Collaborative institutions, which involve the collective
decision-making by multiple political agencies, communities, and
stakeholders, are becoming increasingly important for addressing policy
dilemmas that are not bound within a single jurisdiction. This is
especially true in the environmental arena (Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000; Karkkainen 2002;
Koontz et al. 2004; Lubell 2004; McKinney and Harmon 2004; Brick et al. 2001;
Sabel et al. 2000). In the water management
field, for instance, Sabatier, Weible, and Ficker (2005) have argued that the growth of collaborative
efforts among small watersheds is so widespread that it has become a new
paradigm of management. A considerable body of policy research,
particularly on watershed management, has begun to examine the factors
that support the emergence of collaborative environmental governance
(Lubell et al. 2002; Blomquist 1992; Ostrom 1990).
Understanding what factors affect the performance of collaborative
institutions has also become an emerging theme in this scholarship
(Sabatier, Leach, Lubell, and Pelkey 2005;
Leach, Pelkey, and Sabatier 2002; Conley and
Moote 2003; Innes and Booher 1999). Empirically and methodologically however, what
is often missing from research on collaborative institutions is a clearer
picture of what factors support the endurance of collaborative
institutions over time.
