Coproduction as a Causal Process

ABSTRACT That many public goods and services are coproduced jointly by government agencies (regular producers) together with clients and citizens (consumer producers) represents a fundamental insight, although it has proven a challenge to define coproduction clearly and to study it rigorously. This article argues that viewing coproduction as a causal process, using the device of causal diagrams, can help describe and diagnose coproduction processes more precisely across a variety of services and settings. The proposed approach is demonstrated by applying causal diagrams to some typical public goods and services, including roads, community gardens, traffic safety, education, and policing. A causal approach also helps shed light on the definition of coproduction and its relation to adjacent concepts such as volunteering, participation, co‐creation, and collaborative governance. At the conclusion, implications of viewing coproduction as a causal process, and specifically the use of causal diagrams for theory and practice, are outlined.