The commitment to collaborate: a conceptual framework for analysing collaborative governance in inter-municipal settings

This paper develops a conceptual framework to analyse commitment to collaboration in inter-municipal governance. While collaborative governance has been widely examined, commitment to collaboration is often inferred from observed cooperation, conflated with formal participation, or treated as a by-product of institutional design rather than as a distinct analytical construct. Drawing on collaborative governance, institutional collective action, and inter-organisational cooperation literatures, the article conceptualises commitment as the willingness of local governments to mobilise resources, accept coordination costs, and sustain engagement over time. The framework identifies analytical dimensions and research propositions for future empirical studies of inter-municipal collaborative governance.