Governance networks in crisis: time to recognise the problems?

Managing through policy networks has been a perennial element of the governing task. Modern analysts of government, public policy and public administration evolved theories of policy networks and public management. Key to the development of network analysis and theories of governance was the concept of complex interdependence. Conceptual models came to mirror the complexities of the network theory they sought to explain, while stress and crisis increasingly exposed flaws in both theory and practice, revealing a series of overlapping problems: accountability lacunae, performance failures, ideological capture, and standards and ethics challenges. These produced increased public frustration, and rising populist demands for less complex and more transparent government, with ‘stronger’ central leadership. However, the inherent complexities of government, and the inevitability of working through policy networks mean that there are no simple solutions to these problems. The challenge for political leaders and analysts is to move beyond unreflective and complacent rhetoric, and confront the failures of current polities and dense networks, while avoiding over-reacting, to embrace transparent, radical programmes of modernisation and reform, with sound conceptual underpinnings.