Steering Social Outcomes in America’s Energy Heartland: State and Private Meta-Governance in the Marcellus Shale,Pennsylvania

Abstract

This article argues that analysis of meta-governance purely in terms of the actions of the state can obscure the significant, but less apparent, ways in which private actors may influence the choices and interactions of individuals within various modes of governance coordination. We investigate the networked governance of affordable housing impacts in the Marcellus Shale gas region of the United States to empirically illuminate the dynamics of state and private meta-governance. Drawing on a qualitative research approach, we identify public authorities as exercising what seems to be predominant responsibility for meta-governance, with state government having strong influence over the structure and resourcing of a networked governance response, and county government directly facilitating the collaborative engagement of actors at the local level. Although private oil and gas companies demonstrate little involvement in network governance, the presence of private meta-governance in the alternative form of the design of market governance is shown to have a number of countervailing implications for the form and function of network governance. We suggest that expansion of the concept of “framing” to account for strategies that structure how key governance actors understand a particular problem provides valuable insights for understanding private meta-governance in relation to network governance.

Keywords

networks meta-governance housing policy sustainability resources

Introduction

In Pennsylvania, development of the Marcellus Shale has physically and economically transformed areas through intensive drilling activity, with a growing body of work in rural sociology examining the impacts on rural communities that have resulted from the rapid “boomtown” growth (Brasier et al., 2011; Jacquet, 2012). Questions regarding how the social impacts of extractive resource development are governed have been the focus of a wider literature on resources governance. While collaborative governance is emerging as a common strategy to address the impacts of resources booms (Eberhard, Johnston, & Everingham, 2013; Hamann, 2004; Porter, Franks, & Everingham, 2013), the process of “how” such interactive and autonomous forms of governance have been created, and by whom, has had limited focus and is as such not yet well understood. This absence persists despite a growing body of influential work in public administration and governance literature, which advances a new research agenda focused on the conceptual notion of meta-governance, or the “regulation of self-regulation” (Sørensen, 2006, p. 98).

Meta-governance is theoretically distinct from prior “first-wave” governance work, made popular by the idea of “governance without government” by networks (Rhodes, 1997), as it calls for explicit analysis of the ways in which actors endeavor to influence and guide the choices and interactions of individuals within decision-making situations by organizing and altering the conditions in which governance takes place (Jessop, 2003; Kiser & Ostrom, 2000). From this definition, meta-governors are viewed as higher order actors who “oversee and respond to the dynamic patterns of interaction between actors” in decision-making arrangements (Baker & Stoker, 2015, p. 142). As has been argued elsewhere (Wilson, Morrison, & Franks, 2015), there is a need for studies of resources governance to move beyond documentation of the existence of interactive governance arrangements in addressing social impacts associated with resource development and align themselves with recent debate in broader governance studies concerning this higher order governing activity.

The general conception of meta-governance itself is still relatively new, and the literature, where it exists, is diverse and incomplete. There are several different, but intertwined, theoretical approaches to meta-governance, which have emerged within varying disciplines. One dominant narrative presents the concept in relation to the state and the practices that secure its influence and control within governance regimes (Whitehead, 2003). There is consequently relatively little research examining alternative suggestions that meta-governance can be exercised by “any legitimate or resourceful actor: public or private” (Sørensen, 2006, p. 103). A continued focus on the top–down flow of state power in meta-governance studies discounts the work of governmentality research, which suggests that under advanced liberalism, the “conduct of conduct” (Jessop, 2003, p. 107) is no longer the exclusive preserve of the state but is increasingly enacted by private actors who seek also to “infuse in individuals a capacity to govern their own conduct in a way that can be harnessed to political objectives” (Cheshire, Rosenblatt, Lawrence, & Walters, 2009, p. 655). Governance scholars have done little to explore this broader understanding in which meta-governance, like governance itself, may be undertaken by a dispersed range of actors. Hence, there is a pressing need for more contextually grounded analysis of its manifestation in practice.

This article draws on an empirical study of one governance network in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania to examine dimensions of both state and private actors operating as meta-governors. The network focuses on a pressing policy issue typically associated with resource regions—affordable housing (Haslam McKenzie, Phillips, Rowley, Brereton, & Birdsall-Jones, 2009). Analytically, our concern is with the meta-governance process, and we highlight the strategies and mechanisms used by both the state and extractive resource companies in seeking to indirectly influence and direct the interactive processes of network governance. This article argues that the state, although of fundamental importance to the promotion of the conditions in which network governance prevails, is not the sole body influencing the rules by which network governance is formulated and implemented. It suggests that restricting an analysis of meta-governance purely to the actions of the state can obscure the very significant ways in which private actors act on and influence the structure and processes of network governance. We suggest the steering tasks performed by both types of actors, state and non-state, should be analyzed when focusing on meta-governance.

The article proceeds as follows: The section “Meta-Governance” explores theorized forms of meta-governance to date, involving varying explanations of “why” and “through what means” meta-governance is implemented. From this, we devise an analytical framework encompassing the different dimensions of the practice of meta-governance. After outlining the methodology of the study, we give a brief introduction to the case-study region, the Northern Tier Region of Pennsylvania, the United States. The section “The Meta-Governance of Local Collaboration” then applies the framework to the case study. We explore the nature of meta-governance and its relationship to network governance in the context of addressing affordable housing impacts associated with Marcellus Shale extractive resource development. We discuss the manifestation of state and private meta-governance in the “Discussion” section and consider the consequences of these findings for affordable housing governance in the context of the current institutional settings. The “Conclusion” section summarizes the governance implications and highlights an agenda for future public administration research.

Meta-Governance

There is widespread acceptance within the governance literature that an expansive range of actors are now involved in decision making concerning solutions for society’s increasingly complex public policy problems (Hajer, 2003). Governance is therefore no longer equated to the processes of government alone, but is used to distinguish between a variety of forms of social coordination that are distinct from the hierarchical control model, including markets, associations, and most importantly, networks. This latter concept has been the focus of considerable research attention, with some even claiming that we live in a global network society (Castells, 2000). This suggestion is premised on the observation that there has been a movement away from central, interventionist policymaking, toward an increasingly differentiated polity based on networked structures of governance involving state, market, and civil society actors (Rhodes, 1997). Network governance is thus defined as “relatively stable, horizontal articulations of interdependent but operationally autonomous actors” whose interactions are based on negotiation and the need to exchange resources to reach collective goals (Sørensen & Torfing, 2005, p. 197). Although these descriptions make clear that governance increasingly takes place in a context of autonomous and self-created negotiation, this does not mean that the structures and processes of networks, or any other mode of governance, are free from control or influence.

