Due the critical need to understand the implications for government, management and public policies, GIGAPP launched a call for papers, scientific articles and research advances on the implications, consequences and changes related to the management of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the countries of Ibero-America. This special call is a statement of GIGAPP's commitment to urgently publish articles related to the public policy implications of COVID-19 . This special issue includes eight articles by various researchers who are members of the network, who responded to this call.

The arrival of digital and internet tools transformed the different aspects of public life: from the forms of public debate to the operation of the Public Administration itself. Political leaders, citizens, public institutions and the media were not left out of the new scenario and were, to a greater or lesser extent, adopting the new tools and participating in the transformation of reality. In parallel, the studies on technological breakthroughs in electoral campaigns and voting decisions, in governance and in the Public Administration followed one another. But also on the transformations of the media, public debate and forms of militancy and social and political activism. In general, these studies have tended to observe the new reality in the light of classical theories, trying to identify whether the old postulates are still useful for new problems or whether new paradigms need to be proposed. This special issue provides studies in each of the areas: electoral campaigns, traditional and new media, public debate and social effects of the new tools. The set of articles presented in this special issue represent a compendium of works on digital tools from different perspectives, with special emphasis on the study of electoral processes and public debate in the virtual sphere (Papacharissi, 2002). This special number includes a part of the works presented and debated in the framework of the First International Congress of RICE (Network of Researchers in Communication of Ecuador), held at the FLACSO Ecuador Headquarters in 2019. In this This new Ecuadorian network with an international vocation, RICE, was established, established with the objectives of promoting research in the field of Communication; strengthen the relationship between researchers; promote research projects in Communication; promote mobility between teachers and researchers with other networks and create meeting and discussion spaces for communication researchers in Ecuador, Latin America and Ibero-America. From the beginning, RICE has had the support and collaboration of GIGAPP (Research Group on Government, Administration and Public Policies 9, with whom it shares the vision of an open and collaborative academy. As a result of this alliance, this special number emerges.

Carmen Pineda Nebot, Simone Martins, Silvia Maria Magalhães Costa (number coordinators)   Longevity is a phenomenon observed throughout the world and represents a conquest of humanity, an important social transformation of this century. According to information from the United Nations, the world's largest population, which was 962 million in 2017, will reach more than 2 billion in 2050. It is estimated that in 2050 one in five people will be 60 years of age or older ( UN, 2017). In general, policies for older people point to the need to treat aging as a cross-cutting issue, favoring more horizontal forms of governance to break with sectoral management modes, in addition to inserting the older population in the formulation, implementation and evaluation processes. of public policies. This issue assumes the importance of sharing responsibilities among different segments of society to rethink old age, caregiver policies, intergenerational relationships, and alternative forms of management and social participation that serve to address the phenomenon of global aging and challenges it poses.

Con artículos de Rosinele da Silva de Oliveira y Mário Vasconcellos Sobrinho; Raúl Labandeira García; Jacqueline Ferreira Marques; Jesús Castillo Rendón, Germán Domínguez Bocanegra y Yadira Rodríguez Pérez; Taynan Araújo de Oliveira y Marta da Silva Aguiar;  Rosicleide Farias Oliveira, Fabricio Braga Braga y Leila Márcia Sousa de Lima Elias; Selena Herrera; Cristiana Dias de Almeida y Cristina Maria Pinto Albuquerque; Aerlen Clíssia Freitas Borges y Leila Márcia Sousa de Lima Elias, Carlos Eduardo Panosso y Luiz Fernando Macedo Bessa.

Estudios/Working Papers Nueva Serie (135-139)

With articles by Jonathan Torres Téllez, Alberto Montero Soler, Giuseppe Quaresima, Laura Virginia Díaz Gómez, Pamela J. Ojeda Callisaya, Elena Rodríguez Gonçalves y Germán Martinez Prats

This special issue is dedicated to democratic innovations in Latin America. Its origin took place during the second semester of 2017, when a group of GIGAPP researchers came into contact with the researchers of the LATINNO Project Thamy Pogrebinschi and Melisa Ross. The discovery of this project has meant a clear revival for GIGAPP, by which not only to disseminate such an important regional research initiative, but also as a means to improve our knowledge and recognition of Latin America as the main "regional laboratory" of democratic innovations of the world, based on the implementation of new institutional designs associated with citizen participation and aimed at improving democracy in the countries of the region.

