Public Money & Management

Public management and public value in geoeconomic governance

The global policy landscape is undergoing a profound transformation as governments increasingly deploy economic instruments to pursue strategic geopolitical objectives. Trade policy, industrial policy, investment screening, export controls, economic sanctions, sovereign wealth funds, strategic public procurement, and critical supply chain interventions have become central components of what is commonly referred to as ‘geoeconomic statecraft’.

While geoeconomic strategies have attracted growing attention in international political economy, international relations, and economics, a major gap remains in understanding their implications for public management, accountability, and public value creation. Much of the existing academic literature examines geopolitical competition, economic security, trade outcomes, industrial performance, or strategic dependence, while considerably less attention has been devoted to how public organizations design, finance, implement, and evaluate these interventions.

This gap is important because geoeconomic governance is fundamentally transforming the role of the public sector. Governments are increasingly acting not only as regulators and policy-makers, but also as strategic investors, market participants, financiers, purchasers, and co-ordinators of critical economic sectors. Public organizations are being asked to manage unprecedented levels of strategic investment in areas such as semiconductor production, renewable energy, and AI. These responsibilities create new challenges for administrative capacity, performance management, fiscal governance, transparency, accountability, and the creation and distribution of public value.

More fundamentally, geoeconomic governance challenges several established assumptions within public management and public value theory. Strategic interventions frequently require governments to balance transparency against confidentiality, economic efficiency against national resilience, short-term fiscal discipline against long-term strategic investment, and democratic oversight against national security considerations. These tensions raise a fundamental question for public management scholarship:

How should public value be defined, created, and evaluated when economic, security, fiscal, and societal objectives compete?

This PMM theme issue seeks to address this major gap by placing public management and public value at the centre of the analysis of geoeconomic governance. It will bring together scholars from public administration, public management, public finance, accounting, public policy, governance, and related fields to examine how the growing use of strategic economic interventions is reshaping public sector management, accountability, financial governance, and public value creation.

Particularly welcome are contributions that examine how public organizations develop the institutional and administrative capacity required to manage geoeconomic strategies; how strategic public resources are allocated and controlled; how accountability mechanisms operate when governments intervene in markets; and how public value can be assessed when strategic objectives extend beyond conventional measures of economic efficiency.

Both conceptual and empirical contributions are welcome. Comparative and international perspectives are particularly encouraged, recognizing that governments differ substantially in their institutional capacity and approaches to managing strategic economic interventions.

Suggested topics

Potential contributions include, but are not limited to:

• Public management of geoeconomic strategies and strategic state interventions.
• Public value creation and distribution in geoeconomic governance.
• Public financial management of strategic economic interventions.
• Accountability and performance management in geoeconomic and mission-oriented public policies.
• Governance and management of strategic public investments.
• Administrative capacity for managing geoeconomic risks and strategic industries.
• Fiscal governance and accountability of industrial subsidies and strategic investments.
• Transparency, oversight, and accountability in strategic public procurement.
• Public sector governance of strategic infrastructure and critical sectors.
• Measuring and evaluating public value in strategic economic interventions.
• Public management of economic sanctions and export controls.
• Governance of critical supply chains and strategic dependencies.
• Accountability in sovereign wealth funds and state-owned enterprises.
• Governance of national security-related public expenditure.
• Investment screening and public sector accountability.
• Multi-level governance of strategic economic policies.
• Public–private partnerships in strategically important sectors.
• Institutional and organizational responses to geopolitical and economic uncertainty.
• Comparative public management approaches to geoeconomic governance.

Expected contributions

This PMM theme issue seeks to advance public management scholarship by positioning geoeconomic governance as an emerging challenge for public organizations, public financial management, accountability, and public value creation. It aims to develop new conceptual and empirical insights into how governments can manage strategic economic interventions while maintaining fiscal responsibility, institutional accountability, administrative effectiveness, democratic legitimacy, and public value.

Beyond its academic contribution, the theme issue will have strong practical relevance for public managers, auditors, oversight institutions, policy-makers, and international organizations. The articles included in the theme issue will therefore provide evidence-based insights and recommendations for strengthening administrative capacity, improving public financial management, enhancing accountability, and supporting effective and resilient public policy-making.