Activating Collective Co-production for Public Services: Influencing Citizens to Participate in Complex Governance Mechanisms

This project set out to test and elaborate upon previous research which suggested that citizen co-production of public services is more likely to occur when it is easy and can be carried out individually rather than in groups or communities. In five local areas of England and Wales it explores which people are most likely to engage in individual and collective co-production and what drivers might influence people to extend their co-production efforts by participating in more collective activities. Data were collected by citizen panels organized by the relevant local authorities. The project demonstrated that individual and collective co-production have rather different characteristics and correlates, so they need to be distinguished for policy purposes – for example, collective co-production is likely to be high in any issue when citizens have a strong sense that people can make a difference (‘political self-efficacy’). ‘Nudges’ to encourage increased co-production had only a weak effect. The paper suggests to practitioners that much of the potential pay-off from co-production is likely to arise from group-based activities, and that there is major scope for activating more collective co-production, since the level of collective co-production in which people engage is not strongly predicted by their background but can be influenced by public policy variables. 

Cite as:  Bovaird, Tony; Stoker, Gerry; Jones, Tricia Loeffler Elke and Pinilla Roncancio Monica (2016), “Activating Collective Co-production for Public Services: Influencing Citizens to Participate in Complex Governance Mechanisms”, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Special Issue on Co-production, Vol. 82 (1): 47–68, https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852314566009.