What Drives the Performance of Collaboration Networks: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Local Water Governance in China

Local water governance is challenging given the significance to public health and the difficulties to manage it in a fragmented administrative system. A collaboration network is a popular governance tool in local governance to cope with functional fragmentation problems and institutional collective action (ICA) dilemmas. Empirical works are needed to examine the outcomes of such governance networks, especially in the context of environmental governance. With fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this article seeks to evaluate the outcomes of collaboration networks by investigating the influence of network structures on local water governance performance in China. Based on empirical analyses on a dataset of twenty local water governance networks implementing the Water Ecological Civilization Pilot Project in China, the findings suggest that a high overall bridging and bonding of social capital and a low network density are important determinants of effective collaboration networks. This study has policy implications for the design of local collaboration networks in facilitating effective environmental governance.