Does State‐Civil Society Collaboration Offer an Effective Means of Pandemic Response? A Case Study of COVID‐19 Response in Bengaluru, India

This study aims to identify, describe, and analyze collaborative governance models of public services in the Indonesian Innovation Startup (SII) program conducted by the Directorate of Technology-Based Start-ups, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). This study uses the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance in realizing organizational goals. This concept is used in order to analyze the role of stakeholders in participating in realizing collaborative government governance in the implementation of the Indonesian Innovation Startup program. This research uses qualitative research with the case study method of the Maskit startup in the Indonesian Innovation Startup (SII) program. The data sources come from documents regarding the SII program and the concept of collaborative governance as well as interviews from various sources. The data are collected through interviews, observations, and documentation carried out by involving related parties, namely the program organizers (government), participants (startup companies), and incubators. The results of the study show that the collaborative governance process in the SII program followed by the Maskit startup, has generally implemented the concept of the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance. All elements within the framework, including principled engagement, shared motivation, and joint capacity, have been implemented by all stakeholders involved, namely BRIN as the organizer of the SII program, Maskit as the startup participating in SII, and University of Indonesia as the incubator. This research is expected to enrich academic studies on collaborative governance in the realm of public policy and can be used as a reference for those who wish to conduct similar research or create collaborative programs with elements of government, universities, SMEs, and various other relevant parties.

Introduction: Increasing complexities and changes in global sport governance required the collaboration of international organizations and governments, with traditional governance issues such as gender conflicts still persisted, while new conflicts continued to emerge, international organizations were not able to tackle governance challenges solely. Objective: The study focused on the collaborative governance between the International Olympic Committee and United Nations Women. Methodology: This study constructs diachronic corpus in the framework of actor-network theory, with which high frequency governance participants and keywords were analyzed via AntConc 4.2.4, while BibExcel and Ucinet 6.0 were employed to illustrate their heterogeneous networks, main problems faced in each period as well as participation in a chronological manner. Utilizing the Blau index and Ucinet 6.0, the study calculated networks’ heterogeneity index and density, exploring the development and mechanism of collaborative sport governance. Results: The collaborative sport governance revolved around female leadership, anti-violence and welfare; campaigns and programs need to integrate organizational governance, Olympic legacy inheritance, governmental gender equality, commercialization of sponsorship, etc; governance participants were the most diverse from 2017 to 2019 and exhibited the highest connectivity from 2020 to 2024, indicating that the diversity of participants in collaborative sport governance fluctuated with problems, but multilateral connections have witnessed a continuous steady increase. Conclusions: Governance participants need to balance interests and risks, adopt changes and seek common grounds while respecting differences, therefore forming a diverse, inter-connected, stable and sustainable mechanism for collaborative sport governance, and ultimately achieving gender equality.

This chapter develops some of the key implications of the movement toward collaborative public management for civic engagement practices. It begins with the premise that the inclusion of the citizenry, both individuals and organized associations, is crucial for truly “public” collaborative governance. The chapter is developed through autobiographical reflection on several decades of the author’s published work on both civic engagement and collaborative public governance. Twelve articles and book chapters are discussed from this body of work, most of which are the published products of research on the neighborhood council system in Los Angeles. The discussion concludes with three implications of collaborative public governance for civic engagement: 1) Shared arenas for deliberation are necessary if collaborative public governance is to effectively include citizens, 2) Support from political leadership is crucial if neighborhood councils and city departments are to reach collaborative agreements, and 3) Capacity building for collaborative action is necessary for all parties involved in the collaborative public governance process.

Background
Social capital is frequently invoked as a reason for engaging in collaborative environmental governance. Yet we have a limited understanding of how collaborative environmental governance mobilizes different types of social capital and how the advantages and costs of social capital accrue for different groups of people. Explicit measures of social capital, such as through social network methods, will help build an understanding of how social capital facilitates collective processes and for whom.
Methods
We reviewed highly cited articles in Web of Science and Scopus using “social capital” as the search term to identify foundational and emergent social capital concepts. In the context of collaborative environmental governance, we operationalized these social capital concepts with network measures drawn from our expertise and highlighted existing empirical relationships between such network measures and collaborative outcomes.
Review results
We identified two different camps of social capital concepts - one based on social relations that could be readily operationalized with social network measures and the other based on actor characteristics that can further contextualize network data. Relational social capital concepts included social relations among actors; the collective social setting in which relations are embedded; and the advantages and costs that social capital confers to individuals and the collective. Social capital concepts based on actor characteristics included socio-cognitions (e.g., trust, norms, identification with a group, shared meanings) and community engagement (e.g., group membership, civic participation, volunteerism). Empirical evidence using social network approaches to measure social capital reveals patterns in relationship building that influence collaborative and other sustainability outcomes.
Discussion
Social network approaches described here may help define and quantify the social capital mobilized by collaborative governance. Additional research is necessary to track the social capital of collaboratives over time, link it to outcomes, and better understand the social justice implications of collaborative governance.

