Complex Governance Networks: An Assessment of the Advances and Prospects

The case is made for a complex governance networks conceptualization. The contributions of the literatures on governance, networks, and complexity studies are discussed. Governance researchers challenged the traditional ways of thinking in public policy and administration and highlighted the multi-centered nature of policy and administrative processes. Governance networks researchers applied the refined network concepts and methods to our understanding of governance processes. Complexity researchers provide ontological and epistemological grounding to governance networks studies and conceptual and methodological tools to study the self-organizational, emergent, and coevolutionary processes within and among complex governance networks. It is argued that the concepts and methods of the three streams should be synthesized and that complex governance network researchers should incorporate the insights of well-established theories of policy processes, such as the institutional analysis and development framework and the advocacy coalition framework.