The Political Economy of Public Management

Abstract

This article examines the nature and context of public management in the American Polity. It develops an interorganizational theory approach for the task. This approach analyzes public management from a political economy perspective, modifying organizational concepts for use at the interorganizational level. The utility of the approach is demonstrated by using the Water Resources Interorganizational Network as a case study. The attempt by this network to avoid grappling with the crucial problem of groundwater mining is analyzed by looking at the political nature of the network (its polity) and at the task side (its economy). The article concludes by sketching a general political economy approach to network analysis that illuminates the role of public management in the public policy process.