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Talking About Government

a b
Christopher Pollitt & Peter Hupe
a
Public Management Institute Katholieke Universiteit ,
Leuven, Belgium E-mail:
b
Department of Public Administration Erasmus ,
University Rotterdam , The Netherlands E-mail:
Published online: 05 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: Christopher Pollitt & Peter Hupe (2011) Talking About Government,
Public Management Review, 13:5, 641-658, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2010.532963

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 Abstract
TALKING ABOUT
This article examines the phenomenon of
‘magic’ concepts – those key terms which GOVERNMENT
seem to be pervasive among both academics
and practitioners. Within that category our The role of magic concepts
focus is on ‘governance’, ‘accountability’ and
‘networks’. Our prime purpose is to map their
meanings and how they are used. Following
Christopher Pollitt and
an analysis of a wide range of literature – Peter Hupe
both academic and practitioner – we find that
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these concepts have properties in common Christopher Pollitt

which help promote their popularity. A high
degree of abstraction, a strongly positive
normative charge, a seeming ability to
dissolve previous dilemmas and binary
oppositions and a mobility across domains,
give them their ‘magic’ character. Limitations
are also identified. Magic concepts are useful,
but potentially seductive. They should not be
stretched to purposes for which they are not
fitted.
Public Management Institute
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Belgium
E-mail: Christopher.Pollitt@soc.kuleuven.be
Peter Hupe
Department of Public Administration
Erasmus University Rotterdam
The Netherlands
E-mail: hupe@fsw.eur.nl

Key words
Accountability, discourse, governance, gov-
ernment, networks, political language, rheto-
ric, transparency

Vol. 13 Issue 5 2011 641–658

Public Management Review ISSN 1471-9037 print/ISSN 1471-9045 online
Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2010.532963
 642 Public Management Review

‘Logomachy’ – the battle for theologically-correct power-words – is central to the world of government
and bureaucracy.

(Hood 2005: 12)

INTRODUCTION

Governance, accountability and networks – it might be thought that everything that could be
said about these terms has already been said. They are currently among the most-used
concepts in the field of public management. Yet we want to argue that they have important
common properties which have not been fully recognized. We focus on the ways in which
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these concepts can be and are used in both scholarly and practitioner discourse. We suggest
that they share a specific set of characteristics which help explain their very wide usage.
Within the discourse about government there is only a limited number of words
displaying such rhetorical advantages. Because of their broad scope, great flexibility and
positive ‘spin’ we dub them ‘magic concepts’. We select three for closer examination –
governance, accountability and networks. We also point to common weaknesses and
limitations. This is not, however, intended to be a ‘demolition job’. We accept that magic
concepts like these are pervasive in public life. Our goal is better to understand their
nature, so that they can be used where they are functional, and avoided where they are not.

FRAMEWORK AND APPROACH

Shared characteristics

This article is a study of words and how they are being used. It therefore draws upon
the large body of academic literature that has flowed from the ‘linguistic turn’ in the
social sciences. This concern with words, argument, rhetoric, narrative and discourse
has been articulated in many ways. In the field of public policy and management these
have included the ‘argumentative turn’ (Fischer and Forester 1993), ‘evidence,
argument and persuasion’ (Majone 1989) and the ‘new rhetoric’ (Smullen 2010), but
also discursive analysis (Dryzek 1990), discourse analysis (Hajer 1995), narrative policy
analysis (Roe 1994; Yanow 1996) and deliberative policy analysis (Hajer and Wagenaar
2003). Earlier, Edelman (1977) had undertaken path-breaking work on the uses of
political language. However, this is not a study that holds hard and fast to one particular
theory or method. It accepts the general point that ‘language doesn’t just mirror reality;
it actively shapes the way we perceive and understand it’ (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003:
14) and uses that insight to make a tour d’horizon of a lot of academic and practitioner
literature. It does not employ those specialist techniques designed for the
deconstruction of individual texts (see, for example, Titscher et al. 2000 or Smullen
 Pollitt & Hupe: Talking about government 643

