the implications for democracy in a networked bureaucratic ... · administrative world is...

The Implications for Democracy in aNetworked Bureaucratic World

Laurence J. O'Toole Jr.The University of Georgia

Thanks to Todd R. La Porte andLaurence E. Lynn, who offered helpfulcomments on an earlier version of thisarticle.

This is a revised version of a paperprepared for delivery at the WaldoSymposium, Maxwell School of Citi-zenship and Public Affairs, SyracuseUniversity, June 27-29, 1996. Pleasedo not quote without permission.

J-PART 7( 1997): 3:443-459

ABSTRACT

Dwight Waldo wrote nearly fifty years ago that democracy isvery much more than the political context in which publicadministration is carried out. Public administration is now lesshierarchical and insular and is increasingly networked. This hasimportant implications for democracy, including changingresponsibilities for the public interest, for meeting publicpreferences, and for the enhancement of political deliberation,civility, and trust. Networked public administration can pose athreat to democratic governance and it can open possibilities forstrengthening governance, depending on the values and actions ofpublic administrators.

[B]oth private and public administration were in an importantand far-reaching sense false to the ideal of democracy. Theywere false by reason of their insistence that democracy, howevergood and desirable, is nevertheless something peripheral toadministration.

I have made no distinction . . . between "democracy" withinan administrative system and "democracy" with respect to anadministrative system's external relations.

If administration is indeed "the core of modern government,"then a theory of democracy in the twentieth century mustembrace administration.

The focus of this essay . . . is not upon the present and existing,but upon.the future and potential. It seeks to discern where thefrontier may be tomorrow and how we can move toward it.

Dwight Waldo (1952, 87, 89 n.13, 81, 83)

In a prescient essay written almost a half-century ago,Dwight Waldo called attention to emerging ideas regardingdemocracy and administration. He noted the insufficiency of

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treating democracy merely as part of the political context for ahierarchical administration. In so doing, Waldo anticipated theemergence of crucial themes and controversies that continue tochallenge those who seek to craft an administrative state thatcomports with the ideals of democratic governance.

The themes emphasized by Waldo, then and since, have hadnotable impact on public administration; the view of democracyas largely extraneous to administration seems now strikinglyanachronistic. Instead, it would appear, the main issue facingstudents of democracy and bureaucracy near the dawn of thetwenty-first century is how, not whether, democratic ideals canbe woven more tightly into the fabric of administration.

True enough, echoes of the original orthodoxy still can beheard. In his polemic, for instance, Theodore Lowi seeks arehabilitation of centralized choice by emphasizing the likelihoodof parochialism, inconsistency, and injustice when policy is"dealt out in shares" (to borrow Woodrow Wilson's phrase) tothe self-serving alliances of administrative units, legislative com-mittees, and advantaged groups populating the interest-groupliberal regime (1979). Such arguments can serve as reminders ofreal problems but have not diminished the broad contemporaryinterest in entwining democracy and administration morethoroughly.

In fact, some version of democracy in administration seemsto have triumphed as the new conventional wisdom, despite thecomplications involved, and few would endorse the old injunc-tion, challenged by Waldo at midcentury, that autocracy duringworking hours is the price paid for democracy after hours.

Still, practice has a way of outstripping even such a con-sensus. As efforts have been made to open up the workings ofbureaucracy to some democratic principles, the institutional formfor public administration itself has altered significantly over time.Bureaucratic agencies surely continue to populate the landscapeof government and will continue to provide the institutional corefor governmental effort far into the future. But a focus onbureaucratic structures alone belies consequential developments inthe realm of public administration, changes that carry implica-tions for applying democratic ideals to the practicing world ofadministration. The reality of much contemporary public adminis-tration is that a great number of the responsibilities that admin-istrators have, and a large portion of the programs they seek toenergize, require operating in and through networks of actors andorganizations, rather than individual units—what Hjern and

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Porter (1981) call the "lonely organizations"—that have servedheretofore as the primary focus of analytical attention.

