ABSTRACT

This chapter looks at how the public administration and policy studies fields have employed network metaphors and network analysis to describe the range of interorganizational configurations that have arisen to create, implement, and evaluate public policies. It synthesizes some of the expansive bodies of literature that contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to describe and ultimately evaluate governance networks. The chapter reviews the ways in which network metaphors and analytical frameworks have been employed within the public administration, policy studies, and governance fields. It argues for the development of a view of mixed-form governance networks that accounts for markets and hierarchies as network forms alongside of collaboratives and partnerships. The chapter believes that the presentation of a model of mixed-form governance networks allows us to develop a means for describing the many different ways that stable governance networks arise and carry out one or more functions related to the policy stream.