2010). The reason for this is not least that there is far too much ground to cover. What
is sought is an overview, not a fine dissection of particular documents.
An interest in the language and argumentation of public administration preceded the
‘linguistic turn’ and has not been confined to specialists in rhetoric or linguistics. Key
mainstream writers in Public Administration suggested that many of its fundamental
propositions are either proverbial (Simon 1946) and/or binary (Hood and Jackson
1991) or even quadruple (Hood 1998). From the proverbial or binary perspectives each
individual proposition appears to consist of a common sense claim, but there also exists
an opposite claim, which seems equally sensible. Thus, for example, decentralization is
good (local knowledge/faster decisions/better communication/more participation) but
centralization is also good (economies of scale/critical mass of expertise/unified
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steering and strategy – Pollitt 2005). Our own approach falls mainly within this more
‘common-sense’ tradition.
Our hypothesis is that one of the most attractive rhetorical properties of ‘magic
concepts’ is that they appear to overcome the proverbial or binary character of previous
key propositions. Magic concepts are very broad, normatively charged and lay claim to
universal or near universal-application. They do not easily admit ‘opposites’; certainly
not ones which most people would want to support. For example, for ‘governance’ it is
not clear what its opposite is, or why someone would wish to oppose ‘accountability’.
Magic concepts thus share at least the following characteristics:

1 Broadness. They cover huge domains, have multiple, overlapping, sometimes

conflicting definitions, and connect with many other concepts. They have large
scope and high valency.
2 Normative attractiveness. They have an overwhelmingly positive connotation; it is
hard to be ‘against’ them. Part of this is usually a sense of being ‘modern’ and
‘progressive’ – often replacing something which is now alleged to be out-of-date
(e.g. networks replace bureaucracy and/or hierarchy).
3 Implication of consensus. They dilute, obscure or even deny the traditional social
science concerns with conflicting interests and logics (such as democracy versus
efficiency, or the profit motive versus the public interest).
4 Global marketability. They are known by and used by many practitioners and
academics – that is, they are fashionable. They feature frequently in official
policy documents, the titles of reform projects and new units in both
governmental and university departments. The concepts provide themes for
academic conferences, subjects for seminars and titles for journal articles.

Selection of concepts

Our initial perception is that there is a small family of concepts with the characteristics
indicated above. It includes ‘performance’ (Kettl and Kelman 2007; Bouckaert and
 644 Public Management Review

Halligan 2008), ‘participation’ (Pollitt 2003: ch. 4; Birchall and Simmons 2004; Obama
2009) and ‘innovation’ (Hartley 2005; National Audit Office 2006; Borins 2008)
Obviously, the precise number of magic concepts varies according to exactly how the
criteria suggested above are applied, but in any case the total is limited.
In a single article we can only examine a small number of these concepts in any
depth. We selected three: ‘governance’, ‘accountability’ and ‘networks’, partly because
we believed these to be among the most widely used and partly in order to have two
concepts which have come to particular prominence within the past fifteen years and
one with a longer history (accountability). We use these three concepts to test for the
presence or absence of the characteristics identified in the previous subsection.
A quick survey of five leading Public Administration journals for the five year period
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2004–8 inclusive gives a preliminary indication of academic prevalence. Table 1 shows

how many times our three magic concepts occurred in the titles of their articles.
‘Transparency’ – a term whose use has grown markedly over the past decade – is
here considered to be an aspect of accountability (see later discussion). Table 1 shows
that our three concepts headline frequently, especially governance, which appeared in
the titles of almost 8 per cent of all articles published across the five journals. Taken
together the three account for more than 14 per cent of all article titles published over
the five year period.
This little survey heavily understates the actual usage of these terms, for several
reasons. First, in the table we look at titles only, but some or all of these concepts often
feature in an article without being mentioned in its title. Second, there are many recent
books by leading scholars which include these concepts in their titles (to mention but a
few March and Olsen 1995; Kickert et al. 1997; Rhodes 1997; Kooiman 1999, 2003;

Table 1: Number of article titles in leading Public Administration journals 2004–8 containing one of three key
concepts

Concept PAR J-PART IRAS PA PMR Totals per concept

Governance 16 7 16 28 14 81
Accountability 11 2 4 3 1 21
[Transparencya] 1 0 1 3 2 7
Networks 12 9 3 5 11 40
Total articles per journal 40 18 24 39 28 149
Total articles published 344 139 175 235 160 1,053

Note: a Included as a term subsidiary to ‘Accountability’ – see discussion in text.

