Evolutionary game analysis for multi‐level collaborative governance under public crisis in China: From a value perception perspective

Abstract In a risk society, the survival and development of humans are facing threats of complex and severe public crisis events. Public participation in collaborative governance (CG) of public crisis events is increasingly recognized as an important direction for the reform of the current and future emergency management system. Previous studies of CG have mainly focused on the macro level and ignored to address micro‐level discussions of the behavioral strategy evolution of stakeholders. From a fresh value perception perspective, this study constructs an evolutionary game model to clarify the evolution mechanism of multi‐level emergency CG. First, the value perception model is built based on Prospect Theory and Mental Accounting to optimize the traditional game matrix. Second, the evolutionary stability is analyzed to solve the system evolution law. Finally, numerical simulation is conducted in the case of Heilongjiang province, a main region of food and energy supply in China. Results showed that (1) the CG game system has a complex evolutionary path; (2) the behavior of game players is affected by perceived incomes and perceived costs; (3) compared with the reference value and the risk aversion coefficient of income accounts, game players are more sensitive to that of cost accounts; (4) enhancing the perceived value of public psychological satisfaction and government reputation is helpful for the long‐term construction of CG. Overall, this study aims to highlight the potential utility of value perception in promoting effective implementations of CG and to provide new insights for the development of CG in China and other countries.