The need to understand a networked bureaucracy is obvious, but it is unclear if we have made much theoretical headway since the mid-1990s. Most literature has focused on how to manage networked systems, rather than on implications for politics and governance (O’Toole and Meier 2004). O’Toole and Meier argue that networks should be treated as political institutions, since their establishment is often for political reasons (to perhaps avoid having to deal directly with a controversial issue), and always has political implications. Decisions to contract or privatize functions of government are inherently political, as they involve decisions to shift the locus of state power, and certainly represent choices to move public resources to other network members, including private companies or not-for profit organizations. Yet beyond the call by O’Toole and Meier to focus on these political implications, the field has not yet produced the necessary work. Scott Robinson (2006), for example, argues we lack the conceptual tools to understand the governance implications of different types of networks and how political context shapes their creation, membership, goals, and outcomes. Given the explosive growth of networked administration and its poorly understood implications for public policy and effect on democratic values, there can hardly be a better example of the practical and critical need for theory development, not just in the realm of bureaucratic politics, but also in the general field of public administration.