organising a multi-stakeholder process · 2011-06-28 · ii 6 organising the multi-stakeholder...

Organising a multi-stakeholder process

Creating a paradoxical collaborative identity

D I S S E R T A T I O N

of the University of St. Gallen,

Graduate School of Business Administration,

Economics, Law and Social Sciences (HSG)

to obtain the title of

Doctor Oeconomiae

submitted by

Anna-Katrin Heydenreich

from

Germany

Approved on the application of

Prof. Chris Steyaert, PhD

and

Prof. Dr. René Bouwen

Dissertation no. 3460

The University of St. Gallen, Graduate School of Business

Administration, Economics, Law and Social Sciences (HSG) hereby

consents to the printing of the present dissertation, without hereby

expressing any opinion on the views herein expressed.

St. Gallen, May 14, 2008

The President:

Prof. Ernst Mohr, PhD

I

Contents

Contents I

Table of Contents III

List of Figures and Tables VIII

Abstract IX

Acronyms IX

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Governance in crisis 1

1.2 Multi-stakeholder processes as form of societal collaboration 3

1.3 Research interest 5

1.4 Outline of the dissertation 7

2 Collaborating for societal change 10

2.1 Sustainable development as contested terrain – the discursive context 10

2.2 Sustainable development, civil society and the UN – the institutional context22

2.3 The case in focus of this study 29

3 Theoretical background – shaping a framework of collaborative identity 35

3.1 Collaboration 35

3.2 Collective identity 45

3.3 Collaborative identity – collective identity in the collaboration literature 53

3.4 Multi-stakeholder collaboration – creating a paradoxical collective identity 58

4 Methodological and conceptual considerations 94

4.1 The interactive construction of realities 94

4.2 Discourse analysis 97

4.3 Key theoretical concepts 103

4.4 Methodological implications 108

5 Positioning the multi-stakeholder process in its domain 126

5.1 Constructing the issue 130

5.2 Constructing the relations to the context 207

5.3 Positioning within the context – ensuring distinction and connectivity 273

II

6 Organising the multi-stakeholder process 279

6.1 Organising togetherness 279

6.2 Driving the process – organising the convener participants relationship 325

6.3 Integrating the collaborative core activities 379

7 Conclusion 384

7.1 Creating a collaborative identity – four core activities of multi-stakeholder

collaboration 385

7.2 Collaborating for societal change 396

7.3 Implications for theory and research 399

7.4 Implications for multi-stakeholder collaboration in practice 403

References 406

Appendix 435

Transcription Notation 435

List of meetings and participants 436

Curriculum Vitae 440

III

Table of Contents

Contents I

Table of Contents III

List of Figures and Tables VIII

Abstract IX

Acronyms IX

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Governance in crisis 1

1.2 Multi-stakeholder processes as form of societal collaboration 3

1.3 Research interest 5

1.4 Outline of the dissertation 7

2 Collaborating for societal change 10

2.1 Sustainable development as contested terrain – the discursive context 10

2.2 Sustainable development, civil society and the UN – the institutional context22

2.2.1 Sustainable development and the UN 22

2.2.2 The rise of civil society 23

2.2.3 Civil society involvement in multi-lateral processes 25

2.2.4 The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) 26

2.3 The case in focus of this study 29

2.3.1 The convening organisation 29

2.3.2 The Implementation Conference Process 30

3 Theoretical background – shaping a framework of collaborative identity 35

3.1 Collaboration 35

3.1.1 Description of the field 37

3.1.2 Contribution 43

3.2 Collective identity 45

3.2.1 Development of the concept 46

3.2.1.1 Defining the concept 47

3.2.1.2 Different currents of collective identity research 48

3.2.2 Discursive understanding of collective identity 51

3.3 Collaborative identity – collective identity in the collaboration literature 53

IV

3.4 Multi-stakeholder collaboration – creating a paradoxical collective identity 58

3.4.1 Relating to the issue and the context 64

3.4.1.1 Constructing the issue 64

3.4.1.2 Constructing the relations to the context 68

3.4.2 Relating among each other 71

3.4.2.1 Relating among the participants 72

3.4.2.2 Relating among participants and conveners 84

4 Methodological and conceptual considerations 94

4.1 The interactive construction of realities 94

4.1.1 Language as action – the language game perspective 95

4.1.2 Social constructionism and the dialogic creation of meaning 96

4.2 Discourse analysis 97

4.2.1 Resource perspective and rhetorical perspective 99

4.2.2 Resource level – interpretive repertoires 100

4.2.3 Interactive, functional level – rhetorical perspective 102

4.3 Key theoretical concepts 103

4.3.1 Paradox, tension, dilemma as invitation to act 103

4.3.2 Power as enacted in relations 106

4.3.3 Stakes and interests as discursively negotiated reasons for action 107

4.4 Methodological implications 108

4.4.1 Data collection 108

4.4.1.1 Selection of the case 108

4.4.1.2 Selection of the data 109

4.4.2 Data analysis 111

4.4.2.1 Participants’ meanings and analytical concepts 112

4.4.2.2 ‘Doing context’ 113

4.4.2.3 Transcription 113

4.4.2.4 Data review and first sense-making of the process 114

4.4.2.5 Emergent framework 115

4.4.2.6 Working with the theoretical concepts and methodological tools 116

4.4.3 Emergent theorising 122

4.4.4 My role as researcher 123

4.4.5 Ensuring quality in discourse analytic research 125

V

5 Positioning the multi-stakeholder process in its domain 126

5.1 Constructing the issue 130

5.1.1 Implementing international sustainable development agreements 130

5.1.1.1 International sustainable development agreements as a basis 131

5.1.1.2 Delivering, implementing those agreements 134

5.1.1.3 Rigorous action orientation 135

5.1.1.4 Monitoring, follow-up to ensure sustained action 136

5.1.2 Promoting the multi-stakeholder approach 137

5.1.2.1 Embedding the process in the stakeholder movement 137

5.1.2.2 Promoting stakeholder involvement in governance processes 139

5.1.2.3 Engaging and balancing the full range of diversity 144

5.1.3 Setting up a MSP within the MSP: constructing the focus of the review 148

5.1.3.1 Competing stakes and issue constructions within the controversy 150

5.1.3.2 Underlying repertoires regarding the organising of societal relations 163

5.1.3.3 Development of the controversy 169

5.1.3.4 Issue constructions and their consequences on boundary setting 203

5.1.3.5 Strategies of advancing the divergent and convergent stakes 205

5.2 Constructing the relations to the context 207

5.2.1 Fields of tension 208

5.2.1.1 Lobbying for stronger sustainable development agreements? 209

5.2.1.2 Feeding into the official process outcomes? 212

5.2.1.3 Requirement and legitimacy in question 213

5.2.2 Competing repertoires 215

5.2.2.1 Holding-to-account repertoire 217

5.2.2.2 Inspiring-challenging repertoire 219

5.2.2.3 Supply-driven advisory repertoire 220

5.2.2.4 Demand-driven advisory repertoire 221

5.2.2.5 Acting-in-our-own-right repertoire 222

5.2.3 Fields of tension – repertoires in use 226

5.2.3.1 Supplementing implementation with lobbying activities? 226