This article examines the challenges and opportunities for novel governance instruments for labour market inclusion of foreign‐born citizens, developed by local governments in collaboration with non‐profit civil society organisations in Sweden. It is informed by the case of the collaborative arrangements developed between the city of Gothenburg and work integration social enterprises (WISE). The article builds upon collaborative governance and innovation literature and focuses specifically on the first reserved public procurements for buying work training and other services from WISE. Our findings show how a tool that originates from a market governing mechanism can develop into a collaborative governance and innovation instrument. The design and implementation of the reserved procurements set in motion collaborative innovation through creation of collaborative spaces, joint ownership and empowerment, and by turning market governance mechanisms into collaborative governance. First, the ‘looseness’ and ‘openness’ of the governmental arrangements and collaboration spaces created by local actors enabled collaborative innovation. Second, the longstanding innovativeness and collaboration of WISE also played an important role in the development of this collaborative instrument. Third, the small scale of WISE and the larger scale of municipal contracts resulted in scaling up strategies that helped shape collaborative, rather than competitive, practices among WISE, as well as the implementation and diffusion of the innovation. We end the article by discussing the study's implications for collaborative governance and innovation between local governments and civil society.

Despite the known benefits of integrated policy and planning, traditional governance decisions in the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus are often made without cross-sector collaboration, potentially leading to unintended consequences and decreased resource security. Applying collaborative governance approaches to the FEW nexus provides an opportunity to shift towards integrated policy of food, energy, and water governance; doing so first requires an understanding of the limitations of current governance structures and the opportunities for change. We conduct a social network analysis of stakeholders in Phoenix, AZ using secondary data sources to construct the social network of collaboration and to analyze the ability of the governance landscape to facilitate or hinder collaborative governance. The social network measures indicate potential challenges to collaborative governance of FEW nexus stakeholders, such as limited trust between actors. However, leveraging bridging actors provides opportunities to increase collaborative governance between sectors. This research is important for implementing collaborative FEW nexus governance in practice.

Institutional externalities emerge when actors, such as individuals, government agencies, and firms, participate in multiple policy forums to address shared social–ecological dilemmas. These externalities occur when decisions or actions in one forum generate unintended consequences for actors' capacities to contribute to the functions, operations, or decisions of other forums. This study investigates institutional externalities in collaborative environmental governance by asking: How do institutional externalities manifest in collaborative interactions aimed at addressing watershed dilemmas, and what factors drive these externalities? Employing a mixed‐methods design that integrates secondary document analysis, a survey, and interviews, the study uses the Cuyahoga River Watershed (CRW) in Ohio, USA, as an empirical case. A conceptually grounded methodological framework was developed to quantify the externalities experienced by actors participating in multiple policy forums. Findings indicate that the governance structure within the CRW generates modest positive institutional externalities. This outcome may be explained by the concentration of governance in a small number of central forums within the CRW, the differentiated functions among forums, and the double‐edged roles of some forums, which can simultaneously facilitate collaboration and impose coordination burdens. The outcomes are also shaped by forum's type, mandates and the functional scope of forums. Additionally, assessing institutional externalities through multiple indicators provides a more nuanced understanding of collaborative dynamics than single indicators. This study advances our knowledge of institutional externalities in collaborative governance. Furthermore, it provides policymakers and resource managers with insights into designing effective and efficient governance structures for watersheds and other natural resources.

