Modes of Coordination and Performance in Polycentric Governance: Disentangling Complexity

What shapes different forms of governance and their performance, and is the concept of hybrid governance (hybrids) a promising pathway for improving the outcomes of governance, e.g. in environmental governance? Understanding these issues will improve our knowledge for crafting better governance towards desirable outcomes. A natural place to start such work is polycentric governance. Thus, this paper aims to advance on unpacking the black box of coordination in polycentric governance. As it unfolded we found that based on our definition of hybrids as overlapping modes of coordination hybrids dominate empirically. Thus, our work maps distinct hybrids, explore their emergence and determining factors as well as analyze their performance. The paper suggests a positive approach to understanding hybrids. As starting point for conceptualizing hybrids we use the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework which is strongly related to and therefore compatible with polycentric. We illustrate its application through engagement into five contrasting, illustrative cases in which we identified four different types of hybrids as starting points for further theorizing. We end on identifying types of hybrids and contextual factors shaping them. We suggest the identification of hybrids as future research agenda for unpacking the inner workings of polycentric governance. The paper is based on an edited volume developed among proponents of this abstract and a number of scholars in the field of natural resource governance. We suggest that hybrids are stratified across temporal scales and nested across different levels of institutional order, addressing day to day coordination which is nested in institutions in larger scales of societal organization that structure these modes. Beyond the three modes of governance that overlap in hybrids, we find that the distinction of formal, state-backed legitimization of governance as opposed to informal, community-backed legitimization of governance of component modes of coordination provides a further important dimension of hybrids. The emergence and performance of hybrids depends on social-ecological context configurations.