What Does ‘Collaboration’ Without Government Look Like? The Network Qualities of an Emerging Partnership

Cross‐sectoral partnerships are increasingly common in Australian human service delivery. Yet research has not often focused on partnerships where private actors broker an arrangement to address complex community needs. Using a combination of interviews, focus groups, and social network analysis (SNA), this paper investigates the network qualities of a nascent partnership between a not for profit (NFP) service provider and a major retail water company that seeks to address financial hardship. Ultimately, we assess whether this represents genuine collaboration or another form of joint action. We find that the privately steered partnership generates instrumental benefits characteristic of cross‐sectoral arrangements, as well as challenges. SNA reveals a very high degree of connection between the partner organisations, but the results suggest that the partnership is coordinative rather than collaborative. We also find that this is leading to tacit organisational and institutional modifications as the NFP assumes a ‘market facing’ posture and adjusts to the demands of working with private sector partners. However, at this early stage of development, the level of systemic adjustment between both organisations remains incomplete.     

Paving the (Hard) Way for Regional Partnerships: Evidence from Portugal

A fundamental dilemma which troubles advocates of interinstitutional partnerships in regional development pertains to the extent to which partnerships enhance the effectiveness of governance processes and outcomes. This dilemma is particularly relevant in contexts that lack strong cohesive regional development alliances, such as the Portuguese case. This article aims to shed light on the debate regarding the role of partnerships in regional development, drawing on a unique collaborative interinstitutional partnership. It explores the responses to complexity across the different stakeholders, as well as its effects at the formulation and implementation stages of the strategic plans devised to apply for EU funding. Findings suggest that interinstitutional partnerships induce significantly different allocative choices at the agenda-setting. However, the established partnership was unable to cope with the several obstacles that emerged during the implementation, suggesting several vulnerabilities of partnerships, which are explored. Findings suggest the need to reinforce governance mechanisms during the implementation stage.     

Troubles,partnerships and possibilities: a study of the Making Belfast Work development initiative in Northern Ireland

This article examines the theory and operation of development partnerships through an analytical study of the Making Belfast Work (MBW) Initiative in Northern Ireland. This initiative of the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment contributed to the building of the current Northern Irish Peace Process. It illustrates the difficulties faced by a government in engaging in socio‐economic development in one of the world's most difficult policy environments. The history of the MBW initiative also provides insight into the interaction of two contending models for organizing European Society, namely ‘Regulated Capitalism’ and ‘Neoliberalism’ and the relationship of these models to partnership theory. This study argues that motivations for the development of partnerships in Belfast defy easy theoretical classification; yet empirical evidence suggests that a twin‐track approach—one from above, the European Union; and one from below, of indigenous policy evolution—have together through policy diffusion made MBW a leading pioneer in partnership theory and practice. The article discusses the literature on partnership within New Public Administration outlining ideas on various classifications of partnerships operative in the public sector. Particular attention is paid to how partnerships of societal actors and government can effectively involve the local community through community development approaches. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collaborative Public Management and Democracy: Evidence from Western Watershed Partnerships

This article provides a framework for assessing the democratic merits of collaborative public management in terms of seven normative ideals: inclusiveness, representativeness, impartiality, transparency, deliberativeness, lawfulness, and empowerment. The framework is used to analyze a random sample of 76 watershed partnerships in California and Washington State. The study reveals the exclusionary nature of some partnerships and suggests that critical stakeholders are missing from many partnerships. However, representation was generally balanced. National and statewide advocacy groups were absent from most of these place-based partnerships; public agencies were the primary source of nonlocal perspectives. Deliberativeness was relatively strong, indicated by the prevalence of educational and fact-finding strategies and participants' perceptions of respectful discussion and improved social capital. Half the partnerships had implemented new policies, and two-thirds of stakeholders believed their partnership had improved watershed conditions, indicating empowerment.     

