Networks in public administration: Searching for democratic legitimacy.

摘要

Purpose. Studies on networks in public administration demonstrate the utility and effectiveness of networks, however questions about the democratic legitimacy of networks is of continued interest. The purpose of this study was to determine how collaborative networks in public administration demonstrate democratic legitimacy. This research sought to contribute to the understanding of networks in public administration as functionaries operating within a democratic republic.;Theoretical framework. Democratic theory was used to help researchers understand how principles of democratic institutions can be applied networks. Democratic theory assists in the structuration for concrete understanding of variables to be observed in networks.;Methodology. This study examined two collaborative networks. An exploratory case study methodology was used to investigate the presence of democratic legitimacy by examining the characteristics of the networks to discover the presence of legitimating variables. The two collaborative networks studied are located in Orange County, California: The La Habra Collaborative (La Habra, CA), and the Orange County Food Access Coalition (Santa Ana, CA). The leadership of the networks completed a survey relating to the composition of the networks and their structures.;Findings. The two collaborative networks were made up of actors who occupy professional and other civic roles that come vested with some level of public trust or authority/mandate to act. Examples include elected/appointed officials and those with licenses/credentials issued by a governing body. The practice of either designing or accepting the structure of a network to include actors vested with public trust or authority/mandate to act may be viewed as a legitimating function (actor as mediating variable).;Conclusions and recommendations. Network actors brought a level of legitimacy to the network. Research into the democratic legitimacy of collaborative networks should include investigating the composition of the network and actor roles outside of the network. Attempts at explaining, categorizing for creation of typology or hypothesis building, must include consideration of the individual actor. Recommendations for public administration practitioners include researching any offer for participating in a collaborative network (specifically expectations of the public administrator). Practitioners should consider collaborative networks as potentially legitimate, effective, and efficient models of service delivery or solution/mitigating alternative discovery.