Keywords: Public Administration; Social Networks; Governance networks

Justification/Motivation:

The adoption of governance networks as a way of tackling social problems is  increasing in public administration (SORENSEN and TORFING, 2009; KLIJN et al., 2010). The clear separation of roles between social actors and classical public administration has disappeared (MEULEMAN, 2006) and networks are taken as a new policy paradigm (BLANCO et al., 2011). Due to the need to rely on third parties to deliver services, governmental performance depends on its ability to manage partnerships (GOLDSMITH and EGGERS, 2004). Despite the growth of public-private partnerships and the increasing number of research discussing the topic, there are still many questions to be answered. Sorensen and Torfing (2009) separate research in this field in one generation that takes the idea as a novelty and the other that sees network focused on explaining their formation, functioning and development. Lewis (2011) suggests the next generation concentrates on finding better approaches and theoretical frameworks to better analyze network governance.

'The Color of the Culture’ is a network created in 2004 to implement the Law nº 10.639/2003 in the Brazilian schools. It established the national curriculum guidelines for the education of ethnic-racial, and teaching of African-Brazilian history and culture in basic education. In order to attend schools and social institutions across the country, a system of governance of the network was developed and involved the contractual integration of public and private institutions and the procedural coordination of relationships.

Research Problem

Our main goal with this paper is to propose a framework to analyze the structure of governance network, using ‘The Color of the Culture’ as the unity of analysis.

Methods

This is a qualitative research of descriptive nature, using the method of single case study (YIN, 2001). This choice aims to provide a rich description of the social scene and, at the same time, allowing to generalize phenomenon (DYER and WILKINS, 1991; HEDSTROM, 2005). Willing to show evidence of findings, we analyzed primary and secondary data.

Discussion:

We build our framework on three different levels of analysis: (1) the governance is initiated and evolves within a system context, involving political, legal, socioeconomic, environmental variables, identifying opportunities and constraints, influencing performance and outcomes (EMERSON et al., 2012); (2) the partnership formation demands the establishment of specific objectives, adjustment of strategic fit (Nielsen, 2010), recognition of prior experience of partners, characteristics of the context and knowledge (LARSON, 1992); and (3) on the individual level, partners develop common expectations on motives and investments to be made, map out  uncertainties in the field, make agreements on obligations and rules that will guide their behaviour (VAN DE VEN and GORDON, 1984). Formal, informal and psychological contracts that guide the relationship is established. From the contributions of different authors presented hereinabove, the results of cooperative agreements are influenced by its governance structure.

Expected Results:

The research aims to contribute to the development of a framework that includes different levels of analysis: the context, the partnership formation and the individual level. These are taken as important elements to consider when establishing network governance - contractual or procedural - and results. This proposal is based on several authors. The results achieved by network will eventually depend on its governance arrangements which are influenced by the context. Aspects such as type of the social, political and economic aspects, the network structure and the knowledge possession by each player will be applied to the case under research.

REFERENCES

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