What is Collaborative Governance?

The term Governance is broadly used to describe the steering mechanisms that operate in a certain political unit, at local, regional, national, or international level, involving the interaction of agents from the government, the economy, and civil society.

The concept of Governance was coined to provide a moderately neutral term to include different political objectives, economic drives and social forces that can be mobilized towards a certain direction. Governance is thus seen as a process and it differs from government, or management, in that it emphasizes dynamic interaction, rather than a predefined plan.

Collaborative practices generally refer to processes of people engaging in joint and inclusive creative activity, pooling their knowledge and skills to achieve a shared objective. This collaboration usually has no predefined structure or roles, and is coordinated autonomously through the participants’ consensus. Think of collaborative learning, or early practices of the collaborative/sharing economy, such as car-pooling, and neighborhood sharing practices. The wide diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has enhanced collaborative practices, allowing them to occur effectively at greater scales and scopes.

Governance, by definition, conveys the element of collaboration expanded beyond the government sector. Collaborative Governance is a specific form that is based on collaborative practices. In the context of this toolkit, our approach on Collaborative Governance is also informed by ICT and the accompanying socio-economic practices. Specifically, the curation of tools enabling capacities for self-organization, distributed agency and legitimacy, and peer-to-peer coordination on city level and in cross-city alliances.