Carmen Pineda Nebot y Marco Aurelio Marques Ferreira
(Special number coordinators)

In this volume of the magazine we are going to discuss a topic: participation of citizens in the administration and public management. This has been present on the political scene since the 1970s. Although the essence of democracy refers to a governance structure in which both power and control would emanate from the people, that was not, for decades, the dominant trend when the discussion referred to state actions and its control. For many decades, for the public administration literature the responsibility for the success of public policies and government action was attributed to the control exercised by the courts and by the legislative power; all from a strictly horizontal perspective, addressed by the agency theory (Ross, 1973; Banfield, 1975; Mitnick, 1984), in which citizens were not actors taken into account.

This special issue of the GIGAPP Working Paper series includes the articles that were distinguished during the IX Congress of Government and Public Administration with the VIII Joan Prats Young Investigators Prize and other articles presented at the Congress sessions.The objective of this publication is to promote the development of new lines of research and give visibility to the creative efforts of young Ibero-American researchers.Two issues are key in the content of this issue. First of all, the government's approach to the 2030 agenda and the strategies that can be put in place to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the articles focuses on the analysis of housing policy and its importance in the fight against poverty and inequality. Secondly, there is an extensive assessment of the importance of citizen participation in the design and planning processes of public policies. The articles highlight the impact that technologies have had on the adoption of new models of citizen involvement in the public sphere and the opening processes that have been unleashed from the perspective of open government.

With articles by Francisco Javier Rosas Ferrusca, Viridiana Rodríguez Sánchez, Verónica Miranda Rosales, Juan Roberto Calderón Maya, Cristina Herranz, Rebeca Díez Escudero, David Muelas, Saya Saulière, Angela Vieira Neves, Melina Sampaio de Ramos Barros, Felipe Portela Becerra, Juliana Hernández Bertone, Thiago Ferreira Dias, Anna Beatriz Rodrigues Garcia, Nathália Fagundes Souza Camilo, and a book review written by Víctor Antonio Peláez

 

Coordinated by Diego Pando. Universidad Nacional de San Andrés (Argentina)

In a scenario of diverse and profound political, economic and social transformations, experienced both nationally and internationally, the challenges of States and their governments as central actors for the welfare of societies have increased. Turbulence in the markets, limitations in the institutional arrangements to deal with global crises, process of social fragmentation, intense technological change, greater capacity for mobilization by non-state actors, apathy and distrust of citizens towards politics and public institutions, among other issues, entail multidimensional and low structuring challenges that are less susceptible to segmented or sectoral treatments typical of organizational designs and architectures configured on the basis of 20th century ideas.

This issue contains articles by Diego Pando, Carles Ramió, Sergio Agoff, Gabriela Mansilla, José Alberto Bonifacio, Horacio Cao, Arturo Laguado Duca, Maximiliano Rey, María Eugenia Coutinho, Hugo Luis Dalbosco, Rita M. Grandinetti, Oscar Oszlak, María Laura Pagani , Cintia Maldonado, Eduardo Arturo Salas and Germán Stalker.

Studies/Working Papers New Series (91-97)

With articles by Walter Hugo Caporella, José Matías Pereira, Francisco Javier Rosas Ferrusca, Juan Roberto Calderón Maya, Viridiana Rodríguez Sánchez, Laureà Fanega Macías, Francesc Solanellas Donato, Joan Borrisser Roldán, María José Palazón Pagán, Lidiany Alexandre Azevedo , Marta Dulcelia Gurgel Ávila, Celecina of Maria Veras Sales, Luis Enrique Hernández Dorado, José Luis Martínez Marca. It also includes three book reviews by Álvaro Ramírez Alujas, Ana Eva Serna Rodrigo and Ignacio García Bosch.