Increasingly, a crucial institutional arrangement for thesuccessful operation of government in action is some version ofthe network (especially networked organizational units), ratherthan the hierarchy in isolation. This shift is important in manyrespects, not the least of which are the challenges and oppor-tunities implied for democratic governance.

The assertion itself may be somewhat controversial (but seeO'Toole forthcoming). The argument is, nonetheless, that manythough not all public administrators currently must mobilize andcoordinate people and resources across organizational structuresas well as within them; that typically they do not have the formalwherewithal to compel compliance with such cooperative under-takings; that these networked settings may involve a variety ofcomplicated links; and that this state of affairs is likely to persistand even increase in the future.

This sketch requires at least modest elaboration, a taskundertaken in the following section. The point of particularemphasis in this article, nevertheless, is a normative one: If theadministrative world is increasingly a networked terrain, thisdevelopment must be taken into account in any thoroughgoingand serious effort to unite democracy and administration. Themain part of the subsequent analysis, therefore, raises somequestions and implications for democratic theory in the net-worked context of public administration.

FROM MONOCRATIC BUREAUCRACYTOWARD NETWORKS?

Bureaucratic structures increasingly operate through linkedarrays—networks—that comprise the broader institutional contextfor administrative action. The networked context, in turn, carriesimplications for the practical tasks of administrators, and it forcesa reconsideration of some central questions of democracy andadministration.

Networks are structures of interdependence involvingmultiple organizations. They exhibit some structural stability andinclude, but extend beyond, formal linkages alone. The term ismeant to capture a broad range of structural types. And the insti-tutional "glue" congealing networked ties may include authoritybonds, exchange relations, and common-interest based coalitions.In networks, the reach of administration is expanded, but admin-istrators cannot be expected to exercise decisive leverage by

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virtue of their formal position (OToole forthcoming). In moreconcrete terms, networks include interagency cooperative ven-tures; intergovernmental program management structures; com-plex contracting arrays; and public-private partnerships. Theyalso include service-delivery systems reliant on clusters ofproviders that may include public agencies, business firms, not-for-profits, or even volunteer-staffed units, all linked byinterdependence and some shared program interests. Rare is thepolicy sector, governmental unit, or administrative office that isnot affected by the interweaving of structure and routine extend-ing well beyond the single agency.

Analysts who use greatly differing theoretical perspectiveshave converged on the importance of networks for administra-tion. The breadth of available lenses is suggested by the meremention of public choice and institutional rational choice,transaction costs and new institutional economics, sociologicallybased interorganizational theory, policy implementation, andintergovernmental management. A large proportion of public pro-grams operate in and through networked constellations, and thechallenges of administration in a networked world are consider-able (see Kettl 1993; Milward 19%; for an early analysis ofsome of the issues, see Mosher 1980). Studies in a variety ofnational contexts echo the prominent network theme (examplesinclude Hufen and Ringeling 1990; Hull with Hjern 1987; andScharpf 1993). The increasing importance of international agree-ments entailing continuing program responsibilities suggests abroad range of important networking demands for public adminis-trators around the globe (see, for instance, Hanf 1994).

Furthermore, it would seem that today's administratorsinhabit an increasingly networked world. It is difficult to defendthis assertion convincingly, since demonstrating its accuracywould require data that are not available. No descriptive informa-tion on the extent to which administrators operate interorgani-zationally has been collected; neither has systematic data on theproportion of public programs managed in multiactor settingsrather than within sole agencies, nor even evidence on shifts overtime. It is possible to show, nonetheless, that the current degreeof "networkedness" is quite large, and that both technical andpolitical forces appear to be at work to encourage further cross-organizational ties (OToole forthcoming). Some evidence evensuggests, ironically, that efforts from political levels to trim thescale of bureaucracy and extent of direct administrative responsi-bility for accomplishing public purposes—privatizing functions,capping budgets, freezing or reducing staffing levels—accentuatethe networking impulse. For the administrators who seek toachieve policy goals while they respect the limitations entailed in

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the liberal order, networking impulses are even greater. Evenwithin bureaucracies, evidence suggests a diffusing of the stan-dard chains of command into ever more complex, crosscuttingpatterns (Light 1995).

