Do local politicians really want collaborative governance?

• Published date: 08 April 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-10-2017-0271
• Pages: 320-330
• Date: 08 April 2019
• Author: Mette Sønderskov
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

Do local politicians really want

collaborative governance?

Mette Sønderskov

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to assess, empirically, the opinions of local politicians concerning

citizen participation in collaborative governance processes. Elected politicians play a key role as gatekeepers

when it comes to the political impact of participatory initiatives, and by examining their attitudes, it is

possible to get an understanding of perceived challenges from the perspective of elected representatives.

Design/methodology/approach –The empirical findings come from an ongoing project studying

democratic innovation, the primary objective of which is to understand how local politicians think about

efforts to increase or deepen citizen participation in political decision making. The source of data is interviews

with 29 members of the executive boards of four Norwegian municipalities.

Findings –Although most of the politicians acknowledge that good reasons exist to facilitate greater citizen

involvement, they are particularly worried about figuring out how to realise “inclusiveness”and “popular

control”as two democratic goods. They appear to think most people are not motivated to participate; thus,

they do not think it is possible or desirable to interact more directly with citizens in collaborative processes to

develop shared recommendations for new solutions to public problems.

Research limitations/implications –The municipalities in this study are not a representative sample of

Norwegian municipalities, as each has expressed an interest in democratic innovation. Thus, they would be

expected to have more positive attitudes than the average municipality.

Originality/value –Given that elected representatives decide whether and how to involve citizens in

political decision-making processes, their attitudes are crucial to understanding and explaining collaborative

governance efforts in western democracies.

Keywords Citizen participation, Local government, Collaborative governance, Democratic innovation,

Interactive governance, Local politicians

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

In Western Europe, political-party membership has been in decline, electoral turnout has

fallen, public disaffection has spread and it has been claimed that people hate politics

(Norris, 2011). It appears that representative democracies do not necessarily satisfy citizens’

needs, and citizens have expressed a growing interest in debating the failures of prevailing

democratic institutions since the wake of new social movements in the 1960s and 1970s

( Joas, 2012) –a debate that is becoming ever more pertinent with the rise of populism and

dissatisfaction with current political elites and systems, both at the international and local

levels. Democracy is a variable, not a constant (Newton, 2012, p. 3); thus, it needs to adapt to

changing conditions and expectations in society. The debate about the health of democratic

institutions has resulted in many efforts to expand citizen participation. Increased public

engagement can help achieve key democratic values, such as legitimacy, social justice and

effectiveness in governance (Fung, 2015, p. 514); thus, it has been argued that citizens can

and should be able to exert more influence than is possible in current forms of liberal

representative models (Pierre and Peters, 2000). Increased citizen participation can improve

the quality of democracy, but such participation is commendable for several other reasons.

To ensure that the public sector can solve future challenges, several scholars point to a need

for permanent and systematic innovation efforts (Hartley, 2008). Innovation can be defined in

many ways, but most definitions contain two important elements: an invention or a new idea,

and the implementation of that idea (Fuglsang, 2010; Rønning and Knutagård, 2015). Wher eas

efficiency and the drive to maximise profits often are primary goals behind innovation in the

private sector, the key driver in the public sector is the creation of public value (Fuglsang and

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 32 No. 3, 2019

pp. 320-330

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-10-2017-0271

Received 4 October 2017

Revised 11 March 2018

9 August 2018

Accepted 31 October 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

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