The influence of the European Union on national power structures, actors' institutional opportunities, and governance networks is well established in cases of Europeanization processes unfolding in member states or associated countries for which a formal agreement is in place. This article focuses instead on Europeanization processes that are more informal and do not include formal agreements but bottom-up dynamics. Empirically, we analyze the collaboration network in Swiss energy policy with Exponential Random Graph Models and find that actors with EU contacts and those that consider the international process as important are particularly active in the domestic governance network, whereas actors considering the domestic process as strongly Europeanized and those with pro-EU beliefs are particularly inactive. This points towards a complex influence of informal Europeanization on domestic governance networks.

In the last decade, a number of smart city initiatives have flourished around the world. While the literature is ripe with descriptions of those projects and pioneering cities, there is far less systematic research on why some cities are more advanced than others. As single locating entities, cities are posited to have strong geographic rootedness. Hence, spatial and socio-economic context, considered as the main stimulant of organizational innovation, can be particularly important for cities. We investigate 22 Swiss cities with smart city projects and use fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to determine the configuration of conditions that make some cities more advanced than others in their smart city development. Results indicate that a configuration of high share of service sector, presence of research institutions and high urban density is sufficient for the outcome, whereas population size, new residential development and participation to international networks appear as less important. By providing insights into the spatial and socio-economic underpinnings of smart city development, the study contributes to the understanding of the geographies of smart cities.

Digital technologies can be important to policy-makers and public servants, as these technologies can increase infrastructure performance and reduce environmental impacts. For example, utilizing data from sensors in sewer systems can improve their management, which in turn may result in better surface water quality. Whether such big data from sensors is utilized is, however, not only a technical issue, but also depends on different types of social and institutional conditions. Our article identifies individual, organizational, and institutional barriers at the level of sub-states that hinder the evaluation of data from sewer systems. We employ fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to compare 23 Swiss sub-states and find that two barriers at different levels can each hinder data evaluation on their own. More specifically, either a lack of vision at the individual level or a lack of resources at the organizational level hinder the evaluation of data. Findings suggest that taking into account different levels is crucial for understanding digital transformation in public organizations.

This study investigates the influence of MPs' co-sponsorship activities on their agenda-setting success. It analyses the strategic choices open to MPs who engage in co-sponsorship, the resulting centralities in the co-sponsorship network, and the effects on the success of parliamentary proposals. MPs can develop their co-sponsorship efforts within their party family ('bonding') or beyond it ('bridging'), and they can use co-sponsorship both to receive political support ('support-seeking') and to provide it ('support-providing'). The success of these different co-sponsorship strategies is empirically assessed here by investigating the acceptance or refusal of parliamentary proposals introduced in the Swiss Parliament from 2003 to 2015. The bridging/support-seeking strategy that pro-actively recruits co-sponsors across party families is the most rewarding. This holds especially for MPs belonging to pole parties, who overall appear as more sensitive to centrality-related effects than MPs of moderate right parties.

This article emphasizes the importance of actor networks for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and suggests how a network perspective can contribute to our understanding of (global) sustainability governance. Actor networks are often driven by homophily, as actors tend to interact with those similar to them. Yet, not least in a context sustainability governance, heterophily of actor cooperation is claimed to be beneficial. In contrast to homophily, heterophily represents situations where actors cooperate with those that are different, and thus combine diverse sets of knowledge and competences. Based on the case of Swiss actors involved in the implementation of the SDG 6 on water in countries of the global South, we use social network analysis and qualitative interview data to study how homophily and heterophily influence actors' information exchange. According to quantitative network data, information exchange between actors is indeed influenced by homophily regarding the type of actor and the policy forums actors are participating in. Nevertheless, we also find evidence for heterophily, as actors tend to exchange information with actors with different methodological foci. Furthermore, qualitative interview data show that actors perceive heterophilous network ties as beneficial for SDG implementation.

During a civil war and its aftermath, rival powerholders frequently engage in decision-making over land use, for example, via land acquisitions or legal reforms. This paper explores how powerholders influence land use decision-making and what their engagement implies for territorial control. We analyse three cases of land use changes in Myanmar's south between 1990 and 2015, where the Myanmar state and an ethnic minority organization fought over territorial control. We gathered qualitative data with a mix of methods and visualised actor networks and institutions. Our analysis reveals that the state managed to increasingly control decision-making over local land use from a distance by employing actor alliances and institutions such as laws and incentives, whereas the ethnic organization lost influence. We conclude that engaging in land use decision-making plays a crucial role in influencing the outcomes of a civil war and that it represents a form of war- and state-making.

Centralities are a widely studied phenomenon in network science. In policy networks, central actors are of interest because they are assumed to control information flows, to link opposing coalitions and to directly impact decision-making. First, we study what type of actor (e.g., state authorities or interest groups) is able to occupy central positions in the highly institutionalized context of policy networks. Second, we then ask whether bonding or bridging centralities prove to be more stable over time. Third, we investigate how these types of centrality influence actors' positions in a network over time. We therefore adopt a longitudinal perspective and run exponential random graph models, including lagged central network positions at t1 as the main independent variable for actors' activity and popularity at t2. Results confirm that very few actors are able to maintain central positions over time.

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 analyse 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 multi-level 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.

Sustainable land governance in a telecoupled world is currently a challenge. Distant actors, institutions, and interactions shape local land uses and are assumed to affect sustainable development in critical ways as they exert new and often additional claims on land and trigger adverse local impacts like displacement. Action towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is urgently needed, as are agents of change that will initiate sustainability transformations. However, empirical studies on transformation pathways towards sustainable land governance remain scarce. Moreover, very few studies have addressed the identification of actors through whom such transformation might be achieved. To address this gap, we analysed the likelihood of actors becoming agents of change based on their aims, resources, and relational profiles in the land governance network. Our study focused on Madagascar, a country that manifests unsustainable land governance, with distant actors increasingly influencing local land use. We combined an analysis of agency with social network analysis to disentangle attributes and the transformative potential of different actors involved in land governance in northeastern Madagascar. Our results show that actors have different combinations of aims, resources, and relational profiles. Combined analysis of their agency and social networks enabled us to identify potential agents of change and yielded options for transformation actions through which they can become operational agents of change. Our research contributes to promoting pathways to sustainability transformations where actors with various agency levels and social network assets are empowered to establish sustainable land governance. The combination of agency analysis and social network analysis is an innovative method that helps to advance sustainability science.