The governance games of citizens and stakeholders’ engagement: longitudinal narratives

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on a process of citizens and stakeholders’ engagement promoted by a local authority to co-design the city vision with multiple actors (politicians, public managers, consultants, citizens and other external stakeholders). The setting for this research is provided by a municipality in Sweden and our theoretical perspective is the decentred theory of governance. A multi-actor, longitudinal and qualitative analysis has been carried out by triangulating interviews with key stakeholders, non-participant observations, and documental analysis, and by collecting the empirical material at two points of time (2014–2018). Our findings present several narratives and show that four main governance games were played (political; reputational and professional; spectacle; and social games). We discuss how these games interplay may change the perception of actors about the process of citizens and stakeholders’ engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance game
• citizen participation
• stakeholder participation
• local government
• Sweden

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In the text of the paper, we say citizens and stakeholders to acknowledge the fact that some citizens can be involved as people entitled to some political and democratic rights in a given place(s) (here the use of the word citizens), as well as representatives of a given organisation(s) (here the use of the word stakeholders). Specifically, we take the following definition of stakeholder: ‘Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization‘s objectives’ (Freeman 1984, 46).

2. ‘Interpretive approaches are constructivist in that they seek to make sense of the world via the compilation of specific stories or narratives situated within their different contexts (belief systems and historical traditions). However, as constructions, they are partial and subject to challenge, so different and competing narratives can operate in relation to the same set of events’ (Sullivan 2007, 144).

3. It is not the purpose of this paper to engage in a comparison between these two concepts. However, network governance mainly refers to providing steering and coordination through collaboration amongst multiple actors (organisations and/or individuals) coalescing into a network (e.g. Emerson, Nabatchi, and Balogh 2012; Provan and Kenis 2008). Meta-governance is the governance of governance (e.g. Kooiman and Jentoft 2009; Sørensen and Torfing) and can be distinguished from network governance because it doesn’t necessarily require (but it could) a network as an organisational form and/or collaboration as a mode of governance, as governance of governance by multiple modes (e.g. authority, market, nudge, etc.).

4. The focus on games has been applied also at other levels. For example, at a macro-level it has been often applied in economics (e.g. at the industry level), where game theory originates; at mid-level, Friedberg and Crozier (1980) focused on political games and organisational politics.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Källström

Lisa Källström is a senior lecturer and researcher in business administration, mainly within the field of marketing and place management, in the Faculty of Business at Kristianstad University, Sweden. Her primary research interests lie within value co-creation in the context of place, stakeholder involvement in the work of government, and participatory place branding.

Sara Mauro

Sara Mauro is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Management at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy. Her primary research interests are in public sector accounting and management, with a focus on performance budgeting and management, and participatory management and governance processes, such as co-production and participatory budgeting.

Alessandro Sancino

Alessandro Sancino is Director of Research on Citizenship and Governance at The Open University, UK, and an associate professor of management at the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy. His current research focuses on the following main topics: the meta-governance role of local authorities; community entrepreneurship; civic leadership; and critical perspectives on the relationships between technology and democracy.

Giuseppe Grossi

Giuseppe Grossi is a research professor in accounting at Nord University, Norway, at Kristianstad University, Sweden, and at Kozminski University, Poland and a visiting professor at Tampere University, Finland. His recent publications concern hybrid organisations, smart cities, corruption and public budgeting. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management.