Fostering collective action through participation in natural resource and environmental management: An integrative and interpretative narrative review using the IAD, NAS and SES frameworks

Abstract

Solving humanity's social-environmental challenges calls for collective action by relevant actors. Hence, involving these actors in the policy process has been deemed both necessary and promising. But how and to what extent can participatory policy interventions (PIs) foster collective action for sustainable environmental and natural resource management? Lab and lab-in-the-field experiments on co-operation in the context of collective action challenges (i.e. social dilemmas) and case study research on participatory processes both offer insights into this question but have hitherto mainly remained unconnected. This article reviews insights from these two streams of literature in tandem, synthesising and analysing them using the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework in combination with the network of action situations (NAS) framework and the social-ecological systems (SES) framework. We thus perform an integrative and interpretative narrative review to draw a richer and more nuanced picture of PIs: their potential impacts, their (institutional and behavioural) mechanisms and challenges, and caveats and recommendations for their design and implementation. Our review shows that PIs can indeed foster collective action by (a) helping the relevant actors craft suitable and legitimate institutional arrangements and (b) addressing and/or influencing actors' attributes of relevance to collective action, namely their individual and shared understandings, beliefs and preferences. To fulfil this potential, the organisers and sponsors of PIs must address and link to the broader context through soundly designed and implemented processes. Complementary follow-up, enforcement and conflict resolution mechanisms are necessary to nurture, reassure and sustain understandings, beliefs and preferences that undergird trust-building and collective action. The conceptual framework developed for the review can help researchers and practitioners further assess these insights, disentangle PIs' mechanisms and impacts, and integrate the research and practice of participatory governance and collective action.