collaborative governance

Why do Public Servants Become Policy Entrepreneurs?

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by Evangelia Petridou, Jörgen Sparf and Per Becker


Being an entrepreneur takes effort. It requires energy and presupposes the willingness to stick one’s neck out to bring about innovation. This is what the market tells us and the situation is not much different in politics. In fact, it’s arguable that achieving change in public policy requires even more time and energy, given the glacial speed that is sometimes the core feature of dynamic policy change. And yet, in our recent article published in Policy & Politics on this topic, we show that not all policy entrepreneurs are driven by a focus on intentionality, but by an a priori policy preference that prompts policy actors to seek, grab, and occasionally create opportunities to shepherd their preferred policy solution through the policymaking system.  

In our case study, we use the concepts of the proactive and reactive policy entrepreneur (theorised in a previous paper) in Swedish flood risk governance at the municipal level. Proactive policy entrepreneurs, equivalent to market entrepreneurs by opportunity, act entrepreneurially out of a conscious choice. They have other alternatives, but they choose to be entrepreneurial because they have in mind an innovation that they believe will make a difference, and they actively promote it. By contrast, reactive policy entrepreneurs, the equivalent of market entrepreneurs by necessity, act entrepreneurially because it is the best choice available to them, but not their preferred choice. This implies that there are conditions that create a necessity for them to be an entrepreneur. In other words, the difference between these two kinds of entrepreneur is motivation. 

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Heading for health policy reform: How ‘the region’ is made into a governance object 

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by Oemar van der Woerd, Jitse Schuurmans, Iris Wallenburg, Wilma van der Scheer and Roland Bal 


In an attempt to deal with societal issues like changing demographics and the sustainability of welfare state regimes, policymakers increasingly seek solutions to organise care closer to citizens’ homes, in close cooperation between health and social care providers and informal caregivers. ‘The region’ is presented as a promising place to organise and provide a networked model of care (see for instance the Integrated Care Boards in the UK, or caring regions in Scandinavian countries). Yet, the region, as a new entity of governance, must be incorporated into existing governance arrangements. Our central research question in our recent article published in Policy & Politics addressed this issue: How is the region made into a ‘governance object’? 

In exploring how the region is made a governance object, we draw on years of (ongoing) research on older person care and care for disabled people in the Netherlands, where we follow regional experiments, such as task reallocation between professionals (see here for more information). We analyse the work of professionals, managers and policymakers in their attempts to shape ‘the region’. 

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Policy & Politics Highlights collection on new Special Issue on Policy Learning and Policy Innovation: Interactions and Intersections by Claire Dunlop, Claudio Radaelli, Ellen Wayenberg and Bishoy Zaki

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by Sarah Brown, Journals Manager


The idea of innovation has become one of the most persistent and sought-after today. While too conceptually elusive to pin down to a single statement, innovation can be broadly understood as a process whereby new elements and approaches are introduced to existing ones, in an attempt to solve problems, add value, and contribute to knowledge. Being a problem-solving, value-oriented process, it is no surprise that the concept of innovation is increasingly finding footholds in different theoretical spaces within policy and political sciences, from collaborative arrangements, democratic practices, policy design and experimentation, to behavioural and cognitive theories. Within the public sector, innovation can be understood as the creation of new policies, services, advisory, governance and political arrangements, often leading to the development of novel shared views of what is acceptable and expected by the public as beneficiaries.  

Intuitively, policy learning has a family resemblance to policy innovation. It seems almost self-evident that they should be considered together in the explanation of policy dynamics. Yet the two literatures have developed independently of each other. Studies which put them in conversation are few.  

Our motivation then is simple.  

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Metagoverning collaborative networks: a cumulative power perspective

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By Alexander L. Q. Chen & Oda Hustad 

Collaboration in cross-sectoral networks is proliferating in response to different public policy issues such as climate change, public health crises, economic inequality and urban renewal. These collaborative networks are typically characterised as horizontal partnerships, where public, private, and civil society actors have equal power, and work together to achieve shared goals.  Yet, some form of governance is necessary for collaborative networks to succeed as they otherwise risk becoming inefficient. But how can power be exercised in the governance of collaborative networks without undermining the capacity of these networks to solve collective problems? This is the question we asked in our article recently published in Policy & Politics, entitled “Metagoverning collaborative networks: A cumulative power perspective”. 

Metagovernance is a suitable way of governing collaborative networks, as it relies on a complementary mix of subtle governance mechanisms to indirectly steer collaborative networks towards achieving their goals. In our article, we developed a new framework to understand how power is exercised in collaborative networks through metagovernance. Our framework outlines three types of metagovernance (outputs, inputs, and process) that can be used at different stages of the collaborative process: 

  1. Metagoverning outputs: issuing formal project output requirements (legal, financial, administrative) or expressing informal expectations about the project outputs 
  1. Metagoverning inputs: selectively enlisting and excluding actors as participants or normatively framing the values, interests, and identities of project participants 
  1. Metagoverning processes: steering the conceptual content of the collaborative process toward predefined output goals, for instance by controlling access to resources such as time and knowledge. 

Metagovernors can gradually steer collaborative networks towards specific goals based on these three collaborative stages, where power can be exercised repressively or constructively. To show how these insights unfold in practice, we encourage you to read our full article where we present an illustrative case study of the development of a sustainable and socially inclusive craftsmanship dormitory in Denmark. This project was developed in a collaborative network involving teams of architects, artists, students, and consultants (metagovernors), showcasing both the constructive and repressive aspects of power exercised through metagovernance. 