Network contexts differ from conventional bureaucratic net-works. On this issue, it is first useful to acknowledge thecontinuing importance of bureaucratic structure. Public adminis-trators operate often within the hierarchy rather than laterallyacross nodes of a network structure, so the considerable knowl-edge of administration as developed in more standard accountscontinues to apply. If the network thesis is accurate, nevertheless,additional implications follow.

In particular, administration aimed at inducing cooperativeeffort across organizations requires that strategies and tactics beadapted to the realities of limited formal authority, at least alongnetwork lines. Administrators are likely to have to turn to a setof more subtle but no less important options, which rely on dip-lomatic skills; negotiating experience; and exhortative, percep-tual, informational, and leadership tools. When they organizepublic programs in network settings, public administrators can tryto inspire participants toward a common purpose, facilitateexchange and a shared sense of obligation, maintain commitmentthrough the use of information, and sometimes alter the networkmembership to encourage cooperative effort (see O'Toole 19%).

A further implication, more directly relevant for presentpurposes, is that considering public administration in a networkedworld shifts the assumptions that ground much normative dis-course about proper administration. Normative issues involvequestions of ethics and issues of political theory. As DwightWaldo has emphasized, ethics may sometimes point in one direc-tion, while concerns rooted in political obligation may suggestanother (Waldo 1974). In the remainder of this article, I willdirect attention toward questions of political choice, examiningsome implications for democratic governance of the increasinglyprominent network settings inhabited by public administrators.

NETWORKED PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONAND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE

At the end of this century, the overriding standard—virtuallyworldwide—is a commitment to democracy as political ideal.Surely, as Waldo observed, this theme has permeated Americanculture, discourse, and political action (1952). While Waldo hasnoted the broad meaning of democratic ideals in the UnitedStates, he also has emphasized the complications entailed by the

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juxtaposition of American democratic themes, based significantlyon ancient Greek political ideas, with administrative practices andinstitutions that are largely Roman (1982). It is clear, therefore,that the treatment of the democratic principle cannot be limited toa simple unidimensional value or to formal institutions of govern-ance.

In the present context, the analysis of democratic govern-ance can be considered in terms of three important values thatconstitute part of the meaning of democracy in contemporarytimes: responsibility for effecting the public interest; respon-siveness to public preferences; and enhancement of politicaldeliberation, civility, and trust.

The role of administration in fostering—or impeding—suchpolitical norms has been a long-standing theme in the field. Thestandard contextual assumption, however, has been bureaucracy.And normative arguments—for enhanced citizen involvement,more internally democratic units, more market-like arrangements,greater support for social equity, and so forth—have tended touse the standard bureaucratic structure as the assumed startingpoint for analysis. But what if the institutional context for publicadministration is increasingly not the "lonely organization" or thesimple bureaucratic structure? What if administrators inhabit hier-archically established positions enmeshed within interorganiza-tional networks?

Only a few preliminary efforts have been made thus far tosketch some implications for the political system of a morenetworked administrative world. Recent analyses in the newedition of the Handbook of Public Administration (Perry 1996),for instance, treat the themes of accountability and responsivenessalmost exclusively in terms of administrators inhabiting individualorganizations. However, Romzek (1996) offers a thoughtfulassessment of the relationship between hierarchical and profes-sional accountability channels, and Cooper (1996) notes theincreasingly enmeshed character of administrative responsibilitiesfrom such sources as international agreements and contractualties.

For literature more directly on point, only a few keyreferences can be mentioned. In an important analysis, Moshernoted some complications in effectuating democratic governanceunder the altered context at the national level (1980). Morerecently, Milward and colleagues have pointed to some hypoth-esized consequences of contracting out and the "hollow state,"particularly as regards a putative "leakage of accountability"(Milward 1996, 87; see also Milward, Provan, and Else 1993).