Collaborative governance has gained momentum for its promise to deliver social inclusion, with municipalities viewed as ideal spaces for its success. However, little research critically examines the political conditions under which this is the case. This article theorizes why and how collaborative local governance succeeds or fails in today’s divided democracies. It argues that politicization manifests in three dimensions of local governance—among stakeholders, across government levels, and in the framing of policy target groups. These dynamics often incentivize the exclusion of marginalized populations. For collaboration to succeed, it must be anchored in an ideologically cohesive network of stakeholders, with civil society organizations acting as political advocates for disadvantaged groups. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in 2018–2022, we compare asylum policies in two Italian cities: Bologna and Venice. Despite rising far-right politics nationally, Bologna’s collaborative governance persisted thanks to the sustained commitment of local officials and civil society actors, all sharing ideological and strategic motivations in promoting refugee rights. In contrast, anti-migrant politics has increasingly informed the policy agenda of Venice elected officials. The politicization of immigration offered them powerful incentives to wipe out long-established collaborations and to frame refugees as undeserving policy targets, leading to their exclusion from public services. These findings extend to other geographical contexts and policy sectors, calling for a more political understanding of collaborative local governance.

Understanding barriers to collaborative governance for the food-energy-water nexus: The case of Phoenix, Arizona

The “Wetland Park Cisurupan” Retention Area development program is one of the multi-stakeholder collaboration programs in the Cinambo Sub-watershed initiated by Bandung City Public Works Agency. This retention area is expected to reduce water runoff to Gedebage Sub-Region. Collaborative governance efforts carried out at Wetland Park Cisurupan need to be evaluated to serve as lessons for stakeholders and as follow-up recommendations. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the extent to which the Cisurupan Wetland Park development program in the context of the cinambo sub-watershed has implemented the principles of collaborative water governance. To achieve this goal, this research uses qualitative descriptive methods. Data processing uses data sourced from primary data, namely observation, interviews, collecting big data from social media in the form of WhatsApp chat groups “Cisurupan Temporer”, “Strategic plan Cisurupan”, and “Cisurupan 4 october” as well as Instagram posts with the hashtag #wetlandparkcisurupan, interviews, then secondary data from government agencies and the internet. Based on the measurement of 23 indicators of collaborative water governance in the sub-watershed, it can be concluded that the Wetland Park Cisurupan program is sufficient to meet the principles of collaborative water governance in the sub-watershed. Communication between stakeholders in this collaboration, which is seen from WhatsApp and Instagram, is considered effective for coordination, increasing public participation, and avoiding latent conflicts becoming manifest by being open to the collaboration process. Facilitative leadership is one of the keys to consistency in collaborative governance.

Collaborative governance is a promising pattern for grassland governance because the failure of single-subject governance has gradually increased in recent years. To conduct better collaborative governance, it is necessary to specify the roles of the factors that influence grassland collaborative governance. However, there are still few studies that focus on the influencing mechanisms for grassland collaborative governance. To systematically explore the influencing mechanisms, a case study was conducted in 4 banners and counties of Inner Mongolia based on questionnaire surveys and the structural equation model (SEM). The results show that the following three factors all have a positive influence on the collaboration degree (CD): the participation degree of collaborative participants (PDCP), the effectiveness of collaborative leadership (ECL) and the trust degree (TD), and their effects vary. Additionally, TD has a positive mediation effect on the influential paths of PDCP to CD and ECL to CD. Moreover, multigroup analysis shows that both gender and income have significant moderating effects. These findings not only offer a theoretical foundation for the further exploration of the mechanism of collaborative governance but also provide a practical reference for the implementation of collaborative governance in grassland governance and other fields in China and other regions of the world.

