Course Description
The term “collaboration” is becoming ubiquitous in the public, private, and civic sectors. While at its most basic, it simply means to work together (to “co-labor”), the term is used as a surrogate for many types of activity such as public/private partnerships, networks, interagency cooperation, like-minded coalitions, etc. Further, the term “collaborative governance” is being applied more frequently in public administration, political science, and other fields to refer to these and other approaches to governance that focus on reaching across traditional boundaries. Over the past fifteen years or so, collaborative governance has received more specific definition as it applies to multiparty, consensus-seeking processes, often facilitated or mediated by an independent third party, and intended to resolve particular public policy and governance challenges. This includes the development of theories, concepts, constructs, methods, and best practices that help to distinguish it from the other types of collaboration mentioned above. The resulting approach is now being applied to economic development, health and social services, land use and transportation, emergency management and disaster planning, and a wide range of other issue areas. But it was first applied to resolving natural resources conflicts and challenges, that is where it is still most frequently deployed, and it is where we concentrate our attention in this course. The course includes lecture but focus on breakout group and full class discussions, guest lectures, and real-world case studies. It explores the significant achievements reflected in the cases and also where each fell short because no collaborative process (or any other approach to policy making) is successful in all ways.