Key:
PAR: Public Administration Review.
J-PART: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
IRAS: International Review of Administrative Sciences.
PA: Public Administration.
PMR: Public Management Review.
 Pollitt & Hupe: Talking about government 645

Pierre 2000; Lynn et al. 2001; Hajer and Wagenaar 2003; Mulgan 2003; Dunleavy et al.
2006; Bovaird and Löffler 2009; Hill and Hupe 2009; Castells 2010; Frederickson and
Dubnik 2010; Osborne 2010). Third, the number of major government reports which
also feature one or more of these terms in their titles or as major subheadings is
substantial (again, we can only offer an indicative selection: Government Resolution
1998; Prime Minister 2008; New Zealand Government 2009; Obama 2009). Even
without a more extensive bibliometric study it is therefore clear that all three of our key
terms are prominent in the minds of scholars and practitioners.
We now turn to the substance of the literatures in which these concepts feature. One
immediate problem is that, precisely because they are such popular concepts, the total
literature is impossibly vast. We have therefore focused on academic overviews and
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reviews of these concepts, thereby capturing a great deal of literature, if only second
hand. We have also accessed an unsystematic but substantial collection of government
reports and speeches.

GOVERNANCE

A standard academic text (Pierre 2000) opens with two experts offering, respectively,
five and seven different meanings for governance (see Hirst 2000 and Rhodes 2000).
Kooiman (1999) finds ten different ways in which the term ‘governance’ has appeared
in the literature thus far. Distinct from corporate governance there is ‘public
governance’ (Kickert 1997), of which ‘local governance’ (Rhodes 1992) seems a
variant. Other labels include ‘new governance’ (Rhodes 1997; Pierre and Peters 2000),
‘multiple governance’ (Hupe and Hill 2006), ‘co-governance’ (Toonen 1990),
‘institutional co-governance’ (Greca 2000), ‘collaborative governance’ (Huxham
2000), ‘governance networks’ (Klijn 2008), ‘hybrid governance’ (Hupe and Meijs
2000),‘operational governance’ (Hill and Hupe 2009) and ‘meta-governance’ (Peters
2010). The introduction to a recent overview distinguishes ‘public governance’ from
‘corporate governance’ and ‘good governance’ and then goes on to distinguish five sub-
types (Osborne 2010: 6–7). Later in the book one academic rails at length against the
variety of definitions in play and tries (almost certainly in vain) to insist on one proper
usage (Hughes 2010). No wonder Bovaird and Löffler (2003: 316) described the
attempts to develop the concept as like trying to ‘nail a pudding on the wall’.
The term governance has been used widely by practitioners as well as academics. In
its 2005 international overview of public management reforms the OECD (2005: 13,
emphasis added) described the central problem as ‘how to organize the public sector so
that it can adapt to the changing needs of society, without losing coherence of strategy
or continuity of governance values’. The then Finnish government entitled their 1998
publication High-Quality Services, Good Governance and a Responsible Civic Society: Guidelines
of the Policy of Governance (Government Resolution 1998). It declared nine ‘goals and
measures of governance’:
 646 Public Management Review

1 Public functions will be continuously evaluated.

2 The responsibility of civil society will be emphasized.
3 The role of government as the political leader will be strengthened.
4 The structure of ministries will be reformed.
5 The systems of accountability will be clarified.
6 The reforms of central government will be continued.
7 The quality and availability of public services will be improved.
8 Continuation of personnel and employer policies.
9 Enhancement of the steering of market-oriented functions.