The governance of public affairs

• Government and governance are frequently treated as synonyms. Governing is what governments do in formulating and implementing policies. A burgeoning political science literature uses the term governance in a different way to describe the growing tendency of governments to govern in partnership with a range of non‐state actors and, as a purported consequence, the marginalization of governments within policy‐making processes. Here, some writers go so far as to talk about ‘governance without government’. In a forthcoming book, Rethinking Governance: Bringing the State Back In, Stephen Bell and I argue that this dominant ‘society‐centred’ perspective on governance is flawed. In our view whilst governments are indeed now more likely to forge relationships with a larger range of non‐state actors, they nevertheless remain the central players in governance arrangements. Indeed we argue that governments have been strengthened through the relationships they have developed. This article reviews some of the extant literature on governance and specifies the basic terms of our ‘state‐centric relational’ approach.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analytics and Beliefs: Competing Explanations for Defining Problems and Choosing Allies and Opponents in Collaborative Environmental Management

The rationale for collaborative environmental management often hinges on two factors: first, specialized training creates biased analytics that require multidisciplinary approaches to solve policy problems; second, normative beliefs among competing actors must be included in policy making to give the process legitimacy and to decide trans‐scientific problems. These two factors are tested as drivers of conflict in an analysis of 76 watershed partnerships. The authors find that analytical bias is a secondary factor to normative beliefs; that depicting the primary driver of conflict in collaborative environmental management as between experts and nonexperts is inaccurate; that compared to the “life” and “physical” sciences, the social sciences and liberal arts have a stronger impact on beliefs and choice of allies and opponents; and that multiple measures are needed to capture the effect of analytical biases. The essay offers lessons for public administrators and highlights the limitations and generalizations of other governing approaches.     

Critiquing Food Security Inter‐governmental Partnership Approaches in Victoria,Australia

Food security is an issue, not only in developing countries but also in developed economies such as Australia where people from vulnerable groups cannot access affordable and appropriate food on a daily basis. Agencies emphasise the need for collaborative approaches to such complex, multi‐sectoral challenges. This article analyses two inter‐governmental partnership approaches facilitating local government's response to food insecurity in 12 municipalities within the state of Victoria. We focus on the partnership approaches to collaboration, processes and structures, and collective outcomes. The comparative data analysis from in‐depth interviews and document analysis of project‐associated materials and municipal policies provides insight into the different partnership approaches. Results suggest that while strategically designed and focused inter‐governmental partnerships can build local government capacity to respond to food security, there are systemic, regulatory, and resource barriers in play. In conclusion, the implications of these findings for future inter‐governmental approaches to address complex challenges are considered.     

Institutional Collective Action During COVID-19: Lessons in Local Economic Development

At this point, little is known about local government responses to the economic crisis caused by COVID-19. This crisis is happening on Main Streets around the nation. This article examines how some local governments are taking collective action in partnership with other governments as well as with organizations at the local and regional levels. What is unique is that collective action is rare as it relates to traditional economic development practices, yet it is occurring and leading to offerings of multi-institutional grants and low-interest loans. However, some newer supply- and demand-side actions are the result of a lack of resources and need for expediency. Practitioners can learn about the collaborative economic development actions that governments are taking and how these partnerships can stabilize their local economies.     

Within the shadow of hierarchy: The role of hierarchical interventions in environmental collaborative governance

Existing literature often analyzes the effects of horizontal relationships on collaborative governance, though some scholars have started to recognize the role of hierarchical interventions. This paper identities two poorly examined areas of study. First, there is a lack of empirical studies to understand the diverse impacts of hierarchical interventions on collaborative governance. Second, there is little deliberation on how existing horizontal relationships can moderate the effects that hierarchical interventions have on collaborative governance. This paper utilizes environmental collaboration data from the Yangtze River Delta region in China to estimate the impacts of hierarchical interventions on collaborative arrangements and the contextual effects of horizontal relationships. We find that hierarchical interventions, such as top-down regulations and performance evaluation, enhance the formalization of collaborative arrangements. Additionally, horizontal relationships derived from past experiences can moderate the effects of hierarchical interventions, notwithstanding such effects vary among different interventions.     

Interorganizational Collaborations for Humanitarian Aid: An Analysis of Partnership,Community, and Single Organization Outcomes

Abstract

This article explores collaborative activities across organizational and sectoral boundaries. Interorganizational collaborations are an increasingly common setup to address societal needs; however, current research lacks insights into such collaborations and their outcomes. This study contributes to the existing literature by assessing empirically perceptions of interorganizational collaboration outcomes, considering different dimensions that should be measured when planning and performing tasks of social interest. The article is set in the context of disaster relief, where actors from different humanitarian relief organizations within the public and nonprofit sector engage in collaborative activities. I describe how interorganizational collaborations create outcomes for (1) the partnership structure that is established, (2) single organizational members involved in the collaborative activity, and (3) the community targeted by the interorganizational operation.     

