The Public Administration of the Future: The "2050" Administration

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to reflect and analyze how can and how the public administration should be long-term, for example at 35 years, reaching the arbitrary but "round" year of 2050 (hence the title game with 2050). The objective is threefold: on the one hand, it is a mere divertimento of an exploratory nature on the contextual changes that are approaching and the tendencies of change that can or should be experienced by institutions and public apparatuses. It is a classroom fencing exercise that, without possessing a solid academic baggage, paradoxically remains an academic exercise due to its conceptual, speculative and theoretical scent. On the other hand, the second objective is much more palpable, and with a much more useful orientation aimed at politicians and professional managers, so that it provides them with a certain vision and strategic concern that allows them to take with more substance the most urgent decisions of present times. Trying to contribute, with modesty, to these current or immediate-future decisions are oriented in the sense of the evolution of events and history and not against all of them. Finally, the third objective is to encourage academics and practitioners to discuss the long-term public institutional future as an exercise that can not be delayed much longer if we want public management not to be left behind by the syncopated changes experienced by our society, economy, technology and even politics.