In the UK a major white paper was The Governance of Britain (Prime Minister 2008).
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As with the Finnish report, it seemed that ‘governance’ was so capacious a concept that
it could accommodate almost everything a government does, and could extend to other
social actors too. It is clear that the number of publications highlighting the term
governance, both official and academic, has risen. It exploded around the turn of the
century (see, for example, Pierre 2000). In a survey of North American public
management scholarship Moynihan (2008) defined ‘new forms of governance’ as a
major growth area. Klijn (2008: 505) affirms that ‘governance’ can be viewed as a
‘growth industry’.
From the late 1990s the World Bank Institute developed a widely cited set of
‘Worldwide Governance Indicators’ (WGIs; see Kaufmann et al. 2007). They define
governance as ‘the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is
exercised’ (Kaufmann et al. 2004: 3). Unfortunately, ‘such a definition is just about
as broad as any definition of ‘‘politics’’’ (Rothstein and Teorell 2008: 168). The
OECD has an equally capacious approach: ‘Governance refers to the formal and
informal arrangements that determine how public decisions are made and how
public actions are carried out, from the perspective of maintaining a country’s
constitutional values in the face of changing problems’ (OECD 2005: 16). Since
about 2000 the term ‘good governance’ has spread pandemically through the
community of international organizations concerned with public administration
(OECD, UN, World Bank).
In all this there may be a rough common core residing in the notion that steering
society or making policy increasingly requires the active participation of a range of
actors in addition to government itself. This broad thought alone, however, is hardly
new and does not explain why the term has achieved such dominance.
How has the burgeoning popularity of the term been assessed? Frederickson (2005:
289–91) strongly challenges the concept. First, it is fashionable, and may prove
ephemeral. Second, it is woolly. Third, it is value-laden. Fourth, many scholars are,
implicitly or explicitly, claiming that governance is about change and reform (which
Frederickson disputes). Fifth, from some governance perspectives, theory and research
focused on government in the narrow sense are mistakenly rejected as outdated.
Frederickson is not alone in his criticism. In a recent review of yet another book on
 Pollitt & Hupe: Talking about government 647

governance (Chhotray and Stoker 2009) Moran remarks that ‘this is a celebrity concept
with a limited shelf life’ (Moran 2009: 983). According to Hirst (2000), governance is
also essentially an elite term, in the sense that it is commonplace among academics,
politicians and other public officials but not at all a ‘word on the street’. Furthermore it
is often overlooked that it carries a definite ideological charge, in so far as it ‘sees
government as only one institution among many in a free market society’ (Stivers 2009:
1095).
The concept draws strength from its claim to represent a wider, more inclusive
concept than ‘government’ alone (broadness). Yet government is not its opposite,
but rather one of its elements. ‘Good governance’ is obviously normative. Who
could favour ‘bad governance’? It also masks traditional social science concerns with
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conflicting interests and logics. Good governance is said to entail the steering of
society through networks and partnerships between governments, business
corporations and civil society associations. The implicit assumption is that if ‘good
governance’ is used, these three segments in the public domain will then find a
common interest. The concept of governance thus appears to transcend previous
tensions and contradictions, such as public versus private, or bureaucracy versus
market (global marketability).

ACCOUNTABILITY

Accountability features heavily in the practitioner literature in many countries. For

instance, in its 2005 review Modernising Government the OECD (2005: 83–104) devotes
an entire chapter to ‘modernising accountability and control’. This focuses on recent
developments in internal control systems and external audit. The conclusion is that ‘in
the past two decades, new technologies, privatisation and new forms of management
have changed the way governments operate, but have also created a need for new ways
of making governments accountable for what they do’ (2005: 100). Echoes of this can
be heard in a number of the publications of the US Government Accountability Office
(significantly retitled from its previous Government Accounting Office in 2004 – see
www.gao.gov).
The concept is also prominent in the academic literature. A recent American work
makes accountability central in a far-reaching diagnosis of the weaknesses of the US
federal government (Kettl 2009). Kettl lists nine different accountability mechanisms
which, he argues, need to be blended differently to suit different public tasks. He sees
little understanding of this complexity from many governance actors – especially
Congress – who tend to be fixated on just one or two simple types of accountability.
Accountability is of special interest as a concept that has been at the core of our field
for a long time, but which has undergone both an expansion of meanings and an
apparent resurgence of popularity within the past two decades. A classic definition from
fifty or more years ago would have focused on the two-dimensional rendering of
 648 Public Management Review