5.2.3.2 Submitting to the official process outcomes 232

5.2.3.3 Requirement and legitimacy in question 238

5.3 Positioning within the context – ensuring distinction and connectivity 273

5.3.1 Creating distinctiveness 274

5.3.2 Creating connectivity 276

VI

6 Organising the multi-stakeholder process 279

6.1 Organising togetherness 279

6.1.1 Paradoxical tension: integrating diversity while focusing on action 281

6.1.1.1 Initial outline 281

6.1.1.2 Rolling issue-paper process 282

6.1.1.3 Trouble point – transition to the developing-action-plans phase 283

6.1.1.4 Action Plan “Multi-Stakeholder Review” 294

6.1.2 Significance of common ground 294

6.1.3 Dealing with controversies 299

6.1.3.1 Technical approach 301

6.1.3.2 Starting-from-agreement approach 302

6.1.3.3 Tackling-controversies approach 304

6.1.3.4 Excluding-sharpened-positions approach 305

6.1.4 Competing repertoires 309

6.1.4.1 Issue-driven repertoire 310

6.1.4.2 Partnership repertoire 311

6.1.4.3 Normative-holistic repertoire 315

6.1.4.4 Passionate-transformative repertoire 317

6.1.4.5 Learning-sharing repertoire 320

6.1.5 Integrating diversity while focusing on action 325

6.2 Driving the process – organising the convener participants relationship 325

6.2.1 Participant-driven mode / supportive-leadership repertoire 327

6.2.2 Convener-driven mode / restrictive-leadership repertoire 336

6.2.3 Interplay participant-driven mode – convener driven mode 341

6.2.3.1 Outline September 01 341

6.2.3.2 Meetings December 01, Bonn and January 02, New York 343

6.2.3.3 Telephone Conference March 02 344

6.2.3.4 Meeting March 02, New York 345

6.2.3.5 Meeting April 02, Switzerland 350

6.2.3.6 Meeting May 02, Bali 365

6.2.3.7 Between May and August 02 371

6.2.3.8 Implementation Conference August 02, Johannesburg 372

6.3 Integrating the collaborative core activities 379

VII

7 Conclusion 384

7.1 Creating a collaborative identity – four core activities of multi-stakeholder

collaboration 385

7.1.1 Organising togetherness 385

7.1.2 Driving the process: organising the convener-participants relationship389

7.1.3 Constructing the issue 390

7.1.4 Relating to the context 392

7.2 Collaborating for societal change 396

7.3 Implications for theory and research 399

7.4 Implications for multi-stakeholder collaboration in practice 403

References 406

Appendix 435

Transcription Notation 435

List of meetings and participants 436

Curriculum Vitae 440

VIII

List of Figures

Figure 1 – Hardy et al.’s model 76

Figure 2 – Adapting Hardy et al.’s model to my framework of collaborative identity 83

Figure 3 – Framework of the paradoxical collaborative identity 93

Figure 4 – Framework developed by the group 293

Figure 5 – Multi-stakeholder collaboration – creating a paradoxical collective identity 380

List of Tables

Table 1 – Paradigms underlying the concept of sustainable development 14

Table 2 – Divergent issue constructions constituting the controversy 159

Table 3 – Relating-to-the-context repertoires 224

Table 4 – Approaches for dealing with controversies 308

Table 5 – Organising-togetherness repertoires 322

IX

Abstract

In this study, multi-stakeholder collaboration is presented as new form of relational

organising in response to a crisis of governance in the international environmental politics

arena. As a form of societal collaboration, multi-stakeholder processes aim for societal

change within the contested field of sustainable development. Multi-stakeholder

collaboration is modelled as the discursive creation of an inherently paradoxical identity.

The creation of a collaborative identity forms the basis for setting up and managing an inter-

organisational collaborative process characterised by fundamental tensions. Four identity-

relevant core activities are identified in an in-depth processual case analysis. The

participants discursively create their collaborative identity 1) by jointly defining their issue

and, intertwined with that, 2) by positioning the collaborative project in its domain, and 3)

by defining their relations among the diverse participants and 4) among participants and

conveners. These key collaborative activities engender inherent paradoxical tensions which

the actors must inevitably deal with. As regards positioning the collaboration in its domain,

collaborators must establish connectivity and simultaneously distinctiveness through the

way they define their issue. As regards relating among participants, the joint issue needs to

be defined in a way that integrates diversity while creating sufficient focus in order to

enable joint action. Accordingly, the relations between participants and conveners have to

be defined in a way that balances leadership and ownership in order to allow for a bottom-

up stakeholder-driven process that is also a well-organised and focused process.

In the analysis, the convergent and divergent constructions of the focal issue as well as

the diverse repertoires defining the key relations are presented and the way in which they

took effect over the course of the process is studied. Furthermore, the strategies participants

made use of in order to deal with the paradoxical tensions and divergent constructions are

identified. The constructions, repertoires and strategies are examined for their significance

for integrating diversity and enabling societal change.

X

Acronyms

CSD United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development

DA Discourse Analysis

DASP Discourse Analysis in Social Psychology

IAB International Advisory Board (backing the convening

organisation)

IAG Issue Advisory Group

IC Implementation Conference

IFI International Financial Institution

IGO Intergovernmental Organisation

IP Issue Paper

IP V1-4 Issue Paper Version 1-4

IWRM Integrated Water Resource Management

JPOI Johannesburg Plan of Implementation

MNC Multi-National Corporation

MSD Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue

MSP Multi-Stakeholder Process

MSR Multi-Stakeholder Review (Action Plan)

ODA Official Development Assistance

PC I-IV Preparation Committee I-IV

PrepCom Preparation Committee

PSP Private Sector Participation

SF Stakeholder Forum (convening organisation)

TNC Trans-National Corporation

UN United Nations

UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

(Rio 1992)

WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg

2002)

Chapter 1 - Introduction

1

1 Introduction

“We can be wise only together” Margaret J. Wheatley, The World Café

1.1 Governance in crisis

Increasing effects of environmental change on societies and massive social inequalities

are calling for joint efforts to create a more equitable and sustainable future. Vested interests

and short-term thinking have come to dominate a long-term orientation towards the

common welfare. In an increasingly interdependent and turbulent globalised world, the

isolated advancement of singular interests and partial solutions makes little sense. Instead of

furthering disconnectedness and growing disparities in wealth by maintaining the status

quo, engaging with the complexities of globalisation and the co-creation of our future

accommodates interdependence. Change initiatives, which acknowledge the complex

ecological and social interrelatedness and which are oriented towards serving the greater

good offer a more sustainable way forward.