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The issue of accountability is surely a central one for thoseconcerned with democracy and administration in settings rife withcontracting, as many scholars have suggested (Moe and Gilmour1995). But since specialists in public law, contracts, andprincipal-agent relations are helping to highlight this challenge,the present analysis emphasizes other issues. The remainder ofthe discussion here entails a twofold analytical shift: fromrelatively simple dyadic ties based on contracts to thoroughlynetworked structures, and from accountability to—respectively—responsibility, responsiveness, and the fostering of deliberation,civility, and trust.

Responsibility

A person is responsible for an action if and only if thatperson brings the action about and has done so freely. Responsi-bility is necessarily a complex and problematic criterion inorganizational settings because here both causation and volitionare difficult or impossible to determine or individualize. Further-more, public administrators face responsibilities to follow anarray of obligations, not merely the executing of commands hier-archically imposed (note, for instance, reference to professionalresponsibilities, as mentioned above). These multiple obligationsmay admit of no optimizing solution, even for the most diligentofficial.

Still, the responsibility typically treated as primary is thattoward the overhead democracy, as operationalized through thehierarchy. It can be argued, on the basis of both logic and evi-dence, that hierarchies encourage a dulling or depersonalizing ofindividuals' sense of responsibility for their own actions. There isa tendency for those populating large agencies, in other words, todevelop a somewhat weakened or distanced sense of their causa-tion and volition.

Several features of such organizations encourage a distanc-ing of individuals from a sense that they themselves are acting.Among the elements contributing to diffusion of responsibility areagency socialization, systems of authority, objectification of thosebeing dealt with, and the seductive pull of free ridership in thelarge and often difficult-to-move administrative structure ("whatcan one person effectively do?"). All in all, organizations can berather potent environments for the dulling of individuallyresponsible action.

This is not to say that individuals are automatons in bureau-cratic settings; numerous examples suggest that sometimes publicadministrators, acting in good conscience, seek to influence

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results for the better, in defiance of self-interest or organizationalpressures. Further, as Dwight Waldo has noted, it is simply notthe case that individual defiance of organizational precedent orpressure is necessarily heroic or desirable, despite the heavy biastoward this portrayal in administrative fiction (Waldo 1968). Butthe reality of the Eichmann syndrome offers a sobering lesson totemper any uncritical faith in the power of hierarchy to ensureresponsible action (Arendt 1963).

What, then, of responsible public administrative action innetworks? In this context there are both hazards and encourage-ments. Of particular concern can be the even broader scale ofaction, and congeries of actors, such that individual administra-tors may feel less capable of decisively influencing events. Aconflicting sense of one's duties, as these are perceived by theboundary-spanning administrators in networks, may produce con-fusion and even an overall weakening of the sense of responsi-bility by someone who seeks to manage the cluster toward someoutcome. This point, then, goes beyond the concerns raised indiscussions about accountability (external, observable lines ofreporting and control), and to the internal interpretations of one'sobligations as framed in the mind of the administrator.

On the other hand, network settings offer opportunities foradministrators to consider their responsibilities in the democraticcontext. These opportunities stem in part from the weakening ofcertain of the forces mentioned above.

The jargon and standard interpretations used within agenciesare likely to be challenged or complexified in a network, asdifferent actors and organizational understandings compete forthe attention of administrators. Systems of authority are neces-sarily weaker as well. Frameworks for classification of cases andclients, along with other elements that contribute to reification,are likewise less powerful. The sense of free riding, or thefeeling that one person is unlikely to be effective, either can beintensified or muted in networks vis-a-vis hierarchies, dependinggreatly on the structure of interdependence among the units andwork processes involved. Some patterns can facilitate recognitionof both causation and volition, thus enhancing individuals' senseof responsibility (O'Toole 1985). On the other hand, complexand reciprocally interdependent patterns of networked action canbe prone to serious defections from responsible action. In suchcases, individuals may not be able to ascertain the impact of theirown effort, even if they exert a good-faith effort. Evidence onthis proposition is sparse, although classic analyses like MarthaDerthick's study of the dynamics of an intergovernmental grantprogram point to this result (1970, 214).

