LIST OF WORKSHOPS

Workshop Format

Preferred format: hybrid 

Workshop Objectives: 

The objective of our workshop is to bring together researchers working on conflict and collaboration as entangled in the context of environmental governance from different theoretical and methodological perspectives. We intend to establish a theoretical dialogue around Theories of the Policy Process and their different approaches to conflict analysis - we think in particular of the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the Ecology of Games, Policy Narratives and Policy Networks. We are especially interested in engaging with scholars that bring some of these theories together or put them in dialogue with other theories including Political Theorists of conflict (such as Chantal Mouffe) and classical works on power, to engage in a discussion on the theoretical underpinnings of empirical analyses of policy and governance processes and how they reveal more general patterns of relevance for democratic functioning. We are also open to support discussions on what other theoretical approaches, such as Peace and War Studies, Sustainability Studies, etc. can bring to the conceptualization of conflict and collaboration as entangled issues. Thus, our workshop seeks to develop a strong theoretical component, supported by empirical cases and methodological innovations. Indeed, when it comes to methodologies, we are particularly interested in mix-methods approaches as well as approaches that engage with unconventional methods such as arts-based methods, games, participatory modelling or co-production methods, besides more traditional social-science methods such as statistical analysis, network analysis, interviews and ethnographies. A final important component of our workshop will be reflexivity. Indeed, we would like to engage in discussions about the difficulties, challenges and possible opportunities in studying conflicts of different types.

Concretely, we imagine that workshop participants will have a developed draft of their papers, so that we can comment on each others’ papers to cross-fertilize the differences in our theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. In coming together, we will also be discussing an appropriate venue to publish our work, either as an edited book or a special issue in journals such as Policy Studies Journal or Environmental Policy and Governance focusing on Horizontal Conflicts in Environmental Governance. Key to that objective will be the common development of a piece on current theoretical and methodological frontiers in the context of conflict and collaboration in environmental governance, for which the workshop would help us harness relevant ideas. 

Research Questions: 

1) What are the variables that allow for healthy coexistence of conflict and collaboration in participatory environmental governance? 

2) How to conceptualize conflict in cases in which power endowments are horizontal? 

3) How are policy narratives developed and transformed in contexts of conflict intensification? 

4) How do policy networks of conflict structure collaboration patterns in environmental governance? 

5) Which methods allow for studying conflicts without exacerbating polarization or compromising trust in research? 

6) Which methods are better suited to access and produce data on conflicts that is difficult to obtain through traditional methods? 

Hypotheses: 

H1: Conflict and collaboration can coexist in environmental governance systems.

H2: Conflict can catalyze collaboration, and vice versa.

H3: Conflicts can be disentangled into networks of issues.

H4: Different methodological approaches are needed to have a holistic understanding of the complexity of conflict.

H5: Policy narratives in contexts of horizontal conflicts strongly build on processes of interpersonal affective conflict.

Expected Impact on Public Policy Research 

Our proposed workshop aims to build theory regarding the interconnected roles of conflict and collaboration in fostering desirable outcomes from public policy, through the synthesis of a large number of empirical cases and diverse methodological approaches. 

Expected Impact on Practice 

Our proposed session aims to broaden our understanding of the interactions between conflict and collaboration in environmental governance systems. Specifically, we hope to provide learnings related to transforming conflict into productive collaboration, or pathways to move forward amidst dissensus and avoid polarization. We hope to impact and inform conflict management practices in ways that help leverage conflict into a productive dynamic within environmental governance processes.

Our workshop focuses on conflict and collaboration patterns as entangled, which is particularly salient in cases of horizontal or diagonal conflicts, i.e. conflicts in which responsibilities and power endowments are distributed across multiple, independent actors. We seek contributions that illuminate the complex interactions between conflict and collaboration within environmental governance processes in a range of diverse contexts and from different theoretical perspectives. We particularly encourage contributions using mixed-methods. We hope that contributions help answering the following research questions:

1) How to conceptualize conflict in cases in which power endowments are horizontal? 
2) What are the variables that allow for healthy coexistence of conflict and collaboration in participatory environmental governance? 
3) How are policy narratives developed and transformed in contexts of conflict intensification? 
4) How do policy networks of conflict structure collaboration patterns in environmental governance?  
5) Which methods allow for studying conflicts without exacerbating polarization or compromising trust in research? 
6) Which methods are better suited to access and produce data on conflicts that is difficult to obtain through traditional methods? 

The workshop will be hybrid. It will be designed to foster interactions among participants and the audience. The goal is to produce either a special issue in a respected journal (e.g., Environmental Policy and Governance, Policy Studies Journal) or a proposal for an edited book.

Collaborative and participatory environmental governance seeks to navigate complex dynamics, including ecological feedbacks and telecoupled phenomena, together with different claims over a shared resource, and even incompatible ontological understandings about what is being managed. In these contexts, conflict and collaboration come often in tandem within governance networks. While there are numerous studies that document the destructive effects of conflicts on environmental governance, a growing number of scholars point out that conflicts can also fulfill important functions, such as forcing stakeholders to strive for new solutions, driving change and innovation through the expression of marginalized perspectives, and playing a vital role in democratic processes. Moreover, a conceptualization of conflict that gives room for collaboration can also help in the study of horizontal or diagonal conflicts, where power endowments are distributed and many actors share responsibilities and harms. The binary approach that conceptualizes conflicts as problems to be resolved overlooks contexts when conflicts can catalyze collaboration, or when a lack of collaboration does not necessarily indicate conflict. Studying conflict and collaboration together and not as opposite ends of a spectrum, allows one to fully grasp the ambiguities of political processes such as narrative development or coalition building. Even in a context of increased polarization where environmental public policies - be it conservation or exploitation policies - are implemented amidst contestation, research shows that positions are not all-encompassing or clear-cut. Our workshop seeks to bring together scholars from different disciplinary interests and backgrounds working on conflict and collaboration as entangled phenomena in the context of environmental governance in diverse cases and levels of administration. Indeed, we invite scholars to share their research on conflicts in their broadest sense—not merely as war or violent confrontations, but as diverse dynamics, including dynamics entangled with collaboration, that influence governance interactions with different outcomes.

María Mancilla García is a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, in Sweden. Her research focuses on power dynamics in environmental governance processes. She has extensively worked on conflict situations in diverse contexts (Spain, Sweden, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, etc.). While trained as a political scientist, she uses composite theoretical frameworks influenced by Sustainability Sciences, Human Geography and Anthropology. She uses a mix-methods approach combining network analysis with qualitative approaches, including participatory methods. 

Jeremy Pittman is an Associate Professor in the University of Waterloo’s School of Planning. His research focuses on environmental governance and policy, and he works with a diverse range of communities and sectors in Canada and internationally on sustainability-oriented projects. Before joining the University of Waterloo, he worked for both provincial and federal governments in Canada as well as the private sector on issues related to the resilience of rural, agricultural, and fisheries-based communities to social and ecological change. He has held several prestigious fellowships and awards, most notably the Liber Ero Fellowship for young conservation scientists in Canada.