The UN Conference in Rio in 1992 brought the intertwinedness of ecological

sustainability and social participation to the awareness of the public. Ten years later, the UN

World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 was evidence of how

incredibly difficult it has been to achieve the implementation of the international

sustainability agreements since Rio. Today, half way to the target date, the achievement of

the Millennium Development Goals still presents a major challenge, not to speak of the

immense challenge presented by climate change.

Clearly, the complex and highly interrelated social and environmental problems with

their often unexpected consequences operating across multiple scales and political

boundaries (Gouldson and Bebbington 2007) are not adequately addressed by existing

institutions and governance mechanisms. Until recently, nation states and intergovernmental

organisations (IGOs) were considered to be the key actors caring for the common good. Yet,

with the faster pace of a globalising economy, intractable poverty and the transboundary

degradation of the environment, the limits of the nation state and the IGOs as they are

functioning now has become increasingly apparent (Waddell, White, Zadek et al. 2006).

Accelerated globalisation and economic growth are contributing to an intensification of

social and environmental impacts.

Nevertheless, global governance is still practised for the most part according to “the

traditional rules and routines of elitist, top-down power politics” (Pruitt and Thomas 2007:


2

24), and the IGOs are increasingly challenged for their ‘democratic deficit’ (Bäckstrand

2006a). At the same time, corporations have become more ubiquitous and powerful,

provoking growing disquiet about an increasing depoliticisation of governments and IGOs

and their apparent inability to control corporations (Bebbington, Brown, Frame et al. 2007).

Large multinational companies exceed the majority of nation states in terms of their

financial and political power, questioning the locus of sovereignty (Brinkman and Brinkman

2002), a phenomenon which has also been described as “governance without government”

(Peters and Pierre 1998; Reinicke 1998; Rosenau and Czempiel 1992). What has been

happening so far is “an increase in social and environmental harm exactly at a time when

the state has less capacity to regulate impacts through conventional, hierarchical

interventions” (Bebbington et al. 2007: 359). Hence, there is a need to strengthen and

deepen democracy by developing alternative forms of democratic governance to build a

more inclusive and sustainable society. An “inclusive society” enables its citizens to

actively participate in the decision-making processes affecting their lives, co-creating their

common future (Hemmati 2007). Sustainable and inclusive development requires the

questioning and changing of deeply embedded social institutions and forms of relating.

Various new forms of democratic governance are in the process of being developed in

order to address the “social-ecological development challenge” (Rosenau 2005), counter-

balancing governance modes based on bureaucratic or hierarchical mechanisms or market-

based mechanisms (Rodriguez, Langley, Beland et al. 2007). Some are bottom-up driven

initiatives demanding more influence in decision-making processes; in other instances

governments, local governments or IGOs are inviting stakeholders to participate.

Some of the new democratic governance practices are directly used within the official

governance processes, while others are evolving quite separately. Further, they differ

according to their emphasis on cross-sectoral exchange and collaboration. In some processes

the participatory relations take place mainly between the governing body and various

individual societal groups, whereas in others collaboration and dialogue among those

different societal groups is in the foreground, sometimes even separate from the official

governing bodies. Multi-stakeholder networks have emerged as “global public policy

networks” (Reinicke 1999/2000) or as “global action networks” (Waddell et al. 2006); they

present a form of “hybrid governance” (Risse 2004). Of these diverse new forms of

democratic governance, this research focuses on a stakeholder-driven (instead of

government-led) initiative of societal collaboration. As an experimental forum, the initiative

could be considered as preparing the ground for “multi-stakeholder governance” (Vallejo

and Hauselmann 2004) or “collaborative governance” (Huxham 2000) in order to advance

the “social innovation” of multi-stakeholder collaboration (Waddell et al. 2006: 1).


3

1.2 Multi-stakeholder processes as form of societal collaboration

Societal collaboration – collaboration among a variety of social actors – promises to be

more responsive towards our complex social problems and to the interdependencies in the

ecological system than traditional forms of governance. Ecological and social problems are

the direct result of the disconnectedness within our ways of organising societal relations and

productive activities. As long as social relationships are characterised by disconnectedness

and shaped mainly by economic exchange relationships oriented at profit-making, important

voices will be excluded or will not be heard. Societal collaboration is urgently required to

include the critical and competent voices that have been excluded thus far in the debate

about sustainable development (Bouwen and Steyaert 1999). In order to act in accordance

with the increased interdependencies, collaboration across sectors is urgently needed

(Crosby and Bryson 2005).

Processes and approaches to implement societal collaboration on a local or global

level are labelled multi-stakeholder processes (Hemmati 2002), multi-actor collaboration

(Bouwen, Craps and Santos 1999; Craps, Dewulf, Mancero et al. 2004), multi-stakeholder

partnerships (Hemmati 2007), multi-stakeholder dialogues (Susskind, Fuller, Ferenz et al.

2003), participatory dialogues (Hemmati 2007) or democratic dialogues (Pruitt and Thomas

2007). Depending on the definitions, they can mean pretty much the same thing and are

used interchangeably by some practitioners, whereas others claim different meanings for

these labels, especially for the meaning of partnership, dialogue and collaboration. Susskind

and colleagues (2003), for example, define multi-stakeholder processes as a more general

term also covering consultation processes that are not dialogue-based.

Multi-stakeholder processes and similar collaborative and dialogic processes are

understood here as integrating different stakeholders from diverse societal sectors and

backgrounds in sustainable development processes. The aim is to bring those different

actors into constructive engagement, dialogue and decision-making in order to

collaboratively improve a situation characterised by common and conflicting interests.

Stakeholders can be defined as those with a stake or interest in a certain issue, either as

individuals groups or organisations. This includes stakeholders who can affect the issue

domain, and therefore other stakeholders, and/or stakeholders who are affected by it. Each

stakeholder has a unique appreciation of the issue (Gray 1989; Hemmati 2002). Ideally, the

participants should represent a microcosm of the system that has created the problem to be

tackled and which must be part of the response or solution to this problem (Pruitt and

Thomas 2007). As an umbrella term, multi-stakeholder processes comprise a broad range of

processes aiming for social integration, from international round tables to local Agenda 21


4

processes to companies involving their stakeholders. Their aims range from furthering

mutual understanding to consensus-building, from solution-finding to decision-making or to

collaborative action (Hemmati 2007), or, in more general terms, to building greater societal

capacities for cooperation. The emphasis is on participatory dialogue processes of social

change, empowering previously marginalised groups of people. The advancement of these

kinds of processes should strengthen the moral claims of all people to have a say in the

decision-making processes affecting their lives (Pruitt and Thomas 2007) and thus should

contribute to the creation of more cohesive societies (Hemmati 2007).