The theoretical notion of “meta-governance” is used broadly to refer to an indirect form of governing that is exercised to influence the interaction, behavior, and decisions of individuals within various modes of governance coordination, such as networked governance (Jessop, 2003; Kiser & Ostrom, 2000; Sørensen, 2006). However, there are contrasting views among society-centric and state-centric scholars about what this concept entails. The term meta-governance derives originally from the work of Jessop (2002, 2003), who applied it in relation to the possibility of the capitalist state exercising power by mixing and selecting between different governance mechanisms. For Jessop (2003), meta-governance is exercised through the “organization of the conditions of governance” (p. 107). Elements of Jessop’s theoretical account of meta-governance have been consequently taken up by state-centric scholars who view meta-governance as a tool for regaining state control over new forms of governance (Bell & Hindmoor, 2009; Kelly, 2006; Whitehead, 2003). This approach uses meta-governance to “seek recognition for the state either as the first among equals . . . or as the principal actors in any governance process” (Bell & Hindmoor, 2009; Stark, 2015, p. 2). These scholars highlight the resources and capacities that empower governments to engage in meta-governance. However, there is little discussion of the tactics or strategies for in fact carrying out such meta-governance (Baker & Stoker, 2015).

A smaller, contrasting vein of meta-governance work has emerged from “interactive governance” scholars who use meta-governance alternatively to explore the non-traditional, steering mechanisms used by government and others to influence decentered and largely autonomous networks (Sørensen, 2006; Sørensen & Torfing, 2009). The concern of this research is identifying the specific techniques with which any governance actor may “work within the network in order to advance its policy goals” (Baker & Stoker, 2012, p. 1027), without inhibiting the “self-coordinating” nature of governance networks (Sørensen, 2006). Unlike the state-centric account, society-centric scholars are not prescriptive when it comes to the question of “who can meta-govern?”, instead stating that meta-governance can be exercised by any resourceful actor: “All it takes is resources and a desire to influence activities performed by self-governing actors” (Sørensen, 2006, p. 103).

Both societal and state-centric meta-governance accounts remain at the theoretical level and are concerned largely with meta-governance executed by the state, despite suggestions regarding the potential exercise of meta-governance by non-state (private) actors. Without entering the “messy realm” of microlevel analysis, meta-governance literature consequently remains abstract, general, and unable to provide any particular insights into how meta-governance, by either state or private actors, takes place in practice. The goal of this article is to build on the theoretical grounds provided by the interactive approach to meta-governance and empirically demonstrate how the structure and processes of network governance are shaped by both government and private actors, thus yielding a more thorough understanding of meta-governance. This forms the first step in developing a more comprehensive theoretical framework of meta-governance, which also acknowledges the implications for networks of private “action at a distance” (Miller & Rose, 1990, p. 9).

Strategies of Meta-Governance

Theorists from both political science and public administration propose a variety of strategies by which meta-governance may be exercised (Kickert, Klijn, & Koppenjan, 1997; Sørensen, 2006). Here, we briefly explore two distinct categories of strategies: meta-governance by institutional design and meta-governance by process management.¹

Network Design

The first form of meta-governance is network design, which involves deliberate attempts to shape and structure networks. This involves the building, or deliberate changing, of the institutional characteristics (i.e., the rules of the game) of a specific network with the intention of changing the interdependency relationships between network actors (Mayntz, 1993). We include four sub-strategies within this category: network structuring, framing, selective activation, and resourcing.

First, network structuring refers to the formal institutional setup (e.g., rules and procedures) and structuring of interactive network processes (Sørensen & Torfing, 2009). By designing a certain organizational framework, the meta-governor is able to shape the patterns of interaction and the channels of communication between the involved network actors (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2011). Framing, in contrast, derives from social constructionist thinking (March & Olsen, 1995), which emphasizes that governance can be exercised through the construction of social and political meaning and identity (Sørensen, 2006). Although a hands-off mechanism, it represents a potent means to unify strategies for problem solving among the self-governing actors without directly interfering (Sørensen, 2006). A third mechanism of network design is selective activation, which involves decisions concerning which actors participate and their positions, with wider consequences for the composition (and democratic legitimacy) of the networks (Kickert et al., 1997). Last but not least, meta-governance through network design can be exercised through the provision of material and immaterial resources to the network. Meta-governance via resourcing can be highly interventionist when it seeks to influence the decisions made by collaborating actors by the strategic conditioning or distribution of resources (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2006).

Process Management

A more “hands-on” form of meta-governance (Sørensen, 2006) is that of process management, which emerges from more interaction-focused network management theorists working within the field of public administration, such as Klijn, Koppenjan, and Termeer (1995) and Rhodes (1997). Process management is distinct from network design in that it is exercised in close proximity to the actual network exchanges and sometimes, can involve direct interaction with participating network actors (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2011). Process management strategies aim to prevent conflict and reduce tensions between network actors. One specific strategy that a meta-governor may practice to facilitate the interaction process is “arranging interaction” (Kickert et al., 1997), which involves the establishment of mediation procedures for actor interaction underpinning a specific “game.” Another strategy is “facilitation” (Klijn et al., 1995; Sørensen, 2006), which focuses on assisting, encouraging, or brokering network interactions that are productive and conducive to the alignment of interests and making of decision (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2011). A common example is the establishment of meetings or administrative spaces to facilitate goal-orientated behavior and the finding of a joint solution (Kickert et al., 1997).

Table 1 summarizes the various dimensions of meta-governance discussed above. This framework is applied in the section “The Meta-Governance of Local Collaboration” of this article as a heuristic device for analyzing the case study presented in the section “The Case Study: The Northern Tier Region of Pennsylvania.”

Table 1.

Summary of Meta-Governance Strategies.

