Information or Credibility? Policy Networks and the Evolution of Cooperation

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This research investigates the impact of policy network structure on the cooperative behavior of policy participants, focusing specifically on cooperative behavior among participants in joint projects undertaken by two or more government agencies and related constituencies. The researchers develop and test two competing hypotheses associated with the policy community and the issue network perspectives, and apply them respectively to the implementation and design phases of the policy process. The credibility-clustering hypothesis emphasizes the importance of tightly, linked, clustered networks to constrain free-riding and provide credible support for cooperation. Since the implementation phase of joint projects involved a greater risk of free-riding by those who do not meet project obligations, organizations and projects with more tightly-clustered network positions are expected to achieve higher levels of cooperation and performance. The information-bridging hypothesis emphasizes the importance of extensive, bridging networks to discover the potential advantages of joint undertakings, suggesting that organizations with extensive bridging networks have a higher probability of participating in joint projects. The investigators test multiple versions of these hypotheses using a panel design that measures networks and cooperative performance of participants in more than 100 joint projects in the Tampa Bay Estuaries. In addition to utilizing existing survey results from 1999 and 2002, they conduct more extensive interviews in 2005 and 2007 to measure network characteristics and outcomes more precisely. To provide a solid foundation for these tests, the researchers utilize evolutionary game theory and dynamic network simulation models to clarify the hypotheses and determine the most appropriate network measures for each hypothesis. Intellectual Merit: Policy networks play an increasingly important role in understanding complex political systems, but analysis has primarily focused on the role of networks in determining who controls policy arenas. This project extends the foundations of policy network analysis by developing appropriate tools from evolutionary game theory, graph theory, and empirical network analysis and applying them to understand the role of policy networks in resolving the collective action problems imposed by our fragmentary federalist system.Broader Impacts: The investigators study joint projects because they are becoming increasingly important for resolving fragmentation problems, particularly for environmental policies in which multiple agencies oversee interconnected aspects of a single ecosystem. This study examines factors that enhance the performance of these joint projects, particularly in terms of relationships between project participants and among the broader set of political actors that enhance the benefits of cooperation. The researchers expect to oversee at least seven dissertations relating to this research and to produce an advanced text as a basis for training other researchers to study this important problem. In addition, they will present their findings to national professional conferences and to the local overseers of the projects we study. They expect to critique the current perspective that favors extensive participation and comprehensive planning that imposes considerable costs, and to offer a more nuanced strategy for improving joint projects through cultivating patterns of participation more appropriate for different types of problems encountered in the design and implementation phases of joint projects. This should be of considerable interest to decision makers.