Multi-stakeholder processes aim to create a collective space for collaborative action.

Ideally, participants experience this space as safe space within which they can explore and

recognise each other’s differences and strengths reflectively, which might enable

deliberation and generative, transformational change processes to take place.

The potential of MSPs as processes integrating diversity is commonly located on

several dimensions. The approach is regarded as responsive to societal complexities and to

the interdependencies in the ecological system. The diversity of actors and perspective in a

dialogic situation promises to engender innovation and creativity by overcoming limited

patterns of talking, thinking, relating and acting. Diverse perspectives can be connected in

potentially innovative ways, opening up new possibilities of action. MSPs are considered to

constitute an efficient approach as a broad range of expertise is assembled, a variety of

resources are pooled and a great outreach is achieved. In particular, MSPs are capable of

increasing ownership of the stakeholders regarding their common issue and the way they are

tackling it jointly. A climate of collective leadership can be created, as the prospect of a

collaboratively created future through “conversations that matter” energises the

participating stakeholders (Brown and Isaacs 2005). Furthermore, MSPs foster

accountability among the participating stakeholders (Hemmati 2002) and advance the

ethical and normative notions of empowerment, inclusion and equality.

The main asset of a multi-stakeholder process, the integration of diversity, at the very

same time constitutes its biggest challenge. Mutually respecting diversity and differences

can prove very difficult when diverse interests, world views and patterns of argumentation

collide.

By fostering inclusiveness, participation, peaceful conflict settlement and cooperation

across political divides, multi-stakeholder processes can play an important role in advancing

democratic governance. Also termed “democratic dialogue” by some, the emphasis is on

both the democratic way in which dialogue works and the relevance of dialogue for

strengthening democratic institutions. It is important to note that such processes are meant


5

to complement (rather than replace) democratic institutions such as government bodies,

elected representatives, legislatures, and political parties (Pruitt and Thomas 2007).

Likewise, collaborative or dialogic approaches are a valuable complement to debate,

political activism and negotiation as democracy tools (Herzig and Chasin 2006). However,

even the proponents do not present such processes as panacea for improving democratic

governance. They are only “suitable for those situations where dialogue is possible, where

listening, reconciling interests, and integrating views into joint solution strategies seems

appropriate and within reach” (Hemmati 2002).

Sceptical voices point to the limits or dangers of collaborative approaches as a

response to the social-ecological development challenge. Firstly, the concern is that

collaboration cannot address adequately the unequal power distribution among the

participating stakeholders (Craps et al. 2004). In the worst case, unequal power structures

are consolidated as “collaboration may mask moves by powerful organisations to protect

their privileged positions and to disadvantage less powerful stakeholders: those who

collaborate are coopted; those who do not are excluded” (Hardy and Phillips 1998: 218).

Secondly, critics raise the accountability problems of multi-stakeholder collaborative

endeavours and the potential diffusion of authority from governments to multi-stakeholder

networks (Bäckstrand 2006b; Papadopoulos 2003; 2007; Papadopoulos and Warin 2007).

This might contribute to the “hollow state” phenomenon (see also Klijn 2002; Milward and

Provan 2000; 2003) occurring when governments farm out more and more service provision

to non-profit organisations or the private sector.

1.3 Research interest

The research for this dissertation aims to contribute theoretically to the understanding

of multi-stakeholder collaboration as an emergent and inherently paradoxical process and

practically to the art of designing, convening and facilitating collaborative multi-stakeholder

processes.

Collaboration is understood here as the process of creating and changing relations

among actors from diverse societal sectors. With an in-depth case study I will look closely

at how collaboration unfolds discursively in the formative stage of a multi-stakeholder

collaborative project, guided by the questions: How do the collaborating stakeholders

integrate and make use of their diversity in order to achieve societal change? And how is

multi-stakeholder collaboration relationally organised?

‘Diversity’ as it is understood here refers to the diverse stakes within society

engendering a diversity of interests, viewpoints and expertise. Diversity is represented by


6

various stakeholders in a horizontal and vertical sense. ‘Horizontal’ refers to the different

societal sectors or groups, without considering each sector or group as internally

homogenous. ‘Vertical’ diversity ranges from the local to the global level or from

‘grassroots’ to ‘elites’.

With these broad research questions I address three levels: a) the domain level – the

level of societal change, b) the level of the relations among the collaborators and c) the

interactive level – the level on which the relations and the change endeavour are produced

in the here-and-now-interaction. All three levels are integrated through conceptualising

collaboration as a collective identity formation process. The broad questions can be broken

down into more specific questions, whereby I assume that the integration of diversity

engenders inherent tensions and paradoxes.

Regarding the domain level and the relations among the collaborating stakeholders I ask:

• What are the main relational activities in multi-stakeholder collaboration?

• What are the key tensions and paradoxes?

With regard to the interactive level I ask:

• How are these main relational activities enacted through and embedded in

conversations?

• How do the tensions and paradoxes emerge in the conversations and how are they

managed through conversational strategies?

The intention is not to identify difficulties and tensions and present them as challenges

or problems to be solved. Instead, the focus is on tensions of a dilemmatic or paradoxical

nature which are not resolvable as they represent equally significant yet competing concerns

that tend to be interrelated. Dilemmatic or paradoxical tensions are an inherent feature of the

complex processes of collaboration among diverse actors around complex issues.

Accordingly, the value of this thesis does not lie in presenting a ‘best way’ of improving

multi-actor collaboration in the sense of resolving emerging problems. Instead, it should

help to reflecting the emerging dilemmatic tensions and thus enable conveners to intervene

in the conversation in order to disentangle the competing concerns and allow for conscious

choices. Choices can be made as to how the competing concerns might be balanced or

which one is given priority at a specific juncture of the process.

As research on new forms of organising, this thesis contributes to organisation studies

with its fine-grained analysis of how collaboration is achieved discursively. It is shown how

attending to the particularities of situated talk sheds light on larger tensions and how they

are created and practically dealt with.


7

1.4 Outline of the dissertation

Having portrayed multi-stakeholder collaboration as new form of organising in

response to the crisis of governance in this chapter, chapter 2 serves to map out the

discursive and institutional context within which the multi-stakeholder project is embedded.

