Village-Level Institutional Capacity and Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Agricultural Water Governance

Insufficient farmer participation constrains sustainable agricultural water governance and collective action. Village-level agricultural water governance organizations connect institutional provision with farmers’ behavioral responses, but evidence on the association between their perceived institutional capacity (IC) and farmers’ willingness to participate in agricultural water governance (PW) remains limited. Using survey data from 1342 farmers across seven provincial-level regions in China, this study employed ordinary least squares with village-clustered standard errors, supplemented by multinomial logit analyses. The results show IC is positively and significantly associated with PW, with significant associations for relational resources and mobilization capacity but not knowledge resources. A significant indirect association through institutional trust suggests a potential pathway linking IC to PW. Cooperation level shows outcome-specific moderation: the IC association with the probability of reporting the highest willingness category is stronger at higher cooperation levels, whereas moderation on the PW score scale is not significant. Subgroup analysis indicates this association remains positive across groups defined by pollution-related harm experience, seasonal flow variability and village size. Further analysis shows that the association extends to information acquisition, decision-making involvement, governance monitoring, and pollution accountability willingness. These findings suggest the potential value of strengthening organizational capacities, institutional trust, cooperation, and diverse participation opportunities.