Citywide and Local Strategic Partnerships in Urban Regeneration: Can Collaboration Take Things Forward?

This article explores the issues around the role of collaboration as an essential mechanism in developing strategies for Citywide and Local Strategic partnerships. This is examined in the context of urban regeneration flowing from policy initiatives that have been introduced over recent years. The article sets the scene for collaboration and its characteristics emphasising the attributes of collaborative advantage. Focusing on the latter it then identifies the impact of collaboration on specific strategy areas. Following this the article examines the applicability of collaboration through a case study of a Citywide partnership superseded by a Local Strategic partnership in Leicester. It argues that there is significant evidence of the impact of collaboration on the selected areas of the particular partnership working, although recognising that significant dysfunctional elements exist at the operational and implementation level.     

Public–Private Partnerships: An International Performance Review

Public–private partnerships are enjoying a global resurgence in popularity, but there is still much confusion around notions of partnership, what can be learned from our history with partnerships, and what is new about the partnership forms that are in vogue today. Looking at one particular family of public–private partnerships, the long-term infrastructure contract, this article argues that evaluations thus far point to contradictory results regarding their effectiveness. Despite their continuing popularity with governments, greater care is needed to strengthen future evaluations and conduct such assessments away from the policy cheerleaders.     

Does the Network Centrality of Government Actors Matter? Examining the Role of Government Organizations in Aquaculture Partnerships

The growth in the use of collaborative governance arrangements has been accompanied by burgeoning scholarship in the field of public affairs that seeks to understand the benefits of engaging diverse stakeholders in common venues. However, few scholars have formally assessed the role of government actors in facilitating outcomes for individual participants in such efforts. Moreover, little work on collaborative governance examines how individual incentives and barriers to collective action are formed within the nested nature of these contexts. We contribute to the study of collaborative governance by formally investigating how the relative centrality of government actors in collaborative policy‐making venues affects individual relationship building and learning for participants therein. We find that government actor centrality is positively associated with relationship building and learning. However, in testing two different conceptualizations of “centrality,” we find that the definition of this construct clearly matters.     

The Limits of Partnership: An Exit-Action Strategy for Local Democratic Inclusion

The challenge of enhancing the 'democratic anchorage' of partnerships has become a central concern in policy studies. Radical reform proposals designed to level the deliberative playing field include community veto powers and the appointment of neutral arbiters. Welcome as they would be, however, it is questionable whether such reforms would overcome power asymmetries in the partnership arena. A study of the local politics of social inclusion in two UK cities, Dundee and Hull, suggests that managerialism, driven by national governments, is eroding the prospects for partnership democratisation. But more significantly for the reformist agenda, public managers and community activists think in incompatible frames about the role of partnerships and in ways that are not understood by the other party. Non-communication undermines the prospects for an equitable democratic consensus. Insights from Bourdieu suggest that even in environments more favourable to equitable democratic discourse than those in Dundee and Hull, subtle manifestations of power in culture, discourse and bearing would undermine the potential for a Habermasian consensus between radically unequal actors. In a radical departure from the network governance paradigm, it is therefore argued that empowerment may depend less on enhanced network democracy than on strong independent community organisation capable of acting separately and coercively against governing institutions and elites – an exit-action strategy. These preliminary conclusions point to a substantial research agenda on the politics of the state–civil society nexus.     

Citizen participation and the democratization of policy expertise: From theoretical inquiry to practical cases

This article examines the case for a participatory policy analysis. An idea advanced mainly by democratic and postpositivist theorists is increasingly becoming a practical concern. Criticizing conventional conceptions of science and expertise, theorists advocating participatory democracy argue that the conventional model of professionalism based on a practitioner-client hierarchy must give way to a more collaborative method of inquiry. While such arguments have largely remained in the domain of utopian speculation, recent experiences with a number of wicked policy problems have begun to suggest the viability, if not the necessity, of participatory research methods. Through two case illustrations of a wicked problem, the so-called Nimby Syndrome, the essay seek to demonstrate that collaborative citizen-expert inquiry may well hold the key to solving a specific category of contemporary policy problems. The article concludes with some observations on the possibilities of bringing participatory research more fully into mainstream policy science.     