With its societal change impetus, the multi-stakeholder process aims for strengthening

sustainable development by contributing to its implementation and by making a case for

stakeholder involvement in governance processes. Achieving change towards a more

sustainable society is very difficult, since sustainable development as discursive concept and

as institutionalisation processes constitutes a highly contested terrain. The case in focus of

the study is introduced by giving a brief overview of the process and by outlining how it is

embedded institutionally.

In chapter 3 I develop a theoretical framework of collaborative identity. Having

analysed the case before immersing in the literature, I coincided with my sensemaking

efforts with those of the participating stakeholders, asking ‘what is this all about?’ I

followed the participants in their questions ‘who are we as a group?’ and ‘are we a

legitimate group?’, resulting in an emergent theoretical framework of collaborative identity.

This emergent framework was then backed up with scholarly literature. To spare the reader

the pain of a disoriented what-is-this-all-about question, I present the theoretical

underpinnings previous to the analysis. Building a foundation for the theoretical framework

I introduce the fields of research on collaboration and collective identity and their very

small overlap. The collaborative identity is constructed as the stakeholders position the

collaborative project within the domain around the focal issue and as they create

relationships with each other. Due to the inclusion of diverse concerns and interests,

competing goals and principles, this collaborative identity is inherently paradoxical.

Chapter 4 presents the epistemological and methodological perspective from which

the analysis has been conducted. An understanding of the world we live in as socially

constructed is outlined briefly. An acknowledgement of the social constructedness of our

societies, thought worlds, and the way we deal with each other and with our material

surroundings encourages endeavours to change it for the better. Revealing the ongoing re-

createdness of seemingly fixed structures and conditions opens up possibilities for changing

them. The significance of language for constructing realities and for the making of meaning

can hardly be overestimated. Understanding language as action (instead of language as

representation) forms the foundation for a relational and discursive perspective within a

social constructionist epistemology. Based on this epistemological foundation, discourse

analysis is introduced as well as the key concepts of paradox, tension and dilemma, power


8

and stakes. The methodology of approaching and studying multi-stakeholder collaboration

as a discursive and relational process, firmly grounded in discursive data, is elaborated and

tailored to the specific case at hand. The discursive approach allows that which actually

happens in an unfolding collaborative process to be examined in depth.

While analysing the case in a multi-stage procedure, four identity-relevant core

activities of organising the multi-actor collaboration are crystallised, namely, creating their

focal issue and thereby positioning the collaborative project within its context (chapter 5),

organising togetherness among the participants, and driving the process in terms of sharing

leadership and ownership among participants and conveners (chapter 6). The four activities

are separated solely analytically, as how the collaborators interact among each other and

how they define their relations towards the issue and the context are deeply intertwined. The

creation of the issue, the relations to the context and the negotiation of their mode of

togetherness are accomplished in an interactive process involving diverse stakes. Due to the

divergent stakes and fluent membership, creating the collaborative identity is not a smooth

process, rather it is recreated and renegotiated on an ongoing basis. Each of these core

activities is enacted interactively through the use of various specific ways of talking

(interpretive repertoires and issue constructions), each engendering specific effects on

integrating diversity and achieving change, whereby troubles and dilemmatic tensions are

produced. It is analyzed how these tensions emerge and what strategies are used to deal with

them over the course of the process.

With the core activities, underlying paradoxical tensions need to be balanced. The

collaborative identity is conceived as a paradoxical identity in a three-fold sense. Creating

their focal issue and positioning the collaborative project within its domain is characterised

by the vital need to establish 1) connectivity and distinction towards their context at the

same time. Organising their togetherness is characterised by 2) integrating diversity while

focusing on concrete outcomes, whereby the tension between divergence and convergence

needs to be balanced. Driving the process is characterised by 3) the tension between a

bottom-up and a top-down process, or in other words, between a stakeholder-driven and a

convener-driven process.

In summary, integrating the diversity of a stakeholder-driven process and achieving change

(in terms of ‘making a difference’ with the process and its outcomes) are essential in order

to create legitimacy, which is in turn a prerequisite for creating ownership among the

participating stakeholders and recognition outside the process.

To conclude, chapter 7 subsumes the results of the analysis and considers them in the

light of the paradox perspective. The findings are linked back to the societal change impetus

oriented towards the discursive and institutional context. Following on from the analysis,


9

the contribution and implications for academic research on collaborative organising and the

practice of convening multi-stakeholder processes are outlined.

Chapter 2 - Collaborating for societal change

10

2 Collaborating for societal change

This study focuses on a particular case exemplifying multi-stakeholder collaboration.

The case at hand – the Implementation Conference Process – is embedded in the broader

societal efforts towards creating a more sustainable future and in the specific context of

stakeholder activities within the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development

around the World Summit of Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002. In this

chapter I describe the former as shaping the discursive context and the latter as forming the

institutional context.

2.1 Sustainable development as contested terrain –

the discursive context

Sustainable Development is for some a popular buzzword, yet for many the concept

contains the hopes for societal change towards living in a healthier environment and a more

equitable and inclusive society. Given that this would require fundamental change in our

ways of organising and relating, it is almost astonishing how broadly the concept has been

adopted, making it one of the most indispensable concepts of our time. The majority of

global players subscribe to this notion, including some of those who have not previously

been well-known for their social and environmental engagement. The fact that the concept

of sustainable development has been used so ubiquitously for two decades without

producing major breakthroughs suggests that its meaning is constructed very differently and

that it is used for different ends. Contemporary environmentalism and green politics take up

various forms and trace back to different paradigmatic roots (Jermier, Forbes, Benn et al.

2006). As a social construct, sustainable development is multi-constructed, intrinsically

political and strongly contested (Jacobs 1999; Springett 2003) due to competing and

radically different underlying paradigms. While the environment and concrete

environmental problems exist in a very real sense, environmental action crucially depends

on the meaning we give to the state of nature and how we construct our relationship to the

natural environment. “The ecological arena is a contested terrain – a site of competing

cultural and social definitions and interests, each with its own narratives of science and

progress” as Hannigan notes (1995: 185; see also Macnaghten and Urry 1998; in Starkey

and Crane 2003). Society’s environmental engagement therefore depends less on the actual

severity of those problems and more on how they are represented by influential interest

groups (Hannigan 2006). Thus, a substantial paradigm shift seems to be urgently required

(Starkey and Crane 2003).


11

The paradigms with their various ecophilosophical assumptions are presented here as a

brief overview in a typified manner. Many authors employ the heuristic “device of a ‘weak-

strong’ continuum” of constructions of sustainable development (Springett 2003: 75) or

make use of a distinction between conservative and radical (Jacobs 1999) conceptions of

sustainable development, with incremental reformism (Jermier et al. 2006) in between the

two poles. Although the paradigms described by the various writers are labelled differently

and they differ partly in their emphasis, in the following I will subsume them according to

their location on the weak-strong continuum.

