Inside the Black Box: Exploring Bureaucratic Agency and Collaborative Institution-building in the US Forest Service

A growing body of empirical scholarship suggests that incorporating collaborative forms of public participation in natural resource planning and decision-making can lead to improved management outcomes on the ground. However, evidence of and theory-building on the specific drivers and mechanism of observed or theorized changes in outcomes have overlooked the mediating role of state actors in state-dominant governance arrangements. This study draws upon actor narratives from in-depth interviews with USDA Forest Service employees identified as having direct experience working with collaborative citizen groups in Idaho and Montana. Using an institutional work lens, the analysis builds on theories of street-level bureaucracy, discretion and individual agency to explore the practical actions of front-line workers and managers to create, adapt or disrupt institutions. The results indicate that government actors engage in critical institution-building and boundary spanning practices that engender new opportunities for citizen influence, demonstrate responsiveness, and fill institutional voids amidst conflicting organizational logics. Further, they highlight the role of public managers as change agents, which has significant implications for understanding and theorizing the connection between governance design and outcomes. This work responds to calls to move from normative to operational understandings of collaborative governance, with a focus on state-dominant regimes.