RESEARCH GROUPS

This Permanent Study Group is dedicated to examining the evolving role of public administration in addressing the increasing complexity of risks that affect contemporary societies, including natural, environmental, technological and urban security risks. Climate change, environmental degradation, rapid urbanization, social fragmentation, and the growing frequency of extreme events – such as floods, wildfires, heatwaves, and earthquakes as well as urban unrest and public safety threats – are profoundly challenging traditional public frameworks, regulatory approaches, and governance models. These phenomena expose structural vulnerabilities within public institutions and demand new forms of administrative capacity, coordination, and adaptability.

In particular, the PSG expands the analysis of risk governance to include the paradigm of urban security, understood not only as policing or crime control, but as a multidimensional governance challenge involving public order, social cohesion, spatial planning, technological infrastructures, and citizens trust.

Urban environments represent privileged laboratories for observing the transformation of public authority under conditions of uncertainty. Cities concentrate on environmental vulnerabilities, social inequalities, infrastructural interdependencies, and security demands. As a result, public administrations are required to manage overlapping risks – natural hazards, infrastructural fragilities, social tensions, and public safety concerns – through integrated and multi-level arrangements.

Public authorities are increasingly required to operate under conditions characterized by elevated levels of scientific uncertainty, incomplete or contested knowledge, and severe time constraints. Decision-making in the field of natural risk management often involves balancing precaution, proportionality, and urgency, fundamental rights and democratic accountability, while simultaneously navigating legal mandates, political pressures, and societal expectations.

Particular attention is devoted to:

• the interaction between scientific expertise and administrative discretion;
• the role of policing and public safety institutions within broader governance frameworks;
• the integration of risk-based regulatory approaches in urban policy;
• the relationship between security, resilience and legitimacy.

As scientific assessments of risk become more complex and probabilistic, public administrations must interpret, translate, and integrate expert knowledge into policy choices and operational decisions. The PSG explores how this interaction shapes regulatory design, emergency preparedness, crisis response, and long-term planning, as well as how it affects the legitimacy and effectiveness of administrative action.

The PSG examines the legal, organizational, and policy instruments employed by public administrations to prevent, mitigate, and respond to natural disasters and other hazards that represent a challenge for abroad idea of natural ad urban security. These include regulatory frameworks, planning tools, risk assessment procedures, early warning systems, inter-agency coordination mechanisms, and collaborative arrangements with private actors and civil society. By adopting a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, the PSG highlights similarities and differences across administrative systems, governance traditions, and territorial levels - local, regional, national, and supranational- shedding light on how institutional contexts influence risk governance outcomes.

In addition, the PSG addresses key normative and democratic dimensions of natural risk governance, extending this reflection to the field of urban security. Issues of accountability, transparency, and responsibility are particularly salient in contexts where decisions are made under uncertainty and may entail significant social, economic, environmental, and public safety consequences. In urban settings, where risk governance intersects with policing, spatial planning, and social regulation, administrative choices directly affect fundamental rights, social cohesion, and perceptions of security. The PSG also reflects on the role of public trust, citizen engagement, and communication strategies in enhancing societal and urban resilience, strengthening community-based prevention, and ensuring the legitimacy and acceptability of administrative decisions in both environmental and public safety domains.

By integrating administrative theory with empirical analysis, the PSG aims to advance scholarly debate on the capacity of public administrations to adapt to complex, systemic, and transboundary natural risks, as well as to multifaceted urban security challenges. Overall, the discussion seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of how contemporary administrations can evolve to manage uncertainty, govern interconnected environmental and urban risks, foster resilience, and maintain democratic legitimacy in the face of escalating natural and public safety challenges.