Network Governance

Substantive Complexity

Uncertainty and lack of consensus over the nature of problems, causes and solutions

Strategic Complexity

Erratic and unpredictable nature of interaction processes; Many interacting actors with conflicting interests and strategies

Institutional Complexity

Actors from diverging institutional backgrounds, and presence of myriad rules, protocols, norms etc. 

Three Paradigms over time

Late 1880s: Traditional Public Administration

1980s: New Public Management

1990s to Present: Network Governance

Characteristics of Traditional Public Administration

• Procedural focus

• Rational-decision making

• Equality, legitimacy, and legality

Problems with Traditional Public Administration

• Uniform solutions in an increasingly pluralistic society

• Limited capacity of single actors to define problems and solutions

• Limited government resources (money, knowledge, time, etc.)

Characteristics of New Public Management

• Running government as a business

• Privatization, competition and contracting

Problems with New Public Management

• Pressure to specify desired outcomes in advance

• Rigidity of contracts in changing circumstances

Characteristics of Network Governance

• No central decision maker but networks of interdependent actors

• No central goals but negotiations and power games

Network Management

Deliberate strategies aimed at facilitating and guiding the interactions and/or changing the features of the network with the intention to collaborate further in network governance

Actor Strategies

Series of coherent and more or less deliberate actions that actors in the network take to influence the content, course, and outcomes of network

Actors

Individuals, groups, organizations of organizations with the capacity to act autonomously and enact strategies to influence the course and outcomes of interaction processes

Resources

Range of formal and informal means that actors possess (or require) in order to achieve their objectives