Collaborative policy innovation: Problems and potential

ABSTRACTGovernments all over the Western world currently face wicked problems that call for policy innovation. A new strand of research in public innovation points to collaboration between public authorities and relevant and affected stakeholders as an important driver of public innovation. A case study of collaborative policy innovation in the area of mental health care in Denmark indicates that collaboration can contribute to qualify the politicians' understanding of wicked policy problems, and to fostering new creative policy solutions. The study also shows, however, that the new problem understandings and policy ideas produced in collaborative governance arenas are not diffused to the formal political institutions of representative democracy because the participating politicians only to a limited extent function as boundary spanners between the collaborative governance arena and the decision making arenas in representative democracy.Keywords: Policy innovation, public sector innovation, collaboration, political boundary spanners, collaborative governance arenasIntroductionPublic sectors all over the Western world face new and emerging, as well as old and persistent, wicked problems that existing policies are unable to solve (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Global warming, life-style related illnesses and border crossing crime are examples of wicked problems that have recently risen to the top of the political agenda, while traffic congestion, unemployment and social inequality in education have been on the political agenda for decades. Governance researchers suggest that the public sector's inability to deal efficiently and effectively with these and other wicked problems stems from the facts that political decision makers and other public authorities know too little about the problems they set out to solve and the actual impact of different governance initiatives (Kooiman, 1993; Klijn and Koppenjan, 2004; Torfing et al, 2012). Collaboration between relevant public and private stakeholders is viewed as a key driver for developing new and innovative ways of coping with wicked problems (Borins, 2001; Mulgan and Albury, 2003; Dente et al, 2005; Feldman et al, 2006; Nambisan, 2008; Eggers and Singh, 2009; Bommert, 2010; Sorensen and Torfing, 2011). The main focus of attention in governance research, however, is on how collaboration can contribute to enhancing public service innovation, while little attention is given to the question of how collaborative forms of governance can contribute to promoting policy innovation. In order to fill this void in governance research, this article investigates to what extent and how collaboration between relevant public and private stakeholders can enhance policy innovation by promoting new and more nuanced understandings of wicked policy problems and creative ideas regarding how to solve them. The investigation builds on the assumption that if the new problem understandings and policy ideas developed in collaborative governance arenas are diffused to the institutions of representative democracy, it will enhance the capacity of elected politicians to innovate policies that result in desired outcomes.The paper starts out by defining the concept of policy innovation and discusses how collaborative forms of governance can spur policy innovation. Moreover, it points out a number of potential barriers to collaborative policy innovation. Then we present the results of a case study of a collaborative policy innovation process that addresses a persistent wicked problem in Danish mental health care: The use of force in psychiatric treatment. The article concludes with a discussion of how the findings inform our understanding of the drivers and barriers of collaborative policy innovation.Theorizing collaborative policy innovationInnovation researchers generally agree that innovation involves the formulation, realization and diffusion of new creative ideas (Fagerberg, Mowery and Nelson, 2005). …