Dimension	Strategies		Examples
Network design	“Network Structuring”	Strategies aimed at influencing the context, or “arena,” in which games (interaction processes) take place.	● Establishing participants’ roles; operating rules, objectives, and the norms of the network. The resultant strategies shape the character of the policy network as a whole.
	“Framing”	Strategies shaping the perceptions of actors regarding the nature and purpose of the network.	● Setting agendas and defining key terms used in debate and decision making: ○ rhetoric of collaboration ○ policy campaigns.
	“Selective activation”	Decisions regarding actors; who participates, their positions.	● Adding new actors to or removing existing actors from a network.● Re-arranging and shifting the position of actors within network structures.
	“Resourcing”	Allocation, nature, control, and use of resources (material, fiscal, legal, authoritative, information, knowledge).	● Establishing incentives to promote cooperation or competition, or the participation of actors: ○ economic instruments—subsidies, CSR donations or funding, sponsorship ○ informational instruments guidelines, brochures, campaigns, and studies.
Process management	“Arranging interaction”	Establishment of procedures for actor interaction with regard to a particular “game.”	● Establishment of agreements or decision procedures, which influence the specific interaction process with regard to one issue or one problem area: ○ conflict mediation and grievance policies ○ contracts, memorandum of understanding.
	“Network facilitating”	Providing specific conditions and spaces that facilitate goal-orientated activities to occur.	● Arranging interaction through the establishment of “nodes” or temporary arrangements to facilitate the development of consensus-building interaction: ○ general meetings, forums, workshops, council chamber meeting, reference groups, action groups, consultation group.

Source. Adapted from Wilson, Morrison, and Franks (2015).

Method

This article examines the governance of affordable housing supply and delivery in extractive industry-based communities to demonstrate how state and private meta-governance is exercised in relation to network governance. Affordable housing policy offers a unique focus for the research given that the growing inequality and segmentation of housing markets in resource communities is a well-documented, but under-researched policy concern (Haslam McKenzie et al., 2009). We define affordable housing as “privately provided housing that is priced to be affordable (according to housing affordability benchmarks) to households whose income and circumstances constrain their capacity to meet their housing needs adequately in the open housing market” (Lawson, Gilmour, & Milligan, 2010, pp. 3-4). Housing affordability relates to a person’s ability to pay for his or her housing. In the context of the United States, affordability benchmarks deem rental housing to be affordable if a household is paying no more than 30% of its income on gross rent (rent plus utilities; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [U.S. HUD], 2015).²

In exploring this issue, this article draws on a case study of the Northern Tier Region located in the state of Pennsylvania (the United States), an area that has experienced substantial private investment in the extraction of “unconventional” gas from shale deposits (see section “The Case Study: The Northern Tier Region of Pennsylvania”). The case study approach involved triangulation of data from multiple sources. Initially, 25 confidential interviews were conducted between April and July 2014 with representatives of Pennsylvania state and local county governments, community and not-for-profit organizations, industry representative groups, and employees of oil and gas companies operating in the region.³ All interviews were based on a standardized set of open-ended questions; however, non-scripted questions were asked in response to participants’ accounts as they unfolded. Questions focused on the practices or strategies used by various actors to elicit collaboration to resolve affordable housing impacts, and the motivations or factors shaping the practices adopted; the role of private oil and gas companies in offsetting the impacts of extractive development on affordable housing; and the practical challenges of steering and coordinating governance in the context of addressing affordable housing issues induced by shale gas development. Coinciding with interviews, a second body of data was collected involving observation of governance processes and documentary review. Data collected from interviews and observations in combination with secondary data were analyzed and clustered into core themes that emerged from the data, as well as being guided by our heuristic framework for analysis of meta-governance, presented in the section “Strategies of Meta-Governance” of this article. The results of combined data analysis are presented in the sections “The Meta-Governance of Local Collaboration” and “Discussion” of this article.

The Case Study: The Northern Tier Region of Pennsylvania

The recent advancement of extractive technology and hydraulic fracturing techniques has contributed to the dramatic boom in the production of natural gas in the United States (Rabe & Borick, 2013). Much of this increased shale gas production has occurred within the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation that underlies the states of Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The “sweet” or “hot spot” of this production occurs at the northern edge of Pennsylvania in what is referred to as the Northern Tier Region, which includes the counties of Bradford, Susquehanna, Tioga, Sullivan, Wyoming, and Lycoming (Figure 1). The Northern Tier region of the state is largely rural, characterized by mountainous and heavily forested topography. The region’s economy has historically been driven by forestry and agriculture, but tourism is now an important contributor to the economy, especially in hunting and fly-fishing seasons (Jacquet, 2012). The region, however, remains characterized by small, sparsely populated settlements and is relatively remote from key decision-making centers.

Figure 1.

Location of Northern Tier Region in relation to surrounding U.S. states.

Housing Market Dynamics

Declining housing affordability is identified as one of the most critical impacts of Marcellus Shale development, with the influx of drilling workers associated with the natural gas resources boom having exceeded the available supply of housing units in the Northern Tier Region (U.S. HUD, 2012; Williamson & Kolb, 2011). Based on the ratio of “monthly median housing costs” to “monthly median income” for renter households, Lycoming and Tioga counties demonstrated prolonged cost burden challenges from 2007 to 2013 (Figure 2). In Susquehanna County, from approximately 2010 to 2013, the average renter household used more than 30% of their income for rent, while Sullivan County reached a cost burdened level in 2013. Increased market rental prices led to a substantial increase in the number of households seeking subsidized rental assistance through Local Housing Authority assistance programs. By the end of 2010, the regional homeless rate was reported to have increased by 20% (Meehan, 2010). Interviews with local community service workers provided anecdotal evidence that many low-income households had turned to residing in their cars, or were forced to re-locate to areas with less expensive housing markets. Many agencies were involved in addressing these issues.

Figure 2.

Housing affordability in Northern Tier counties.

