Pathways to collaborative implementation - Problem Compatibility and the Progress of Integrated Water Resources Management in Colombia
Gustavo Valdivieso Cervera is a PhD student in the department Science, Technology & Policy Studies. Supervisors are prof.dr. S. Kuhlmann, prof.dr. R. Torenvlied and dr. H.G. Ordonez Matamoros from the faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Science.
In recent decades, collaborative governance has gained ground as an approach that would be suitable for tackling complex and urgent global problems, including climate change and water security. Collaborative governance is seen not only as an option to improve the outcomes of the combined efforts of various actors but also as a way to give legitimacy to public decision-making. Collaborative decision-making is relevant not only to industrialized countries—from which the approach originated—but also to societies in other parts of the world, such as Latin America.
Alongside all this optimism about collaboration, there is also concern in science and professional practice about collaborative inertia, the trend of collaborative activities being frustratingly slow to produce outputs or uncomfortably conflict-ridden.
This dissertation attempts to find interventions that could help prevent collaborative inertia through a better understanding of how collaborative implementation works and which conditions favor or hinder successful collaborative implementation.
Some conceptual and methodological innovations are introduced to help improve our understanding of collaborative implementation. The conceptual innovations are two. First, a distinction between conditions mainly associated with the creation and persistence of collaborations and those mainly associated with the pace of their progress. Second, the concept of problem compatibility as an alternative to frames, narratives, or other similar constructs to understand both consensus and conflict upon specific decisions.
The methodological innovations include the combined use of sufficiency, necessity, and configurational analysis to identify what QCA calls INUS conditions -those that are neither sufficient nor necessary, yet still present in configurations. At last one INUS condition identified in the analysis is seen as potentially convenient, under certain circumstances, for collaborative implementation.
The empirical context of the thesis concerns three pilot projects for the implementation of a new integrated water management policy in Colombia, as well as five specific decisions within them. Within-case variation suggests that the conditions identified in the dissertation are relevant for collaborative implementation beyond specific contexts, although at least one of those conditions, the use of authority, is more likely to show in collaborations within some specific politico-administrative traditions.
The dissertation finds a special role for problem compatibility and trust in the configurations driving good progress in collaborative implementation, while perceived interdependence remains the main influence driving persistence. The influence of problem compatibility shows the importance of knowledge for collaborative implementation.
The research helps us to understand how differences in problem frames, decision criteria, and knowledge validity judgments—via problem compatibility—influence decision-making. This approach extends beyond existing research on boundary work. For public managers who implement policy in partnerships, the conclusions imply both a call for caution when using a strategy of shared decision-making, and a call for action for the ex-ante monitoring of problem compatibility for specific decisions. These steps could help make the difference between collaborative inertia and the promised collaborative advantage.
