The Politics of Collaborative Public Management

This is a book that provides students of public administration with an approach that allows them to escape from the issues of classic bureaucracy yet confront issues of structure, process and complexity. In addition, it places the reader in a world that is both universal and (as COVID-19 has shown) constantly changing. As such it prepares students for their venture into the field where they are likely to face incredible conflict and demands. It draws on important academic sources and places them in the classic conflict/collaboration dichotomy. Beryl A. Radin, Georgetown University, USA The field of collaborative public management and intergovernmental relations lost a giant when Dr. Bob Agranoff passed away. Fortunately, Agranoff left one last parting gift, helped to completion by his co-author Aleksey Kolpakov, with The Politics of Collaborative Public Management, a must-read for any student of how collaboration is essential to pursue public ends. This book provides a much-needed missing piece to our understanding of collaboration: politics. Drs. Agranoff and Kolpakov artfully incorporate the dynamics of politics into the complicated world of the partnership between public organizations working across sectors and levels. Trevor Brown, Dean of John Glenn College of Public Affairs, Ohio State University, USA In this timely volume, Agranoff and Kolpakov provide an excellent summary of the growing appreciation of collaboration with democratic and bureaucratic contexts. By illustrating the everyday practices of public administrators, they advance an important proposition: that collaboration is neither a new mode of operation nor something to be drawn on just for special occasions. Collaborative management is ubiquitous- from the coordination needed to build a new road or water system to the negotiations needed to carry out more complex intergovernmental relations to the more recent transitions to remote and hybrid workplaces. This is an essential read for anyone looking to build and maintain collaborative capacities for the common good. Christopher Koliba, Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas, USA The Politics of Collaborative Management should be a must-read for every CEO of a non-governmental agency that interfaces with a public bureaucracy-if just in the simple context of being a funding recipient. This is a valuable text for public administration students or other applied fields of study. Drs. Agranoff and Kolpakov do an excellent job of sharing and explaining the evolution of simple bureaucratic functioning to the increasing presence of collaborative management structures and relationships. Likewise, the information shared that portrayed the evolution from bureaucracy to collaboration via a combination of traditional and emergent ideas was invaluable. Art Dykstra, CEO of the Trinity Services Foundation, Human Services organization serving children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities or mental illness in the state of Illinois, USA