Governance of Affordable Housing Impacts

In the United States, housing policy is one of a wide range of functions the Federal Government has devolved to local governments,⁴ beginning in the 1970s and accelerating in recent years (Basolo & Scally, 2008). The Pennsylvania Housing and Finance Agency (PHFA) has statutory responsibility for the administration and financing of affordable housing through both federal- and state-sponsored initiatives (Table 2). At the local level, county governments have in place their own rental assistance programs as well as affordable housing development programs (often in the form of housing trust funds) to meet local housing needs. Associated “quasi-government” organizations, such as county re-development authorities, public housing authorities (PHAs), or not-for-profit organizations, are usually responsible for administration of these rental assistance programs. PHAs are tasked with the specific responsibility of delivery of HUD-assisted rental subsidy programs. In addition, not-for-profit organizations in the region, such as Futures Community Support Services and the Self Determination Housing Project of Pennsylvania, provide a variety of programs that engage private landlords in partnerships to overcome barriers to affordable rental housing. The state and local governments are enrolled in matters affecting the supply of affordable housing through responsibility for local planning and growth. Other actors involved in the supply side of affordable housing include not-for-profit community-based housing developers and private property developers. These actors deliver affordable housing through private market means, using a multitude of both private and public sources to finance development (National Low-Income Housing Coalition [NLIHC], 2015). Many of these actors also support and work together through the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania to advocate for increased resources from federal and state government for affordable housing.

Table 2.

Key Housing Assistance Programs.

Program	Nature of assistance	Administering body	Implementing body in Pennsylvania
Community Development Block Grant Program	Allocates annual grants to counties/cities to develop viable communities, including expanding affordable housing opportunities, principally for low- and moderate-income persons.	U.S. HUD	Department of Community and Economic Development
County Rental Assistance Programs	County-established rental assistance programs, typically to provide rent subsidies to low-income families who either are homeless or have an emergency housing need, or targeted to a certain population, such as veterans, seniors, or those with disabilities. Funding sources include local levy, real-estate transactions, or document-recording fees.	County Government	County government, county re-development authorities, public housing authorities (PHAs), or not-for-profit organizations.
HOME Investment Partnership Program	A block grant program designed to expand the supply of affordable housing for lower income households (homeownership and rental).	U.S. HUD	Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA)
(Section 8) Housing Choice Voucher Program	Provides rental assistance to lower income persons in the private housing market by paying landlords the difference between what a household can afford to pay in rent and the market rent.	U.S. HUD	Local PHAs
Local Housing Trust Funds	County- or municipality-established trust funds that have ongoing dedicated sources of public funds to support the production and preservation of affordable housing.	County Government	County government, county re-development authorities, PHAs, or not-for-profit organizations.
Low-Income Housing Tax Credits Program	Tax credit scheme to encourage private investment in the construction of housing affordable to lower income households by providing a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal taxes owed on other income.	Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of Treasury	PHFA
Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement (PHARE) Fund	A dedicated source of public funds, which are committed by legislation to support the production and maintenance of homes for lower income households. The PHARE program is funded through an impact fee tied to activity in the Marcellus Shale region of the state.	PHFA	PHFA

Note. U.S. HUD = U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

An overview of the actors and organizations engaged in the Northern Tier Region affordable housing policy network is shown in Figure 3. The next section examines strategies adopted by some of the actors in this fragmented governance landscape to steer the actors toward more coordinated and cooperative ways of working.

Figure 3.

The Northern Tier Region affordable housing policy network.

The Meta-Governance of Local Collaboration

This section applies the framework developed in “Strategies of Meta-Governance” (Table 1) to assess the role and nature of meta-governance in relation to governance arrangements for addressing affordable housing impacts in the Northern Tier Region. We first assess the extent to which public-sector actors, including state and local government, drive the design and process network governance. We then examine how private actors also contribute to the meta-governance of such arrangements through a range of practices that extend beyond the control of the state.

Public-Sector Actors and Meta-Governance

Network structuring and selective activation

Prior to 2012, the system of governance for addressing affordable housing issues consisted of a large number of agencies and organizations engaging in unconnected and piecemeal programs, originating from a variety of levels of government (see Figure 3). In such circumstances, a meta-governor will structure the disparate actors into a network with more coordination. The Pennsylvanian State Government, specifically the PHFA, developed and implemented several formal legislative and policy measures. These changes sought to order and incentivize (see “Resourcing” sub-section of this article) a more holistic, comprehensive, and targeted approach structured on local collaboration as the key means to address Marcellus Shale impacts on low-income renters.

A key feature of this governance response was the establishment of a permanent State Housing Trust Fund to allocate State or Federal funds, as well as funds from other outside sources, for the purposes of assisting with the “creation, rehabilitation and support of affordable housing.” The State Housing Trust Fund is consequently administered by the PHFA through the Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement (PHARE) Act. This was accompanied by the introduction of Act 13 of 2012, which amended the existing Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act to include an unconventional gas well fee (also called an “impact fee”). The Act authorized counties and municipalities to impose the fee on gas producers operating wells within their borders, with collected fees then dispersed by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). Under Act 13, money collected from the impact fee is allocated to selected state agencies and associated programs, one of which is the State Housing Trust Fund,⁵ with the remainder distributed to local counties and municipalities with producing unconventional gas wells.

Under the PHARE Act, county governments that had adopted impact fees were designated “eligible applicants for funding” from the state housing trust and, thus, were responsible for facilitating and coordinating interaction between public and private actors (including not-for-profit and for-profit organizations) to develop local housing solutions in the context of Marcellus Shale development. PHFA interviewees were well aware of this deliberate meta-governance attempt to structure collaborative networked governance at the local level:

We have tried to encourage the counties to step up as the lead sort of organization to kind of coordinate and plan . . . through the guidelines that we use for our programs, we build it in and say that “the eligible applicant is the county” for these funds and so by doing that, we’re trying to make the statement that the county should act as the coordinator in that region [to engage] all other stakeholders. (State government representative)

The decentralized approach encouraged by the legislative requirements of the PHARE Act and the implicit coordination role for county governments reflect what Sørensen (2006) describes as an “overview” role for the state, which she suggests, in undertaking a meta-governance role, “should remain at an arm’s length from detailed decision making and leave it to actors who are more directly involved in local networks” (p. 109).

