Explaining collaboration in consensual and conflictual governance networks
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Author | Antti Gronow,Paul Wagner,Tuomas Ylä‐Anttila |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12641 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Explaining collaboration in consensual
and conflictual governance networks
Antti Gronow|Paul Wagner|Tuomas Ylä-Anttila
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of
Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Correspondence
Antti Gronow, Faculty of Social Sciences,
P.O. Box 18, University of Helsinki,
Helsinki, Finland, 00014.
Email: antti.gronow@helsinki.fi
Funding information
Academy of Finland, Grant/Award Numbers:
266685, 298819, 320780; Helsinki Institute
of Sustainability Science; Koneen Säätiö,
Grant/Award Numbers: 085319, 201804137
Abstract
The conditions under which policy beliefs and influential
actors shape collaborative behaviour in governance net-
works are not well understood. This article applies exponen-
tial random graph models to network data from Finland and
Sweden to investigate how beliefs, reputational power and
the role of public authorities structure collaboration ties in
the two countries’climate change governance networks.
Results show that only in Finland's conflictual climate policy
domain do actors collaborate with those with similar beliefs
and with reputational power, while only in Sweden's con-
sensual climate policy domain do public authorities play
central impartial coordinating roles. These results indicate
that conflict is present in a governance network when
beliefs and reputational power determine collaboration and
that it is absent when public authorities occupy central
roles. They also suggest that relative success in climate pol-
icy action is likely to occur when public authorities take on
network manager roles.
1|INTRODUCTION
In recent decades, researchers have drawn attention to the increasing fragmentation of governance architectures
(Biermann et al. 2009; Osborne 2010), the expanding need for cross-sector and cross-scale coordination (Mukheibir et al.
2013; Hossu et al. 2017), the rise of stakeholder participation (Wang and Wan Wart 2007), the reliance on the expertise
of non-state actors (Jennings and Hall 2011) and the participation of citizens in policy-making processes (Barnes et al.
2003). These and similar types of interdependent and collaborative governance relationships between state and non-state
actors that emerge to address complex policy problems have been labelled governance networks (Ansell and Gash 2008).
Koppenjan and Klijn (2015, p. 11) have defined governance networks as ‘stable patterns of social relations
between mutually dependent actors, which cluster around a policy problem, a policy programme, and/or a set of
Received: 16 November 2018Revised: 11 October 2019Accepted: 13 November 2019
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12641
730 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons LtdPublic Admin. 2020;98:730–745.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm
resources and which emerge, are sustained, and are changed through a series of interactions’. The governance net-
works literature assumes that when actors with different beliefs, interests, resources and roles collaborate, costs can
be cut, efficiencies can be made and conflicts can be resolved. Addressing complex problems that are beyond the
capacity of any single organization is thus made easier. Network approaches to governance can be criticizedfor
assuming that collaboration automatically follows from, for example, similar beliefs (Schlager 1995). Determining
which factors explain collaboration patterns in a governance network can provide insights into how policy actors
negotiate policies (Fischer and Sciarini 2015), help determine if a network is fit for purpose (Bodin and Nohrstedt
2016; Nohrstedt and Bodin 2018), and help explain policy pathways, choices and outcomes (Weible 2005; Calanni
et al. 2010; Calanni et al. 2014). Collaboration relationships, and explaining their formation, thus, are a key issue for
the governance networks literature.
The extant literature on tie formation in governance networks has examined several factors that explain collabo-
rative behaviour: similarity of policy beliefs (Henry 2011; Calanni et al. 2014), reputational power (Leifeld and
Schneider 2012), actors’formal institutional roles (Ingold and Leifeld 2016), as well as competencies (Weible et al.
2018), expertise (Schneider et al. 2003) and trust (Berardo and Scholz 2010). One of the central debates is whether
belief similarity or reputational power matters more (e.g., Matti and Sandström 2013). Reputational power refers to
the assessment of the influence of policy actors as performed by actors themselves, and recently scholars have
argued that the relative influence of beliefs and reputational power on collaboration might be context-dependent: it
may be that similarity of policy beliefs explains collaboration especially in conflictual contexts and reputational power
explains it in consensual ones (Calanni et al. 2014; Weible et al. 2018). However, this suggestion has not been tested
in a comparative setting, and that is what we do in this article. Furthermore, we examine whether the level of conflict
in a policy domain is associated with the role of public authorities in the governance networks. Because of their offi-
cial decision-making power, public authorities are likely to be attractive collaboration partners (Ingold and Fischer
2014; Fischer et al. 2017), which puts them in a unique position from where they can possibly reduce conflict by
facilitating collaboration among actors with different beliefs and resources.
The contribution of this article, thus, is to investigate whether the level of conflict in a governance network is
related to whether belief similarity or reputational power explains collaboration, and to analyse the relationship
between the level ofconflict and participation of publicauthorities. We examine these issues by analysing the climate
change policy domains in Finland and Sweden. This policy domain in Sweden is more consensual, and climate policy
more ambitious, whereas Finland's policy domain is more conflictual and policy less ambitious. Sweden has been con-
sidered a pioneer in climate change mitigation (Sarasini 2009), whereas Finland has been labelled a failed eco-state
(Koch and Fritz2014). Using original survey data,we apply exponential random graphmodels to investigate which fac-
tors are associated with collaborationin the climate change governance networks in the two countries. Our results
show that only in conflictual Finland do actors collaborate with those with similar beliefs and with influential others
(i.e., thosewith reputational power), whileonly in consensual Sweden do public authoritiesplay central impartialcoordi-
nating roles.These results provide evidenceabout which factors underpincollaboration in a conflictual versus a consen-
sual policy domain,and also about which factors mayexplain a country's relative successin climate policy action.
In the next section, we develop our hypotheses and state our expectations for both consensual and conflictual
contexts. We then describe our two cases, our data and methods, and finally, the results of our analysis. Following
this, we discuss our findings and reflect on how the differences between the countries are related to their climate
policy performance. We conclude by making some suggestions about how public authorities in other polities might
improve their climate change policy performance.
2|THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The question of collaboration is at the heart of the network approach to understanding governance. What makes
collaboration important is that the extent of collaboration in governance networks is related to the success or failure
GRONOW ET AL.731
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