This chapter discusses the importance of collaborative relationships in civic life, and how the relationships that people would value do not always arise on their own. Instead, there can be an unmet desire to collaborate. It underscores why it’s important to distinguish between two types of goals for collaborative relationships: informal collaboration oriented toward knowledge exchange, and formal collaboration oriented toward projects with shared ownership, decision-making authority, and accountability. It also introduces the book’s main argument, which is that in addition to commonly cited factors such as resource constraints and a lack of organizational incentives, unmet desire arises because potential collaborators (who often begin as strangers) can be uncertain how to relate to each other. Uncertainty about relationality is a key barrier to new collaborative relationships. Last, the chapter also connects a rich understanding of the science of collaboration to several other topics: the nature of democratic agency, how to strengthen the link between science and society, the nature of discursive participation as a form of civic engagement, and how we conceptualize civic competence.

Chapter 6 focuses on relationships in Congress, examining why some members are more likely to work together than others. As collaboration is an inherently relational activity that requires agreement between two or more actors, social network analysis is used to account for the interdependence of members. This chapter demonstrates that the relationships among members of Congress are a function of strategic considerations, personal relationships, and shared policy goals. Most notably, almost half of the relationships in the collaborative Congress are bipartisan, as members expect that working across the aisle will broaden the appeal of a policy and significantly increase the likelihood it will be successful. Even in a polarized environment, members are clearly motivated to try and find common ground with members of the opposite party. Members are also more likely to collaborate when they have mutual friends, are from the same state, or sit on the same committee, reflecting how the existing interpersonal and institutional relationships in Congress can lower the costs of collaboration.