Introduction

In 2003, the BCJ (Brasil Cresce Junto: Brazil Grows Together) programme was created in a Brazilian state, in order to provide integrated educational, health, and social services to disadvantaged families and their children. With this aim in mind, the state government invited municipalities to join the programme. While local committees oversaw the work of sending staff to visit families’ homes, the state committee supervised the local committees in order to guarantee that standards were followed. In order to promote the programme, the state's health department transferred funds directly to the municipal health department's account. The municipality, in turn, had to supplement the state's funding with its own contribution. The programme experienced a fast rate of adherence among municipalities, accompanied by an increased number of children covered until 2011 (see Figure 1). During this year, the state programme managers conducted a sharp reduction in coverage due to concerns over social impact and priorities. Moreover, the programme led to a rescaling of its governance structure: BCJ was reorganised, reinforcing the state level evaluation prerogative. This scalar shift also led to a rapid change in inter-level governance relations.

While network governance has emerged as a central topic in public administration, little is known about how governance pressures cascade into rescaling. Network governance has been identified as not only a viable, but a necessary governance mode, when either pure market or hierarchical forms of public policy governance do not suffice (Torfing et al, 2012). Furthermore, network governance has been granted the aura of an alternative to state-centric modes of control. While the phenomenon of network governance has been widely explored in the extant literature, it is only recently that scholars have specified the mechanisms explaining why some networks are able to attain long-term sustainability while others fail to even pass an initial stage (for example, Abers and Keck, 2013). There does not need to be a full disruption of operations or a complete absence of policy implementation in order for a network failure to be observed. As I shall argue in this chapter, network failure may occur whenever this mode of governance is substituted by other modes, leading to impoverished collaboration and the alienation of key stakeholders.