specific formal accounts to superior authorities (Bovens 2005: 182–3). A modern

extension of this would be Behn’s (2001) idea of ‘360-degree accountability’: ‘Each
individual who is part of a public agency’s accountability environment would be
accountable to all the others’ (2001: 199–201). A further expansion has come with the
rise of a debate around transparency – a term which most scholars would see as closely
allied to accountability (Hood 2007; World Bank 2008; Obama 2009). Hence our
inclusion of information on transparency in Table 1. The notion of transparency
embodies the ideas of openness and government according to fixed rules, both of which
are partly constitutive of accountability.
Thus there appears to be a continuum of meanings. At one pole is the traditional
conception of accountability as a key feature of the chain of delegation implied by
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‘the primacy of politics’. At the other, accountability stands for a general

‘answerability for performance’ (Romzek 2000: 22). Central questions are who is
the accountor and who is the accountee or forum? Day and Klein (1987: 26) speak of
multiple accountabilities, recognizing that the answers to both questions can vary
enormously. Thompson (1980: 905) is one of several who note that: ‘Because many
different officials contribute in many ways to decisions and policies of government,
it is difficult even in principle to identify who is morally responsible for political
outcomes’. Bovens (2006) writes of: ‘the relationship between an actor and a
forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain and justify his or her
conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgement, and the actor may face
consequences’. Bovens (2005: 186) speaks of ‘the problem of many hands’ but goes
on to draw attention to the question of who is the accountee as ‘the problem of
many eyes’.
Behn’s (2001) idea of ‘360-degree’ accountability signals that in principle the
range of accountors and accountees is endless. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the
number of typologies is large. Dubnick (2005; see also 2008) distinguishes
the various forms of accountability in terms of arena, social context, practices and
mechanisms. He refers to the typologies formulated by Romzek and Dubnick
(1987), Emanuel and Emanuel (1996), Ebrahim (2003) and Grant and Keohane
(2005). Hupe and Hill (2007) developed a typology in the form of a three-by-three
matrix. They distinguish a political-administrative, a professional and a participatory
set of relationships as ‘accountability regimes’, while in each type individuals,
organizations and aggregate systems can be involved.
The lengthy history of the concept has given rise to an ‘accountability industry’
(Bovens et al. 2008: 226). The term often is used in official government documents. In
The Netherlands, once a year, a parliamentary ‘Accountability Day’ is held (Ministry of
Finance 2009). Bovens identifies both positive and negative functions that public
accountability fulfils in the practice of public administration. The positives are
democratic control, enhancing the integrity of public governance and providing a
safeguard against corruption, improving performance, maintaining or enhancing the
legitimacy of public governance and, finally, a ritual purifying function, to provide
 Pollitt & Hupe: Talking about government 649

‘public catharsis’. The negatives are rule-obsession, proceduralism, rigidity, politics of

scandal, and scapegoating (Bovens 2005: 194).
Normatively, ‘Nobody can be against it’ (Bovens 2005: 182). Authors speak, for
instance, about a ‘feel-good concept’ (Bovens et al. 2008: 239), but also an ‘ever-
expanding concept’ (Mulgan 2003). Dubnick (2008: 1) calls accountability ‘a
normative standard of political and social life’. He identifies ‘six promises of
accountability’: the promise of control (with a focus on inputs); the promise of
ethical behaviour (with a focus on processes); the promise of performance (outputs);
the promise of integrity (inputs), the promise of legitimacy (processes) and the
promise of justice (outcomes). Accountability is also a ‘conceptual umbrella
that covers various other, often highly contested, concepts’ (Bovens et al. 2008:
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226).
A few academics have noted a darker side. Behn (2001: 11–13) refers to an
‘accountability dilemma’ and Dubnick (2005) to an ‘accountability paradox’ – the
paradox being that more accountability does not produce better government. There is
also an ‘accountability trap’ (van Thiel and Leeuw 2003) and an ‘accountability crisis’
(Dowdle 2006). Dubnick (2008: 15–16) faces the possibility that accountability is
‘merely an empty concept, an iconic symbol manipulated for both rhetorical and
analytic purposes to help us rationalize or make some sense of our political world’. Yet
he concludes that accountability is a, or perhaps the meta-problem of modern
governance, as it concerns ‘reconciling the demands of autonomy and the need for
authority’ (2008: 26).
Reading through this voluminous literature (broadness) it is hard to avoid the
conclusion that, although both normatively attractive and ‘hard to oppose’ (implication
of consensus), the concept by itself is not much of a guide to action. It needs to be
‘filled’ with a good helping of contextual and cultural details before it can be
operationalized. Perhaps that is why the concept so effortlessly crosses boundaries
(global marketability).

