Having it all: Can collaborative governance be both legitimate and accountable?

Daniela Cristofoli*, Scott Douglas, Jacob Torfing, Benedetta Trivellato

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Collaborative governance arrangements are frequently criticized for achieving collaboration at the expense of legitimacy and accountability. We explore the conditions under which legitimacy and accountability can occur in collaborative governance, ultimately aiming to discover whether collaborative arrangements can ‘have it all’, simultaneously being both legitimate and accountable. We leverage the Collaborative Governance Case Database to analyse a diversity of cases, employing a rich, qualitative comparative analysis. We find that legitimacy and accountability do co-exist in some cases and identify competing sets of conditions for this concurrence. Based on this exploration, we formulate propositions for future research.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)704-728
Number of pages25
JournalPublic Management Review
Volume24
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

  • accountability
  • Collaborative governance
  • legitimacy

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