Explaining Coordination Networks in Collaborative Partnerships

The move towards collaborative governance in the environmental policy arena often takes the form of collaborative partnerships involving multiple stakeholders with divergent beliefs and interests. Within such partnerships, subsets of stakeholders frequently form coalitions for the purpose of achieving a common goal. Often, stakeholders will coordinate with one another both within and across these coalitions. Using interview and questionnaire data from 9 U.S. marine aquaculture partnerships in 2009, we test three competing theoretical propositions regarding how individuals within collaborative partnerships decide with whom to coordinate. These competing propositions include belief homophily (individuals will coordinate with those that hold congruent beliefs), trust (individuals will coordinate with those whom they trust), and resources (individuals will coordinate with those who are seen to hold critical and needed resources). Results suggest that specific trust and resource attributes are more important than shared beliefs when individuals decide to coordinate with others in collaborative partnerships