NETWORKS

In contemporary society networks seem to be everywhere (Castells 2010). There is the

Internet, perhaps the ultimate network. Neurologists describe the human brain in terms
of neural networks. Young professionals are advised to build up their personal
networks. And so on.
Academic typologies are abundant (e.g. Perri 6 et al. 2006). The – vast – literature
not only crosses disciplinary lines but also shows theoretical and methodological variety,
ranging from discourse analysis to formal models (see, for example, Kickert et al. 1997;
Rhodes 1997; Scharpf 1997; Agranoff and McGuire 2001; Mandell 2001; Meier and
O’Toole 2001; Hajer and Wagenaar 2003). All these variants share a stress on ‘mutual
dependencies as the core assumption’ (Klijn 2005: 266).
 650 Public Management Review

Networks are frequently written about as desirable, or even necessary:

Problems cannot be solved by organizations on their own. Hence, hierarchy as an organizing principle
has lost much of its meaning. The model of the ‘lonely organization’ that determines its policy in isolation
is obsolete. . . . Horizontal networks replace hierarchies.

(Koppenjan and Klijn 2004: 3)

Thus networks are envisaged as a more adequate way to make sense of contemporary
complexities.
In a review of the American literature, Agranoff and McGuire (2001: 312)
conclude that networks work well when they are characterized by ‘trust, common
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purpose, mutual dependency, resource availability, catalytic actors, and managerial

ability.’ Unfortunately, this list seems, prima facie, to apply to almost any kind of
organization, not merely to networks. Meanwhile, Milward and Provan (1998)
suggest that, in the cases they studied, an element of stable, hierarchical leadership
may be a key factor in successful local multi-agency service delivery networks. This
finding is controversial for those who see networks as something distinct from and
superior to hierarchies.
Rhodes (2008) distinguishes three main ways of using the term: as a descriptive
metaphor of governments at work; as a theory for analysing government
policymaking; and as a prescription for reforming public management. In public
administration the first meaning is probably the most common – as a metaphor to
describe situations in which more than one actor is involved. Since the 1980s the
notion of networks has gained prominence. Rhodes (2008) defines policy networks
as: ‘sets of formal and informal institutional linkages between governmental and
other actors structured around shared interests in public policymaking and
implementation’.
Barry (2001: 86) also distinguishes three main – but very different – usages. First, in
the face of new technology and globalization, networking is seen as an economic and
political imperative. Thinking and acting in terms of networks provide a ‘third way’ and
a ‘new’ politics. Second, ‘(T)he use of the concept, and the various practices, social
scientific disciplines, policies and technologies with which it is associated, entail an
effort to reconstitute and reorganize the social field’ (2001: 86–7). Third, there are the
more traditional conceptions of social and political networks such as kinship and
patronage.
Many governments have been keen to employ network concepts in their
aspirational pronouncements (e.g. New Zealand Government 2009). They also often
use the network-associated concepts of ‘partnerships’, ‘cross-cutting services’ and
‘joined-up government’. They project a new, capable-yet-benign, image of the State
in which different parts of government smoothly co-ordinate with each other to
produce a ‘seamless service’. In this vision government works in partnership with
private sector and civil society associations to find ‘networked solutions’ to major
 Pollitt & Hupe: Talking about government 651