Framing

More subtle exercises of meta-governance by state actors were seen to play out in local forums and partnership structures through the framing of policy. In the case of one Northern Tier county, an employee of the Office of the Senator was identified as playing a significant local leadership role at the county level as lead facilitator and coordinator of the county housing taskforce. A central element of this role involved politically framing the issue of affordable housing as associated with vulnerable community members such as those with disabilities and those covered by the state’s Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) rather than those at risk of homelessness because of shale gas development. This served to persuade County Commissioners of the need for such projects, given they must sign-off on PHARE applications or they are “dead in the water” (State government representative). As explained by the interviewee,

I have tried to have a meeting with county commissioners and they are not willing to say that we have an issue. Our county is kind of unique in that our Commissioners don’t want to state that we have a housing problem. And so with that mind-set, there has been a conflict. So we’ve had to kind of change the way we’ve gone about trying to enact change. (Federal government representative)

In response, the Office of the Senator suggested the Taskforce re-“frame” their PHARE applications more specifically as efforts to provide affordable housing to individuals covered by existing programs such as those of OMHSAS, including people with intellectual disabilities (ID) or mental health (MH) problems, with the revised applications approved because they did not conflict with the county commissioners’ perception of housing and homelessness:

What we did to get our project through is we found that if we said low-income in any fashion in the application . . . they were going to deny it. So that’s when we put in MH and ID individuals. In reality they are low-income individuals. But, we did not use that wording. It was just a matter of knowing what verbiage to put in there so that they [Commissioners] are okay with it. (Federal government representative)

The above example shows that although the housing taskforce was essentially a county-government-level forum, it required a higher government agency to effectively reframe the network purpose to smooth network functioning.

Resourcing

As a meta-governor, the PHFA played a direct role in shaping the networked form of governance responding to housing impacts through the establishment of incentives to encourage cooperation. The financial assistance provided by the state through PHARE was viewed as the key incentive for driving collaboration: “The funding is driven that way, so you have to act and plan together as a county to get the funding to flow from the state to the local level” (State government representative). Several county government and housing taskforce respondents also cited the available PHARE funding as the only reason their organizations were able to roll out comprehensive programs for addressing affordable housing impacts.

There was general concern among those interviewed receiving PHARE funds that a change in party in the upcoming state election would lead to the repeal of the impact fee. Incoming royalties would consequently be distributed to all counties across the state, with less money available to those areas producing the Marcellus gas. Local actors identified themselves as working fast to gain money “while it was still in the pot” (not-for-profit organization representative). The threat of withdrawal of such finances by state government had the strategic effect of generating immediate local agency collaborative action.

As meta-governors, the PHFA sought to encourage the widespread participation of all stakeholders, particularly not-for-profit organizations, by offering additional administrative resources and technical knowledge to assist in developing both affordable housing projects and applications for funds under the PHARE Act:

We want to see that they can get a project moved from A to Z . . . . but these are really hard projects. We have a lot of expertise here (in PHFA) and we are more than willing to assist them with . . . negotiating contracts, how to write good land use, how to write leases for owner-tenant kinds of things, how to do . . . engineering studies for particular parcels of land. (State government representative)

Although the PHFA sought to facilitate collaborative projects through the provision of technical knowledge and material assistance to PHARE applicants, they were less forthcoming with other types of information, particularly that concerning the nature and severity of impacts on local communities experiencing Marcellus Shale development. The lack of publicly available information required local county government to step up and perform a resourcing role to local networks. Notably, although the state’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission (MSAC) undertook a study that identified affordable housing as an area of significant impact, the information provided in the Commission’s final report is broad and lacks comprehensive detail (MSAC, 2011). Several local county governments, including Bradford, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Lycoming, consequently commissioned their own studies into housing impacts. These studies sought to provide county officials with the quantitative data necessary to accurately identify and prioritize the most critical needs related to housing in each county. Participants felt that the lack of supporting information resources was a meta-governance failure on the part of state government to provide the institutional and material support necessary for strong decision-making processes at the local level.

Network facilitation

As the only actor eligible to apply for funds under the PHARE Act, county governments, as opposed to state government, held a key facilitative role and were responsible for bringing together the variety of local actors required to discuss, devise, and deliver affordable housing projects. Prior to the introduction of the PHARE Fund, county governments already convened a variety of local actors in deliberative discussion around affordable housing concerns through the creation of “local housing option teams” (L-HOTs) under the direction of an existing program of the OMHSAS. L-HOTs served as a necessary space to link actors and facilitate the development of consensus-building interaction for the development of solutions to the housing needs of persons with ID or MH problems. Local county interviewees explained that the lack of monitoring or oversight from the state office meant local housing authorities were de facto managing and directing the interactions of these coalitions. To tackle the impact of increased rents and housing shortages associated with the Marcellus boom, the focus of L-HOTs was expanded in 2009 and new housing task forces were established in Tioga and Bradford Counties, as well as the Municipality of Williamsport in Lycoming County. The Lycoming County Planning Department was recognized as providing particularly strong leadership not only by championing the creation of a county-wide housing strategy but also by being the sole actor responsible for orchestrating the variety of actors necessary to discuss, plan, and deliver the complexity of affordable housing projects proposed. Collaborative interaction processes were consequently a product of strong “bottom–up” county government process management, in addition to the top–down steering directions of the PHFA.

Summary

It is clear from the discussion in this section that public-sector actors, in the form of state government (especially PHFA) and local county governments (notably through housing taskforces with expanded capacity), have an active role in the design and steering of affordable housing governance. Meta-governance by the state has largely taken the form of selective activation, resourcing and introducing incentives for a network design that promotes collaborative local action. County governments were primarily performing a meta-governance role of process management with a strong role in facilitating networks. However, to assess the public sector’s role in meta-governance, it is important to consider it relative to other influences. Accordingly, the next section addresses the meta-governance role of oil and gas companies as major private-sector actors.

