Who Joins a Forum—And Who Does Not?—Evaluating Drivers of Forum Participation in Polycentric Governance Systems

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Mario Angst,Jack Mewhirter,Danielle McLaughlin,Manuel Fischer
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13427

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited,

the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Abstract: In polycentric governance systems, decisions that influence a given policy issue are often made across a

series of forums: venues where actors meet to resolve collective action problems. Here, we examine who does and does

not participate in forums, and the factors driving that participation. We analyze forum participation patterns of

307 actors involved in Swiss water governance, who could participate in water governance forums. We find that the

majority of actors do not participate in any forums. Results from a Bayesian multilevel logistic regression model show

that especially those concerned with a broader range of policy issues and those that have more organizational resources

at their disposal are more likely to participate. To a lesser extent, this also holds for organizations that represent policy

beliefs consistent with median beliefs in the system. A belief that increased cross-sectoral coordination is needed to

promote more effective governance does not have a discernible impact on participation. These results question the

integrative characteristics often attributed to forums in polycentric governance more generally.

Evidence for Practice

• Forums bring together a diversity of actors to foster coordination in polycentric governance systems.

• Yet, forums are not per se representative, as specific types of actors tend to select into forums rather than

others.

• We find that generally, actors with more resources and a broader issue portfolio are more likely to participate

in forums.

• Our results question the integrative role of forums; when it comes to assessing their impact, investigating

who is left outside should be considered as important as evaluating what happens within forums.

Resource governance (e.g., of a watershed

or forest) is often challenging due to the

existence of interconnected collective action

problems that span jurisdictional boundaries

(Lubell2013). Against this complexity, hierarchical

decision-making structures have proven largely

ineffective at addressing policy problems (Emerson,

Nabatchi, and Balogh2012). Instead, resources tend

to be governed through polycentric systems that

feature networks of policy actors interacting across

a series of forums: institutionalized decision-making

venues where relevant actors repeatedly interact

and (potentially) develop solutions to problems

that impact their mutual interests (Berardo and

Lubell2016, 2019; Bryson, Crosby, and Stone2006;

Fischer and Leifeld2015). Within forums, actors

representing various government agencies, NGOs,

interest groups, and private entities negotiate over

viable policy solutions, often lobbying for solutions

that align with their organizational interests

(Mewhirter, Coleman, and Berardo2019): the

extent to which actors prioritize solutions that best

address the policy problem relative to those that

yield disproportionate benefits varies across actors in

the system (McAllister, McCrea, and Lubell2014).

In addition to deriving policy solutions, actors may

possess other organizational goals that spark their

forum participation including, for example, building

political networks, influencing agenda setting, and/

or augmenting organizational reputation (Fischer and

Leifeld2015; Koontz and Johnson2004).

Prior research in this area has focused on

understanding how the dynamic linkages of actors

and forums impact the effectiveness of individual

forum outputs and the governance system as a whole

(Bodin2017; Lubell, Mewhirter, and Berardo2017).

Findings suggest that one of the most consistent

determinants of forum and system effectiveness

involves participant composition, that is, who

participates within and across forums (Fischer and

Schläpfer2017; Lubell, Mewhirter, and Berardo2017;

Mewhirter, McLaughlin, and Fischer2019).

While these studies demonstrate that achieving

forum and system success is largely impacted by

securing meaningful participation from a range of

Who Joins a Forum—And Who Does Not?—Evaluating

Drivers of Forum Participation in Polycentric Governance

Systems

Jack Mewhirter

Mario Angst Danielle McLaughlin

Manuel Fischer

University of Zurich, Digital Society Initiative

University of Cincinnati

University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources and

the Environment

University of Bern

Research Article

Manuel Fischer is a research group

leader in Policy Analysis and Environmental

Governance at Eawag (Swiss Federal

Institute for Aquatic Research) and a

professor at the Institute of Political

Science at the University of Bern. His

research focuses on environmental

policy and governance networks, policy

processes, cross-sectoral governance, and

social-ecological networks, among others

in areas such as water protection, water

infrastructure, energy, or biodiversity.

Email: manuel.fischer@eawag.ch

Danielle M. McLaughlin is a post-

doctoral researcher at the University of

Arizona. Her research focuses on the

impact of institutions in solving collective

action problems mainly in the context of

environmental policy.

Email: mcglaugdi@mail.uc.edu

Jack M. Mewhirter is an associate

professor in the Department of Political

Science at the University of Cincinnati. His

research focuses on cooperation problems

and policy influence in complex governance

systems. Most of his work is done in the

context of regional water governance

systems.

Email: mewhirjk@ucmail.uc.edu

Mario Angst is a post-doctoral researcher

at the University of Zurich. His research

focuses on governance networks and

the role of digitalization in sustainability

governance.

Email: mario.angst@uzh.ch

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 4, pp. 692–707. © 2021 The

Authors. Public Administration Review

published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on

behalf of American Society for Public

Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13427.

Who Joins a Forum—And Who Does Not?—Evaluating Drivers of Forum Participation in Polycentric Governance Systems 693

key actors (Bodin2017; Bodin and Crona2009; Smaldino and

Lubell2011), assessments related to actor-level factors that drive

forum participation are limited (see Olivier and Berardo2021 as an

exception).

In this article, we fill this gap by developing a series of hypotheses

regarding the actor-level factors that affect forum participation.

