Empirical research on polycentric governance: Critical gaps and a framework for studying long‐term change

Abstract

Polycentric governance (PG) describes governance systems characterized by multiple, interdependent centers of decision‐making, offering an alternative to centralized governance models. PG is often assumed to be effective at helping policy actors address complex collective action problems, but burgeoning empirical literature on PG shows that it is not a panacea – PG is associated with both positive and negative governance outcomes. In this article, we ask: what do we know about why PG performs well in some cases but not in others? We start with a systematic review, synthesizing findings that provide empirical support for positive and negative features that are theorized to accompany PG. Our review reveals a critical gap in relation to our understanding of PG: the existing empirical literature largely fails to address change and evolution over time in PG systems, undermining our understanding of why PG works – or does not– across different contexts and over time. To fill this gap, we propose a “Context – Operations – Outcomes – Feedbacks” (COOF) framework that draws explicit attention to the interplay between context, operational arrangements, outcomes and identifies feedback pathways and adjustment mechanisms that drive dynamic change and evolution over time.

How did we get here? The evolution of a polycentric system of groundwater governance

“…Building on the seminal work of Ostrom et al (1961), research points to polycentric systems as enabling greater efficiency and effectiveness with a redundancy that can mitigate risk, reduce institutional failure, and increase adaptive capacity (da Silveira and Richards 2013, Carlisle and Gruby 2017). Because polycentric systems are composed of many units operating at different scales, they can improve the "institutional fit" between natural resources and their management regimes, a relationship that can increase learning and enhance resource sustainability (Ostrom 1990, Ostrom 1999, Agrawal 2001, Young 2002, Agrawal 2003, Heikkila 2004, Imperial 2005, Folke et al 2007, Marshall 2009, Pahl-Wostl 2009, McGinnis and Walker 2010, Ostrom 2010, Schlager and Heikkila 2011, Aligica and Tarko 2012, Cole 2015, Carlisle and Gruby 2017, Pahl-Wostl 2017, Heikkila et al 2018, Özerol et al 2018, Cole et al 2019, Lubell and Morrison 2021, Baldwin et al 2023; G. R. Marshall, unpublished manuscript).…”

“…However, cross-sectional studies have been more prominent than longitudinal studies and relatively little attention has been paid to how polycentric systems develop in the first place. Yet, recent research is beginning to call attention to the importance of understanding the evolution of polycentricity over time (Morrison 2017, Carlisle and Gruby 2018, Biddle and Baehler 2019, Epstein et al 2020, Baldwin et al 2023, Morrison et al 2023.…”

Managing a low urban emissions world

“…But these need to be buttressed by policy and organization. At the moment, global emissions reductions emerge from a complex set of voluntary national commitments and industry agreements because, at multiple levels, this ad hoc mix is what is politically acceptable from the jockeying of "polycentric" interests [59][60][61][62][63] . To be effective, some measures e.g., carbon taxes, carbon trading, better emissions reporting, carbon import tariffs, and a vast upscaling of interconnected, load-balancing smart electricity grids need to be implemented at the national if not continental or global levels.…”