Conflict and Other Challenges in Collaborative Governance

The benefits of cross-sector stakeholders’ involvement in collective problem-solving through collaborative governance have its ills of conflicts in various aspects. The divergent representation and participation, turfs, interests, persuasions, variations in understanding of the complex problem and workable solutions, power imbalances, and other interpersonal and intersectional dynamics usually result in unavoidable conflicts with delayed decisions or actions, innovation, and constructive solutions. Challenges of a history of antagonism among some of the stakeholders, resource constraints, contentions during the collaborative process, especially deliberations on the various agenda items, including resource allocation priorities, service-related contractual obligations, local statutes, and other legal and political variables are realities that directly or indirectly results in conflict as a result of the use of collaborative governance. While there are legitimate perspectives relative to delays in decisions and actions sometimes due to the unproductive nature of some collaborative governance-related conflicts, the overall calculus in collective stakeholders’ decisions and actions appear to generate constructive outputs, thereby addressing identified complex public problems with usual segmented and general benefits to the population and consequently society at large. This chapter focuses on conflicts in collaborative governance and identifies elements with an added example of a health service case and a tentative intervention case for strategy and solution creation.