Carey Dobertstein, Building a Collaborative Advantage: Network Governance and Homelessness Policy‐Making in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2016). 241 pp. $32.95 CDN (paperback), ISBN: 9780774833257

AuthorDaniel Béland
Date01 May 2018
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12943
Published date01 May 2018
486 Public Administration Review • May | June 2018
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 78, Iss. 3, pp. 486–488. © 2018 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.12943.
M uch has been written in recent decades
about the role of network governance
in public policy and administration.
One of the key issues in this literature concerns
the potential impact of network governance
arrangements on policy coordination and
innovation. In his book Building a Collaborative
Advantage , political scientist Carey Doberstein
(University of British Columbia, Okanagan
campus) builds a new theoretical framework to
explore the causal effects of network characteristics
and metagovernance arrangements on policy
innovation and system coordination. Empirically,
his analysis compares and contrasts the nature
and impact of homelessness governance networks
working in three large Canadian cities: Calgary,
Toronto, and Vancouver. Based on a revised PhD
dissertation, this research monograph draws
extensively on archival research, participant
observation, and more than 70 interviews with
key informants involved in the eight governance
networks under consideration (two in Calgary and
three each in Toronto and Vancouver).
The theoretical framework put forward in this book
articulates three distinct literature streams: network
governance, metagovernance, and deliberative
democracy. First, at the meso level, it draws on
the governance scholarship to stress how two
characteristics of governance networks, namely their
degree of institutionalization and their degree of
inclusiveness, can shape the capacity of these networks
to generate policy innovation and improve system
coordination. The assumption behind this claim
is that governance networks vary greatly in their
institutional and interactional characteristics and that,
in certain contexts at least, such variations can have a
positive or negative impact on policy innovation and
system coordination. More specifically, the argument
is that more institutionalized and inclusive governance
networks are more likely to foster policy innovation
and system coordination than less institutionalized
and inclusive networks.
Second, at the micro level, the theoretical framework
brings metagovernance to the fore, arguing that the
way in which the state manages policy networks
(i.e. metagovernance) also shapes the capacity of
governance networks to affect policy coordination and
system coordination. This means that, in addition to
studying the intrinsic characteristics of governance
networks as they relate to institutionalization and
inclusion, policy scholars need to pay close attention
to the broader metagovernance context in which these
networks operate. With this, Doberstein’s framework
moves the state back to the foreground of both policy
analysis and network governance.
Third, at the micro level, Doberstein’s framework
draws on political theory and, especially, deliberative
democracy scholarship to identify two concrete
causal mechanisms through which governance
networks can directly impact policy innovation
and system coordination. On one hand, brokerage
brings previously unrelated sites of social and policy
activity into contact, which can promote the advent
of innovative policy ideas and improved system
coordination. On the other hand, persuasion is
about how deliberations among network actors can
help diffuse new policy ideas and, to a lesser extent,
facilitate system coordination.
As Doberstein claims, more institutionalized and
inclusive governance networks facilitate brokerage
and deliberation, which in turn can stimulate policy
innovation and system coordination when and only
when the metagovernance context is appropriate.
To sum up, his book argues that “brokerage and
persuasion are emergent and dynamic properties
of more institutionalized and inclusive networks,
and they stimulate policy innovation and system
coordination. Critically, though, while these two
mechanisms explain why governance networks
matter to policy development, this is all contingent
on the metagovernance context,” which points
once more to the key role of the state in network
governance (36).
C a r e y Dobertstein , Building a Collaborative Advantage: Network
Governance and Homelessness Policy-Making in Canada ( Vancouver :
University of British Columbia Press , 2016 ). 241 pp. $32.95 CDN
(paperback), ISBN: 9780774833257
Daniel Béland holds the Canada
Research Chair in public policy at the
Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of
Public Policy. A specialist of social policy, he
has published more than 15 books and 120
articles in peer-reviewed journals. One of his
most recent books is Obamacare Wars:
Federalism, State Politics, and the
Affordable Care Act (with Philip Rocco
and Alex Waddan).
E-mail: daniel.beland@usask.ca
Book Reviews
Galia Cohen, Editor
Reviewed by: Daniel Béland
Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy

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