What drives the perceived legitimacy of collaborative governance? An experimental study

This study explores the perceived legitimacy of collaborative governance from a citizens’ perspective. We use a preregistered online survey experiment to test the effect of three factors–representation, performance information, and issue complexity–on the perceived legitimacy of a collaboration. Findings show that representation and positive performance information influence citizens’ perceptions of collaborative governance legitimacy, while issue complexity has little impact. Additionally, heterogeneous treatment effects were found: respondents with low trust in public organizations factor representation more into their legitimacy perceptions of collaborative governance, while those with high trust in public organizations show little influence of representation.