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The global COVID 19 pandemic we have been witnessing in the last few months is the demonstration that building strong, cooperative governance systems that align across borders is vital. Developing an understanding of why nations react the way they do and how they interact with each other will be crucial to overcome the challenges ahead.

Many are the hot topics on the table – from globalisation to poverty, migration, climate change and the unfettered rise of new technology. How can we achieve constructive and meaningful international cooperation? How can we ensure policies keep up with the pace of change?

These questions are some of the key topics the two new specialty sections of Frontiers in Political Science aim to address:

• Comparative Governance – led by Prof. Antoaneta Dimitrova (Leiden University)

• Politics of Technology – led by Prof Leslie Paul Thiele (University of Florida)

Creating desirable and effective governance

Comparative Governance  will look at understanding political systems, their shortcomings and effectiveness, as the starting point to building effective governance.

As Prof. Dimitrova highlights, “to understand why some parts of the world may react differently to a disease than others, we need to understand how information flows, what the actors are allowed to do and what their constraints may be." Governance may not solve the challenges directly, but understanding how we can govern processes that affect us all is crucial.

Dealing with controversial innovation

Politics of Technology  will deep dive into the arising governance challenges posed by new technologies such as Artificial intelligence, digital surveillance, social media, the use of drones and bots or geoengineering.  As Prof. Thiele explains, these emerging technologies “have not been deployed long enough for their impact to be well understood and they have unpredictable trajectories”. This is why we need to develop mechanisms of governance, in this highly technological future, that are solidly evidence based.

Further explore the Chief Editor’s goals and vision through their Specialty Grand Challenges:

• Politics of Technology -Grand Challenge

• Grand Challenges in Studying Comparative Governance

The article collection Migration in the Time of COVID-19: Comparative Law and Policy Responses led by Associate Editor Jaya Ramji-Nogales and Guest Associate Editor Iris Goldner Lang in collaboration with the Refugees and Conflict section, is now online and open for submissions.

Get involved

You can:

• Apply to be an Editor

• Lead your own article collection

• Submit your cutting-edge research

Frontiers journals also consistently rank among the world’s most-cited in their fields and in the top Impact Factor and CiteScore percentiles. Discover more