Physica Public Management and the Metagovernance of Hierarchies, Networks and Markets: The Feasibility of Designing and Managing Governance Style Combinations (Contributions to Management Science)

What is modern governance? Is it the battle against 'old-fashioned' hierarchy, or is it the restoration of key hierarchical values? Is it optimizing network management, or maximizing the benefits of market thinking in the public-sector? This book argues that it is the combination of all this. The next question is: In practice, how do successful public managers design and manage combinations of hierarchical, network and market governance? In other words: what is their rationale to apply metagovernance? Five case-studies show that metagovernance is a public management requisite: it amplifies the variation of actions public managers can take, and it prevents the three ideal-typical governance styles from undermining each other. Similar cases of strategic environmental policy-making in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission and one case of community policing in the Netherlands illustrate that successful public-sector managers are dealing with similar metagovernance challenges in different socio-politico-administrative cultures. Review From the reviews: "Louis Meuleman’s doctoral thesis, Public Management and the Metagovernance of Hierarchies, Networks and Markets. The Feasibility of Designing and Managing Governance Style Combinations clearly is an effort to comprehensively understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of governance mixtures from the standpoint of public managers. … The book is clearly and thoroughly argued and, as a whole, succeeds in answering the research questions formulated at the outset … . Certainly, this book is a very useful contribution … for scholars as well as practitioners." (Judith van der Veer, Acta Politica, Vol. 44 (4), 2009) From the Back Cover What is modern governance? Is it the battle against ‘old-fashioned’ hierarchy, or is it the restoration of key hierarchical values? Is it optimizing network management, or maximizing the benefits of market thinking in the public-sector? This book argues that it is the combination of all this. The next question is: In practice, how do successful public managers design and manage combinations of hierarchical, network and market governance? In other words: what is their rationale to apply metagovernance? Five case-studies show that metagovernance is a public management requisite: it amplifies the variation of actions public managers can take, and it prevents the three ideal-typical governance styles from undermining each other. Similar cases of strategic environmental policy-making in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission and one case of community policing in the Netherlands illustrate that successful public-sector managers are dealing with similar metagovernance challenges in different socio-politico-administrative cultures. "The future will not lie with markets, or hierarchies or networks but with all three and the trick will not be to manage contracts or steer networks but to mix the three systems effectively when they conflict with and undermine one another." Davis and Rhodes (2000: 25): From hierarchy to contracts and back again: Reforming the Australian public sector.