ-amu [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Emil Turc
courriel : emil [dot] turc [at] univ-amu [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .
To cite this announcement
Jan Mattijs, Emil Turc, Stéphane Nahrath, Jihane Sebaï, « The administrative Francophonie in transition », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, December 02, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/1598e
