“A Kiss Here and a Kiss There”: Conflict and Collaboration in Environmental Partnerships

Abstract

Multistakeholder collaboration in the environmental realm has been increasing steadily over the past decade. This trend is responding to several stimuli, including dissatisfaction with current regulatory regimes, a liberal economic climate emphasizing global competitiveness and short-term returns, and the growing roles of the business and nongovernmental organization sectors in the environmental policy arena. This paper grows out of ethnographic research conducted between 1994 and 1998 with four environmental partnerships in Europe and the United States. The research found all of these partnerships to be marked by practices of conflict minimization and diffusion. Drawing upon illustrative data from one of these case studies, a European Union level initiative aimed at enabling sustainable development in Europe, the paper asks why this was the case, especially given the diverse political and economic interests at stake and the history of contentious relations between the sectors in other venues. Employing a theoretical perspective highlighting the sociohistoric factors involved in these processes, the paper suggests that this proclivity toward nonconfrontational behavior stems in part from two sources: a prominent cultural model that conceptualizes the partnership process as fundamentally nonconflictual in nature, and the promotion of the discourse of ecological modernization over other competing discourses. The paper explores some of the implications of this finding and concludes that environmental partnerships characterized by such nonconfrontational practices risk inadvertently encouraging the delegitimization of conflictual approaches to environmental action and engendering a retreat from radical thinking and innovative environmental solutions.

The universal common good: faith‐based partnerships and sustainable development

“…Indeed some suggest that 'listening is at the cornerstone of effective partnership' (Ndiaye and Hammock, 1991;cited by Postma, 1994, p. 454). After all, partnership does not necessary imply a lack of confl ict (Poncelet, 2001), but a willingness to manage tensions has to follow from an awareness of such tensions coupled with a desire to do something about them.…”

The Paradox of Multi-Stakeholder Collaborations: Insights from Sustainable Silicon Valley’s Regional CO2 Emissions Reduction Program

“…Collaboration focuses on "using information, divergent insights and spontaneity to solve problems and develop new understandings" (Lozano, 2007). The large number and variety of collaborative approaches reflect the increasing complexity of environmental problems, the increased number of "self-perceived stakeholders" in environmental conflicts, the interdependence among private, public, and civil society strategies for addressing problems, and the limits of traditional policy instruments for dealing with complex environmental problems (Poncelet, 2001a).…”

The Foundation to Collaborate: Understanding the Role of Participant Interests

“…In Chapter One we learned that collaborative participants may struggle with differences in missions, differences in understanding, conflicting roles, overlapping responsibilities and competing statutory objectives (Imperial, 2005;Poncelet, 2001 5) purpose that relates to concrete goals and a shared vision, and 6) resources ( includes finances and a skilled convener).…”

“…Poncelet (2001) describes collaborators' tendency to minimize conflict or diffuse it based on a prominent cultural model that conceptualizes the partnership process as "fundamentally nonconflictual in nature." This mindset delegitimizes conflictual approaches to environmental action which impedes "radical thinking and innovative environmental solutions (Poncelet, 2001). "…”

“…Collaborative participants may struggle with differences in missions, differences in understanding, conflicting roles, overlapping responsibilities and competing statutory objectives (Imperial, 2005;Poncelet, 2001). Collaborative processes often suffer from disruptions, and have difficulty moving forward, due to such factors as interpersonal relationships and differences in perspective about the problem (Coughlin, Hoben, Manskopf, & Quesada, 1999).…”