social and economic problems. The basic reform document of the Blair
administration in the UK made repeated mention of ‘more joined-up and
responsive services’ and a ‘network of local partnerships’ (Prime Minister and
Minister for the Cabinet Office 1999: 32). A sizable Cabinet Office document set
out guidance for ‘cross-cutting’ boundary-spanning/networking types of approach
(Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit 2000). ‘Joining up’ has also been
a prominent theme in many government IT projects (Taylor et al. 2009).
Similar themes, expressed in slightly different language, emerge from a major Australian
government report – Connecting Government (Management Advisory Committee 2004). It
sets out a series of reasons why governments increasingly need to work within a ‘whole of
government’ approach, reaching across internal boundaries and also forming partnerships
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with groups outside government. In Germany, too, the concept appears to be in favour. In
a 2006 report the Government envisaged that: ‘Process-oriented and networked working
will increasingly determine the day-to-day work of public authorities’ (Federal Ministry of
the Interior 2006: 6). In The Netherlands the Ministry of the Interior supports efforts of
local and other co-governments to enhance the co-ordinated delivery of public services
(Ministry of the Interior 2009).
Yet the network approach is not without problems. However convincing it may
seem as a description of recent trends, it sits uneasily with a number of traditional
liberal democratic norms. Networking does not fit comfortably with traditional
concepts of representative ministerial responsibility and accountability (Gains and
Stoker 2009). The explanatory value of the ‘network approach’ has also been criticized.
John (1998: 78), for instance, says that networks are:

both everything and nothing, and they occur in all aspects of policymaking. But the concept is hard to
use as the foundation for an explanation unless the investigator incorporates other factors, such as the
interests, ideas and institutions which determine how networks function.

The network idea is trying ‘to explain something it really only describes’ (1998: 85–6).
John is also concerned that the concept focuses on relationships between actors, the
character of which mainly is determined elsewhere. Network analysis ‘does not account
for how those relationships form and why they change’ (John 1998: 91). Pemberton
(2000: 789, emphases in original) agrees: ‘Policy networks do not explain change.
Policy networks are not an independent variable. It is clear, however, that they are a
particularly important intermediate variable, for change is to be brought about via policy
networks’. Dowding (2001) is a fierce critic of much network writing, which he argues
is frequently metaphorical and descriptive rather than genuinely explanatory. The
findings of much ‘institutionalist’ network research are, in his view, trivial, in that they
‘merely demonstrate what most of us would intuitively believe from more casual,
nonformal observation’ (2001: 89).
Although networks are frequently presented as though they were something new
(or at least rapidly growing) there are at least two reasons for scepticism about this.
 652 Public Management Review

First, it is extremely difficult to count the total number of networks (and no-one
seems to have done it). Second, there are many studies which show networks
playing crucial roles in policymaking and administration many decades ago (e.g.
Pemberton 2000). Overall, therefore, any project for a unified ‘network approach’
seems to be in some disarray. Definitions vary widely, and many are so abstract
that they potentially include a huge range of situations. Arguments rage over
whether networks are to be regarded as metaphors, structures or processes. Few
papers on this topic actually measure the number or size of networks. Much (but
not all) empirical network research ends up ascribing causal powers not so much to
measured network structures as to particular actors. ‘Lessons learned’ and
prescriptive findings tend to be rather general.
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In summary, the concept of a network is broad and normatively attractive; it implies

some attainable consensus and can be used across domains. At the same time it shares
the abstractness and slipperyness characteristic of magic concepts.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Functions

Magic concepts are used daily and globally. They have become standard components of the
public management vocabulary. They can facilitate new orientations and frameworks,
initiate the launch of new research strategies, stimulate campaigns for additional resources,
enthuse staff and assist a number of other developments. Magic concepts have the capacity
to mobilize and to enhance the formation of new coalitions; within academia, within
practice and particularly across their borders. The multiple meanings and ambiguity of such
concepts suggest that they may be used for ‘white magic’ as well as ‘black magic’. Thus,
for example, ‘good governance’ has been used as a heuristic concept that encourages
researchers and practitioners to think of involving a wider range of actors in public
policymaking. Simultaneously, however, the concept has been employed to construct
spuriously precise and reified league tables purporting to show how good governance is
across large numbers of very different countries (Arndt 2008; Pollitt 2010).
The usage of magic concepts is certainly dynamic. They often succeed one or more
predecessors. The latter are written off as out of date (e.g. ‘bureaucracies’ replaced by
‘networks’). Labels change, while the underlying issues themselves seem to be
considered as having become less relevant. For example, the advent of the ‘new public
management’ seemed to reduce the flow of studies of bureaucracy.
Magic concepts are thus as much part of a political as a technical or scientific
vocabulary. As Edelman (1977) discovered, policies may fail while words succeed.
Brunsson (2002) has shown that it is not uncommon for organizations to talk in one way
and act in another. This may be functional, because it enables organizations to meet the
inconsistent expectations and conflicting demands that are imposed on them. And, as
 Pollitt & Hupe: Talking about government 653

