Legitimizing the Informal: A Polycentric Argument for Inclusive Crisis Management

Abstract This article examines how formal civil society organizations (CSOs) perceive and engage with informal actors in crisis management and investigates the relational dynamics that bind diverse actors in polycentric governance systems. Adopting a qualitative interpretivist epistemology, the study proceeds from the premise that social realities, including organizational relationships, legitimacy, and trust, are constructed through meaning-making and intersubjective understanding. Drawing on interviews, focus groups, and case studies with 53 CSOs across multiple European countries, the study employs a modified grounded theory approach, consistent with interpretivist traditions that prioritize contextual understanding over objective measurement. The findings reveal a clear divide among formal CSOs. One half dismissed informal actors as untrained risks requiring hierarchical control, reflecting a command-and-control orientation. The other half demonstrated a polycentric orientation, recognizing and legitimizing informal actors without attempting to absorb them. Where polycentric attitudes prevailed, relationships were characterized by four elements: trust built through recognition rather than hierarchy, flexibility in distinguishing specialized from transferable tasks, equality emerging through co-production, and temporality leveraged as a resource for adaptive, short-term cooperation. The article contributes to understanding the relational dynamics within polycentric crisis governance by specifying how these four elements are enacted in practice. In doing so, it helps operationalize polycentricity for crisis management, a contribution called for in the literature. From an interpretivist standpoint, these findings do not claim generalizable causality but instead offer a theoretically grounded understanding of how actors themselves make sense of, negotiate, and co-construct effective cooperation across organizational boundaries.