What do public administrators and policy analysts have in common? Their work is undertaken within networks formed when different organizations align to accomplish some kind of policy function. To be effective, they must find ways to navigate complexity and generate effective results. Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy describes a variety of trends and movements that have contributed to the complexity of these systems and the challenges that must be faced as a result. Providing a theoretical and empirical foundation in governance networks, the book offers a conceptual framework for describing governance networks and provides a holistic way to conceive their construction. The text details the skills and functions of public administrators in the context of networked relationships and presents the theoretical foundations to analyze governance networks. It identifies the reforms and trends in governing that led to governance networks, explains the roles that various actors take on through networked relationships, highlights the challenges involved in the failure of networked activities, and illustrates how policy tools are mobilized by these relationships. Features • Identifies the reforms and trends in governance that have given rise to the evolution of governance networks • Explains the roles and motivation that various actors take on through networked relationships • Promotes understanding of how policy tools mobilize governance networks • Describes the skills and functions of public administrators in this context of networked relationships • Presents relevant theoretical foundations to analyze governance networks

In this chapter the author draws on a governance network analysis lens to situate network performance management as a necessary condition of network learning and knowledge transfer that takes into account network performance outcomes and processes. Contemporary theories of performance management and organizational learning are blended with complexity and network science to advance a theory of network learning that may be applied to theory development, empirical analysis and network management practice.

This paper provides a conceptual framework for describing and analyzing the complex accountability challenges that exist within governance networks. Recognizing the multiscale and intersector (public, private, and nonprofit) characteristics of these networks, an accountability framework is presented that is organized around democratic (elected representatives, citizens, and the legal system), market (owners and consumers), and administrative (bureaucratic, professional and collaborative) relationships. The authors apply this accountability framework to the studies of the events of late summer/early fall of 2005 following landfall of hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast. The multiple failures of governance networks to effectively plan for, and respond to, the crisis are analyzed in terms of outright failures in democratic, market and/or administrative accountability, as well as confusion over trade-offs between accountability types that persist in emergency management situations. Specific recommendations for emergency management planners are provided.

The “community of practice” (CoP) has emerged as a potentially powerful unit of analysis linking the individual and the collective because it situates the role of learning, knowledge transfer, and participation among people as the central enterprise of collective action. The authors’ surface tensions and highlight unanswered questions regarding CoP theory, concluding that it relies on a largely normative and under- operationalized set of premises. Avenues for theory development and the empirical testing of assertions are provided.