Greetings! As we enter the second quarter of the year, we are thrilled to present the second issue of the Policy Studies Journal (PSJ). This issue features 10 top-notch research articles that cover various topics related to policy theory and substantive policy domains. Before diving into the details of the articles, we would like to share some exciting news related to PSJ operations. First, in February, we established a strategic partnership with the Seoul National University (SNU) Graduate School of Public Administration (GSPA) in South Korea. Along with PSJ's existing relationship with the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, this new partnership will help strengthen mutual scholarly collaboration and promote policy research in South Korea and beyond. Second, due to the nuances of the existing production model, we decided that Policy Theory and Practice (PT&P) will be a rolling special collection within PSJ. Many policy researchers cannot afford to publish their works in a new non-indexed journal, and now they can publish under the PSJ's impact factor. By introducing PT&P as a special collection, the PSJ will significantly increase both the number of articles it publishes and the range of subject matter it covers while upholding its fundamental mission of advancing policy theory. We are confident that this new model will benefit emerging scholars and, most importantly, better serve the needs of the policy community. Third, in April, we successfully hosted the PSJ Policy Scholar Reception at the 80th annual Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) meeting in Chicago. It saw a large turnout of policy scholars and resulted in many meaningful exchanges. The reception was made possible by the generous financial support of Dr. Michael D. Jones (University of Tennessee-Knoxville), Dr. Paul Teske (University of Colorado-Denver), and others, and we are very grateful for their support. Fourth, we are pleased to announce the launch of a new manuscript submission platform called Research Exchange (ReX), which will provide authors with a more intuitive and streamlined process for submitting their work. The ReX platform will integrate with PSJ's existing ScholarOne manuscript management system. So, those authors who have already submitted their manuscripts through ScholarOne will not experience any changes to the peer review workflows. Now, let us turn our attention to the 10 exceptional research articles included in this issue. The first four articles focus on Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) (e.g., Chen & Flink, 2022; Fernández-i-Marín et al., 2022; Meza, 2022), covering topics such as political institutions, policy disasters, international politics, a systematic review of research priorities in China, and the role of political parties and prime ministers in shaping the executive lawmaking agenda in Australia. In the lead article, “Political Institutions, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, and Policy Disasters,” Fagan (2023) puts forth a theory about how political institutions relate to policy disasters. According to what is predicted by PET, the author suggests that systems that accumulate errors more easily will have a higher volume of policy disasters. Systems with a greater number of veto players and lower levels of information flow will also experience more policy disasters, but the impact of information flow on this outcome will be greater than that of veto players. The author tests this theory by analyzing data on financial crises, natural disasters, and technological disasters in 70 countries over 60 years. The results confirm that systems with limited information flows and more veto players have a higher risk for policy disasters. In the second article, “The Calm Before the Storm: A Punctuated Equilibrium Theory of International Politics,” Joly and Richter (2023) argue that the field of International Relations (IR) has not given enough consideration to PET and investigate the causes of stability and change in international politics and how these dynamics work at both the domestic and international level, as well as how they interact with each other. They demonstrate that various indicators of international politics, such as troop deployments, foreign aid, and international trade, exhibit a leptokurtic pattern of change. This pattern characterizes Punctuated Equilibrium, whereby countries typically experience periods of relative stability with incremental changes in behavior, punctuated by sudden, large-scale changes that overthrow existing policies. Their analysis reveals that institutional friction plays a significant role in comprehending policy changes within the IR context as well. Next, in their article, “What Do We Know About the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory in China? A Systematic Review and Research Priorities,” van den Dool and Li (2023) suggest that the PET theory, which is usually applied to democracies, can also be tested in autocratic states. They argue that authoritarian regimes may experience less institutional friction, but more restrictions on information flow, making them a unique case for testing the theory's mechanisms. To broaden our understanding of PET and the policy process beyond democratic states, the authors review 88 research articles on PET written in Chinese. Contrary to the PET literature in English, most Chinese studies on this subject are qualitative and have a weak operationalization of PET's core concepts. The reviewed studies confirm that policymaking in China follows a punctuated equilibrium pattern, but there is limited evidence for more intense punctuations when compared with democracies. The authors recommend that future PET research on China should use long-term data sets and more carefully examine institutional friction and information processing by policymakers. The authors also suggest that conducting more international exchange and comparative research is necessary to enhance our comprehension of the policy process in autocracies like China. Lastly, in their article, “The Executive Lawmaking Agenda: Political Parties, Prime Ministers, and Policy Change in Australia,” Gibbons and Evans (2023) analyze 3982 Australian bills introduced from 2000 to 2017 to see if PET's theoretical postulations are applicable to Westminster systems. They find that while the policy content of executive lawmaking agendas remained mostly stable, changes in prime minister had a larger impact on Australia's executive lawmaking agenda, compared to changes in the governing party. The authors use the comparative policy agendas approach to analyze government bills in Australia, providing insights into executive lawmaking priorities during a turbulent period in Australian politics. The next two articles relate to the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) (e.g., DeLeo & Duarte, 2022; Derwort et al., 2022; Dolan, 2021; Fowler, 2022), examining the infeasibility of implementing a national ban on live poultry sales in China and exploring the relational coupling of multiple streams of policy in the context of tackling COVID-19 infections in German abattoirs. In her article, “The Multiple Streams Framework in a Nondemocracy: The Infeasibility of a National Ban on Live Poultry Sales in China,” van den Dool (2023) uses the MSF in a case study about the sale of live poultry in food markets in China, which is a major concern for preventing epidemics. By analyzing Chinese policy documents, news articles, World Health