Learning and multiple accountabilities in collaborative governance: Empirical evidence from four Belgian collaborative networks

Moyson, Stéphane [UCL] Carlier, Nadège [UCL] Cherifi, Hiba [UCL]

While collaborative governance (Emerson et al., 2012) is more and more necessary and common, it does not undermine the importance of public accountability which refers to a relationship between policy actors and their home organizations as well as their “clients” (when these organizations are private) or the general public (when they are public). The policy actors participating to collaborative networks have an obligation to explain and to justify their conducts to their home organizations; these organizations and their clients or the public can pose questions and pass judgment; ultimately, the policy actors have to face consequences (adapted from Bovens, 2007, p. 450). One specific challenge of collaborative networks is to address the multiple and sometimes contradictory accountabilities of the various participants (e.g., “efficiency vs. inclusiveness” or “sanctioning vs. cultivating long-term relationships”: Lee & Ospina, 2022). One way to address this challenge, which has received little scholarly attention so far (with some exceptions: e.g., Lee, 2022), may be to model learning processes, among network participants, about their respective accountability relationships. How do participants learn about each other’s accountabilities in collaborative networks? Collaborative governance processes enable learning (e.g., Koebele, 2019), defined as the dissemination and acquisition of information among network participants which leads, at the individual level, to changes or reinforcements of policy beliefs and preferences and, at the collective level, to a greater convergence or divergence of these beliefs and preferences between network members (Dunlop and Radaelli, 2013; Heikkila and Gerlak, 2013; Leach et al., 2014; Moyson and Scholten, 2018). To address the research question, semi-directed interviews were conducted in Belgium with the members of several collaborative networks in four different sectors (health, social services, sustainable development (Federal Plan for Sustainable Development), and the environment. In this paper, two of them are scrutinized. The preliminary results suggest that learning about accountabilities, in collaborative governance settings, is commonly dependent on several classical conditions of learning in collaborative governance settings at the individual and network level – with the exception of institutional conditions, so far. Variations in learning about accountability relationships, from one network to another, seem related to the configuration of these relationships. While the analysis of the last two cases of the research is susceptible to confirm or nuance these preliminary results, they suggest that the configuration of accountabilities should be carefully considered, when starting the collaborative process, in order to model learning and, ultimately, collaboration among participants.