Making Boston Strong: Social Capital, Collaboration, and Accountability Lessons for Public Administrators in the Twenty‐First Century

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12302
• Author: Aimee L. Williamson,Brenda J. Bond
• Published date: 01 November 2014
• Date: 01 November 2014

Symposium

Introduction

Aimee L. Williamson is associate

professor in the Institute for Public Service

at Suffolk University. Her research interests

include public–private management

distinctions, administrative reform, and

collaborative public management.

E-mail: awilliamson@suffolk.edu

Brenda J. Bond is associate professor

in the Institute for Public Service at Suffolk

University. Her research and consulting

centers on the structures, functions, and

processes that facilitate effective police

organizations, including interdisciplinary

collaboration in pursuit of community safety.

E-mail: bbond@suffolk.edu

Making Boston Strong: Social Capital, Collaboration, and Accountability Lessons for Public Administrators in the Twenty-First Century 693

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 6, pp. 693–695. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12302.

and leading to a relatively fast capture of the suspects.

In public administration research and education, we

dedicate much of our work to learning from mistakes,

but lessons also lie within success stories. Symposia

such as this allow practitioners and researchers to

understand what happened, and possibly why, for

future ef‌f orts.

 e events of 9/11 identif‌i ed extensive weaknesses in

interagency collaboration and led to major changes

in homeland security policy and practice.  e Boston

Marathon bombings give us the opportunity to ref‌l ect

on such changes, evaluate the collaborative ef‌f orts

in a new crisis, and identify current challenges for

public administrators.  is case is particularly relevant

to the national security conversation, as the event

represents a complex planning and implementation

ef‌f ort. Collaboration is an integral part of the Boston

Marathon every year, with a course that stretches

across multiple municipalities, warrants the opening

of Boston’s Medical Intelligence Center, and requires

the resources and energies of many public safety,

health, and other organizations spanning the sectors.

 e events of the 2013 Boston Marathon highlight

the value of the extensive preparation, coordination,

and communication plans linking public health,

safety, and related agencies in the greater Boston area.

Leading Collaboratively: In Search

of a Model That Works

 e collaboration imperative has been traced back

to our founders (Bingham and O’Leary 2011), and

the importance of managing across boundaries has

been recognized for most of the last century, but

networks and collaborative management have resulted

in new structural arrangements in more recent years,

necessitated in part by the speed and complexity of

the information age (Agranof‌f and McGuire 2003).

One of the most signif‌i cant shifts in contemporary

public management has been the recognition that

public managers must anticipate managing beyond

the conf‌i nes of a hierarchical bureaucracy: “In the

twenty-f‌i rst century, interdependence and the salience

The Boston Marathon bombings need little

introduction. Although small in comparison

with the terrorist attacks of September 11, this

will likely be one of those events that many Americans

will recall with much clarity years from now. On

Patriot’s Day, April 15, 2013, two improvised explo-

sive devices, allegedly created and detonated by two

extremists, exploded near the f‌i nish line of the Boston

Marathon in the heart of the city.  e blasts killed

three and injured more than 260, immediately setting

of‌f an extensive and unprecedented health, public

safety, and social service response involving myriad

public and nonprof‌i t agencies. From a public admin-

istration standpoint, the attacks and the subsequent

response, coming nearly a dozen years after 9/11,

prompt us to ref‌l ect on and evaluate the coordination

of the response, lessons learned since 9/11, and the

implications for public administration today.

 is symposium contributes to that conversation,

providing a practitioner’s perspective and two research

articles. Ed Davis, the Boston police commissioner at

the time of the bombings and one of the most promi-

nent f‌i gures in the crisis, shares his insights on polic-

ing and the importance of deliberate collaboration

in his Perspective essay.  e two research articles that

follow examine the same event, highlighting critical

themes in public administration but in very dif‌f erent

ways. Qian Hu, Claire Connolly Knox, and Naim

Kapucu focus on the specif‌i c actions and interactions

among various actors involved with the response,

while John Marvel uses the case as a backdrop for a

study investigating the impact of blame attributions

on citizens’ perceptions.

Although questions remain about international com-

munication and collaboration weaknesses that could

have prevented the attack, the multiagency response

to the attacks has garnered signif‌i cant praise. Ongoing

collaboration across many community agencies,

during both preparedness and response ef‌f orts, likely

facilitated a more ef‌f ective communication and coor-

dination scenario, minimizing the number of deaths

Making Boston Strong: Social Capital, Collaboration,

and Accountability Lessons for Public Administrators

in the Twenty-First Century

Aimee L. Williamson

Brenda J. Bond

Suffolk University