The challenge of modern societies is to provide mechanisms for rational decision-making by politicians and administration. In the presence of competition among political institutions and administration (in some cases), and because of bounded rationality from the perspective of entities involved in the process, new solutions should be developed. Some authors argue, however, that the networks are always immanent part of the democratic governments, and recently become more important (Koliba, Meek, Zia, 2011). Creating environment open to cooperation and even collaboration (Keast, 2015) requires new approaches and methods, also the approach based on governance networks which may determine the possibility of using evidence-based approach. In a recent study, which appeared in international literature, a multi-actor perspective is the approach applied in studying rationality in governance networks (Behagel, Arts, 2014).
According to the authors of this article, the network approach allows for the reduction of conflicting interests and of bounded rationality of actors in polarized societies. Therefore, the aim of the article is to show that cooperation and collaboration in governance networks contribute to reducing the phenomenon of bounded rationality. The article presents the mechanism of transition from competition to collaboration. For the functioning of a network consisting of, among others, politicians and public administration officials of different levels to be based on the principles of cooperation and collaboration, it is necessary to apply the evidence-based approach and methods and tools that assure collaboration. This approach allows for reduction of negative effects of bounded rationality of individual actors. Such bounded rationality may result, among others, from the particular interests of individual actors, lack of information, the uncertainty of the future (Simon, 1945).
The article contains theoretical conclusions drawn based upon, among others, Polish case study on local government’s proposal to change the boundaries of one of the local government voivodships. In this case study, the conditions of existence of cooperation and collaboration in place of the current competition are considered. The article presents the thinking traps of decision-takes and ways of diminishing decision-taking problems using tools of governance networks.
The reasoning is further supported by examples from the Anglo-Saxon countries in the absence of cooperation and collaboration of public institutions (see eg. Koliba, Zia, Mills, March/April 2011), which enables for generalizing the results and providing recommendations that may be useful in countries around the world.
Behagel J.H., Arts B. (2014). Democratic Governance and Political Rationalities in the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Netherlands. Public Administration, 92:2.
Keast, R. A Guide to Collaborative Practice: Informing Performance Assessment& Enhacement, Queensland Family and Children’s Commission, 2015.
Koliba, Ch., Meek, J. W., Zia, A. (2011). Governance networks in public administration and public policy. USA: CRC Press.
Koliba, Ch. J., Zia, A., Mills, R. M. (March/April 2011). Accountability in governance networks: An Assessment of Public, Private, and Nonprofit Emergency Management Practices Following Hurricane Katrina. Public Administration Review.
Simon H.A. (1945). Administrative Behaviour, The Free Press, New York.
