Where Next for Boundaries?

The mainstream public policy and public management literature is in need of the development of a set of theories and concepts that can accommodate considerations of structure and agency and the enactment of different kinds of boundaries within the context of public policy and public management settings. Greater evidence needs to be developed in relation to the most effective forms of boundary work for particular types of boundaries with different aspirations in terms of changing or working across boundaries. The mainstream public policy and public management literatures remain dominated by structuralist accounts of boundaries, where these are predominantly viewed as material and tangible entities, rather than more dynamic considerations of the full range of boundary forms and the ways in which these are enacted by actors. In some senses the conclusions that N. Paulsen and T. Hernes reached from the collection of chapters they curated on boundaries over a decade ago stand.