Abstract
Chris Koliba, Jack Meek, and Asim Zia have done a real service for people interested in the field of network studies in their new book Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy. They have synthesized an extensive literature on policy and governance networks in a tour de force literature review and have used this to develop a multifaceted framework for studying and understanding governance networks. Taking a broad view of the network literature, the authors consider work in public policy networks, functional studies on interorganizational networks, and administrative management of networks. European, American, and other international network research is central to their synthesis.
A short overview of the book is helpful to understand the book’s coverage and purposes. Chapter 1 is an original analysis of the American federal system from a network perspective, reinforcing how intergovernmental networks in constitutional governance have always interacted with and, indeed, depended on the private and nonprofit sectors for policy development, service delivery, and democratic accountability.
Chapter 2 brings together the conceptual developments in governance network theory over the past two decades and lays the ground for the taxonomy of governance networks the authors develop and explicate. The authors (2010) explain
The definition of governance networks that we use here is premised on the notion of markets, hierarchies and collaboratives as types of inter-organizational network structures that influence the kinds of administrative authorities, accountability regimes and performance standards employed. Governance networks are defined as relatively stable patterns of coordinated action and resource exchanges; involving policy actors across different social scales, drawn from the public, private, or nonprofit sectors and across geographic levels; who interact through a variety of competitive, command and control, cooperative, and negotiated arrangements; for purposes anchored in one or more facets of the policy stream . . . governance networks are found within specific policy domains (such as health, environment, transportation, education, etc.) as well as exist across policy domains. (p. 60)
While the authors’ view adopted from Laumann that markets and hierarchies are simply two types of networks may be controversial and debated, it provides a platform for one strength of the book in that perspectives from markets, hierarchy, and interorganizational networks are all woven into the tapestry of each of the book’s chapters and central theme, that policy and administrative life is built around networks in the broadest sense.
Chapter 3 covers the literature on the actors in networks, ranging from units of analysis used in social network analysis to geographic scale to social scale. Chapter 4 covers the ties among and between nodes and actors in the network, including the nature of resource exchange, discussing how multiplicity of ties and administrative arrangements can affect network stability and types of administrative authority used in different networks. Chapter 5 examines interorganizational governance configurations emphasizing three networkwide functions that governance networks typically perform: operating functions, policy stream functions, and policy specific functions. Chapter 6 reviews the types of network structures that exist and influence network theory in the policy, regulatory, intergovernmental, and public–private arenas. Chapter 7 introduces complex systems dynamics as a way to conceive of governance networks, and help develop “holistic and dynamic” accounts of networks. Chapter 8 outlines administrative characteristics of networks as represented in four public administration theories: new public management, collaborative public management, classical, and governance network management. Using these administrative elements and comparison across the theories, the authors turn to consider the roles and duties that public managers play in each framework, both descriptively and normatively for governance network theory to build effective networks. Chapter 9 presents views of network accountability and argues for a systems-level approach built on the individual elements of the network. Chapter 10 covers network performance, and links performance with accountability within the context of democratic governance. In the concluding chapter the authors summarize their approach to governance networks as
to understand their basic components (nodes, ties and functions), their arrangements, and the challenges related to their administration, accountability and performance. We believe this taxonomic approach provides a basis to build our knowledge about governance networks and to improve our understanding of the challenges and opportunities they offer. (p. xxxi)
One critique the authors implicitly make of most of the current literature on governance networks is its overall emphasis on networks as static and mechanistic. Their inclusion of complex system theory as an overarching framework for network studies introduces a number of features that hold promise for our emergent knowledge of how governance networks operate and develop, and how we might study their dynamic features. One topic is how network boundaries act to promote cohesion or lead to confusion and ways that managers and network structures affect boundaries. Wenger (1998, p. 107) describes “boundary objects” as the ways that social systems work together and set expectations. For governance networks, such boundary objects can include grants and contracts, regulations, standard operating procedures, as well as less frequently used policy and administrative tools that define how networks expand and work with entities outside of the boundary of the usual network members. Studying boundaries and how they expand and contract in governance networks also allows for a dynamic view of the growth or diminution of networks to assess why governance networks expand their mission and/or members, or why they contract and grow smaller or terminate. In an earlier article (Berry et al., 2004), my coauthors and I noted that boundaries can be determined by the researcher or by realist methods in which the members have an opportunity to express what functions and meanings the network serves for them or their organization. Our governance network research still does not give much priority to the social construction of the network by its own members, and how that can affect the network’s success or failure, although one study (Choi & Brower, 2006) examines the disparity between formal plans and actual networks in emergency services and finds that the network in which members accurately perceive network centrality and boundaries may serve as an indicator of a more effective network.
Complex adaptive systems, such as governance networks, may not only take their sources of knowledge and inspiration from multiple sources, including political leadership, public opinion, and policy entrepreneurs, but also through more professionally generated knowledge as gained from communities of practice and performance management systems. While our understanding of organizational learning is nascent, our understanding of how governance networks change and evolve is probably more limited. Including the study of communities of practice, and knowledge management that develops through performance management systems, as well as more information on how new ideas and practices diffuse across jurisdictions and networks, should help us consider the dynamics of administration and impact of governance networks. Communities of practice are defined by Snyder, Wenger, and Briggs (2003) as “Groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (p. 17). Koliba et al. (2010) note that one benefit of looking at the community of practice within a governance network
lies in the capacities of communities of practice to transform formal organizational {or network} boundaries. Professional values and norms help to interpret data on policy and administrative performance that leads to policy learning and remedying deficits in the governance networks (either incrementally or through radical change). (p. 80)
This suggests that not only professional training, professional association participation, and other professional exchanges of knowledge and specific contextual situations may all be important in understanding the development of social capital within governance networks but also the flow of information generated and the interpretation developed from learning forums within governance networks.
Finally, feedback and path dependency are key characteristics of system’s dynamics, and yet due to the lack of historic studies on governance networks, they seem too often missing from our studies. Once networks are established, many factors exert pressures and constraints to affect their options and decision making to make change. Path dependency suggests that early choices made regarding policy tools, target population, structure, and even administrative operations result in sunk costs and decision paths that preclude many good options from equal consideration as policy and organizations change. Path dependency and historical analysis could contribute to our understanding of the dynamics and processes involved in governance network change.
In conclusion, Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy is a rich toolbox for the scholar and practitioner of governance networks. Summarizing much of the vast literature and delineating different perspectives that network research has taken should serve to educate us about the theories emerging from the past several decades of network research as well as encourage us to build on the frameworks already developed.