ABSTRACT
State management is not confined to bureaucrats or public agencies, as it touches upon the interests of private actors and third sector people. If they are concerned with public policies and how policies are implemented, then why not include them somehow in public management? This idea, which flows in a natural way from broadening the perspective of public management from formal organisation or bureaucracy to informal patterns of behaviour, was developed into a major framework of public management after the implementation gap had been discovered and recognised. Policy networks would comprise several public organisations having a stake in some programmes, but also private actors or third sector organisations.