we have seen, these concepts are very well suited to absorbing conflicting demands –
although less so for explaining variations between governments.

Limitations

Magic concepts have advantages and limitations. They can perform the functions of
advertising, focusing and legitimizing certain ways of looking at the world and in
recruiting support for certain broad lines of action. However, they should not be
mistaken for clear-cut scientific, technical or operational terms. To struggle to
standardize their usage is to invite frustration. When a researcher or practitioner
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wants to make a particular concept operational, a range of further methodological

and theoretical steps will first need to be taken. The academic community should
guard itself against re-ifying (or, indeed, glorifying) such concepts. They are part of
what we have to deal with, but by themselves they will not take us very far. If we
base our studies too heavily on them we are liable to find ourselves suddenly left in
the graveyard of extinct ideas, as the wagon train of political and managerial fashion
moves on.
One might say that magic concepts are typical of what social theorists term ‘late
modernism’, in the sense that they are of high abstraction and wide generality, and are
usually presented as neutral (Scott 1998). They are not seen as being part of a specific
ideology or group of interests but as somehow standing above and beyond all that. They
are part of a quintessentially modernist narrative of progress. The implied way forward
to a better-governed world is via more governance, more accountability/transparency,
more networks. Frequently, magic concepts are used in an inter-active and mutually
supportive way. Better governance is said to require more accountability, for instance,
or networked approaches are claimed to be more conducive to innovation. While many
keyboards labour to produce analyses and recommendations about how to do ‘good
governance’, and how to smooth the workings of networks, few ask the questions
which go in the opposite direction. In what situations should we avoid networks and
prefer hierarchies; how do we know when we have too much accountability; would the
developing world do better to concern itself with public order and basic infrastructure
than with debates about how to improve its scores for ‘good governance’ (World Bank
2008; Pollitt 2010)?
Equally, to regard magic concepts as offering sets of direct prescriptions for specific
practices is to misinterpret their capacity. One cannot read off particular remedies or
required actions from these concepts; their nature is too abstract and general
(broadness). The relationships, techniques, processes, norms and constraints will all be
substantially different in each new situation. In short, magic concepts do not reconcile
the oppositional proverbs and doctrines which previous generations of public
administration scholars painstakingly documented and discussed. Rather they rise
above them – to a higher level of abstraction – or, if one prefers, they avoid them.
 654 Public Management Review

Magic and beyond

Magic concepts play a central role in the articulation of government reforms. This rhetoric
affects both academia and the world of practice. It helps to set agendas. It provides a
vocabulary for debate. It tends to attract contracts and grants. At the same time magic
concepts have their limitations, and it is when academics or practitioners overlook these
that problems arise. Academics need to acknowledge that magic concepts are not precise
or even stable. Such concepts sometimes fulfil explanatory functions, but only if
positioned, specified, operationalized, and applied in systematic ways. Furthermore, less
fashionable, more traditional conceptual equivalents may well be available. These may
sometimes be preferable to the volatile foundation magic concepts seem to provide.
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Practitioners, meanwhile, should not be seduced into thinking that these apparently
unopposable ideas actually solve previous dilemmas or resolve awkward trade-offs. Neither
do they provide detailed recipes for action. ‘Magic’ is entertaining. It excites discussion,
but when the show is over many hard choices remain.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We are grateful to the referees for their critiques. George Frederickson, Michael Hill
and Guy Peters also made valuable suggestions.

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