Lee, S; Esteve, M; (2022) What Drives the Perceived Legitimacy of Collaborative Governance? An Experimental Study. Public Management Review 10.1080/14719037.2022.2026692. (In press).

Text CG Legitimacy_PMR FINAL REVISION with author details.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 10 July 2022. Download (2MB)

Abstract

While the legitimacy of a governing entity has long been studied in traditional government contexts, few studies have examined the legitimacy of contemporary governing arrangements like collaborative governance. This study explores the perceived legitimacy of collaborative governance from a citizens’ perspective. We use a preregistered online survey experiment to test the effect of three factors—representation, performance information, and issue complexity—on the perceived legitimacy of a collaboration. Findings from 1,470 U.S. respondents provide empirical evidenceshow that representation and positive performance information influence citizens’ perceptions of collaborative governance legitimacy, while issue complexity has little impact. Additionally, heterogeneous treatment effects were found: respondents with low trust in public organizations factor representation more into their legitimacy perceptions of collaborative governance, while those with high trust in public organizations show little influence of representation. This study concludes with theoretical and practical implications of the findings and provides suggestions for future research on legitimacy in networked governance settings.

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