The Challenges of Collaboration in Environmental Governance : Barriers and Responses

Collaborative approaches to governance are being used to address some of the most difficult environmental issues across the world, but there has been less attention paid to the challenges of practice. The Challenges of Collaboration in Environmental Governance brings together leading scholars from the United States, Europe and Australia with a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds - planning, public policy, public administration, geography, political science, natural resources management, conflict resolution as well as other fields - to directly confront the challenges and limitations of collaborative governance in practice The authors explore the theory, problems, and context of collaboration challenges through a diverse set of international case studies from around the world. They also examine challenges related to power, politics, organizations, stakeholder roles, process, and participation, concluding with a research agenda to help guide future scholarship and practice. The goal is to highlight consistent difficulties from practice, and examine potential strategies for addressing conceptual weaknesses - all with an eye towards improving environmental governance results. By providing a synthesis of major themes and a research agenda for collaborative governance, this book will serve as an asset to academics and researchers in urban planning, public policy, public administration, political science, geography, conflict resolution, and natural resource management as well as practitioners working for governments or non-profit organizations.