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In general, then, if bureaucratic structures offer stronginfluences that encourage a distancing of individuals from theconsequences of their choices, so too networked arrangementsoffer contexts in which both causality and volition can be per-ceived as so limited that responsibility seems to dissipate. Theoverall actions of the network may be almost impossible tofollow, the task of giving the array a shove in any particulardirection may seem unrealistic, and perceived responsibility goesthe way of accountability: it disappears. Those who managepublic affairs in networks can perform essential roles, butirresponsible action on their part can distort performance towardself-interested paths.

Still, it is equally important to recognize the potential forpublic managers to enhance the sense of responsibility felt bynetwork participants who execute public programs. The sheervariety of interests, routines, jargon, and perspectives in thenetwork can break the monocratic view. So actors involved innetworks may become more sensitive to the array of perspectivesinvolved in implementation and to a richer set of stakeholdersthan is evident to those operating within "lonely organizations."

Networks, then, provide some raw material for participants'magnified sense of responsibility. The extent to which this poten-tial is actualized depends on many factors. Some of these are inthe hands of public administrators. By remaining conscious of thechallenges to responsible conduct, administrators can help thoseinvolved to be aware of their special obligations. One can callthese moral incentives, a somewhat oxymoronic term. Framingthe issue more directly, one can say that administrators whooperate in networks can enhance the sense of responsibility feltby others by pointing to causal paths and consequences (increas-ing individuals' sense of impact); helping to show actors thatresponsible options are available (augmenting the sense of voli-tion); and generally focusing participants' limited attention ontheir obligations toward truth telling, promise keeping, and theneed to treat program needs and interests seriously.

These are not merely theoretical possibilities. Empiricalwork by some public choice scholars, for instance, has demon-strated that self-organizing among actors of diverse interests canresult in stable networked patterns that enhance social welfare,even in the absence of authoritative state decisions (Ostrom 1990;see also Bogason 1991). While the systematic avoidance in publicchoice research of the sometimes essential roles of authoritativeactors and truly public administrators (as something more thanrent seekers) is an important lacuna, such research has demon-strated that under some conditions leadership and (shall one call

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it) civic discourse in thoroughly complex and decentral settingscan leverage responsibility among diverse and differentlyendowed actors toward long-term cooperation.

Responsiveness

Administrative responsiveness is another criterion by whichto assess how public administration fits with the requisites ofdemocratic governance. How responsive are administrativearrangements likely to be in network contexts? The key issuewould seem to be responsiveness to whom, or—somewhat moreprecisely—responsiveness to which portion of the broader public?

Even in administrative settings as traditionally understood,students of pluralistic policy making long have documentedpatterns of bureaucratic units' responding to the pulling andhauling of stakeholders, and they have sketched different modelsto portray such patterns. It is a staple of American publicadministration that agencies' immediate environment exercisessubstantial pressure on bureaucratic behavior. Some portrayals ofthe dangers of such responsiveness point to the lack of broadrepresentativeness within these clusters (Lowi 1979). Others,critiquing the caricatured view of closed and intensely self-interested alliances, assert that actual arrays are more open,diverse, and varied (Heclo 1978). In either case, the issue doesnot boil down to a lack of responsiveness by public administra-tion (despite recent rhetoric about enhancing responsiveness tocustomers), but rather different criteria regarding the appropriatereference groups.

What of responsiveness in a more-networked world? First, itis clear that in at least some settings found in the United Statestoday, the array of interests and perspectives involved is differen-tiated, is diverse, and has a complicated patterned (Sabatier andJenkins-Smith 1993). Preliminary investigation of where and howdecision makers such as administrators obtain cues to assist intheir decision making indicates that the stereotypes of capture arenot uniformly accurate. Ideas and information matter, and theseare likely to be drawn from many sources in the administrativeenvironment (see Sabatier 1996).

