Communication in Collaborative Governance

Communication in collaborative governance drives the various aspects that enhance the realization of established intents in mandated or voluntary contexts. Communication influences stakeholders convening and engagement during the collaborative process, including decisions, implementation actions, and outcomes. It is integral to tackling complex public problems that benefit target populations and society. The opportunity for stakeholders to engage regularly through face-to-face dialogue allows for authentic deliberations on the various pertinent agenda items, resolution of collaborative-related conflicts, and producing consensus-oriented outputs that enable categories of services in consonance with the established collaborative governance intent. Using associated communication means such as emails, phone calls, text messages, symbols, pictures, social media, minutes, posters, artifacts, roleplays, and nonverbal aspects enriches stakeholders’ engagement in collaborative governance towards purposeful ends. Entrenched interests and power imbalance dynamics could hamper the reality of stakeholders’ collaborative process deliberations. Still, the interconnectedness of communication with the process and critical variables in collaborative governance empowers eventual collective decisions and implementation actions as reasoned outcomes. This chapter addresses communication in collaborative governance with emphasis on the elements and complemented by a pragmatic case and an intervention case to encourage stakeholders’ formulation of innovative strategies, tasks, and results.