Evolution and Elements of Collaborative Governance Theory

Abstract

With the advancement of globalization and the formation and development of a network society, there have been governance issues that cross departments, organizations, regions, and national borders, including environmental protection, immigration, international trade disputes, and digital government construction. Such a “thorny” problem is difficult to solve by a single organization, so cross-border collaborative governance has become increasingly important. In such an interdependent world, collaborative governance has begun to be widely concerned by academic circles. The attention to the theory of collaborative governance reached its first peak at the third Minobrook Conference and has gradually become a hot topic in the field of public administration in the last ten years. This paper focuses on the historical background of the evolution and development of collaborative governance theory, sorts out the definitions of collaborative governance by scholars at home and abroad, and introduces the main components of collaborative governance in the initial stage, process stage, and result stage. These achievements have certain reference significance for understanding collaborative governance.