The current dominant way of organizing and thinking follows the neo-liberal

paradigm, which is related to the “dominant social paradigm” (Jermier et al. 2006), the

“traditional management paradigm” (Shrivastava 1995), the “positivist management

paradigm” or “traditional economic paradigm” (Springett 2003: 75), the “human

exemptionalism paradigm” (Dunlap 2002) or the “technocentric paradigm” (Gladwin,

Kennelly and Krause 1995). This paradigm is based on a “very strong anthropocentrism,

which accepts human domination of the rest of nature” (Jermier et al. 2006: 624). A

utilitarian technical rationality dominates over aesthetic or ethical values (Levy 1997).

Human society is implicitly assumed to be disjoint from its natural environment and

“exempt from the constraints of nature” due to “the exceptional features of our species

language, technology, science, and culture more generally” (Dunlap 2002). At its centre is

the possessive, impatient individual (the Homo Economicus) who prefers the present to the

future; and society is no more than the sum of its (competing) individuals (Castro 2004).

This perspective prevails within industrialized countries and has roots in the Enlightenment

with its human-nature dualism, a mechanistic worldview (Purser, Park and Montuori 1995)

and its emphasis on unlimited human progress, and in utilitarianism (Castro 2004). The

underlying assumptions and values privilege discourses of profitability and self-interest and

prepare the ground for “turbo-capitalism” (Keane 2001) with its “exuberant growth”,

engendering the exploitation of nature and inhibiting societal cooperation (Starkey and

Crane 2003). Markets tend to become disembedded from society as the economy strives

towards “emancipation from taxation restrictions, trade union intransigence, government

interference, and all other external restrictions upon the free movement of capital in search

of profit” (Keane 2001: 29). Accordingly, “egocentric organizations” truncate themselves

from their wider context (Morgan 1986: 243). Within this paradigm, affluence and

consumption have become idealized (Levy 1997), and human progress is understood

primarily “in terms of unlimited economic expansion and material growth” (Jermier et al.

2006: 624), while ecological concerns are marginalized and therefore cannot be addressed

adequately (Shrivastava 1994). Ecological problems, if addressed at all, are ‘managed’


12

through market-mechanisms and ‘solved’ through technological progress. Societal decision-

making is strongly influenced by the economic elite.

The organizing principles and management practices based on this paradigm are said

to contribute strongly to ecological degradation and social fragmentation. Without a

paradigmatic shift, it is understood that these problems will continue to increase (Gladwin et

al. 1995; Shrivastava 1995; Starkey and Crane 2003). In order not to remain locked in the

dominant management paradigm, the ecological paradigm (Dunlap 2002) comes into play

as a radical counterpoint. This paradigm has been labelled “new ecological paradigm”

(Catton and Dunlap 1978; Jermier et al. 2006), “ecocentric management paradigm”

(Shrivastava 1995), “ecocentric responsibility paradigm” (Purser et al. 1995) or “ecocentric

paradigm” (Gladwin et al. 1995)1. In opposition to the anthropocentric paradigm relying on

“human privilege and domination”, the relationship to nature is rooted in the philosophy of

ecocentrism, “which tends to value all species relatively equally” (Jermier et al. 2006: 624).

From the perspective of an ecocentric philosophy, the deeper cause of environmental

degradation is located in our anthropocentric assumptions (Purser et al. 1995). Within

radical ecological thought, the environment is constructed “as intrinsically valuable and

inseparable from humanity” (Starkey and Crane 2003). The inherent worth of nature as our

‘source’ is put as a counterpoint to the instrumental value instead of nature as a mere

‘resource’ (Purser et al. 1995). Progress is not narrowly defined through economic growth

and technical advancements, but through emphasising the “holistic balance among the

elements of nature, careful protection of the non-human environment due to its fragility and

irreplaceability, and comprehensive environmental and social justice” (Jermier et al. 2006:

625). Quantitative economic growth as an indicator of human and societal well-being is

rejected. Instead, the “quality of life” with its different facets (Jacobs 1999: 41) is valued,

“gross national happiness” in a healthy environment is given precedence over gross national

income (Hirata 2006). This means that economic development is subordinated to this goal.

Managers are positioned as “environmental custodians” (Starkey and Crane 2003) with the

task of protecting ecosystems against exploitation and mismanagement (Purser et al. 1995).

In order to bring about ecological sustainability, social sustainability needs to be ensured.

Therefore it is necessary to explore approaches and governance practices that are critically

reflective and are capable of fundamentally transforming social structures by fostering

higher forms of citizenship (Jermier et al. 2006). Hoggett (2001) advocates active

citizenship in a “green democracy” (see also Dryzek (2000) on “green democracy” and

“discursive democracy”) and introduces the notion of an “ecowelfare society”. Such an

1 These authors describe the paradigm rather negatively, in contrast to the former authors.


13

inclusive society, which allows participation in discussion and decision-making at all levels,

enhances the capacity to respond to ecological and social requirements.

Between the two poles spanned by the neo-liberal and the ecological paradigm with

their respective conservative and radical change approaches, various shades of sustainable

development constructions can be located, engendering more or less incremental change.

The paradigm ‘in between’ those two poles is labelled “reformist environmentalism”, with

a distinction between “weak” and “strong” reformism (Jermier et al. 2006). Mostly, this

paradigm is described from a perspective favouring the ‘radical’ ecological paradigm and its

“weak” and “strong” variant is therefore measured against this ‘truly’ ecological paradigm.

However, there are also authors who dismiss the ecocentric paradigm as equally non-

desirable as the dominant paradigm. Instead, they advocate the ‘in between’ paradigm

“sustaincentrism” not as a compromise, but as representing an emergent synthesis

transcending and superseding the thesis and antithesis of the technocentric and ecocentric

worldview (Gladwin et al. 1995).

Reform environmentalism relies on a more or less modified anthropocentrism in which

the relationship to the natural environment is constructed as human stewardship of nature.