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON Policy Learning: Types, Mechanisms and Effects. BLOG 3: The relative effects of diversity on collective learning in local collaborative networks in Belgium

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by Nadège Carlier, David Aubin, and Stéphane Moyson 


In our recent article published in Policy & Politics as part of a special issue on Policy Learning: Types, Mechanisms and Effects, we researched the relative effects of diversity on collective learning in local collaborative networks in Belgium. Collaborative networks represent horizontal structures in public governance that facilitate interactions among diverse stakeholders, including civil servants, businesses, and citizens. These networks play a crucial role in fostering coherence, comprehensiveness, and innovation in cross-cutting public policies such as climate initiatives. However, achieving these benefits is particularly challenging in the aftermath of fragmented public action resulting from new public management reforms. To harness the advantages of collaboration, collective learning — defined as the broadened and mutual understanding of public issues resulting from repeated social interactions — is indispensable but not spontaneous. It requires participants within collaborative networks to update their beliefs and develop a deeper understanding of each other’s constraints, interests, and ideas. The diversity of participants within these networks presents learning opportunities that, while significant, do not always translate into tangible learning outcomes. 

To explore how diversity contributes to collective learning in collaborative networks, our study focused on two networks within the city administration of Schaerbeek, Belgium. The first network centred on implementing sustainable procurement practices, while the second aimed to combat discrimination and promote diversity within the municipality. Over a span of approximately three years, public servants from various departments collaborated, exchanged information, and developed public policies. 

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Latest Policy Process research from Policy & Politics free to access

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As proud co-sponsors of the Conference on Policy Process Research 2024, we bring you our latest policy process research, free to access for the conference period from 15-17 May. 

Please look out for members of our team attending COPPR! 


Happy reading! 

Organisation, information processing, and policy change in US federal bureaucracies 
Authors: Samuel Workman, Scott E. Robinson, and Tracey Bark 

Identifying proactive and reactive policy entrepreneurs in collaborative networks in flood risk management 
Authors: Per Becker, Jörgen Sparf, and Evangelia Petridou 

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Investigating stakeholder rationales for participating in collaborative interactions at the policy–science nexus 

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by Helena Seibicke


Contemporary politics has become increasingly reliant on scientific knowledge. In evidence-based policymaking, science is invoked to address complex, ‘wicked’ problems. Yet, policymakers do not necessarily base decisions on the best-available evidence, and models of knowledge used in policymaking have long been criticised as simplistic.  

Therefore, collaboration with non-scientific actors (so called ‘stakeholders’) has emerged as a possible way forward. The increasing emphasis on prolonged and formalised engagement of stakeholders in research projects is subjected to public expenditure justifications, improvement of the input, throughput and output of funded research to inform policymaking processes and address societal challenges. It also reflects the view that an effective response to these challenges requires multi-partner collaborations between academic experts and various interests and perspectives.  

On both sides of the policy–science nexus, collaborative interactions are extended to include stakeholders to improve the impact (i.e. the usability and applicability) of knowledge. And while stakeholder involvement often follows this overarching justification, the question of stakeholder rationales for participating in these processes has previously received little scholarly attention. The scarce literature that does exist largely focuses on improving the transfer of knowledge outcomes of collaborative innovation, and knowledge production, rather than the involved actors’ interactions. 

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Updating your course reading lists? Check out our essential reading recommendations for teaching Public Participation, Gender and the Policy Process, and Policy Innovation from Policy & Politics

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Elizabeth SarahElizabeth Koebele with Sarah Brown

Are you planning a new policy or politics-focused course? Or maybe you’re updating your existing syllabi with some of the newest research on policy and politics? We’re here to help! In this blog, we provide recommendations for new Policy & Politics articles (as well as a few older favorites) that make excellent contributions to syllabi for a diversity of courses. We hope this saves you time and effort in mining our recent articles while also ensuring your course materials reflect the latest research from the frontiers of the discipline. Continue reading →

Policy & Politics Highlights collection November 2021 – January 2022 – all articles included are free to access

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Sarah_Brown_credit_Evelyn_Sturdy
Image credit: Evelyn Sturdy at Unsplash

Sarah Brown
Journal Manager, Policy & Politics

This quarter’s collection highlights three of our most popular and highly cited articles in 2021 which, based on their readership and citation levels, have clearly made an important contribution to their fields.

The first article, A theoretical framework for studying the co-creation of innovative solutions and public value, forms an introduction to the special issue on co-creation in public policy and governance, guest edited by Jacob Torfing, Ewan Ferlie, Tina Jukić and Edoardo Ongaro, published in April 2021. The central proposition is that the concept of public value carries unexploited potential as a ‘game changer’ for advancing the co-creation of innovative solutions in the public sector. They argue that it allows us to appreciate the many different public and private actors, including service users, citizens and civil society organisations, which can contribute to the production of public value. The authors quip that co-creation is the “new black” because it mobilises societal resources, enhances innovation and builds joint ownership over new public value outcomes. Continue reading →

SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES: Blog 6 – Strategic Management as an Enabler of Co-creation in Public Services

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ongaro et alEdoardo Ongaro, Alessandro Angelo Sancino, Irene Pluchinotta, Hannah Williams, Martin Kitchener and Ewan Ferlie

In our recent contribution to the special issue on Strategic management of the transition to public sector co-creation, our article offers an important contribution to the integration of strategic management and co-creation by demonstrating how the co-creation of public value may be enabled by strategic management.

We demonstrate this by conceptually elaborating, and then empirically illustrating, the potential for models of strategic public management to enable the co-creation of public service solutions that enhance public value. Our main research question explores how and under what conditions the adoption of models of strategic management in Public Service Organisations (PSOs) can support and enable the co-creation of public service solutions. Through our analysis, we aim to fill a gap in the literature by considering the importance of an underlying strategic orientation towards value creation that provides a value base upon which to embed these approaches within PSOs. Continue reading →