| Network concepts and theories have been of increasing interest to public administration scholars over the past twenty years. We frame organizations, inter-and intra-organizational collaborations, and theories of public policy processes in network terms; we use techniques of network analysis to examine the functioning of public organizations, and as a measure of the success of public-private collaborations; we also frame governance issues in network terms and search for effective mechanisms for network management. However, it is not clear that public administration scholars share a common understanding of network concepts, nor a common language for talking about networks.;In this dissertation, I analyze the discourse on the concept of network in the contemporary public administration literature, identify characteristics used to define and discuss networks, and propose that by drawing from those characteristics already in use in the literature researchers will be able to communicate their specific interests in networks clearly and relate their work to a larger body of related scholarship. |
