Caucuses in Collaborative Governance: Modeling the Effects of Structure, Power, and Problem Complexity

ABSTRACT Collaborative governance forums involving many diverse stakeholders sometimes use caucuses to facilitate deliberation of the complex issues they face. However, given the paucity of research on this topic, a better theoretical understanding of the conditions under which a caucus structure is likely to be effective is warranted. For this study, we developed a computational model of decision making in collaborative forums to explore how a caucus structure can be designed and managed to enable egalitarian, consensus-based decision processes. The simulation results indicated that constraints on caucus autonomy through the use of a coordinating structure can enhance the acceptability of the forum's decision, the effect of which is contingent on problem complexity and the number of caucuses. A greater balance of power within caucuses enhanced the ability of the forums to reach agreement on acceptable solutions. We offer propositions based on a discussion of the implications of the simulation results.

[1]  Stuart A. Kauffman,et al.  The origins of order , 1993 .

[2]  Charles E. Miller.  Group decision making under majority and unanimity decision rules , 1985 .

[3]  C. Coglianese,et al.  Building Sector-Based Consensus: A Review of the Epa's Common Sense Initiative , 2003 .

[4]  Tharsi Taillieu,et al.  Multi‐party collaboration as social learning for interdependence: developing relational knowing for sustainable natural resource management , 2004 .

[5]  Robert Kramer,et al.  Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems , 1990 .

[6]  Judith E. Innes,et al.  Outcomes of Collaborative Water Policy Making: Applying Complexity Thinking to Evaluation , 2001 .

[7]  H. Rittel,et al.  Dilemmas in a general theory of planning , 1973 .

[8]  Na Phelps,et al.  Planning with complexity: an introduction for collaborative rationality for public policy , 2011 .

[9]  Chris Skelcher,et al.  Public–Private Partnerships and Hybridity , 2007 .

[10]  Tina Nabatchi,et al.  An Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance , 2012 .

[11]  Robert Futrell,et al.  Technical Adversarialism and Participatory Collaboration in the U.S. Chemical Weapons Disposal Program , 2003 .

[12]  Carl E. Larson,et al.  Collaborative Leadership: How Citizens and Civic Leaders Can Make a Difference , 1994 .

[13]  Stephen P. Osborne,et al.  The New Public Governance? 1 , 2006 .

[14]  Holly Arrow,et al.  Small Groups as Complex Systems: Formation, Coordination, Development, and Adaptation , 2000 .

[15]  W. Leach,et al.  Collaborative Public Management and Democracy: Evidence from Western Watershed Partnerships , 2006 .

[16]  John R. Koza,et al.  Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity. , 1995, Artificial Life.

[17]  C. Termeer.  Barriers To New Modes Of Horizontal Governance , 2009 .

[18]  Raymond E. Levitt,et al.  Computational Modeling of Organizations Comes of Age , 2004, Comput. Math. Organ. Theory.

[19]  Harald Reuter,et al.  Diversity and complexity , 1988, Nature.

[20]  K. Provan,et al.  Modes of Network Governance: Structure, Management, and Effectiveness , 2007 .

[21]  E. Weber,et al.  Wicked problems, knowledge challenges, and collaborative capacity builders in network settings , 2008, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[22]  Tali Mendelberg.  THE DELIBERATIVE CITIZEN: THEORY AND EVIDENCE , 2009 .

[23]  Frederick F. Stephan,et al.  The Distribution of Participation in Small Groups: An Exponential Approximation , 1952 .

[24]  C. D. De Dreu,et al.  Motivated Information Processing in Group Judgment and Decision Making , 2008, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[25]  Laurence J. O'Toole,et al.  Desperately Seeking Selznick: Cooptation and the Dark Side of Public Management in Networks , 2004 .

[26]  G. Brady.  Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , 1993 .

[27]  Diana C. Mutz.  Is Deliberative Democracy a Falsifiable Theory , 2008 .

[28]  D. Moynihan.  Leveraging Collaborative Networks in Infrequent Emergency Situations , 2005 .

[29]  Daniel A. Levinthal.  Adaptation on rugged landscapes , 1997 .

[30]  Maria E. Fernandez-Gimenez,et al.  Adaptive Management and Social Learning in Collaborative and Community-Based Monitoring: a Study of Five Community-Based Forestry Organizations in the western USA , 2008 .

[31]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  Agent-Based Modeling: A New Approach for Theory Building in Social Psychology , 2007, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[32]  M. Feldman,et al.  The Role of the Public Manager in Inclusion: Creating Communities of Participation , 2007 .

[33]  Vu Ming M. Khuong,et al.  Exploring the Dynamics of Policy Interaction: Feedback Among and Impacts from Multiple, Concurrently Applied Policy Approaches for Promoting Collaboration , 2011 .

[34]  J. Perry,et al.  Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box , 2006 .

[35]  C. Lindblom.  THE SCIENCE OF MUDDLING THROUGH , 1959 .

[36]  M. Mitchell Waldrop,et al.  Complexity : the emerging science and the edge of order and chaos , 1992 .

[37]  Charles E. Miller,et al.  Group decision making and normative versus informational influence: Effects of type of issue and assigned decision rule. , 1987 .

[38]  C. Folke,et al.  Social-Ecological Transformation for Ecosystem Management: the Development of Adaptive Co-management of a Wetland Landscape in Southern Sweden , 2004 .

[39]  Stephen Wolfram,et al.  A New Kind of Science , 2003, Artificial Life.

[40]  Tatsuya Kameda,et al.  Procedural influence in small-group decision making: Deliberation style and assigned decision rule. , 1991 .

[41]  Kathleen M. Carley,et al.  Simulation modeling in organizational and management research , 2007 .

[42]  John W. Payne,et al.  Task complexity and contingent processing in decision making: An information search and protocol analysis☆ , 1976 .

[43]  Jill M. Purdy.  A Framework for Assessing Power in Collaborative Governance Processes , 2012 .

[44]  C. Ansell,et al.  Collaborative Governance in Theory and Practice , 2007 .

[45]  P. Robertson,et al.  Deliberation, Consensus, and Stakeholder Satisfaction , 2012 .

[46]  Nancy C. Roberts,et al.  Keeping Public Officials Accountable through Dialogue: Resolving the Accountability Paradox , 2002 .

[47]  Charles E. Miller,et al.  Effects of group decision rules on decisions involving continuous alternatives: The unanimity rule and extreme decisions in mock civil juries. , 2004 .

[48]  Jeff Conklin,et al.  Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems , 2005 .

[49]  J. Bryson,et al.  The design and implementation of cross-sector collaborations: Propositions from the literature , 2006 .

[50]  J. March.  Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice , 1978 .

[51]  Chris Huxham,et al.  Managing to Collaborate: The Theory and Practice of Collaborative Advantage , 2005 .

[52]  Mark T. Imperial.  Using Collaboration as a Governance Strategy , 2005 .

[53]  Lars-Erik Cederman,et al.  Computational Models of Social Forms: Advancing Generative Process Theory1 , 2005, American Journal of Sociology.

[54]  Garold Stasser,et al.  Information distribution, participation, and group decision: Explorations with the DISCUSS and SPEAK models. , 2000 .

[55]  Myrna Mandell,et al.  COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS:. Working Through Network Structures , 1999 .

[56]  S. Connick.  The Sacramento Area Water Forum: A Case Study , 2006 .

[57]  F. Berkes,et al.  Combining Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Monitoring Populations for Co-Management , 2004 .