01321nam a22001217a 4500008004100000100004300041245014400084260005400228300003200282520073300314650009901047773005301146210712b           ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aBrorström, Sara and Norbäck, Maria  a‘Keeping politicians at arm’s length’: How managers in a collaborative organization deal with the administration–politics interface  aInternational Review of Administrative Sciences    a86(4), Dec, 2020: p.657-672  aThis study examines the relationship between politicians and managers in a Swedish city. The context is a collaborative organization responsible for drafting and implementing the vision and strategies for a city organization, and for future development of the downtown river area. The article examines the efforts of city managers to manage the relationship with city politicians. We illustrate how the managers strive to manage an appropriate ‘arm’s-length’ relationship with the politicians by navigating in and out of the ‘purple zone’ of the politics–management interface, and how the context of collaborative organizations seems to increase the amount of time public managers spend in this zone. – Reproduced   aCollaborative organizations, Politics–administration dichotomy, Public managers, Purple zone  aInternational Review of Administrative Sciences