Organization (WHO) data, and other sources, the author demonstrates that despite the danger to public health, and even though high-level Chinese government officials support it, a national ban on live poultry sales has not been implemented because it is not technically possible, financially feasible, or compatible with current beliefs and practices. The author claims that although China has an authoritarian government and lacks political pluralism, the proposed policies of the policy elite are not always implemented while suggesting that further research should explore these ideas in different policy domains and in other authoritarian regimes. In the next article, “Relational Coupling of Multiple Streams: The Case of COVID-19 Infections in German Abattoirs,” Möck et al. (2023) argue that the COVID-19 outbreaks among employees in the German meat-processing industry, combined with the Work Safety Control Act introduced in July 2020 to safeguard these workers, served as policy windows to introduce related measures from an MSF perspective. However, the authors further argue that this is not enough to understand the agenda setting process and suggest the examination of the coupling of streams within related policy windows. The authors use the concept of relational coupling to analyze the text data from German mass media to identify entrepreneurial activities. The results of their discourse network analysis show that there were two key stages in the agenda setting process: first, there was an initial problem brokerage without coupling of core policies, and then all the different streams were coupled together based on a focusing event. The authors suggest that understanding relational coupling provides a better understanding of the agenda setting process in MSF. The final four articles in this issue are linked to environmental governance broadly (e.g., Deslatte et al., 2022; Dobbin & Lubell, 2021; Haider & Teodoro, 2021; Henry et al., 2021), covering issues such as justice in collaborative environmental governance, the environmental governance in China, policy attributes shaping climate policy support, and reaching negotiated agreements amidst belief divergence in environmental governance. In their article, “Drivers of (In)Equity in Collaborative Environmental Governance,” Dobbin et al. (2023) analyze how well collaborative groundwater planning in California addresses the needs of small and rural drinking water users who are vulnerable. The authors use various types of data and the Boosted Regression and Classification Trees (BRCT) method to determine factors that may influence this planning process, such as collaboration, representation, elite capture, stakeholder engagement, and problem severity/salience. The authors claim that all these factors have a meaningful impact on the equitable planning process; however, the effects of these factors can be complex and may vary depending on the policy context and outcome. As such, the authors suggest that it is necessary to analyze collaborative governance systems from diverse contexts to gain a better understanding of how to promote social and environmental equity in decentralized reforms. Next, in their article, “Environmental Governance in China: The Effects of Policy Clarity, Career Concerns, and New Appointed Officials on Pollution Control,” Sun et al. (2023) examine how policy clarity and high-powered incentive systems work together to influence organizational performance in the context of environmental governance in China. They use data from the city-level Report on the Work of the Government from 2004 to 2015, along with a Difference-in-Differences (DID) design. The authors discover that when policy clarity and high-powered incentives are present, local officials are more likely to comply with environmental protection measures, resulting in better environmental outcomes. The authors also find that newly appointed Party Secretaries in cities play a crucial role in improving environmental regulation policies and propose a typology based on the principal–agent theory to explain how China succeeded in environmental governance in recent decades. The authors provide practical implications for those looking to improve the effectiveness of environmental governance. Policymakers can design effective policies to address complex problems like climate change by considering how citizens' preferences for different policy options impact their level of support. When it comes to climate change policies, the costs and benefits at both local and global levels can influence public opinion on policy approaches. In their article, “Policy Attributes Shape Climate Policy Support,” Coleman et al. (2023) explore how citizens' views on climate policies are influenced by their perception of conditional cooperation, distributive concerns, and different levels of government. The authors utilize data from Sweden and conduct a conjoint experiment to alter the level of government, policy type, and targeted group. Their findings show that individuals are more likely to support policies when costs are shared widely. Furthermore, they discover that support for climate policies depends on whether other government units at different scales adopt them. This suggests that unpopular climate policies could become more widely accepted if they have a binding policy structure and if the cost-sharing happens at higher levels of government. Coalition conflicts in policy processes often occur due to differing beliefs, resulting in policy gridlock. Decreasing belief divergence may allow for negotiation and policy change, but this can be challenging to achieve. Collaborative governance is a suggested approach to reduce conflict to a manageable level, enhancing the potential for negotiations and policy changes without necessitating belief changes. In their article, “Mitigating Conflict with Collaboration: Reaching Negotiated Agreement amidst Belief Divergence in Environmental Governance,” Koebele and Crow (2023) examine how belief divergence can cause policy conflict and how collaborative governance can be used to mitigate such conflicts while analyzing the beliefs of two opposing coalitions involved in a 10-year-long environmental governance process that ended in a negotiated agreement. By analyzing longitudinal survey and interview data, the authors find that the beliefs of different coalitions start to differ more as the process progresses. This is mainly because one coalition's beliefs become stronger and more reinforced. Nonetheless, the authors identify some collaborative approaches that can facilitate negotiated agreement despite the increasing divergence of beliefs. These findings could be useful for policy researchers studying conflict mitigation in environmental governance and for designing more effective collaborative processes in high conflict context. In conclusion, we hope that this collection of articles inspires new ideas and meaningful discussions in the broader policy community. We invite you to read and engage with this issue and look forward to your feedback. As always, we would like to express our utmost gratitude to everyone involved in the publication of this issue, including the authors, reviewers, and editorial staff. We continue to appreciate your support and assistance as we strive to provide a high-quality platform for scholarly discourse in policy studies. We wish you all success and happiness in the coming months and look forward to seeing you again in the next issue of PSJ in August! PSJ Editorial Team.

