Stakeholder Partnerships

Still trying to define coalitions. Here's one article's approach.

The road of understanding collaboratives is rife with multiple definitions. These multiple definition can coalesce into different types of coalitions. One type identified early on in the last decade was the stakeholder partnership. An article on watershed partnerships in California and Washington by Leach, Pelkey and Sabatier (2002) classifies some forms of collaboration based on the breadth of issues, types of participants and the stages of the policy cycle they work through. This table provides the breakdown:
When narrowed down from the most general definition of collaboration some bounds can be placed on the concept. Stakeholder partnerships, as defined by Leach et al here, is defined primarily by the breadth of the issue or issues that brings people together into the partnership. This breadth in turn determines the participants and the stages of the policy cycle the collaboration is engaged in. The defining characteristics of a stakeholder partnership are:

• Broadly defined issue area
• participation by multiple levels of government
• indefinite duration
• exists for the full policy cycle
• integrated approach to a suite of interrelated problems
• geographic theme (like a body of water or region)
• final outcome is to reach an agreement on one or more specific policies or projects
• intermediate outcomes may include research, education, public outreach, trust-building, grant writing
• strive to include all local, state and federal agencies that may have relevant regulatory or service-based responsibilities

This is all great, and particularly vague. I am not sure how it is that these partnerships are granted any formal policy making power, nor what the definition of policy is in this case. What are the actual outcomes? Well agreement appears to be the primary one. Delving into the specification of the partnerships in their study we can see that this seems to be a major component.

To be included in this study partnerships had to:

• Meet at least 4 times a year
• focus on managing one or more streams, rivers or watersheds
• had to have diverse membership including one state or federal official, one rep from local government, and two opposing interests such as a resource user and regulator or environmentalist.

I note two items on this list because I think they reflect on the loose definition of partnership. First, the requirement that they focus on managing a body of water. Is management the equivalent of policy making? What is management of a river? Is it use, setting rules for use, monitoring use, or all of the above? Seems to confound many things and certainly can go beyond policy making. Second is the idea that the groups had to include opposing interests. This was passed over quickly in the definitions but seems rather important. 

If the primary outcome of a partnership is agreement, and there is a requirement that opposing interests must be included, does this make a partnership a form of conflict resolution? Not necessarily, but it does muddle the water quite a bit regarding the definition. What determines whether interests are opposed or not? If it is solely on the role then there are many instances where there may not be actual opposition. 

Why not focus on partnerships as an attempt to bring together different disparate interests to come to an agreement surrounding the management of a resource? Is this too specific? This broadens opposing interests, narrows policy and management. I am not sure. 

More importantly, and to be addressed later on, is where does a partnership come from? There sees to be some inferred problem that lacks agreement that must exist prior to the emergence of a partnership. What then leads these particular stakeholders to enter into this arrangement? Why not ignore it, do what your agency/firm/self want to do and what is best for you? There must be some form of overarching situation that leads to this involvement. Of course this could just be legislation requiring cooperation. But there is a bigger question here because the people involved are not mandated to be there (save possibly from some agencies or from the possibility of getting some funds). 

I have a feeling these are questions I will continue asking throughout this summer.