Networks and Networking: The Public Administrative Agendas

• Author: Laurence J. O'Toole
• Date: 01 May 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12281
• Published date: 01 May 2015

75th Anniversary

Article

Laurence J. O’Toole, Jr., is

the Margaret Hughes and Robert

T. Golembiewski Professor of Public

Administration as well as Distinguished

Research Professor in the Department

of Public Administration and Policy,

School of Public and International Affairs,

The University of Georgia. He is also

professor of comparative sustainability

policy studies in the Department

of Governance and Technology for

Sustainability at the University of Twente,

The Netherlands.

E-mail: cmsotool@uga.edu

Networks and Networking: The Public Administrative Agendas 361

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 75, Iss. 3, pp. 361–371. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12281.

since 1997.  e present article also indicates some of

the ways that today’s public administrators may be

assisted by the advances made by researchers in treat-

ing networks seriously.

Clarifying and Delimiting the Topic

Networks are structures of interdependence involv-

ing multiple organizations or parts thereof, where

one unit is not merely the formal subordinate of

the others in some larger hierarchical arrangement

(O’Toole 1997b, 45).2 Further, externally oriented

“networking” ef‌f orts on the part of public managers

can perform a number of functions, such as building

support, negotiating with others in an agency’s exter-

nal environment, contributing to the management of

multiorganizational ef‌f orts, exploiting oppor tunities,

protecting the core organization from challenges or

threats, and sometimes helping move a set of organi-

zations toward an objective.3

Networks typically do not replace bureaucratic

organization; instead, they add one or more layers of

structural complexity, as public agencies are interwo-

ven with counterparts from the same government, or

other governments of the same sort—as with multiple

governments in metropolitan regions (Feiock and

W hen I wrote “Treating Networks Seriously:

Practical and Research-Based Agendas in

Public Administration” (O’Toole 1997b),

I was convinced of the emerging importance of the

topic and intended to bring the multiple strands of

extant research and several emerging research agendas

together into one succinct argument. I did not expect,

however, that the contents would resonate among so

many.  e article is currently one of the 10 most-cited

articles in the 75-year history of Public Administration

Review.1 Some of the attention that the article has

received is surely attributable to its timing: it was pub-

lished just as a great deal of network-themed research

was beginning to appear. But I also think that the

article drew—and draws—interest because it sketched

the importance of the theme and the value of several

related clusters of research questions in a fashion that

presented a large research agenda that could be of con-

siderable value to the f‌i eld.  at value derives partially

from the importance of the research agendas them-

selves, as well as from the implications of this work for

the practice of public administration.

In this new article, I remind readers of the earlier

argument and the several related research agendas

called for in the original article. I then sketch progress

Networks and Networking:  e Public

Administrative Agendas

Laurence J. O’Toole, Jr.

The University of Georgia

University of Twente, The Netherlands

Editor’s Note: We are publishing a series of essays in 2015 to commemorate inf‌l uential contributions to public

administration that appeared in Public Administration Review since its inception in 1940. In this essay, Laurence

J. O’Toole, Jr., revisits his groundbreaking 1997 article, “Treating Networks Seriously: Practical and Research-

Based Agendas in Public Administration.” O’Toole assesses the impacts of the original article and of‌f ers an

agenda for network research that builds upon what we have learned since 1997.

JLP

Abstract: Published in 1997, the article “Treating Networks Seriously: Practical and Research-Based Agendas in

Public Administration” outlined the importance of networks for the f‌i eld of public administration and suggested a

series of research agendas that should be pursued.  at argument has received substantial attention in the years since.

Research on networks and networking has made substantial progress, particularly on some questions—the descriptive

agenda, for instance, and some aspects of the practical agenda. However, considerable work remains to be done. More

needs to be known about the ways in which networks and networking behavior can shape performance and af‌f ect

the most salient values in our governance systems; better empirical theory is also needed in this regard. Such further

developments would be of immense value to the practice of public administration.  e world of public administra-

tion has for some time been treating networks seriously, but the work is far from complete.