Successful collaboration between bottom-up initiatives and local governments: development of a comprehensive framework

In Northwest Europe, a trend is set in whichcitizens increasingly organize themselves to deliver services for theircommunity. For instance, the maintenance of public spaces, the provision ofcommunity centers, and the delivery... [ view full abstract ]

In Northwest Europe, a trend is set in whichcitizens increasingly organize themselves to deliver services for theircommunity. For instance, the maintenance of public spaces, the provision ofcommunity centers, and the delivery of social services. This kind of bottom-upinitiatives could contribute to deal with societal challenges.

Because of the strong governmentalinvolvement in this kind of public tasks, these initiatives need some kind ofgovernmental support or facilitation. This support can be rather modest, interms of getting permission for organizing activities. But more often alsofinancial or policy support is needed, in combination with supportingactivities from public officials and regulatory provisions. And even a moreenduring and formalized relationship between the initiative and governmentalagencies can help to unlock the potential of bottom-up initiatives.

Several studies showed that thiskind of bottom-up initiatives could add public value and support from the localgovernment would be a valuable strategy. However, public value creation bycollaboration between citizen initiatives and local governments, is anythingbut self-evident. Many initiatives stagnate and citizens become disappointedbecause of the time-wasting decision-making processes, the bureaucraticstandards they cannot meet, or because the government hijack the initiative.

This gives rise to the question: which kind of factorsfoster collaboration between bottom-up initiatives and local governments, insuch a way that this collaboration contributes to public value creation? Toanswer this question, we present in this paper a comprehensive framework of factorswhich foster the collaboration between bottom-up initiatives and localgovernments. We link this to the outcome in terms of public value. Thisframework is based upon a large-scale research program we currently execute.

The comprehensive framework consistsof three sets of factors. The first set has to do with the local governmentitself and the way in which it is organized and behaves. This comprehends organizationalfactors as well as individual factors of the civil servants involved. The secondset has to do with the bottom-up initiatives. Examples of these factors are theurgency of the provided service, the social capital of the people involved, andthe presence of boundary spanning leadership. The third set of factors to takeinto account, are contextual characteristics like neighborhood characteristics,and the political and institutional tissue of the collaboration.

In this paper we present acomprehensive framework, in which we describe the factors for successful collaborationbetween bottom-up initiatives and local governments, and give some directionsfor further research.