on the role of public management in complex policy settings. We have benefitted from the

various aspects of this research program. Needless to say, this article is the responsibility of the authors only. Desperately Seeking Selznick: Cooptation and the Dark Side of Public Management in Networks Most literature on public sector networks focus on how to build and management such systems and ignore the potential political problems networks can create for organizations. This paper argues that individual network nodes can work to bias the actions of the organization in ways that are likely to benefit the the organization’s more advantaged clientele. The argument is then support with an analysis of performance data from 500 organizations over a five year period. Networks, while greatly benefitting the organization, have a dark side that managers ans scholars need to consider more seriously. 1Desperately Seeking Selznick: Cooptation and the Dark Side of Public Management in Networks Research and popular literature on networks and public management has burgeone