Intergovernmental collaboration, instrument adaptation and embedded synergistic governance: based on 1984–2020 water pollution control policy research.

Crossing departmental boundaries and improving the efficiency of policy instruments are potential solutions to break the dilemma of public affairs governance and shift to collaborative governance. It is necessary to re-examine the internal connection mechanism between intergovernmental relations and policy tools. This study used textual analysis to deconstruct 178 water pollution control policies from 1984 to 2020, provided an overview of 16 control sectors and 30 policy instruments; then used social network analysis to characterize the structure of the water pollution control network, discussed the principles of reciprocity and priority of cross-sector cooperation, the shift in preference in the choice of policy instruments, and the institutional logic of the "sector-instrument" interface. First, the network characteristics of the governance body evolves from "one-core multiple" to "multiple synergy." The means of the degree, closeness and betweenness centrality of the current policy stage are 0.79, 0.85, and 0.04, respectively. Second, the selective preference of policy instruments will shift from command-and-control preference to a balanced choice of multiple policy instruments. The mean values of degree, closeness and betweenness centrality in the current policy stage are 0.79, 0.92, and 0.01, respectively. Thirdly, the sectoral collaboration and policy instruments both follow the "relationship-interaction-synergy" process in the evolution of policy elements. The structural characteristics of the network change from "loose" in the policy construction stage to "decentralized-coupled" in the policy innovation stage to "core-edge" in the institutional innovation stage, and the current the network density is 69.14 and the connection degree is 0.93. This study enriches the knowledge of water pollution governance policy design and policy implementation, and provides ideas to consider the relationship between governance sectors and the embeddedness of instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]