Smorgunov, L.V. (2026). Transformation of public administration in the context of contingent social systems. RUDN Journal of Political Science, 28(1), 25–39.

Текст статьи на сайте журнала URL: https://journals.rudn.ru/political-science/article/view/49625/26823 (дата обращения 22.04.2026)

Abstract

This study examines the transformation of public administration theory and practice in the new context of contingent social systems. The relationship between the bifurcation development of modern society and trends in administrative reforms is determined. The uncertainty and randomness of social and political processes is reflected in the mixed nature of administrative reforms, which simultaneously employ ideas of state bureaucracy, new public management, network governance, public governance, crisis management, and others. The persistence of bifurcation processes has posed new challenges for public governability, which has led to a search for new approaches and governance models. As the research demonstrates, this has also been facilitated by the development of the concept of contingency and its widespread adoption in governance science. Ontologically, contingency has come to be understood as a necessary variability of reality, which has been incorporated into the consideration of the conditions for the sustainable development of social systems. Concepts of crisis, prototypical, modular, and robust public governance have begun to emerge in the sociology of governance. Author focuses on modular public governance with its principles of decomposition, autonomy, interoperability, recombinability, scalability, and flexibility. The conclusion suggests that the development of various public governance models must now be analyzed in the context of socioand political-technical systems.