Collaborative governance in all policy phases?

Recent decades have seen a growing appreciation of the role of collaboration in public policy-making. Collaboration may spur knowledge-sharing and creative problem-solving while building a joint ownership over new and bold policy solutions. To qualify and nuance the claim that collaboration improves public policymaking, this chapter explores the promises and problems of stakeholder collaboration in the agenda setting, problem framing, solution design, implementation, and evaluation phases of the policy process. The chapter begins by defining collaborative governance vis-à-vis competing concepts, distinguishing between different forms of collaboration, and breaking down the policy process into different phases. Next, it explains why collaborative governance, under certain conditions, may be considered as a promising strategy for public policy-making. This conceptual ground clearing is followed by an analysis of the positive and negative contributions of different kinds of collaborative governance in the different policy phases and the strategies for mitigating the problems. The ensuing discussion explores the dilemma that a well-managed use of stakeholder collaboration in public policymaking may create effective policy solutions while simultaneously undermining democratic accountability if the standard mechanisms of oversight are not supplemented with new forms of social accountability. The conclusion briefly summarizes the main argument and points to some future research avenues.