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Summary Network Governance
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Lecture 1 - Introduction: Networks, Interdependencies & Network GovernanceK&K: Ch. ..2
What characterizes complex or wicked problems?
- Various actors with diverging or conflicting interests and perceptions
- There is no way to test if solutions work or not
- Problems are connected to / embedded in other problems
- Untamable
- Each solution generates unintended consequences (positive as well as negative)
E.g.: Environmental policies
- Many different actors: environmental organizations, businesses, individuals
- Vertical or horizontal problem? Which policy domains are affected?
E.g.: Multiple problem families (Joosse, Teisman, Verschoor & Van Buren, 2019)
- Family-units in which different members of a family have different issues
- “Many hands are not making things lighter”
- Each individual has their own professional help, however, these outside
professionals should interact too, in order to solve the entire problem
- Analytic approach rather than a compartalized approach
Networks
- Networks are a tool to deal with complex policy problems that cannot be solved by
one actor alone
- Networks have relatively high interdependencies between actors
- Interdependencies cause strategic complexity and unpredictable course of
interactions
- Networks have complex interaction because each of the actors is autonomous and
have its own perception of problems, solutions and strategies
- Network interactions show some durability over time
Networks - Key Definitions
- Network: various (mutually dependent) actors involved in dealing with (wicked)
public problems and complex public services
- Network governance: the set of conscious steering attempts or strategies of actors
within governance networks aimed at influencing interaction processes and/or the
characteristics of these networks
- Network management: all the deliberate facilities aimed at facilitating and guiding
the interactions and/or changing the features of the network with the intent to further
the collaboration within the network process
Wicked problems are complex (not complicated!)
- Substantive complexity: actors with different perceptions of problems, solutions,
the status of information and (scientific) knowledge
- Strategic complexity: many interacting actors with conflicting interests and
strategies
- Institutional complexity: actors from diverging institutional backgrounds, and
presence of rules, protocols, norms, etc.
,Interdependencies and resources
- In networks, actors are interdependent on each other, because different actors have
different resources
- Financial resources
- Production resources
- Knowledge
- Legitimacy
- Competencies
Importance and replaceability
- The importance of a resource, combined with the replaceability of this resource
defines the dependency on this resource (and its provider!)
- High dependency: high importance, low replaceability
- Low dependency: low importance, high replaceability
- Moderate dependency: either high importance and high replaceability OR
low importance and low replaceability
Crucial actors
- Crucial actors are those actors that posses important resources that are hard to
replace
- There is a high dependency on crucial actors
Power
- Realization power: the power to make things happen by investing resources
- Blocking power (veto power): the power to block things by not investing (or
withdrawing) resources or by investing resources to block solutions
The need for governance
- Due to interdependencies, dealing with wicked problems requires interactions
between actors
- But these interactions will not easily lead to satisfactory outcomes →
governance is needed
Lecture 2 - Networks & Governance
K&K: Ch. 1
Three models of public problem solving and public service delivery
- Traditional Public Administration
- New Public Management
- Network Governance
Traditional Public Administration
- Hierarchical steering
- Bureaucracy
- Command & Control
- Rational decision-making
- Expert input
, - Specialization and public service motivation
- Equality, legitimacy and legality
- Often seen in policy-making, governmental tasks
Steering as intellectual design
- Policy-making as a linear process→ the policy cycle:
- Agenda-setting
- Goal formulation
- Generation of alternatives
- Decision-making
- Implementation
- Evaluation
- And repeat…
Problems with the Traditional Public Administration model
- Limited resources
- Money
- Knowledge
- Time
- Uniformity
- Imposing decisions invoke resistance
- High implementation and monitoring costs
- Government as a multi-headed beast
New Public Management
- A response to issues of Traditional Public Administration
- Running the government as a business
- Steering, not rowing
- Arm’s length relationships
- Market mechanisms: privatization, competition, contracting
- Performance steering
- Principal-agent relationships
Problems with the New Public Management model
- Pressure to specify desired outcomes in advance
- Moral hazard (when interests do not align)
- Rigidity of contracts in changing circumstances
- Control reflex, conflicts, low trust
- Difference between private and public values
- Citizen as a consumer/customer
Network Governance model
- Multi-actor settings: networks and a multiplicity of decisions
- Who is steering and who is rowing?
- Partnership, collaboration and trust as ideals
- (Co-)creating public value
- Wicked problems require intensive interaction. This is hard: facilitation and guidance
is needed
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