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,
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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
(Lubell2013). Against this complexity, hierarchical
decision-making structures have proven largely
ineffective at addressing policy problems (Emerson,
Nabatchi, and Balogh2012). 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
Lubell2016, 2019; Bryson, Crosby, and Stone2006;
Fischer and Leifeld2015). 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 Berardo2019): 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 Lubell2014).
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
Leifeld2015; Koontz and Johnson2004).
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
(Bodin2017; Lubell, Mewhirter, and Berardo2017).
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
Schläpfer2017; Lubell, Mewhirter, and Berardo2017;
Mewhirter, McLaughlin, and Fischer2019).
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 (Bodin2017; Bodin and Crona2009; Smaldino and
Lubell2011), assessments related to actor-level factors that drive
forum participation are limited (see Olivier and Berardo2021 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 Schläpfer2017;
Lubell, Mewhirter, and Berardo2017), 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:
Lubell2013; Berardo and Lubell2019; Ostrom2010) and
collective/collaborative decision-making more generally (Ansell
and Gash2008; Koontz and Thomas2006) 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 Maag2019; Hileman
and Bodin2019; Mancilla García and Bodin2019; Mewhirter,
Coleman, and Berardo2019), 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 Ryan2006; Choi and Robertson2014; Fung2015; Scott
and Thomas2017). 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
Robertson2014; Koontz and Thomas2006; Reed2008).
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 Lubell2019;
Cairney, Heikkila, and Wood2019).2 Forums are established for
many reasons, but notably due to “sector failure” (Bryson, Crosby,
and Stone2006) or “sector interdependence” where cross-sectoral
coordination is seen as an efficient mechanism to solve complicated
policy problems (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone2006; Emerson,
Nabatchi, and Balogh2012; Maag and Fischer2018). 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 Leifeld2015). 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
Berardo2017; Scott and Thomas2017). Forums that lack such
conditions are unlikely to generate effective policy outputs (Ansell
and Gash2008).
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 (Hamilton2018; Hileman and Bodin2019).
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 Lubell2019; Fischer
and Leifeld2015; Mancilla García and Bodin2019). While individual
forums are most often structurally independent of one another
(Berardo and Lubell2019), they are often functionally “linked”
when they address overlapping/interdependent policy problems
(Metz, Angst, and Fischer2020) or when they share common
participants (Jasny and Lubell2015; Kimmich2013; Mewhirter and
Berardo2019; Mewhirter, McLaughlin, and Fischer2019). When
linked, actor strategies and forum decisions may be co-determined
by dynamics occurring in linked forums (Kimmich2013;
McGinnis2011; Mewhirter and McLaughlin2021).
This complexity and interdependence of governance systems
exacerbates the challenges actors face on where to invest their
limited resources (Mancilla García and Bodin2019; Mewhirter,
Coleman, and Berardo2019). 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 McCoy2010; Scott and
Thomas2017). 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 Johnson2004;
Malkamäki et al.2019; Scharpf2006; Scott and Thomas2017).
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