The U-Turn in Government Facilitation: How Dutch Water Authorities Facilitate Nongovernmental Initiatives

Public authorities in infrastructure, aiming to facilitate societal initiatives, explore new forms of collaboration with nongovernmental actors. A comparative case study of two Dutch initiatives is conducted: energy generation at a public dam and the realization of a nature reserve. It is analyzed how and why the authorities’ strategy regarding their nongovernmental partners changes over time. Authorities’ strategy change is modeled on two axes: governmental investments and governmental influence, and a differentiation is made between limited facilitation, invitational facilitation, partnering... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Grotenbreg, Sanne
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
Reihe/Periodikum: Public Works Management & Policy ; volume 24, issue 4, page 344-367 ; ISSN 1087-724X 1552-7549
Verlag/Hrsg.: SAGE Publications
Schlagwörter: Public Administration / Sociology and Political Science / Business / Management and Accounting (miscellaneous)
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26670779
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1087724x19827026

Public authorities in infrastructure, aiming to facilitate societal initiatives, explore new forms of collaboration with nongovernmental actors. A comparative case study of two Dutch initiatives is conducted: energy generation at a public dam and the realization of a nature reserve. It is analyzed how and why the authorities’ strategy regarding their nongovernmental partners changes over time. Authorities’ strategy change is modeled on two axes: governmental investments and governmental influence, and a differentiation is made between limited facilitation, invitational facilitation, partnering, and Design, Build, Finance, Maintain, and Operate. A U-turn-shaped pattern in authorities’ strategy is found: Authorities move from partnering to limited facilitation and subsequently revert to invitational facilitation. Institutional factors, process factors, and initiative characteristics are identified that explain the strategy changes. It is concluded that government facilitation is a dynamic, interactive process and that authorities adapt their strategy to the initiative at hand and are pragmatic in their approach.