The Environmental Performance of Participatory and Collaborative Governance: A Framework of Causal Mechanisms

Many have advocated for collaborative governance and the participation of citizens and stakeholders on the basis that it can improve the environmental outcomes of public decision making, as compared to traditional, top‐down decision making. Others, however, point to the potential negative effects of participation and collaboration on environmental outcomes. This article draws on several literatures to identify five clusters of causal mechanisms describing the relationship between participation and environmental outcomes. We distinguish (i) mechanisms that describe how participation impacts on the environmental standard of outputs, from (ii) mechanisms relating to the implementation of outputs. Three mechanism clusters focus on the role of representation of environmental concerns, participants' environmental knowledge, and dialogical interaction in decision making. Two further clusters elaborate on the role of acceptance, conflict resolution, and collaborative networks for the implementation of decisions. In addition to the mechanisms, linking independent with dependent variables, we identify the conditions under which participation may lead to better (or worse) environmental outcomes. This helps to resolve apparent contradictions in the literature. We conclude by outlining avenues for research that builds on this framework for analysis.     

Network Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance: A Case Study of Swiss Landscape Management

Structural characteristics of social networks have been recognized as important factors of effective natural resource governance. However, network analyses of natural resource governance most often remain static, even though governance is an inherently dynamic process. In this article, we investigate the evolution of a social network of organizational actors involved in the governance of natural resources in a regional nature park project in Switzerland. We ask how the maturation of a governance network affects bonding social capital and centralization in the network. Applying separable temporal exponential random graph modeling (STERGM), we test two hypotheses based on the risk hypothesis by Berardo and Scholz (2010) in a longitudinal setting. Results show that network dynamics clearly follow the expected trend toward generating bonding social capital but do not imply a shift toward less hierarchical and more decentralized structures over time. We investigate how these structural processes may contribute to network effectiveness over time.     

Theories of Governance: Comparative Perspectives on Seattle's Light Rail Project

Governance entails the formulation and implementation of public policies across organizational and sectoral boundaries through coalitions, contracts, and networks. Studies of governance tend to cluster loosely into two theoretic traditions: rational choice and sociological institutionalism. Where the former analyzes actors’ individual interests and information, the latter examines their joint relationships and norms. These different analytic foci can be difficult to reconcile, leaving scholars at a loss as to how to cumulate insights and knowledge across the theoretic traditions. To understand better how the two traditions conflict and support one another in the analysis of governance, this article distinguishes domains of governance and identifies the different theories that the traditions use to study each domain. A case study of a rail transit project compares the insights from these theories, and assesses the quality and the complementarities of the explanations they offer. An analysis of the case generates propositions about the comparative utility of different concepts and theoretic traditions for understanding key governance phenomena.     

Exploring the Conditions for Cooperative Energy Governance: A Comparative Study of Two Asian Pipelines

A central but often unasked question in political and sociological scholarship concerns the conditions that precipitate cooperation on large-scale transnational energy projects, especially among “developing” and “emerging” economies. Using the example of two multi-billion dollar pipeline systems – the Trans-ASEAN Natural Gas Pipeline (TAGP) Network in Southeast Asia and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline in the Caspian Sea – this article explores the factors that result in successfully completed projects, and those that lead to conflict and contention. After drawing from extensive research interviews and field research, the article approaches politics and technology through the lens of science and technology studies. It relies on the interdisciplinary concepts of “relevant social group” and “technological frame” to identify coalitions of actors associated with each pipeline project. The paper then investigates the interests and motivations behind these groups to illuminate the challenges facing the TAGP and those that accelerated the completion of the BTC. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts on the diverse elements needed to incentivise cross-border energy infrastructure, and what these may mean for energy and public policy scholars.     

Collaborative Networks for Effective Ecosystem‐Based Management: A Set of Working Hypotheses

Ecosystem‐based management (EBM) represents a comprehensive approach to better govern the environment that also illustrates the collaborative trend in policy and public administration. The need for stakeholder involvement and collaboration is strongly articulated, yet how and for what purposes collaboration would be effective remains largely untested. We address this gap by developing and evaluating a set of hypotheses specifying how certain patterns of collaborations among actors affect their joint ability to accomplish EBM. Content analyses of management plans drawn from five EBM planning processes in Sweden are combined with analyses of the collaborative networks through which these plans have been developed. Our results indicate that system thinking and the ability to integrate across different management phases are favored by collaborations between different kinds of actors, and by project leaders being centrally located in the networks. We also find that dense substructures of collaboration increase the level of specificity in the plans in regards to explicating constraints on human activities. Having many collaborative ties does however not enhance the overall level of specificity. Our results also show that different network characteristics can give rise to similar EBM outcomes. This observed equifinality suggests there is no single blueprint for well‐performing collaborative networks.     

Stability and Change in Public Policy: A Longitudinal Study of Comparative Subsystem Dynamics

Using the theoretical framework formulated by Baumgartner and Jones in a most similar systems study of Danish civil defense and Danish national home guard policy from 1949 to 2003, this article shows how particular subsystem characteristics affect the magnitude and frequency of policy punctuations. Despite very similar starting points, the two subsystems have experienced radically different policy evolutions since they were created back in 1948 and 1949. The explanation, it is argued, is to be found in a combination of Baumgartner and Jones’ model of issue definitions and conflict expansion on the one hand, and some particular institutional differences in the foundation of the two subsystems on the other. Hence, the aim of the article is to demonstrate that in a long‐term perspective, certain institutional choices not only enhance stability but also increase the likelihood of future conflict expansions and policy punctuations, given the dynamic model of the policymaking process provided by Baumgartner and Jones.     

Applying Policy Process Theories to Environmental Governance Research: Themes and New Directions

Policy scholars have effectively leveraged policy process models, theories, and frameworks to respond to a variety of important environmental questions. For example, how do environmental issues arrive on the agendas of policymakers? What factors contribute to environmental policy change? What are the designs and effects of institutions (e.g., policies or cultural norms) on environmental governance? In this review, we survey the field of policy process scholarship, focusing on environmental governance, with three objectives. The first objective is to catalog the policy process models, theories, and frameworks most often featured in studies of environmental governance. The second is to capture the methodological choices commonly employed in the application of these models, theories, and frameworks in environmental domains. The third is to identify how these approaches deal with issues central to environmental governance research, including time, space, and policy scale. We aim to identify trends and strategies for integrating key considerations of scale into empirical policy process scholarship.