Networks, therefore, may be settings in which a kind ofresponsiveness prevails or can be elicited, even in the face ofcomplex pressures and a relative lack of clear accountabilitymechanisms. It is best, nonetheless, to keep in mind this ques-tion: Responsiveness to whom? Pluralist arrangements, embeddedin networks, can at least accentuate responsiveness to intense orwell-organized minorities at the expense of a more-diffuse


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majority. Increased trends toward networking may mean thatspecial efforts will have to be made—in formal policy or throughthe concerted efforts of public administrators—to incorporatewithin the network arrays some degree of broader representation.

The foregoing discussion is particularly relevant to theAmerican context. In other national settings, where for instancecorporatist network arrangements prevail, a different set ofconsiderations can apply. In Austria or the Scandinavian coun-tries, the degree of formal responsibility held by the bargainingparticipants means that corporatist arrays alter direction moreslowly and, in a sense, are less responsive in the short run. Oncean agreement has been reached, though, all partners are explicitlyexpected to help execute it. Widely recognized responsibility canbe greater than in the United States, and responsiveness is alsolikely to be considerable over the long term. There may be sometradeoffs, then, between rapidity and breadth of response.

How to arrange networks so they are responsive to thespecial needs and concerns of the interdependent partners and topublic concerns, and how to structure networked institutionalarrangements to capture high levels along both dimensions arechallenges for the networked future of public administration.Structurally federated networks may be needed, and administra-tors could play an important role in crafting and maintainingthese so as to encourage the right kinds of responsiveness toparticular programs and issues.

Despite the arguments of public choice advocates, therewould seem to be important limits to citizens' ability to partici-pate effectively in the service-provision networks envisioned bysome proponents. The presence of many complex constellationsmay intimidate individuals and inhibit deliberation. Administra-tors are likely to be limited in carving out public space andattention where many arrays operate simultaneously. Encouraginggenuinely civic involvement in such settings is not likely to be aneasy task. Some implications regarding deliberation and civicdiscourse, additional elements of the democratic ethos, are thesubject of the next section.

Deliberation, Civility, and Trust

Democracy, in contemporary political science, often denotescausal linkage between the views of the people and the actions ofgovernment. Yet in this form the concept is rather limited. Afundamental component of enduring democratic systems is theircapacity for reflective and deliberative civic discourse andengagement. And these requisites would seem to be essential for


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the socialization of thoughtful citizens for the development ofbroad popular support for policy direction, and for the synthesisand development, not to mention critique, of innovative alterna-tives to the status quo. In the postmodern era, a time in whichsome might see the prospect of broadly public discourse as passe,democratic government continues to require a public sphere andits reflective colloquy. One of the most widely noted recentnormative arguments on behalf of public administration in theUnited States, the so-called Blacksburg manifesto, called attentionto this issue. In the Blacksburg argument the foundationalelement of legitimacy is the public organization, grounded inconstitutional support and oriented around the "agency perspec-tive" as the locus of public-spirited dialogue (Wamsley et al.1990). In the present argument, meant to reframe some aspects ofdemocratic theory in administratively networked contexts, theconsideration of discourse and civility requires some reorien-tation.

Dwight Waldo has emphasized the legacy of ancient Romein contemporary American administrative thought and practice(1982). For purposes of a reflection on implications for civilityand deliberation in the American setting, the present analysisdraws from a somewhat different Italian ancestry. In the widelynoted volume Making Democracy Work (1993), Robert Putnaminterprets decades of research on Italian regional government andthe contributions apparently made by civic ties, associations, andwhat Putnam calls networks. Putnam makes a strong case that theregional governmental institutions differ strikingly in perceivedeffectiveness and in many additional performance measures.

