The benefits of specialized knowledge in polycentric governance

Abstract

Policy forums bring individual actors together to deliberate on specific policy issues. The literature found that actors' perceptions of forum performance depend on both their individual characteristics (goals, expertise, resources) and forum processes (trust, learning, beliefs). However, we do not know how different combinations of actors, embodying different types of knowledge or expertise, relate to forum performance. We distinguish between policy and institutional specialization. Forum participants can be policy specialists, who are experts on the policy issue, and/or institutional specialists, who are expert of the policy process in the governance system. The former excel at problem definition and facilitation; the latter enable inclusivity. We surmise that higher proportions of specialized actors positively affect the group's perceptions of forum performance in terms of both process and outcomes, particularly in high conflict forums. We test this claim using survey data on 55 policy forums working on adaptation to sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay Area, collected in summer 2018. The empirical findings lend support to our hypothesis as concerns policy specialists but not as concerns institutional specialists. Further research should devote more effort to study how actor composition affects forum performance.

Building blocks of polycentric governance

“…Indeed, polycentric governing arrangements combine distributed power with coordination across various decision‐making venues, these power arrangements are neither static nor conflict‐free (Jenkins‐Smith et al, 2018; Lubell et al, 2020; Pahl‐Wostl & Knieper, 2014; Weible & Heikkila, 2017). In general, further detail on different types of linkages is desperately needed to capture different types of interactions (not just coordination, conflict, information, and resource exchange but also negotiation, appropriation, rhetoric, and resistance) and the way they are infused with different usages of power (e.g., designed, pragmatic, and framing power; Morrison et al, 2019, 2020; Vantaggiato & Lubell, 2022). For example, while the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is constrained in terms of decision‐making power, it still plays a major role in not only implementing public policy (e.g., through administering the Marine Park Act), but also in influencing policies for governing the GBR as a whole through the release of Outlook Reports, which are a major driver of legislative action and longer‐term strategies.…”

Editorial introduction: Exploring theories and subtleties of the policy process

“…Now, moving on to the articles, the first seven contributions discuss various policy theories as they are related to different aspects of the policy process. The articles address topics such as polycentric governance (e.g., Lubell & Robbins, 2022;Vantaggiato & Lubell, 2022), institutional configurations for policy outcomes (e.g., Herzog et al, 2022;Möck et al, 2022), grammar of institutions for complex legal topics (e.g., Olivier & Schlager, 2022;Siddiki et al, 2022), state legislatures' public-facing policy agendas (e.g., Meza, 2022;Sato & Haselswerdt, 2022), consultants' roles in public policy formulation (e.g., Marchevska & Steen, 2022;Vantaggiato & Lubell, 2022), decision makers' attention to experts (e.g., Schiff & Schiff, 2023;Williams, 2021), and policy feedback via economic behavior (e.g., Jacobs et al, 2022;Lacombe, 2022). These articles shed light on the nuances and complexities of policy theory research and invite you to engage with different theoretical perspectives and frameworks.…”

Editorial introduction: An eclectic collection

“…Vantaggiato and Lubell (2022) examine how individual policy actors come together in policy forums in different combinations with different policy expertise to assess how these factors relate to policy forum performance. Distinguishing between policy specialists (who have expertise on the policy issue) and institutional specialists (who possess expertise with respect to the policy process and system of governance), the authors conjecture that higher proportions of specialized actors positively affect the group's perceptions of forum performance, particularly in high conflict forums.…”