Program on Networked Governance - John F. Kennedy School of Government

Welcome to The Program on Networked Governance

The traditional notion of hierarchical, top down, government has always been an imperfect match for the decentralized governance system of the US. However, much of what government does requires co-production of policy among agencies that have no formal authority over each other, fundamentally undermining the traditional Weberian image of bureaucracy. Networked governance refers to a growing body of research on the interconnectedness of essentially sovereign units, which examines how those interconnections facilitate or inhibit the functioning of the overall system. The objective of this program is two-fold: (1) to foster research on networked governance and (2) to provide a forum to discuss the challenges of networked governance.

David Lazer, Director

Projects
	Connecting to Congress
	DNA in the Criminal Justice
	Knowledge Sharing and Networking among State Health Officials
	Networks & Teams
	PNG Working Paper Series
	Cambridge Colloquium on Complexity and Social Networks (CCCSN)
	The Trans-Atlantic Initiative on Complex Organizations and Networks (TAICON)
	Social Network Analysis
	The National Center for Digital Government (now at UMass Amherst)

Highlights of past events & news

CCCSN events archiv (2001 - present)

TAICON events archive

02/11/2008- PNG/CCCSN Seminar
"Evolutionary dynamics of cooperation"
Martin Nowark, Harvard University
Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor Littauer Bldg, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

02/25/2008- PNG/CCCSN Seminar
"The value of business networks: evidence from an emerging economy"
Asim Khwaja, Harvard University
Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor Littauer Bldg, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

03/03/2008- PNG
"The hive mind: experiments and models of human collective behavior"
Robert Goldstone, Indiana University
Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor Littauer Bldg, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

04/09/2008 -PNG Seminar
"From the Bottom-up: Building the 21st Century CIA"
Sean Dennehy, Chief of the CIA Intellipedia Development Cell, and Don Burke, Intellipedia Doyen
Bell Hall, 5th Floor Belfer Building, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

04/14/2008 -PNG Seminar
"The Power of Simmelian Ties in Organizations"
David Krackhardt, Carnegie Mellon, Heinz School
Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor Littauer Bldg, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Blog

Please take a look at the entries on our blog and participate in the discussion. The objective of this blog is to offer a forum for the discussion of the intertwined subjects of network analysis and complex systems theory. Click here to go to the Complexity and Social Networks Blog

Latest Entries:

- International Meeting on Methodology for Empirical Research on Social Interactions, Social Networks, and Health by Stan Wasserman
- From the Bottom-up: Building the 21st Century CIA by David Lazer
- Think Facebooking is a waste of time? Think again... by Maria Binz-Scharf
- The Virginia Tech Symposium on Enhancing Resilience To Catastrophic Events Through Communicative Planning by David Lazer
- Finding Political News Online, the Young Pass It On by David Lazer

Upcoming Events

Video now available for: The Eric M. Mindich Conference on Computational Social Science December 7, 2007

06/13-14/2008 - The Harvard Networks in Political Science Conference (with pre-Conference Workshops June 11 & 12)
Please visit the conference website to register and for more information.

(cancelled on 4/21!) Rescheduled to April 28 - PNG Seminar
"Sampling random networks to discover structure: models and methods"
Patrick Wolfe and Benjamin Olding, Harvard University
Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor Littauer Bldg, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

05/05/2008 -PNG Seminar
"Institutional Change and Embeddedness: Caste and Gender in Financial Cooperatives in Rural India"
Guy Stuart, Harvard University
Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor Littauer Bldg, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

*A light lunch will be served at each seminar.

You can access all documents of past events in our archive.

Featured Research and News
	Please join us in the effort to build/create the first Google-Maps mash-up of the global research community on social networks. Please go to the following website called Sociallight and add your or other peoples information (location, name, research interest, URL) to our channel/map called "Social Networks". Registration is necessary to add a marker but is free and can be done in less than 5 minutes.

David Lazer and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger's Edited Volume Governance and Information: From Electronic Government to Information Government (MIT Press 2007) is now available!


Sunday, April 2, 7 p.m. EST - 60 Minutes "NOT SO PERFECT MATCH" David Lazer and Fred Bieber's research on familial searching was featured in a story on CBS News program 60 Minutes Click to watch the program!

The Center for European Studies at Harvard Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 4:15-6:00pm "The Information Society and the Democratic Process: A Take on the French Elections" Busch Hall, Cabot Room, 27 Kirkland Street [directions] Cambridge, MA 02138

Article about David Lazer's Kennedy School course "Building Organizational Social Capital" in The Korea Times on April 3, 2007 "Organic Leadership Via Networking."

David Lazer quoted in, "Feds welcome expanded DNA tests" Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, February 26, 2007.

David Lazer quoted in, "Many DNA matches aren't acted on" USA Today, January 4, 2007.

David Lazer quoted in "Proposed S.C. law would require DNA samples of anyone arrested" Augusta Chronicle, January 4, 2007.

Map of 311 / N-1-1 government contact center non-emergency services projects in the U.S. / Canada / World Alexander Schellong: Workshop Introduction to Citizen Relationship Management for Mexican administration executives at ITESEM (Tec de Monterrey) 08/16/2006

This figure by David Lazer/ Ines Mergel/ Allan Friedman plots the citation patterns of social network papers published in 2005 in the American Journal of Sociology.

Ines Mergel presented "Research on Social Networks": Swiss scientists presentation with special guest, State Secretary for Economic Affairs, Jean-Daniel Gerber , at the Swiss Consulate, 06/06/2006

Ines Mergel/ David Lazer: Tutorial on Application of Social Network Analysis in Digital Government Research dg.O 2006, San Diego (Program, Handouts, Presentations) 05/24/2006

Frederick Bieber, David Lazer and Charles Brenner Science paper on "Finding Criminals Through DNA of Their Relatives" appears on Harvard University Gazette / CNN.COM / MSNBC / ABC News / Boston Globe / New York Times / Washington Post / Chicago Tribune / The Seattle Times / LA Times / FoxNews / Forbes / USAToday / Pravda / Canada.com / SF Chronicle / Heise.de / Phsyorg.com / Officer / BBC News / NPR

UMass Amherst INFORMS Spring 2006 Seminar Series schedule is now online.

"The internet improves Americans’ capacity to maintain their social networks and they gain a big payoff when they use the internet to activate those networks to solicit help." new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. PNG Blogger and former NCDG Fellow Jeff Boase co-authored this study.

KSG Working Paper (#RWP05-058): "The Parable of the Hare and the Tortoise: Small Worlds, Diversity, and System Performance", by David Lazer and Allan Friedman, Submitted: 10/25/2005

David Lazer on "Fears over transplant DNA mix-ups" BBC News, 10/27/2005

David Lazer on issues of "Expanding DNA databases". September 29, 2005, on WAMU 88.5 FM radio (American University Radio).

Ines Mergel/David Lazer: Tutorial on Application of Social Network Analysis in Digital Government Research dg.O 2005 , Atlanta (Program, Handouts, Presentations)

David Lazer and Frederick Bieber article in the New Scientist October 23, 2004, on whether a person's DNA should be used by the law to carry out surveillance on their family.

NCDG Panel at IEEE workshop: Engineering Governance: Design, Public Value, and E-government.

Web Media Diversity Resource Page: An essay and links on power laws, the Web and media concentration.

Acknowledgment and Disclaimer: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0131923.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).