Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Rapidly growing urban populations and increasing temperatures, droughts, and desertification due to climate change pose unprecedented challenges to city water management around the globe. These challenges are most severe in semi-arid desert cities such as Tucson and Phoenix. Such regions have long dealt with water scarcity, the need to accurately project future conditions, and the challenge of implementing timely practices and innovations to ensure future access to clean and safe water. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and the Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework as guiding theoretical models, we explore what drives collaboration between different stakeholder groups in these areas, and how different groups collaborate on the design and implementation of urban water innovations. Specifically, we analyze water management practices in Tucson and Phoenix, U.S.A., using a survey of water professionals, as well as social network analysis of the connections between water organizations. Results indicate that participating in both mandatory and voluntary collaborative networks supports innovation, and moreover that these innovations tend to be voluntary. In line with the ACF, we find that stakeholders show a preference to work with other stakeholders who share common policy beliefs, supporting the widely-studied belief homophily hypothesis. However, we also find system-level differences in fragmentation and innovation, which indicates that collaborations on urban water innovations may help to overcoming collective dilemmas. Overall, our research refines both the ACF and the ICA, in order to better account for collective action and implementation of sustainability innovations.