Progress is constructed in terms of sustainable development. In the private sector, reform

environmentalism comes in the shape of “new corporate environmentalism” which is

located “in the meta-theoretical political space of incremental change” (Jermier et al. 2006:

636). As reform green politics, weak or strong outcomes may be produced. There is

evidence that the vast majority of the corporate environmentalism activities belongs to the

former (York and Rosa 2003), however, weak forms are often disguised by strong reformist

rhetoric (Jermier et al. 2006). Weak or “eco-modernist” versions of sustainable

development maintain that economic growth is “necessary to sustain the environment, not

as being dependent on the environment” (Springett 2003: 82). Within the eco-modernist

paradigm, increased growth is taken as a requirement in order to make environmental

responsibility and poverty alleviation affordable (Springett 2003). The environment should

be protected where possible, whereby ‘possible’ is defined as not confining economic

activity. Predetermined ‘environmental limits’ are therefore rejected, and environmental

protection is always traded off against the benefits of economic growth. Equity hardly plays

a role. Participation is conceptualized as a top-down process, reduced to implementing

sustainable development, excluding the development of the objectives it implies (Jacobs

1999; Skelcher, Mathur and Smith 2005). The greening of business is therefore criticized

for being a mere “greening of business-as-usual” (Jermier et al. 2006), demanding no major

paradigm shift (Springett 2003). The assumption is that natural ‘capital’ can be substituted

by human-made capital and therefore allows environmental degradation to a considerable

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16

extent (Castro 2004). Hence, the environmental management paradigm, as it is called

by Purser (1995), is largely incommensurable with the ecocentric responsibility paradigm.

Weak or conservative reformism serves to ensure private sector control of its impact on the

environment. The main claim within this paradigm is that business is best regulated by

itself. Within this paradigm, sustainable development tends to be an elitist concept where

citizens are excluded (Jermier et al. 2006).

The strong reformist paradigm with its modified anthropocentrism takes human

stewardship more seriously, offering a real alternative to the dominant social paradigm. The

strong version is conceptualized for example as “sustaincentrism” or “ecological

humanism” (Gladwin et al. 1995) or as “comprehensive development paradigm” (Stiglitz

2002). Economic growth still plays an important role, however, in a strongly modified

version as qualitative (rather than quantitative) growth. The globalised economy needs to be

‘civilised’ (Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor 2001) and embedded in civil society so that

economic activities can nurture and enhance society (Keane 2001). The stance towards

technology is critical to appreciative, and innovation for localised, affordable applications

are fostered (cf. Dicke 2007; Wilson’s contribution). Technology-related risks need to be

assessed through public participation processes (cf. Anheier et al. 2001). Critical natural

capital needs to be conserved (Castro 2004). Nature is valuated in a “cultural” sense through

the belief “that society and human nature are impoverished and diminished by the

destruction of the non-human world” (Jacobs 1999: 39). The objective is social

transformation towards long-term sustainable development by fostering open dialogue

within an active civil society. Development is understood as a (bottom-up) participatory and

empowering process (Stiglitz 2002: 163). Humanism, equity and environmental concerns

are deeply intertwined, as has been recognized since the 1990s in the paradigm of

“environmental justice” (Rhodes 2003). The concept of “ecological space” (Jacobs 1999)

elucidates how equitably the use of environmental goods and services is distributed.


17

The various underlying paradigms explain the very different use of the ubiquitous

concept of sustainable development, its apparently broad adoption and the fact that, despite

its prevalence, fundamental social transformation has not yet been forthcoming. The

inherently contradictory meanings have been part of the concept since its emergence in the

political arena. On the one hand, radical “core” meanings of sustainable development are

being carved out (Jacobs 1991), with equity and environmental responsibility at its centre

and the recognition that ‘development’ cannot be reduced to economic growth. On the other

hand, the concept is uncovered as being fundamentally flawed, since it springs from the

same sources as the social and environmental problems it is supposed to address. Sceptics

say it emanates from the traditional management paradigm, “where externalities such as

social and political problems, if recognized at all, will be subjected to technical solutions –

‘managed’” (see also Banerjee 2003; Springett 2003). The concept of sustainable

development arrived on the scene as a reaction to the limits-of-growth literature of the

1970s (Meadows and Meadows 1972) and the radicalism of the environmental movement,

which, besides raising awareness to the limits of growth, was proposing regulation as a

means of protecting the environment (Castro 2004). The UN approach to sustainable

development, based on the definition of the Brundtland Commission (1987), set up the

“dangerous liaison” between economic growth, environmental integrity and social justice

(Springett 2003: 73). According to Castro, this approach resulted from a political

compromise at the UN which attempted to reconcile environmental and social sustainability

with key elements constituting the neo-liberal agenda favoured by business and industry.

“Although the commission claims to deplore the existence of inequality and oppression, it

does not, in the final analysis, propose solutions other than a free-trade agenda” (Castro

2004: 200). The logic behind these proposed solutions is that a market-friendly and growth-

oriented approach would reduce poverty, which in turn would reduce environmental

degradation. Castro raises two key concerns regarding the Brundtland version of sustainable

development. Firstly, with free markets being proposed as solution, sustainable

development equals neo-liberal development. This is criticised on philosophical grounds, as

nature is commodified and reduced to a subsystem of the economy, and on methodological

grounds, questioning “whether there is a way of setting a price on nature” (Castro 2004:

206). Secondly, the concept of sustainable development is imposed on communities in the

‘periphery’. Without regard for institutional or cultural diversity, this version of sustainable

development fails to empower people. Sustainable development is therefore accused of

objectifying both nature and people, assuming that both can be ‘managed’ and that

development can be planned and engineered. Sustainable development, in line with its

mother concept ‘development’, has been for the most part an ethnocentric, top-down and


18

technocratic approach (in Castro 2004; Escobar 1995). From a post-colonial, Foucauldian

perspective, (sustainable) development (and with it the notion of ‘underdevelopment’) is

imposed on the so-called ‘developing’, ‘less’ and ‘least developed’ countries (Banerjee

2003; Escobar 1995). In ‘participatory’ development projects, the final goal is not usually in

question, as development theorists and planners have already decided where they want to

lead the people. From this perspective, capacity-building is also regarded as patronising and

colonising (Castro 2004).

On the whole, critics complain that the sustainability agenda has been appropriated,

captured and even “hijacked” by private sector interests (Bruno and Karliner 2002;

Springett 2003; Welford 1997). Resulting from lobbying activities of the “Quad” group

(US, EU, Canada and Japan) and their industries, Chapter 2 (Art. 3a) of UNCED’s Agenda

21 calls on the international economy to support the environment and development goals by

“promoting sustainable development through trade liberalization”.1 The Quad group

successfully avoided any measure to ensure corporate accountability from being included in

the Rio outcomes, as well as the mere mentioning of TNCs (Bruno and Karliner 2002).

