Struggling for Relevance: Insights from TIGRE Net's Efforts to Engage Practitioners

This project describes and critically examines the efforts of the Transnational Initiative on Governance Research and Education Network, or “TIGRE Net,” to engage international scholars, students, policymakers, and... [ view full abstract ]

This project describes and critically examines the efforts of the Transnational Initiative on Governance Research and Education Network, or “TIGRE Net,” to engage international scholars, students, policymakers, and practitioners on significant policy issues in deliberative based forums. TIGRE Net is an international public management research society that connects scholars, students, and practitioners together in annual workshops. Over the last decade, outputs from TIGRE Net have included several international conferences and workshops resulting in a variety of academic publications, most recently with an edited volume Public Policy, Governance, and Polarization:  Making Governance Work.  However, there is little to no evidence that such scholarly outcomes have benefited practitioners or the policy process in any appreciable way.

In order to surmount this weakness, and achieve one of TIGRE Net’s primary goals of engaging practitioners, the organization recently organized a workshop entitled “Overcoming Urban Challenges in the Era of Globalization.”  In this workshop, TIGRE Net implemented a deliberative framework to help generate new values and ideas for urban governance challenges.  Our framework included active engagement with high-level policymakers (e.g. US Representative Dan Kildee), practitioners, scholars, and students in three deliberative-based forums where new ideas and discussion themes about the challenges of urban governance in a time of globalization could be identified, especially for the major urban areas in Southeastern Michigan (i.e. the Detroit Metropolitan area and the City of Flint). Outside experts were also invited to join each forum and consult with participants during deliberative sessions.  Each forum then drafted ‘white papers’ based on their deliberative sessions that identified specific themes, problems, and solutions influencing urban governance in a time of globalization.

Overall, TIGRE Net implemented this format in order to facilitate active deliberation among policymakers, practitioners, scholars, and students.  This type of experience, where solutions to public problems are developed through an exchange of ideas characterized by reason-giving, consideration of others’ perspectives, inclusive participation, and equal treatment among participants typically produces more effective policy solutions.  TIGRE Net originally anticipated that white papers produced from these deliberative sessions could influence policymakers and practitioners.  However, this goal has not yet been achieved. Instead, most of the value created through these deliberations linked back to the creation of social capital within the participants.  Thus, based on our experiences, we suggest that deliberative-based experiences become more attuned to the indirect creation of public service values and social capital rather than the direct implementation of co-produced services.