Private Meta-Governance

Network structuring

In the case at hand, the influence of private actors on the network governance arrangements for affordable housing is relatively minor and indirect. Private meta-governance activity in the form of the “governance of market governance” (Jessop, 2003) is first seen through the use of voluntary self-regulation initiatives under the label of “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR). In contrast to other industrialized nations with extensive mining activity (for example, Australia, Canada, South Africa), where companies can be legally conditioned to mitigate the negative social impacts of a project as a condition of obtaining a mining lease (Franks & Vanclay, 2013), governance of the social performance of energy companies in Pennsylvania only occurs through voluntary corporate and industry self-regulation. In the context of this “regulatory vacuum” (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011, p. 900), oil and gas companies are entirely responsible for decisions concerning how they undertake community relations (or whether they wish to engage in these relations at all), who they include as stakeholders and the community, and what issues and impacts they wish to identify and selectively engage in addressing. This establishes oil and gas companies as potential self-regulating actors who might participate in governance networks. However, in the case at hand, oil and gas companies did not participate in network governance to any extent, instead initiating a market mode of governance to structure “rules” for regulating social performance of the sector in the form of Community Engagement Guidelines by the American Petroleum Institute (API). This notion of social performance concurs with other research findings on CSR in the United States, where the enactment of CSR policies, programs, and practices rests explicitly on corporate discretion, rather than reflecting either governmental authority or broader institutions (Matten & Moon, 2008).

As a result, most companies interviewed as part of the research had structural arrangements for community relations in place; however, the nature of these measures varied according to contextual and organizational factors (Kemp, 2010). None of the interviewed companies operated specific initiatives for offsetting housing impacts or collaborated on the state and county initiatives. For smaller, “junior” American-based companies, community relations programs were typically incorporated within the function of communications, public relations, and external affairs, with community initiatives, mostly in the form of sponsorship of sporting and social events, being undertaken mainly on the basis of protecting company reputation and promoting a positive image of the company in the community. Less common within these companies were organizational procedures or policies for collaborative stakeholder engagement or the operation of community development programs. Larger, multi-national oil and gas companies (MNCs) operating in the region, such as Shell and Chevron, demonstrated more formal and strategic approaches to social performance. Many of these companies when contacted, however, were unwilling to speak to the researcher about their impact mitigation or CSR efforts, particularly in relation to impacts on affordable housing, leaving the inference that they did not have any in place. The API Community Engagement Guidelines have no legislative power and leave consideration of local community priorities at the discretion of individual operators and their voluntary contributions. Thus, the CSR actions of private oil and gas companies occur outside of governance networks and do not tackle responsibilities for impacts or civic responsibilities to engage in governance as “a good corporate citizen” (Carroll, 1991, p. 42), and at most, can be understood as philanthropy and public relations.

Selective activation and network facilitation

The API (2014) Community Engagement Guidelines recommend companies “host collaborative dialogues that address challenges and issues created by the presence of the oil and gas industry” (p. 7), thereby promoting networked interaction with relevant and affected stakeholders. Larger MNCs in the region were reported to have facilitated company–community interaction for addressing concerns about development, such as impacts on housing affordability, through the hosting of town hall meetings, “open house” arrangements, and stakeholder meetings. Some companies were also noted to have operated community advisory groups as a structured opportunity for citizen participation, although recent decline in industry activity in the region had also led to the termination of these arrangements in 2011. Interviewees described the participation process at these facilitated arenas as one based on information sharing and formal consultation on project activity, rather than genuine opportunities for collaborative decision making on issues pertaining to social impacts:

I attended at least one or two of those (meetings) at the beginning of the gas boom. The companies did come in and explain what their approach was going to be . . . but as far as having the community be part of the process of when they come in or what they are doing, that (wasn’t) a reality. (Federal government representative)

This reflects what Fransen (2012) considers a prominent consequence of business-driven multi-stakeholder governance arrangement: That is, they appear to emulate external engagement with various stakeholder groups; however, do so in such a way that actual involvement of societal interest groups in decision making and oversight is “effectively kept at bay” (p. 188).

Framing

Private oil and gas companies also had considerable influence over the framing of which social impacts of Marcellus Shale development were matters for private involvement in governance, thereby setting the agenda for others to take lead responsibility for housing impacts. This was reflected by interviewee participants, who described the impact of industry development on affordable housing as being a relatively neglected topic. Interviewees felt that discourses of economic development dominated the issues identified and responded to by companies in company established forums, with inadequate attention given to social issues such as affordable housing:

There was such a push here to not paint the gas industry in any kind of negative. Everything had to be positive, positive, positive. They talked about training and jobs . . . . you always had to look at all the great sides and the minute you start talking about anything negative you get shouted down and shut down . . . it’s not real. (County government representative)

Community and local government interviewees argued that the industry actively involved themselves in discussions concerning economic and “hard” infrastructure, while selectively framing themselves out of affordable housing issues:

I probably think they are aware (of their impact), but they are not at the table, let’s put it that way. The industry tends to partner and be more at the table when it comes to infrastructure, such as sewer expansion and road upgrades, but when it comes to housing they have really left it to the private market and government to take care of it. (County government representative)

On one level, this orientation was underpinned by established understandings of the purpose of a company being to serve its shareholders first through profit. Others described an alternative reason, that companies do not want to be linked to the more negative “truth” that the region has high homelessness and housing issues exacerbated by the natural gas industry. One voluntary sector worker remembered only one industry-organized forum that addressed the issue:

. . . they talked about the housing issues only because they [government] filmed it. As far as that, that was really the only one major initiative they did to try and talk about housing and make recognition of the issue. (Not-for-profit organization representative)

From this perspective, multi-stakeholder governance arrangements enacted by oil and gas companies lacked accountability, requiring the top-down influence of the state hierarchy to elicit engagement from industry actors in discussions of the housing policy problems.

Resourcing

Donations to several not-for-profit organizations in the region served as a further indirect way by which oil and gas companies reinforced housing affordability as an issue for other actors to take lead on. There were examples of MNCs in the region partnering with homeless agencies, providing financial resources to homelessness agencies and not-for-profit affordable housing developers, and even purchasing new housing facilities. This participation in broader, formalized collaborative approaches to addressing housing affordability was recognized. However, local interviewees and not-for-profit providers emphasized that company donations were relatively unpredictable because “they have big pockets . . . but they pick and choose the donations they want to make” (economic development organization representative). Similarly, there was a feeling that oil and gas companies “should be doing more” to come to the table regarding the issue, and that they should be encouraged to be more cooperative and more involved in various governance arrangements established to address affordable housing. In this respect, the donation of financial resources by some oil and gas companies was seen as self-interested, serving on one level to emulate their participation in affordable housing governance, while on another, reinforcing their choice of avoiding participation in a governance arrangement for affordable housing, which required any significant input from them.

