Collaborative governance: processes, benefits and outcomes

As the complexity of contemporary public issues continue to evolve, societies are in a high need of tools to mitigate existing problems and prevent their reoccurrence. This chapter explores theories and practices of the collaborative governance paradigm. In particular, the chapter focuses on the principles, outcomes, challenges and success factors of collaborative governance. True collaborative governance is driven by the principles of inclusion, power balance, sustainability, mutual responsibility and accountability, shared values, rules, and motivation. Collaborative processes include monitoring, providing feedback, advisory, resources and information sharing, coordination, collective learning, and knowledge sharing. Each collaborative governance network is unique in its causes, composition and environmental context. The chapter concludes with the conceptual model of collaborative governance for better understanding how this tool can be used to serve the public, what benefits it has, what processes are involved, and to what outcomes it can lead.