Accountability Mechanisms in Public Services: Activating New Dynamics in a Prison System

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study analyzes the activation of accountability mechanisms in public services and the changing dynamics between relevant actors. It remains unclear how accountability relationships emerge, when they are introduced, and under which circumstances administrative values are challenged over the course of administrative reforms. Our analysis of a Brazilian state prison system elucidates some of these elements by investigating a case in which an institutional crisis resulted in administrative reforms and new accountability dynamics. Our findings suggest that initiating accountability reforms before some services reach the level of severe crisis may be particularly difficult. We demonstrate that the development of accountability relationships is largely influenced by prominent actors capable of strategizing their actions in a collaborative fashion with other stakeholders. Additional layers of external regulation are also crucial to reduce the risks of political and regulatory capture, engage previously absent stakeholders, activate accountability mechanisms, and make reforms possible.     

Between ballots and bullets: elections and citizenship in and beyond the nation-state

This article approaches electoral acts and performances as central sites for the negotiation of citizenship relations. I argue that, in order to understand how these relationships are shaped, we must attend to governmental actors beyond the nation-state, from trade unions to criminal organizations. Focusing on the case of Jamaica, I show how non-state actors have come to play a central role in hybrid forms of governance, shaping citizens' allegiances to multiple, overlapping political communities. How are campaigning and voting affected by such multiple allegiances? What new understandings of citizenship can we develop if we take the role of non-state actors in the electoral process seriously? I suggest that we should study elections as a site where citizenship – understood here in its broad sense of membership of a political community – can develop both within and beyond the nation-state.     

BALANCING RESEARCH AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING IN FRONT‐END PROJECT DESIGN: EXPERIENCES FROM DANIDA'S ENRECA PROGRAMME

North–South research capacity building (RCB) partnerships have attracted considerable academic attention during the last two decades, especially with regard to issues related to partnership governance. Less attention has been given to the management aspects of partnership implementation, but in order for partnerships to comply with general governance‐level recommendations, a better understanding is needed of how specific context‐dependent factors influence the development and execution of projects. In this article, we aim to contribute to the understanding of factors influencing the design phase of RCB partnerships and examine how they influence the balance between performing collaborative research and developing general organizational capacity. Data collection was based on a survey (n = 25), and individual interviews and focus group discussions with 17 Danish project managers from the Danish Bilateral Programme for Enhancement of Research Capacity in Developing Countries. Our results lead to rejection of the proposition that RCB projects are either focused on building capacity for research or conducting merit‐based research. Because of the ‘politics’ of the front‐end process, reality is more complex. We identify 11 specific factors influencing front‐end project management related to structure, process and relationship, and we theorize about how these factors influence the choice between research and more general capacity development activities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Evaluation of the Economic Approaches Used by Policy Actors towards Investment in Place-Based Partnerships in Victoria

Place-based partnerships are supported by the state and include various organisations and interests within particular geographic areas. The Victorian government has established place-based partnerships to plan and coordinate resource allocation decisions to meet objectives such as economic development and social inclusion. In the literature there are positive and negative views of these partnerships. One view is that they allow regions to build competitive advantage, while another is that they are a means of pursuing a neoliberal policy agenda that seeks to reduce government protection and investment. We help clarify the tensions between positive and negative views of partnerships by examining the economic approaches used by policy actors toward place-based partnerships in Victoria. We find that policy actors combine neoclassical and institutionalist approaches to argue that partnerships generate networks that enable more efficient and equitable resource allocation within places .     

Organizing the War on Terrorism

The network of public agencies, private firms, nonprofit organizations, ad hoc groups, and individual volunteers that deals with natural and technological hazards and disasters did a remarkable job of responding to and helping us recover from the September 11th attacks. That national emergency management network, along with the national security and law enforcement networks, provides a foundation for our war on terrorism, helps us mitigate the hazard of terrorism, and improves our preparedness for future violence. However, coordinating the efforts of the networks will be a real challenge for the director of homeland security and his or her state and local counterparts. Coordination will necessitate using legal authority to assure compliance, economic and other incentives to encourage compliance, formal partnerships to encourage collaboration, informal understandings to encourage cooperation, and personal encouragement to influence appropriate action. A top–down, command–and–control approach to the war on terrorism, such as the proposed Department of Homeland Security is intended to provide, may be counterproductive.