Understanding What Shapes a Polycentric Governance System

Abstract

Recent research has shown that communication networks involving governmental and nongovernmental actors self-organize based on how risk is perceived. According to the "risk hypothesis," actors embedded in governance systems in which there is widespread risk of defection tend to form bonding structures, whereas those in low-risk systems form bridging structures. A parallel strand of research proposes to study complex governance systems composed of multiple actors and the decision-making forums in which they interact. In this article, the authors couple these research threads and show how bonding and bridging structures form when stakeholders participate in three complex governance systems of varying institutional strength. Findings suggest that the prevalence of one type of structure over the other depends on contextual variables such as the stability of the institutions and the occurrence of environmental focusing events that demand quick policy responses. Practitioner Points• Understanding complex governance systems requires knowing how actors participate simultaneously in multiple forums. • Bonding social capital is more valuable for the exchange of overlapping information that can be used to prevent uncooperative behavior, while bridging social capital is more valuable for the acquisition of new information for innovation. • Regardless of the strength of formal institutions in complex governance systems, both governmental and nongovernmental actors tend to join policy forums that are heavily attended. • The shape of governance systems is likely a function of the strength of formal institutions, the organizational capacity of individual policy actors, and the level of centralized authority vested in governmental actors.

Collaborative Environmental Governance, Inter-Agency Cooperation and Local Water Sustainability in China

“…The research was conducted by a collaborative research team with members from universities in China and United States. The survey instrument was adapted from the survey questionnaire used in the Ecology of Games Framework [21], in which we asked the network relationships among policy actors, political activities that these actors participated and various questions that were used in previous EGF studies. The interviewees involve department managers from Dongguan Water Affairs Bureau, Dongguan Environmental Protection Bureau and other water- Along with fast development of manufacturing industries, Dongguan was faced with tremendous challenges in the governance of its water affairs, such as water resource shortage, water pollution, waste of water resource, and conflicts between water demand and water supply.…”

“…The research was conducted by a collaborative research team with members from universities in China and United States. The survey instrument was adapted from the survey questionnaire used in the Ecology of Games Framework [21], in which we asked the network relationships among policy actors, political activities that these actors participated and various questions that were used in previous ) were employed to analyze the network data. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, provincial departments and regional departments, public and other non-state participants were not included in the network boundary.…”

“…Based on the EGF, proposed by Lubell, Scholz and Berardo [21], we designed a questionnaire to investigate the inter-agency cooperation of water governance in Dongguan, with 11 questions covering the objectives, procedures and effectiveness of local water governance. Briefly, this questionnaire includes five aspects, including the evaluation of overall performance of water governance in Dongguan, key responsibilities, coordination circumstance, obstacles of cooperation, and main cooperative partners.…”

Balancing collaboration with coordination: Contesting eradication in the Australian plant pest and disease biosecurity system

“…Recent studies explored the structural patterns of how stakeholders with different interests participate in environmental governance, with a view to identifying if those structures predispose, or result from, collaboration or coordination. Such conceptual approaches have been applied to collaborative water governance Berardo 2014a;Berardo and Lubell 2016), climate change planning (McAllister et al 2014), plant biosecurity , and regional-scale conservation (Guerrero et al 2015a,b). Following these studies, we conceptualise our network as a set of organisational stakeholders who are connected to each other indirectly via mutual participation in the set of committees and working groups (policy forums, see Fischer and Leifeld 2015) which organised the response and subsequent management programs.…”

Evolving polycentric governance of the Great Barrier Reef

“…Because of the suitability of polycentric governance for dealing with complex environmental problems at multiple scales, the polycentric model has gained traction in environmental resilience and adaptation studies (17). These studies have bridged the separate and sophisticated literature on the commons (4), global governance (5), resilience (19), policy networks (20), and advocacy coalitions (21). We now understand, for instance, that the gamut of polycentricism runs from weak coordination to strong polycentric structures (19).…”