12-31-2025 7:03pm

Public Agenda: Special Edition Year-End Review: The State of Governance in 2025 By Shellie Bowman Sr

John Williams Editor

As 2025 draws to a close, it is increasingly clear that this year will not be remembered primarily for partisan realignment or ideological debate. It will be remembered for something far more foundational: the public’s collective reckoning with how government actually performs in their lives.

Public Agenda was created to examine governance not as abstraction, but as lived experience. Throughout this year, readers consistently returned to one central concern. Regardless of political affiliation, Americans were less focused on what government promised and more focused on whether it could deliver competently, consistently, and fairly.

From a public administration perspective, 2025 marked a turning point. The public conversation shifted decisively away from ideology and toward performance. That shift is neither accidental nor temporary. It reflects structural conditions that have been building for years and became unavoidable this year.

If you want to read the rest of the article go to read the article and look the archives of the previous articles Dr Shellie Bowman has written for The Public Agenda.

https://open.substack.com/pub/drshellieb/p/public-administration-at-the…

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