Networks and Bureaucratic Politics 57
nonprofi t agencies as well, in the process creating new forms of organizational
and management practices that are employed to achieve collective or public
ends. O’Toole (1997a) argued that networked administration is not only com-
mon, but also increasingly important, for fi ve main reasons. First, “wicked”
policy problems require the mobilization of a variety of actors, both inside and
outside government. Such problems are the result of multiple causes, and typi-
cally span more than one jurisdiction. A single agency will not be able to address
these problems without help, from actors both inside and outside of government
and from across levels of government. Second, political demands for limited
government, but without reductions in demands for action, give rise to networks
that include nonstate actors through contracting. As shown in Chapter 5, the
implication of contracting is something we are only beginning to understand.
Th ird, the need for bureaucracy to be responsive to the public naturally leads
to the inclusion of citizen and industry groups in decisionmaking. Networks
may indeed increase accountability to the public, but, as will be discussed, it
is unclear if they always produce the democratic eff ects we expect. Fourth, as
sophisticated program evaluations have revealed indirect or second-order eff ects
of policies, implementation networks have been established to refl ect those rela-
tionships. Fift h, O’Toole (1997b) noted that many mandates have multiple layers
that essentially require program management to become networked. Here, he
used the example of transportation program managers needing to account for
the rights of disabled people.
O’Toole’s (1997a) networked bureaucratic world raises important questions
regarding our understanding of bureaucratic politics, governance, and account-
ability. Do these networks threaten democracy or enhance it? Should expecta-
tions of accountability and oversight be changed as the result of acknowledging
that so many actors are involved in bureaucratic decisions? How do agencies
wield political power in these networks? Some recent research has identifi ed a
“dark side” of networks—that network managers respond to elements of the net-
work that are more politically infl uential, and thus the result is that networks may
actually exacerbate already present inequality (O’Toole and Meier 2004). Th is
raises important and disturbing questions about the nature and implications of
the political power in networked administration. Other concerns, as addressed in
Chapter 5, involve the “hollowing out” of the state, where the state’s main task is
to arrange networks rather than manage hierarchies, which is the traditional task
of government.
Th e need to understand a networked bureaucracy is obvious, but it is unclear
whether we have made much theoretical headway since the mid-1990s. Most
literature has focused on how to manage networked systems, rather than on im-
plications for politics and governance (O’Toole and Meier 2004). O’Toole and
Meier argue that networks should be treated as political institutions, since their
establishment is oft en for political reasons (to perhaps avoid having to deal di-
rectly with a controversial issue) and always has political implications. Decisions