Discussion

This article set out to assess the operation of state and private meta-governance in relation to the governance of affordable housing impacts in communities affected by extractive resource development. In the following discussion of the case study, we identify three key observations and reflect on their significance for our understanding of meta-governance.

First, the findings of this article support public administration literature that cautions viewing meta-governance as a “one-on-one relationship between one government and its network” (Temmerman, De Rynck, & Voets, 2015, p. 239). Rather than being the sole domain of the central state, we found that the coordination and facilitation of collaborative governance in the region were dispersed, with county government and private oil and gas companies, in addition to state government, acting as meta-governors but to varying degrees and for very different purposes (Table 3). Evidence from the case study shows that the state government, in the form of the PHFA, played a central meta-governance role in terms of establishing the institutional design, that is, the interactions between hierarchical, market, and networked modes of coordination (Jessop, 2002). The PHFA exerted influence through the establishment of the new state policy (i.e., PHARE Act) and the associated use of funding to incentivize local collaborative action as the preferred institutional structure of efforts to address affordable housing impacts. The specification of county government as the necessary applicant under the PHARE Act provides further indication of PHFA’s attempt to constitute a system of governance for response to Marcellus impacts on affordable housing structured on local response and action, and coordinated by another level of the public sector.

Table 3.

Comparison of Government and Private Actor Meta-Governance Strategies.

	Government	Oil and gas companies
Network structuring	State government—definition of institutional design (rules for allocation of PHARE funds). Monitoring and evaluation of PHARE projects.	Initiated a market mode of governance to structure “rules” for regulating social performance of the sector, which excludes their participation in governance arrangements for affordable housing.
Policy framing	Federal government—mediation of conflicting views within local housing forums by reframing affordable housing as a wider effort to provide housing to individuals with ID or MH problems.	Shape the notion of what constitutes appropriate community relations programs for energy companies, framing themselves out of issues not relevant to commercial interests (e.g., affordable housing).
Selective activation	State government—prescribe the relevant actors eligible to access funding.	Responsible for stakeholder identification and inclusion in private deliberative forum arrangements.
Enabling resources	State government—allocation of PHARE and federal funds, providing incentives for county government to organize collaborative action.	Provide donations (albeit rare) to not-for-profit organizations enrolled in the arena of lower income housing services.
Arranging	State government—acts as a broker and mediator with court of rule.	The absence of a legal requirement for “social license to operate” has led industry to establish its own mediation and conflict resolution guidelines.
Network facilitation	County government—responsibility for day-to-day coordination, establishment of temporary arrangements to facilitate collaboration and deliberation (housing taskforces) and physical spaces for meetings.	Establishment of temporary arrangements to facilitate collaboration and deliberation (town hall meetings and forums). Limited involvement in arrangements outside their control (i.e., housing taskforces).

Note. PHARE = Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement; ID = intellectual disabilities; MH = mental health.

County governments were also found to engage in meta-governance activity through the use of tools for facilitating specific collaborative interaction at local level. In seeking to access PHARE funding from the state, county governments formed a number of multi-organization forums and were responsible for selectively identifying and engaging actors and organizations with the necessary skills and resources to contribute to decisions concerning the resolution of affordable housing impacts. Local county government was also responsible for the maintenance of these relationships through the allocation of managerial and administrative resources. These findings bear similarity to analysis by Cheshire, Everingham, and Lawrence (2014) who describe local governments as increasingly enrolled in attempts to facilitate networks composed of public and private actors dealing with the complex governance challenges in resource communities.

A second observation contrasts with the more commonly explored narrative of meta-governance as governance in the “shadow of hierarchy” cast by government (Jessop, 2003, p. 107). This case explored the means through which private actors may similarly influence the conduct and interaction of individuals involved in networked modes of coordination. Overall, the case study showed that oil and gas companies had little involvement in the governance networks addressing affordable housing impacts and, hence, engaged in almost no meta-governing for the purposes of improving coordination. Although oil and gas companies were shown to facilitate local “arenas” for stakeholder engagement, such as multi-stakeholder forums and consultation groups, these arrangements were considered relatively “closed” venues, and significantly, issues for discussion were framed by the company personnel and did not address commonly agreed public policy issues. Rather, oil and gas companies directly defined and promoted the policy issues for discussion by these groups, while framing issues less linked to their commercial interest, such as the impact of operations on affordable housing availability, as out of the scope of issues to be addressed. The stakeholder arrangements created by these companies consequently centered on information dissemination, rather than genuine collaborative governance, enabling a private agenda to dominate the political space and marginalize other interests.

Although the concept of meta-governance has offered a valid lens for examining the steering capacities of government in relation to network governance, the application of this concept to private actors raises some tension within the concept. The fact that oil and gas companies demonstrated essentially little engagement with affordable housing networks appears to make the concept of meta-governance and its application to private actors, at least in the context of this case study, somewhat redundant. The results of the case study suggest that greater analytical traction would perhaps be gained from an examination of the role of private actors in what Jessop (2003) terms meta-exchange, which refers to the reflexive redesign (or “governance”) of individual markets. The concept appears to reflect the case at hand more appropriately with respect to the steering potential of private actors. This was illustrated by the setting of a detailed industry standard for community and stakeholder engagement by the API. Within Pennsylvania, there is no legal requirement for individual companies to undertake a social impact assessment (SIA), nor is there any regulatory consideration or guidance on addressing the “social” dimensions of resource extraction. The voluntary standard set by the API accordingly set the “rules of the game” for steering the conduct and behavior of oil and gas companies in relation to the local housing market.