Similar to studies examining the multitude of forum features

influencing forum outputs (see Fischer and Schläpfer2017;

Lubell, Mewhirter, and Berardo2017), we recognize the

likelihood of a myriad of actor-level variables driving actor

participation efforts. As one of the first studies designed to

test actor-level variables on participation patterns, we draw on

arguments spanning theories of polycentrism (Ecology of Games:

Lubell2013; Berardo and Lubell2019; Ostrom2010) and

collective/collaborative decision-making more generally (Ansell

and Gash2008; Koontz and Thomas2006) to narrow the scope

of theoretically relevant variables to a cohesive set of factors.1

Specifically, we argue that the number of policy issues an actor is

active in, the extent to which an actor’s policy beliefs deviate from

median beliefs in the system, the extent to which an actor believes

that cross-sectoral coordination is needed to promote effective

governance, and an actor’s resource capacity will impact forum

participation efforts.

Our empirical analyses make use of survey data collected from

307 actors involved in Swiss water governance. The survey allows

us to examine whether and to what extent these actors select into

10 of the most central water governance forums operating at the

national level. We find that the majority of actors involved in Swiss

water governance do not participate in any of the listed forums.

Results from a Bayesian multilevel logistic regression model show

that especially the breadth of actors’ issue portfolio and the amount

of resources at their disposal influences forum participation. The

amount their policy beliefs deviate from median beliefs in the

system has a likely negative impact, whereas there is no robust effect

of actors’ perceived need for coordination in governance.

As opposed to other studies that only evaluate participation

efforts of forum participants (Fischer and Maag2019; Hileman

and Bodin2019; Mancilla García and Bodin2019; Mewhirter,

Coleman, and Berardo2019), our sample does not discriminate

in this regard and includes data covering a much broader swath of

potential forum participants. Crucially, this includes actors who do

not (but could) participate in any forums. Studying actors who do

and do not participate in forums helps us avoid a possible selection

bias in analyzing what drives participation: a likely occurrence if

only forum participants are studied.

The substantive and theoretical implications of this paper are

significant for several reasons. First, assessing forums by exclusively

examining participants disregards existing concerns in the literature

that forums may perpetuate power asymmetries and generate

inequitable policies that simply reinforce certain interests (Bidwell

and Ryan2006; Choi and Robertson2014; Fung2015; Scott

and Thomas2017). It also highlights the limitations of political/

institutional opportunity structures purportedly created by forums

designed to overcome the challenges associated with hierarchical

decision-making. If forums are asymmetrically dominated by actors

with broad issue portfolios, average beliefs, and significant resources,

more marginalized efforts/interests may be stymied (Choi and

Robertson2014; Koontz and Thomas2006; Reed2008).

Forums in Polycentric Governance Systems

The existence of policy forums designed to manage complex

interconnected collective action problems is a reality for the vast

majority of resource governance systems (Berardo and Lubell2019;

Cairney, Heikkila, and Wood2019).2 Forums are established for

many reasons, but notably due to “sector failure” (Bryson, Crosby,

and Stone2006) or “sector interdependence” where cross-sectoral

coordination is seen as an efficient mechanism to solve complicated

policy problems (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone2006; Emerson,

Nabatchi, and Balogh2012; Maag and Fischer2018). Forums

function as venues for recurring and organized interactions among

actors such as government agencies, NGOs, and interest groups.

Collectively, the broader range of authority and diverse knowledge

base of participants allows for the (potential) generation of solutions

that better resolve underlying policy problems (relative to the status

quo; Fischer and Leifeld2015). Scholars have long recognized,

however, that the benefits ascribed to forums are only actualized

when (1) a critical mass of relevant policy actors participate, (2) all

actors have the capacity to meaningfully engage in policy processes,

and (3) mutually beneficial solutions exist (Lubell, Mewhirter, and

Berardo2017; Scott and Thomas2017). Forums that lack such

conditions are unlikely to generate effective policy outputs (Ansell

and Gash2008).

In contrast to less formal policy networks often discussed in the

literature (e.g., information sharing and reputational networks),

forums tend to be fairly institutionalized in terms of the rules and

norms guiding forum membership as well as deliberation and

rule-making practices (Hamilton2018; Hileman and Bodin2019).

Within and across systems, forums vary with regards to the scope of

issues they address, the types of actors they attract, and their degree of

interdependence with other forums (Berardo and Lubell2019; Fischer

and Leifeld2015; Mancilla García and Bodin2019). While individual

forums are most often structurally independent of one another

(Berardo and Lubell2019), they are often functionally “linked”

when they address overlapping/interdependent policy problems

(Metz, Angst, and Fischer2020) or when they share common

participants (Jasny and Lubell2015; Kimmich2013; Mewhirter and

Berardo2019; Mewhirter, McLaughlin, and Fischer2019). When

linked, actor strategies and forum decisions may be co-determined

by dynamics occurring in linked forums (Kimmich2013;

McGinnis2011; Mewhirter and McLaughlin2021).

This complexity and interdependence of governance systems

exacerbates the challenges actors face on where to invest their

limited resources (Mancilla García and Bodin2019; Mewhirter,

Coleman, and Berardo2019). While actors within forums are

generally interested in resolving forum-specific issues, they

have preferred policy solutions that they pursue during forum

negotiations (Lubell, Henry, and McCoy2010; Scott and

Thomas2017). In addition, actors may have alternate goals they

pursue within forums, which may include fostering organizational

learning, building organizational reputation, serving as neutral

facilitators, and/or setting the agenda (Koontz and Johnson2004;

Malkamäki et al.2019; Scharpf2006; Scott and Thomas2017).