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This paper examines collaborative management groups from the perspective of policymakers seeking to increase coordination within a policy network. While governments often support collaborative groups as a tool to address perceived network failures such as a lack of coordination, the net impact groups have is unclear. I use valued exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to model relationships of varying strength among a regional network of organizations involved in 57 collaborative groups. This provides a unique opportunity to study the interplay between numerous groups and organizations within a large‐scale network. Valued ERGMs are a recently developed extension of standard ERGMs that model valued instead of binary ties; thus, this paper also makes a methodological contribution to the policy literature. Findings suggest that participation in collaborative groups does motivate coordination and cooperation amongst individual network organizations; however, this effect is strongest for: (i) organizations that are not already members of another group and (ii) organizations that do not have a preexisting tie. These results support a transaction‐cost–based perspective of how government‐sponsored collaborative groups can influence network coordination; further, they also provide an empirical example of the Ecology of Games, in which multiple collaborative institutions have interactive effects on one another within a policy network.

This paper examines collaborative management groups from the perspective of policymakers seeking to increase coordination within a policy network. While governments often support collaborative groups as a tool to address perceived network failures such as a lack of coordination, the net impact groups have is unclear. I use valued exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to model relationships of varying strength among a regional network of organizations involved in 57 collaborative groups. This provides a unique opportunity to study the interplay between numerous groups and organizations within a large-scale network. Valued ERGMs are a recently developed extension of standard ERGMs that model valued instead of binary ties; thus, this paper also makes a methodological contribution to the policy literature. Findings suggest that participation in collaborative groups does motivate coordination and cooperation amongst individual network organizations; however, this effect is strongest for: (i) organizations that are not already members of another group and (ii) organizations that do not have a preexisting tie. These results support a transaction-cost-based perspective of how government-sponsored collaborative groups can influence network coordination; further, they also provide an empirical example of the Ecology of Games, in which multiple collaborative institutions have interactive effects on one another within a policy network.

AbstractThis paper addresses two research questions: (1) Does collaborative environmental governance improve environmental outcomes? and (2) How do publicly supported collaborative groups with different levels of responsibility, formalization, and representativeness compare in this regard? Using a representative watershed quality data series, the EPA's National Rivers and Streams Assessment and Wadeable Streams Assessment, in conjunction with a watershed management regime database coded for this analysis, I test the relationship between collaborative governance and watershed quality for 357 watersheds. Since these are observational data, a multilevel propensity score matching method is used to control for selection bias. Using an augmented inverse propensity weighted estimator, I estimate the average treatment effect on the treated for six different water quality and habitat condition metrics. Collaborative watershed groups are found to improve water chemistry and in‐stream habitat conditions. I then use hierarchical linear regression modeling to examine how group responsibilities, membership diversity, and formalization affect the predicted impact of a collaborative group. Groups that engage in management activities (in comparison to coordination or planning) are found to achieve greater environmental gains. Limited differentiation is found with regards to the presence of a group coordinator, increased goal specificity, or greater stakeholder diversity.

The widespread proliferation of special districts and their role in producing and delivering public goods and services has been well documented. Each new entity further fragments government authority, and thus their autonomy is a critical determinant of how local governance systems function. Existing theories of special district autonomy emphasize formal institutional attributes such as election structure and state restrictions. We argue that this approach does not fully incorporate how relational dynamics such as functional interdependence, interest alignment, and social capital affect how special districts fit within regional polycentric governance systems. We propose a Network Autonomy Framework for local governments that focuses on relational dynamics between co-located1 governments and demonstrate an example of how this framework can be applied to a metropolitan region. By understanding how co-located governments relate to one another, we can gain a deeper understanding of special districts' role in local governance systems and advance propositions as to how they will affect a variety of local policy outcomes.

The Ecology of Games (EoG) theory couples institutional rational choice with social network theory, articulating how transaction costs, social capital, and collective action dilemmas shape networks and network outcomes in polycentric governance systems. EoG literature has often focused on social–relational ties across organizational boundaries. However, jurisdictional fragmentation and increased reliance on private contractors in local public service delivery foster another source of network connectivity—shared personnel who work for multiple service providers. Drawing upon novel data of organizational personnel from more than 500 special purpose entities responsible for delivering drinking water to local neighborhoods in the Houston metro area in the state of Texas (United States), we examine how managerial, technical, and financial service delivery personnel connect otherwise independent organizations. We find that districts regulated by a common groundwater management agency and districts which contract with one another are both more likely to share technical and managerial personnel. By studying special districts that have overlapping personnel, we broaden the scope of the EoG framework to include additional layers of governance network complexity. As individual bureaucrats and service professionals play a key role in information transfer and innovation diffusion across organizations, shared personnel networks merit consideration as a mechanism for coordination and collective problem solving in fragmented urban systems.