Is collaborative governance effective for air pollution prevention? A case study on the Yangtze river delta region of China

Increasing desertification has been threatening the sustainable development of human society. Accordingly, the topic of desertification has garnered increasing attention in ecological development and environmental protection. Since the reform and opening-up (1978), China has been actively engaged in desertification control practices and has achieved remarkable results. However, studies have discussed China’s achievements in desertification control mainly from the perspective of natural science and science and technology. Studies conducting an in-depth analysis from the perspective of public management have been inadequate. This study considers collaborative governance in public management as a crucial theoretical tool to analyze collaborative governance in desertification control. Based on desertification control practices in China, an analysis framework was formed for collaborative desertification governance. The analysis framework encompasses the following four dimensions: (1)value, specifying the means to effectively achieve the value goal of collaboration; (2) institutions, identifying the measures to ensure the long-term operation of collaborative governance; (3) structure, identifying the specific relationship and content of collaboration; and (4) mechanisms, defining the practices for collaborative governance. In addition, the case of the Hobq Desert was considered to analyze the framework through the aforementioned four dimensions.

The rapid development of digital transformation in the public sector has encouraged local governments in Indonesia to adopt more collaborative, adaptive, and technology-based governance models. Subang Regency, which is undergoing significant regional transformation due to the development of Patimban Seaport and its integration into the Rebana Metropolitan area, faces increasing demands to modernize its public service systems through smart city initiatives. This study examines the role of collaborative governance in advancing the smart city agenda in Subang Regency. Using a qualitative approach with a case study design, data were collected through in-depth interviews, observations, and document analysis involving government agencies, private sector representatives, academics, and community groups. The findings reveal that smart city development in Subang remains at a transitional stage and has not yet achieved the level of cross-sector integration required for effective implementation. Several constraints were identified, including sectoral ego among government agencies, uneven digital capacity of civil servants, limited data interoperability, and insufficient involvement of non-government actors. Analysis using collaborative governance theory indicates that initial conditions, institutional design, facilitative leadership, and collaborative processes have not been optimally developed, resulting in weak shared motivation and limited capacity for joint action. Nevertheless, opportunities exist to strengthen collaborative governance through improved institutional platforms, leadership development, enhanced digital literacy, and strategic partnerships with private and academic stakeholders. This study contributes to the understanding of how collaborative governance shapes digital transformation in local government contexts and offers practical recommendations for strengthening smart city implementation in Subang Regency. By reinforcing collaborative mechanisms, Subang has the potential to accelerate its smart city development and achieve more integrated, inclusive, and sustainable digital governance. Keyword : Collaborative governance, smart city.