Organizational Effectiveness Amid Populist Challenges: A Network Analysis

• In Event: Networks and Collaboration

Abstract

Governmental organizations seek to enhance effectiveness of public services by engaging multiple actors within the processes of policy implementation (Torfing et al. 2012). In large scale disasters, no single organization can operate without the help of other related organizations. This situation reflects a governance paradigm where diverse interests are reconciled through complex processes (Stoker, 2018). Yet, the very concept of diversity and interdependence is fiercely challenged by populists who deny plurality and uphold a leader who claims to discern what people know and want. In such a context, how do multiple government agencies and organizations form network expected to enhance effectiveness in implementation? This research investigates the rationale behind populist arguments and examines its legitimacy using network and archival analysis.

An assumption under the governance paradigm that acknowledges dependence on multiple actors, is that the central authority has the expertise to establish rules, shared understandings, and processes of coordinated outcomes (Stoker, 2018). This is directly challenged by populists who are anti-elitist, anti-pluralist, and support direct representation (Müller, 2017). Yet if public institutions, bureaucratic agencies, and different levels of governments are serving as the channel through which the needs of the ‘people’ are met, the concerns of populists relying on a certain ‘leader’ would not be legitimate. Populists also challenge the use of networks (Stoker, 2018) as a tool for governing, due to the lack of accountability stemming from the absence of external checks. Populists turn against network tools because they create exclusionary environments. If networks implemented in public management are observed to be more inclusive with external actors ensuring accountability, then it is difficult to justify the populist contentions countering network governance.

This research is based on the theory of complex adaptive systems, in which the major characteristic of a system is the ability of its components to adapt or learn (Holland, 1992). To analyze the networks, concepts including ‘weak ties’ (Granovetter, 1977), ‘structural equivalence’ (Burt, 1976), ‘structural holes’ (Burt, 2009) will be adopted from the network literature. This paper examines populist arguments regarding governance by analyzing networks in response to two recent earthquakes in South Korea: the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake and 2017 Pohang earthquake. There could not be much disagreement, even among populists, that achieving effectiveness is critical in disaster, thus, allowing focus on the networks among organizations engaged in disaster operations. Focusing on agencies and related units in levels of governments, I will identify the legally specified networks of organizations that engaged in response operations. The legal networks will be identified from the daily situational reports in each case generated by leading disaster management agency. The effectiveness of the legal networks will be compared to that of the organizational networks identified by newspaper reports on response operations conducted by government agencies and other external actors as favored by populists. Newspaper reports will be utilized as a medium through which populists’ account of response operations is produced and endorsed. According to the preliminary interviews with national and local level officials, though not directly related to the two cases, differences were identified on inter-organizational relationships among actors. In order to attain such perceptual information, network analysis will be complemented by small-n set of semi-structured interviews with officials and managers who have experienced, and were involved in operations in the earthquake cases.

Continuity of function is critical despite exogenous shocks – both social (e.g. reorganization) and natural (e.g. disaster) in government agencies. The public managers’ role is to maintain effectiveness while being responsive to public needs. The results of this research will allow public servants to evaluate the effectiveness of networks of governmental actors, thereby responding to challenges raised by populism.

Author

• Saemi Chang, University of Pittsburgh