Sustaining Collective Action Under Institutional Constraint: Governance Dynamics in Interdisciplinary Sociotechnical Interventions

Abstract

Interdisciplinary sociotechnical interventions are widely promoted to address sustainability challenges in energy, water, and environmental governance, yet many struggle to sustain collective action once external funding and coordination recede. This article examines how governance arrangements are reconfigured under institutional constraint during the implementation of a community‐based sociotechnical intervention in rural Mexico. Drawing on qualitative process tracing grounded in project documentation, institutional deliberations, and reflexive engagement with the intervention, the analysis reconstructs how distributive conflict, enforcement fragility, fiscal misalignment, temporal pressure, and multilevel accountability shaped the project trajectory. The study develops an empirically grounded governance framework centered on four interdependent conditions: stabilization of authority, alignment of incentives and responsibilities, management of temporality and transition, and fiscal and operational continuity. The findings show that governance sustainability depended less on technological feasibility than on institutionally durable arrangements capable of reconciling participation, enforcement, and accountability.