The core of the theoretical argument, and the focus of someintriguing evidence, is the idea that the most important explana-tory force driving the large regional differences in governmentalperformance has been the quality and level of "horizontal" civicengagement in regional affairs by individuals and associations.The building of community, the involvement of disparate actorsin public affairs and programs, and even the stimulation ofinvolvement in associations with no apparent civic purpose—allthese activities are highly intercorrelated with each other andwith the degree of effectiveness of regional government. Put-nam's key explanatory variable is social capital, which in turn iselicited by networking. "Social capital here refers to features ofsocial organization, such as trust, norms, and networks, that canimprove the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinatedactions" (p. 167). Social capital, built on the basis of "vibrantnetworks," is the product of "civic community," a pattern "boundtogether by horizontal relations of reciprocity and cooperation,not by vertical relations of authority and dependency"


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(pp. 87-88). Putnam emphasizes social networking, especiallyamong individuals via voluntary association, rather than cross-cutting institutional links through functionally driven, sometimescontractual, ties. But his empirical analysis and theoreticaldiscussion embrace such additional forms as well. There is noreason to expect his argument about the importance of horizontalties not to extend to the kinds of networks discussed here.

A particularly controversial part of Putnam's argumentinvolves the claims that these relationships can be demonstratedand they are closely linked to levels of economic development.He further argues that civic community not only precedes but ithelps to stimulate both market-based economic development andeffective government: "This history suggests that both states andmarkets operate more efficiently in civic settings" (pp. 181).Furthermore, the evidence leads to the inference that the civicnetworks in Italy are neither quickly built nor rapidly dismantled.

This claim—that horizontal networks are causally prior to,and more important than, economic forces fin explaining regionaldifferences—has been subject to critique. Indeed, seriousmethodological questions can be raised regarding some ofPutnam's temporal inferences (see, for example, Tarrow 1996).There is no denying the centrality of the assertions, however.Despite the dispute surrounding elements of Putnam's analysis,certain implications stand out clearly.

First, there is no reason to believe that higher levels ofcommunity and higher degrees of horizontal networking entail asacrifice of the values most highly prized in liberal societies. Inthe Italian cases, at least, these attributes covary. Indeed, asPutnam observes, these cases offer support for the arguments ofPiore and Sabel (1984) regarding "decentralized, but integrateddistricts . . . a seemingly contradictory combination of competi-tion and cooperation" (Putnam, p. 160). Of course external valid-ity constraints may be important here, particularly regardinginferences supportable in the highly individualistic United States.Nevertheless, the relationship documented by Putnam suggests, atthe very least, that the strength and density of horizontal ties andthe involvement of diverse associations in the public as well asthe social life of a polity need not necessarily be seen as com-petitive with governmental authority, legitimacy, and perform-ance. Nor is networking a euphemism for forced, authoritarianrule. Stronger, denser, more vibrant horizontal networks maystrengthen public institutions and public administrative capacityand also preserve or encourage values of liberalism and toler-ance. Leveraging horizontal ties, building on trust, andencouraging the development of cooperative norms also can

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enhance administrative capacity, and governmental capacity moregenerally.

In short, deliberation, civility, and trust—all key componentsof a democratic regime—have been found to be associated withhorizontally networked settings; thus on the basis of theserequisites of democratic governance, administration within anincreasingly networked world may be firmly grounded in demo-cratic principles rather than threatened by competitive institu-tional links.

Second, there are clearly additional implications for publicadministration; the precise lessons, nonetheless, depend partly onhow much of Putnam's exposition is accepted. If it takes cen-turies to generate sustainable civic community, administratorscannot do much in the short term to enhance deliberation, trust,or effectiveness. Some critics of this perspective emphasize,however, that government itself may be able to play a moreactive role in catalyzing and facilitating the growth of horizontalties and social capital, that opportunities for influence may belarger and more immediate than Putnam's sketch implies.

The exceedingly long timeline emphasized by Putnam maynot accurately represent the Italian situation, let alone a generalsocial dynamic. As a matter of fact, Putnam himself has raisedserious questions about such developmental dynamics in laterarguments, claiming that American associational ties have experi-enced rapid declines in recent decades (Putnam 1995). If net-worked arrangements are capable of large shifts over relativelyshort periods, the implications are at least twofold: First,American administrators cannot take their network infrastructurefor granted (and administrators in less-networked settings canavoid a counsel of despair); second, the actions of public admin-istration itself, along with the choices made by other socialactors, can either enhance or deplete the networked context forcivic community.

