Agency-Level Incentives and Collaborative Governance: State Mandates and Sustainable Groundwater Management in California

EasyChair Preprint 1087

Abstract

Most studies in collaborative governance examine how system-level variables drive collaboration, yet few have focused on how agency-level incentives shape local governing entities’ responses to mandates for collaboration imposed by higher-level governments. By examining the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, a large-scale governance reform experiment passed by the California legislature in 2014, the authors show that various types of local entities diverge in their collaboration choices due to differences in organizational capacity, issue salience, and the interests they represent. Compared with independent water districts, two other types of special districts—community services districts and dependent water districts—are more likely to participate in consolidated governance. By contrast, irrigation districts are less likely to do so, while cities exhibit no differences. Counties are more likely than independent water districts to be part of consolidated governance only if groundwater management is a highly salient issue within their jurisdictions.

Keyphrases: agency level incentive, collaborative governance, mandated collaboration

@booklet{EasyChair:1087,
  author    = {Brian An and Shui-Yan Tang},
  title     = {Agency-Level Incentives and Collaborative Governance: State Mandates and Sustainable Groundwater Management in California},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 1087},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2019}}