Working Toward Network Governance: Local Actors’ Strategies for Navigating Tensions in Localized Health Care Governance

• Author: Sierk Ybema,Sarah van Duijn,Duco Bannink
• DOI: 10.1177/00953997211033818
• Published date: 01 April 2022
• Date: 01 April 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211033818

Administration & Society

2022, Vol. 54(4) 660 –689

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997211033818

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Article

Working Toward

Network Governance:

Local Actors’ Strategies

for Navigating Tensions

in Localized Health

Care Governance

Sarah van Duijn1, Duco Bannink1,

and Sierk Ybema1,2

Abstract

Although network governance has become increasingly popular in both

research and practice, its anticipated benefits do not always materialize.

Although literature on network governance acknowledges the challenges

that result from its introduction, scholars tend to assume these challenges

can be managed and rarely analyze how the different participating actors

(strategically) react to the tensions surrounding its establishment. As such,

the process of how “networking” actors establish, maintain, and negotiate

a network remains understudied. In light of these shortcomings, this article

zooms in on how actors, in their collaboration efforts with network

partners, navigate the tensions between (a) their discretionary space and

the parameters set by a central policymaker, and (b) their pursuit of both

integration and differentiation. This ethnographic case analysis contributes

by, first, revealing how local actors demonstrate agency in maneuvering

between these tensions in everyday practice by adopting three strategies—

that is, overwhelmed deflection, situational segmentation, and strategic

1Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

Corresponding Author:

Sarah van Duijn, Department of Organization Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,

De Boelelaan 1105, Amsterdam 1081 HV, The Netherlands.

Email: s.van.duijn@vu.nl

1033818AAS0010.1177/00953997211033818Administration & Societyvan Duijn et al.

research-article2021

van Duijn et al. 661

reappropriation—and, second, by revealing how these tensions interact and

subsequently affect the implementation of policies in networks.

Keywords

network governance, tensions, decentered approach, decentralization,

collaboration

Introduction

Network governance, celebrated as a counterpoint to the shortcomings of New

Public Management (Bevir, 2011; Lewis, 2011; Sørensen & Torfing, 2007a),

is built on the assumption that public problems, such as an aging population,

both cut across sectoral boundaries and need to be collectively addressed by

multiple societal actors (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2016). Network-based forms of

governance also presume that local actors are better positioned to devise solu-

tions “on the ground” (De Vries, 2000; Saito, 2011; van der Veer et al., 2011).

According to network governance theory, central actors should therefore offer

discretionary space to local actors and promote the development of interorga-

nizational networks to stimulate communication between them (Head &

Alford, 2013; Jessop, 2011; Klijn & Koppenjan, 2016; Sørensen, 2006). As

such, network governance scholars build on the assumption that local actors

will eventually be able to establish and maintain strong collaborative ties

(Ansell & Gash, 2007; Bryson et al., 2015; Emerson et al., 2012; Thomson &

Perry, 2006). Although they acknowledge network governance formation as a

complicated process, network governance scholars tend to take successful net-

works as their point of departure and view its emergence and existence as

something that can be managed. The intricacies of establishing, maintaining,

and adjusting a network as a complex process tend to be reduced to problems

that can be overcome by interventions, such as is the case with “network man-

agement” (Agranoff & Mcguire, 2001; Klijn et al., 2010; Provan & Kenis,

2007). This alluring assertion has turned network governance into an impera-

tive for public policymakers (Ansell & Gash, 2007; Bryson et al., 2015;

Emerson et al., 2012; Thomson & Perry, 2006). At the same time, this has left

the process of how networking actors navigate and negotiate the challenges

inherent to the establishment of network governance neglected.

Critical scholars have pointed out that the alleged benefits of network

governance are often hard, if not impossible, to achieve in practice (Rhodes,

2000b; Vangen, 2017; Vangen & Huxham, 2012). These scholars are wary

of both research and policies that target networks as a whole, arguing that

conceptualizations of a network as fixed and uniform are unrealistic (Bevir

& Rhodes, 2016). Instead, they argue that we should zoom in on the