Collaborative Research: Dealing with Disruption: Investigating the Micro-level Underpinnings of City Response to the Climate Crisis

市政当局正在努力应对与气候变化有关的无数复杂挑战。他们对预期但不确定的破坏的反应是连续的，从不作为到从根本上改变城市系统的变革。我们对导致城市或多或少产生变革性反应的因素了解不够，这些因素阻碍了应对此类干扰的努力。为了应对这一挑战，我们提出了网络化微观决策环境（NMDC），这是一个参与确定政策响应的个体进行协商、协商和行动的舞台。本研究评估了nmdc的两个关键维度——参与者的组成和结构的灵活性——如何影响治理的变革潜力。通过对全国范围内的调查、定性案例研究和社会网络分析的管理和分析，本研究深入了解了组成和结构对城市应对与气候危机有关的破坏方法的变革性的潜在微妙影响。气候引起的破坏与其他日益严峻的社会挑战有相似之处，因为它们非常复杂，影响到多个经济和政府部门，并具有资源相互依赖的特点。因此，本研究产生的经验教训可以帮助理解和改善治理对其他社会破坏的反应。本研究考察并预测了地方政府何时以及如何在理论上追求与变革性政策结果更大可能性相关的决策过程。在此过程中，研究建立了网络化的微观决策环境，它构成了总体政府行为的微观层面的关系基础。NMDC参与者的多样性、结构的灵活性以及政策企业家的存在被假设为变革性治理的决定因素，变革性治理的特点是以学习为中心、积极主动和接受风险的过程。研究小组利用混合方法来发展理论并测试其普遍性，分三个阶段进行：(1)大规模定量分析，涉及全国调查和二手来源数据的收集；(2)采用访谈法和档案分析法对16个城市进行深入案例研究；(3)对这16个城市构成NMDC的相互作用进行了详细的社会网络分析。网络分析与基于调查和访谈的结果相结合，以评估城市在气候相关中断方面追求变革性治理过程的可能性如何受到NMDC在多样性和社会凝聚力之间的平衡的影响；气候政策企业家在NMDC中的地位；以及NMDC的多样性（组织和个人）和灵活性（作为信任和可替代性的运作）。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Municipalities are grappling with myriad complex challenges linked to the changing climate. Their responses to anticipated but uncertain disruptions exist on a continuum, from inaction to transformative change that fundamentally alters an urban system. We do not know enough about the factors leading cities to more or less transformative responses, inhibiting efforts to tackle such disturbances. To address this challenge, we propose the networked micro-decision context (NMDC), an arena where individuals involved in determining a policy response confer, negotiate, and act. This research assesses how two key dimensions of the NMDC—the composition of its actors and the flexibility of its structure—affect the transformative potential of governance. Via the administration and analysis of a nation-wide survey, qualitative cases studies, and social network analyses, this research yields insight into the potentially nuanced ways composition and structure affect the transformativeness of a city’s approach to disruptions linked to the climate crisis. Climate-induced disruptions share similarities with other mounting social challenges in that they are highly complex, affect multiple economic and governmental sectors, and are characterized by substantial resource interdependencies. As such, lessons this research produces can help understand and improve governance responses to other societal disruptions. This research examines and predicts when and how local governments pursue decision processes theoretically linked to a greater likelihood of transformative policy outcomes. In so doing, the research establishes the networked micro-decision context, which constitutes the micro-level, relational underpinnings of aggregate government behavior. The diversity of NMDC participants, the flexibility of its structure, and the presence of policy entrepreneurs are hypothesized as determinants of transformative governance, which is characterized by learning-focused, proactive, and risk-accepting processes. The research team leverages a mixed-methods approach to develop theory and test its generalizability, proceeding in three phases: (1) a large-n quantitative analysis, involving a nationwide survey and collection of secondary-source data; (2) in-depth case studies of 16 cities, employing interviews and archival analysis; and (3) a detailed social network analysis of the interactions that comprise the NMDC within those 16 cities. The network analysis is be coupled with the survey and interview-based findings to evaluate how a city’s likelihood of pursuing transformative governance processes around climate-related disruptions is affected by the NMDC’s balance between diversity and social cohesion; the position of climate policy entrepreneurs in the NMDC; and the NMDC’s diversity (organizationally and individually) and flexibility (operationalized as trust and fungibility).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.