Conceptualizing and Measuring Collaborative Networks

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2005.00436.x
• Published date: 01 January 2005
• Author: R. Karl Rethemeyer
• Date: 01 January 2005

Book Review 117

Conceptualizing and Measuring

Collaborative Networks

R. Karl Rethemeyer, University at Albany, State University of

New York

Walter J.M. Kickert, Erik-Hans Klijn, and Joop F. M. Koppenjan, eds., Man-

aging Complex Networks: Strategies for the Public Sector (London: Sage Pub-

lications, 1997). 206 pp., $41.95 paper, ISBN: 0-7619-5548-8.

Myrna P. Mandell, ed., Getting Results through Collaboration: Networks

and Network Structures for Public Policy and Management (Westport, CT:

Quorum Books, 2001). 275 pp., $89.95 hard, ISBN: 1-56720-455-4.

Robert Agranoff, and Michael McGuire, Collaborative Public Management:

New Strategies for Local Governments (Washington, DC: Georgetown Uni-

versity Press, 2003). 219 pp., $26.95 paper, ISBN: 1-58901-018-3.

For at least 40 years political and

policy scientists have sought to con-

ceptualize the policy process in ways

that frankly acknowledge the role of

public agencies and private organiza-

tions in policy making: How will mod-

ern governments “steer” social pro-

cesses on behalf of their citizens when

hierarchical structures are considered

the problem, not the solution? The

New Public Management and its mar-

ket-based prescriptions may be

thought of as the first effort to recon-

cile government and a changed soci-

ety. Collaborative decision making and

implementation by and through net-

works may be the second. Although

political scientists and sociologists

have used the network metaphor to

explore policy decision processes

since the 1970s—see, for instance,

Heclo’s work on issue networks (1977,

1978) and Laumann and Knoke’s Or-

ganizational State (1987)—the effort

to integrate decision and implementa-

tion into one framework has been rela-

tively recent.

The three books reviewed here are

major signposts in the development of

the network perspective on post-hier-

archical public management. The first,

Managing Complex Networks, is on its

way to becoming a conceptual clas-

sic, and Getting Results through Col-

laboration and Collaborative Public

Management provides important em-

pirical and practitioner-inspired elabo-

rations of the emerging model. Yet as

one might expect from contributions

in an emerging area of study and prac-

tice, the findings and prescriptions are

not wholly consistent, either within or

across the volumes. This review will

begin with a synopsis of each book and

then turn to an examination of themes

and issues that span the volumes—in-

cluding one that adversely affects the

knowledge contained in all three.

Signposts in a Field

Along with three articles by

Laurence O’Toole (1997a, 1997b,

1997c), Managing Complex Networks

has become the reference citation for

most works on policy networks, net-

work management, and collaborative

policy making and implementation.

Edited by a team of scholars at Rotter-

dam’s Erasmus University (with a

contribution from the indefatigable

O’Toole), this work is a relatively in-

tegrated, sociologically inspired look

at what they term “network manage-

ment”: the steering of social processes

toward productive ends by working

with and through policy networks.

Public management, in their concep-

tualization, is network management,

and network management is about fa-

cilitating relationships in order to

maintain coproduction among mem-

bers. This volume makes two signa-

ture contributions: first, it identifies

networks as the context in which

Book Review | M. Jae Moon, Editor

R. Karl Rethemeyer is an assistant professor of public administration and policy as well as director of the Master of Public Administra-

tion program at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York. His research

interests include policy networks, network management, social network analysis, and the social impact of the Internet. He received his

PhD from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in June 2002 and received an honorable mention in the Associa-

tion for Public Policy Analysis and Management’s (APPAM) 2002–2003 PhD Dissertation Award competition. E-mail:

kretheme@albany.edu.