Understanding collaborative water governance in local China: The role of collaborative strategy in shaping network structures

The complexity and fragmentation of water governance drive local governments to collaborate with diverse policy actors, forming collaborative networks. This paper compares two pilot cities in China, Dongguan and Ezhou, to explore how policy actors’ collaborative strategies affect network structure. Through social network analysis and data from interviews and surveys, we clarify the role of collaborative strategies in shaping network structure. Results show that clear responsibility assignment greatly impacts policy actors’ decision-making in collective actions. Different collaborative strategies lead to distinct network structures. In Dongguan, a polycentric collaborative strategy creates a centralized-brokered structure with multiple influence centers and high interconnectivity. In Ezhou, a centralized collaborative strategy dominated by governmental actors results in a single-centered structure with other actors having limited roles. This study enriches the literature with empirical evidence on how collaborative strategies influence network structure, offering insights for enhancing water governance through better network management and clearer responsibility allocation.