In particular, public administrators can focus on ways toencourage network development and a proliferation of horizontalties in program settings, in field contexts for agency operations,and among public agencies and governments whose cooperationis required for sustained performance. Actions aimed at trustgeneration, norm development, reciprocity, and other ways toincrease the vibrancy of networks in settings for public programsmay be not only possible but essential elements of public admin-istration (for a discussion of the fragility of trust in administrativesettings, see La Porte and Metlay 1996). Administrators, farfrom being largely peripheral actors in democratic governance,


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might perform instead essential functions in the fostering ofsocial capita] necessary for deliberation, trust, and civility.

It need hardly be said in this context that not all networkdevelopment constitutes a contribution to the infrastructure ofdemocracy. Networks that represent the mere triumph of narrowspecial interest governance are obvious possibilities. Problems ofaccountability and representativeness often occur when adminis-trators are granted carte blanche for institutional design andmanagement within networks. Since these issues have been morewidely discussed than have the less obvious advantages fordemocracy of networked public action, it would seem useful toconsider this additional side to the network coin.

In any event, public administrators may do well to be alertto the importance of networks for concerting and achievingpublic action and to look for opportunities to facilitate, even in amodest way, the development of the kinds of networks that canhelp administrative effectiveness over the long run. For instance,administrators can try to ride the waves of—and help perpetuateand encourage—virtuous cycles of action, in which the buildingof trust among network participants can have a self-fueling andself-fulfilling character. Networks clearly cannot be developed orsustained merely through short-run or episodic efforts, or fromonly one position in a complex institutional setting. But admin-istrators can probably make a difference if they enhance effectivenetwork development and thus foster some of the attractivefeatures of deliberative democratic governance.

This discussion can be interpreted as a network version ofthe Blacksburg agency-level argument for the importance ofadministrative institutions as a locus for the ongoing search forthe public interest and the development of a public-centereddialogue. The presence of networks is no guarantee againstparochialism; indeed, complex interorganizational arrangementsmay incubate such perspectives unless there are concerted effortsto enhance balance and openness in the institutional setting.Public administrators may be well positioned to help facilitate thehorizontal development of network arrays while they alsoencourage within these arrays a public-interested character.

CONCLUSION

As Dwight Waldo has suggested, specialists cannot pretendthat the obligations of democratic governance are external to thesphere of public administration. The task of seeking an appro-priate reconciliation of administration with democracy requires ananalysis of contemporary institutions of administration to


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ascertain the extent to which these, and the administrators wholead them, can contribute to the achievement of democraticgovernance.

As complex interorganizational arrays have assumed prom-inence as settings for the execution of public policy, some classicnormative questions must be considered anew. Does networkedpublic administration pose a threat to democratic governance oroffer the prospect of its more complete attainment? To the extentthat this issue has been considered heretofore, the question hastypically been framed in terms of accountability; on this score itis clear that complex arrays proffer challenges that are not easilymanaged or minimized. Nonetheless, considering the query alongsome additional dimensions—responsibility, responsiveness, andthe development of deliberative trust in a polity—suggests a morecomplex assessment. Administration in networks, it would seem,provides both complications and opportunities to facilitate partsof the democratic ideal.

If the argument regarding the increasing importance of net-works for administration has merit, scholars and practitionersneed to consider in detail the empirical and normative implica-tions of these complex institutional forms. In particular, acommitment to democracy accompanying a recognition of thesignificance of networks suggests that some classic issues ofdemocratic theory (in terms of forms of overhead control) andthe traditional way of framing issues of administration (in termsof bureaucratic structure and process) may have to be reformu-lated. If administrators have to join rather than beat or ignore thenetwork club, and if they are to assist rather than subvert thedemocratic ideal, renewed attention must be directed to the long-standing themes of democracy and administration—themes thathave long formed a core of Dwight Waldo's inspiring vision.

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