However, adopting a more critical view of this private-initiated standard leads us to reflect on the meaning of “indirect” steering and coordination in the case of meta-governance. In the case, it is clear that the first and most visible layer of meta-governance was that exercised by state government, who established the legislation and financial resources defining local collaborative action as the preferred institutional structure to address affordable housing impacts. This type of meta-governance action is understood as being a “hands-off” approach to meta-governance (Sørensen, 2006). Although useful at a conceptual level, the notion of indirect steering becomes “messy” and harder to delineate in our actual case. According to Sørensen (2006), framing, for example, is considered “hands-off” because the meta-governor is not in direct contact with the self-governing actors, although it involves changing the views of self-governing actors within a specific network. In the context of the “regulatory vacuum” for social impact management in Pennsylvania, the API standard was influential in shaping the perceptions of other actors in terms of the boundaries of industry’s engagement with community and community issues. This effectively defined (and greatly limited) industry’s part in the broader affordable housing network. Thus, although not a visible meta-governance strategy directly related to the network governance of affordable housing or participation in governance, it had the simultaneous effect of co-determining that other actors take lead responsibility on the agenda of affordable housing governance. This shows that rather than a positive attempt to coordinate and streamline the multiplicity of approaches to social performance within the industry, the API standard and other actions by companies were indirect means of reinforcing and ensuring continuation of the existing regulatory structure, which ensures social impacts as a result of Marcellus Shale development are largely matters for corporate discretion. From this, we see that framing as a meta-governance action need not always be directly exercised by a limited number of actors within a network, but rather can involve indirect attempts by actors outside the network to shape or alter underlying worldviews or value systems, which inform and circumscribe the decisions of other governance actors. An implication of such understanding is that state meta-governance need not always be “dominant,” but indeed can take place in the shadow or influence of other meta-governance activities, particularly those of private actors.

Finally, examining the behavior of private actors through the conceptual prism of meta-governance has pointed to a deeper inherent resistance to networked forms of governance with goals, resources, and responsibilities shared by the state and private actors, due in part to the institutional context in which they sit. In this case, the failure of the state to frame SIA and social impact management as a public policy issue and provide any policy guidelines for SIA, or incentivize oil and gas companies to be involved in the local affordable housing forums, demonstrates that meta-governance is an inherently contextualized process (Bell & Park, 2006). In the context of the United States, the prevalence of an ideology that heavily privileges “individual entrepreneurial freedoms” (Harvey, 2005, p. 2) explains the lack of regulation requiring oil and gas companies to contribute toward societal objectives. Such understandings of governance do not accommodate state intervention in private companies’ activities occurring on privately owned land, including insistence that they contribute to offsetting the impact of their Marcellus Shale operations on local communities. The result is a socio-political and economic context that supports, or at least does not impede, private development (Horowitz, 2015). The conscious exclusion of oil and gas companies from SIA requirements and involvement in targeted governance for addressing affordable housing impacts consequently legitimates the limited involvement of these private actors in governance networks (Cutler, Haufler, & Porter, 1999). This is evident particularly in domains such as CSR and community relations, where not only does state authority not (yet) exist, but also network governance authority is resisted. Teasing out the extent to which different governing traditions and institutional arrangements shape how meta-governors select and exercise specific meta-governance strategies is consequently an area requiring further work (Baker & Stoker, 2015).

Conclusion

This article has examined instances of networked governance operating to address affordable housing impacts caused by Marcellus Shale gas development as an empirical case to explore the dynamics of meta-governance. The aim was to highlight the strategies and mechanisms used by both the state and extractive resource companies to influence the choices and interactions of individuals within network modes of governance coordination.

From the outset, responsibility for meta-governance in this case study appeared to lie predominantly with public authorities, with state government having strong influence over the structure, resourcing, and promotion of the networked governance response, while county government directly participated in cultivating the collaborative interaction and engagement of actors at the local level. The rhetorical ideals of networked action were less evident with private oil and gas companies, however, with these actors successfully resisting incorporation into network governance. Private meta-governance was more visibly witnessed in the form of the design of market governance, involving the establishment of a voluntary, industry-wide standard for community and stakeholder engagement by the peak industry representative for the oil and gas sector. However, informed by a more critical perspective, this form of private meta-governance was shown to have countervailing implications for the form and function of network governance. Principally, the standard created boundaries for oil and gas companies concerning their self-regulation with regard to issues of social impact management and corporate social responsibility, with the simultaneous effect of co-determining that other actors take lead responsibility for affordable housing governance. This leads our study to suggest that the theory of meta-governance be reappraised. We have highlighted that “framing,” as a meta-governance tool, need not always be directly exercised by a limited number of actors within a network. We suggest it can also involve attempts to structure or change the underlying worldviews or value systems of those actors involved in the meta-governance of network governance, involving circumscription of how these actors apprehend an issue and accordingly structure the network(s) for response. A reconceptualization of framing in this manner might open up the critical space needed for greater analysis of the exercise of meta-governance by private and other non-state actors.

In light of these findings, private meta-governance can be understood as indirect and as limiting the extent of coordinated multi-sector action on some social issues and functioning to privilege corporate interests over other societal interests. This conclusion is not surprising, because exclusion of the industry from state regulation for social impact management confers legitimacy on the exemption of the private sector from network governance, and hence any likelihood of direct private meta-governance within networked modes of coordination. It remains an open question for future research whether private actors can meta-govern self-governing networks through more direct and targeted means, such as those demonstrated by public authorities in this case study.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Gratitude is expressed to Tom Murphy of the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research (MCOR), Kathy Brasier and Kai Schafft for their insights and generosity during the lead author’s fieldwork in Pennsylvania. The authors would also like to thank Daniel Franks and the anonymous reviewers who provided detailed comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was conducted with funding from the Centre for Coal Seam Gas (CCSG) and the Sustainable Minerals institute (SMI).

Notes

Author Biographies

C. E. Wilson is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM) in the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at the University of Queensland. Her work focuses on governance in the context of sustainable community development and social-justice related issues, particularly in extractive resource-based industries.

T. H. Morrison is an associate professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence at James Cook University. Her research draws on the discipline of political science, public administration, geography and sociology to understand and improve the design of complex and multi-scalar environmental governance regimes, particularly in relation to areas of decentralization, regionalization and risk.

J.-A. Everingham is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM) in the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at the University of Queensland. Her work focuses on governance and social policy, social aspects of sustainable development and community development, and multi-sector action to ensure community well being.

J. McCarthy is a professor at the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. His research centers on questions of environmental governance and political ecology, with specific attention to how the political-economic structures and dynamics of capitalist societies produce particular sorts of environmental transformations, dynamics and outcomes.

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