The Twentieth-Century Administrative State and Networked Governance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jensen, Laura S.
• 署名单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muw065
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 468-484
• 关键词: sector organizational networks; management; biotechnology; science; LEVEL; work

摘要

Since its founding, the American state has relied both upon what we now call traditional administration-public, hierarchical, and bureaucratic-and upon more privatized approaches to governance involving state and non-state actors and institutions in contractual relationships and networks. Studying past public-private governance schemes affords new opportunities to understand why, how, and under what circumstances state actors eschew direct public action in favor of boundary-spanning arrangements. I demonstrate this by presenting a case study of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), a new Federal entity created in 1940 by President Franklin Roosevelt. NDRC relied upon contracting and an existing scientific community to create a highly effective network of scientists and laboratories spanning the public, for profit, and nonprofit sectors. Beyond presenting novel empirical evidence, I contribute to theory by providing new insights into the factors and conditions that spur state actors to adopt a networked approach to governance, and by proposing the concept of a twilight network, defined as a network whose structure and behavior are legal, yet simultaneously overt and covert. I also show that qualitative, detailed historical research may valuably extend our understanding of public-private governance arrangements and the state of agents.