Legitimacy assessment throughout the life of collaborative water governance

Abstract

Collaborative governance arrangements involving a diversity of groups (e.g., governments, civil society, industry) are increasingly being used to make decisions or give advice to decision-makers on water issues. Legitimacy is a critical factor for the effectiveness, efficiency, stability, and popular approval of collaborative efforts. However, as a concept, legitimacy remains contested with various meanings, theoretical backgrounds, and source norms. Clarity is particularly needed around the changing sources of legitimacy as collaborative efforts mature. Drawing on casestudy research of five collaborations in British Columbia, Canada, we present a framework of legitimacy sources as collaborations evolve. Legitimacy during the establishment of a collaboration depends principally on community readiness to collaborate, a sense of need, and the perceived potential for goal achievement. As a collaboration continues to grow, its legitimacy forms mainly from normative processesthe perceived quality of factors such as accountability, transparency, consensusbuilding, and representation of relevant discourses. Once a collaboration reaches maturity and faces questions of its future existence, legitimacy is largely resultbased-tangible and contextually meaningful outcomes must be easily identifiable and promoted. Increased understanding of the dynamics of legitimacy can help collaborative efforts strategically plan and work toward their goals as they evolve.

Social Innovation for Sustainability Transformation and its Diverging Development Paths in Marginalised Rural Areas

“…2019; Sarkki et al . 2019a; Castro‐Arce and Vanclay 2020; Melnychuk and de Loë 2020). Development may take various forms and stages from the emergence of social innovations via their growth towards their consolidation (Kluvankova et al .…”

Governing toward decarbonization: The legitimacy of national orchestration

“…By enlisting private actors (i.e., business organizations or NGOs) as intermediaries, the public actor requires their support for public problem solving and therefore needs to establish and maintain legitimacy for the orchestration initiative. While the legitimacy of various forms of private and collaborative governance has previously been studied (Bernstein & Cashore, 2007; Melnychuk & de Loë, 2020), the legitimacy of orchestration initiatives has received less attention (Bäckstrand & Kuyper, 2017; Thew et al, 2021). With orchestration initiatives aimed at climate mitigation spreading internationally (Chan et al, 2018), a pertinent question is how such orchestration initiatives can establish themselves as legitimate institutions.…”

From Power to Legitimacy—Explaining Historical and Contemporary Water Conflict at Yesa Reservoir (Spain) and Gross Reservoir (USA) Using Path Dependency

“…This also makes it a "potentially volatile attribute" as it is always up for reevaluation in changing contexts and amidst changing values [28]. Closely related to its social nature, legitimacy is not a static phenomenon [35]. Sources that helped legitimize actors or activities at one point in time may not be pertinent at later stages.…”