In polycentric governance systems, decisions that influence a given policy issue are often made across a series of forums: venues where actors meet to resolve collective action problems. Here, we examine who does and does not participate in forums, and the factors driving that participation. We analyze forum participation patterns of 307 actors involved in Swiss water governance, who could participate in water governance forums. We find that the majority of actors do not participate in any forums. Results from a Bayesian multilevel logistic regression model show that especially those concerned with a broader range of policy issues and those that have more organizational resources at their disposal are more likely to participate. To a lesser extent, this also holds for organizations that represent policy beliefs consistent with median beliefs in the system. A belief that increased cross-sectoral coordination is needed to promote more effective governance does not have a discernible impact on participation. These results question the integrative characteristics often attributed to forums in polycentric governance more generally.

中文翻译：

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谁加入论坛——谁不加入？——评估论坛参与多中心治理系统的驱动因素

在多中心治理系统中，影响给定政策问题的决策通常是通过一系列论坛做出的：参与者会聚以解决集体行动问题的场所。在这里，我们检查谁参与和不参与论坛，以及推动参与的因素。我们分析了参与瑞士水治理的 307 名参与者的论坛参与模式，他们可以参与水治理论坛。我们发现大多数参与者没有参加任何论坛。贝叶斯多级逻辑回归模型的结果表明，尤其是那些关注范围更广的政策问题和拥有更多组织资源的人更有可能参与其中。在较小的范围上，这也适用于代表与系统中的中值信念一致的政策信念的组织。认为需要加强跨部门协调以促进更有效治理的信念不会对参与产生明显影响。这些结果更普遍地质疑了通常归因于多中心治理中的论坛的综合特征.