Bruno and Karliner quote Maurice Strong, the secretary-general of the Earth Summit in Rio

(and multi-millionaire businessman and strong proponent of the free trade agenda2): “the

environment is not going to be saved by environmentalists. Environmentalists do not hold

the levers of economic power.” Accordingly, he appointed the Swiss industrialist Stephan

Schmidheiny as his principal advisor on business and industry and to lead business

participation at UNCED. Schmidheiny created the Business Council for Sustainable

Development (later the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, WBCSD) to

represent the voice of business in Rio.34

The business discourse led by “front” groups such

as the (W)BCSD “largely sought to tame the concept to mean no more than a level of social

and environmental engagement that corporations can easily accommodate – even use to

burnish their brand. The result has been the accommodation of a potentially radical concept

… deflecting demands for more radical change and subsuming into the traditional business

model the rhetoric of greener business as usual” (Springett 2003: 74). The aspects of

sustainable development that cut business costs (those concerning ‘eco-efficient’ use of

1 Furthermore, in Art. 9, Governments were expected “to take into account the results of the Uruguay Round [which

created the WTO] and to promote an open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system”. This

therefore anticipated what was later called “Marrakech trumped Rio”, as it was in Marrakech that the Uruguay Round

on GATT was concluded and the WTO was established. 2 http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992a/07/mm0792_07.html

3 www.wbcsd.org

4 Obviously they were able to ‘represent their voice’ much more effectively than civil society: “Throughout the

UNCED process, the BCSD had special access to Strong, access which was unavailable to non-governmental

organizations, trade unions and groups representing women, youth, farmers and indigenous peoples.”

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992a/07/mm0792_07.html


19

resources and business risk) are readily adopted, otherwise the green rhetoric rather serves

to maintain “political sustainability” (Levy1997; in Springett 2003).

The concept “is seen as having become a political cover for unacceptable corporate

practices – a ‘semantic reconciliation of irreconcilable ideologies’ (Paehlke 1999)”

(Springett 2003: 72). Owning the language of the debate is the most powerful way of

silencing strong versions of sustainable development questioning the credo of economic

growth. Owning the language starts with labelling central concepts of sustainable

development. Semantics from classical economics are borrowed to grasp the natural

environment: natural resources, natural capital or nature as stocks of assets (after Beder

1996; Springett 2003). The use of such language facilitates specific assumptions: that nature

is measurable, usually in prices, that natural goods and services are tradable commodities,

divided into many independent pieces instead of an interconnected whole. Furthermore, if

nature is capital, it has to have an owner. This version of sustainable development accepts

the commercialisation and capitalisation of nature, which has been a key cause for

environmental degradation. From this perspective, “nature is viewed as a resource that has

to be used efficiently, not as something to be respected and to be used for the common

good” (Castro 2004: 211). ‘Efficiency’ is then of course claimed to be a core competency of

the private sector alone. A prevalent use of such language helps to smooth any radical edge

of the sustainability discourse (Banerjee 2003) and to “constrain any vision of re-locating

economic activity in society” (Gowdy 1999; in Springett 2003: 73). Banerjee (2003: 174) is

worried that sustainable development might “follow the fate of the modern environmental

movement, which is being increasingly depoliticized by environmental policies that

translate environmental choices into market preferences.”

During the 1990s, the neo-liberal version of sustainable development was promoted

fiercely by the World Bank (Budds and McGranahan 2003; Castro 2004), facilitating the

business appropriation of sustainable development. However, a decade after its first report

on development and environment (1992), the World Bank (2003) report does not and cannot

speak of achievements. Actually, the failures of sustainable development are recognised:

“Even the win-win policies have been much harder to implement than initially thought –

vested interests were much entrenched, and institutional development was harder to foster.

The persistence of policy failures even when society as a whole can benefit from their

removal often reflects powerful interest groups blocking the necessary reforms” (2003: 34).

And reflects powerful paradigms blocking the necessary reforms, as could be added. Still,

the World Bank continues to propose market-oriented policies and economic growth. After

all, the causal logic between growth and poverty has been modified. Whereas the neo-liberal


20

paradigm pretends that economic growth would eliminate poverty, the report emphasises

that ensuring economic growth requires a reduction in poverty and inequality.

The decade between UNCED in Rio (1992) and the WSSD in Johannesburg (2002)

has also been characterized as a “decade of corporate assimilation of the goodwill and

political cachet associated with the United Nations” (after Bruno and Karliner 2002;

Chesters 2004). After the rather ambivalent stance of the UN towards private sector

corporations from the 1970s to the early 1990s, the UN’s embracement of business since

Rio has culminated in the UN Global Compact5. This arrangement offers corporations with

a tarnished reputation the opportunity not only to “greenwash” but also to “bluewash”

(Bruno and Karliner 2002) themselves with the humanitarian, democratic reputation of the

UN. Critics maintain that the Global Compact partnering of the UN with corporations runs

counter to the ‘core’ meaning of sustainable development (Bruno and Karliner 2002). The

program relies on a purely voluntary reporting, on standards that do not exceed existing

standards like respecting human rights and labour rights. It is astonishing that an initiative

of such scale does hardly expects little more from its participants than the mere compliance

with existing international and local law. Even for companies that do not comply with

existing law, no sanction or exclusion mechanisms were available up to 2005.6 Similar

criticisms were raised concerning the Johannesburg Partnership initiative from 2002. Recent

evaluations suggest that they could improve accountability and prevent the diffusion of

authority from government to public-private networks through a clearer linkage to existing

multilateral agreements and institutions, measurable targets and timetables and systematic

monitoring mechanisms (Bäckstrand 2006b).

However, there is not only the critical view that the concept of sustainable

development has completely been hijacked by the neo-liberal paradigm and corporate

interests, serving solely ‘greenwashing’ and ‘bluewashing’ purposes and silencing more

radical conceptions of change. Even though the management paradigm is a paradigm of

control, oriented towards maintaining the power to shape “the meaning of greening” (Levy

1997: 136), control can never be absolute. There is also a critical appreciation of the

dynamics that such a concept may unfurl and that it cannot be dismissed, even in the form

of corporate environmentalism (Jermier et al. 2006). Even if it has entered the international

policy arena driven by neo-liberal forces with the purpose of maintaining legitimacy and

5 www.globalcompact.org

6 As a result of criticism for its non-binding, purely voluntary character without any sanction-mechanisms (Körting

2006) and a McKinsey study in 2004 evidencing that hardly any changes were achieved in the business activities, the

governance structure of the compact was reformed in 2005. Some improvements were made on grievance mechanisms

and the option given to exclude companies clearly violating the principles (Mittler 2006).


21

inhibiting a broader debate about our ways of organizing, the possibility remains that other

forces will insist on the definition of its more radical ‘core’ meaning and use the concept to

hold the advocates of corporate interests accountable for their activities. The discourses and

meanings connected to the various paradigms are, along with the creation and maintenance

of legitimacy, to some extent beyond control, as the acknowledgement of legitimacy can be

refused. Furthermore, a ‘weak’ sustainability discourse may be taken up, challenged,

changed, ‘strengthened’ and fed back in an emerging dialogic manner by the employees

involved or by critical external stakeholders. A discourse of environmental responsibility,

even if it was launched for instrumental ends, may unintentionally enact new ‘realities’ and

therefore enable the construction of new forms of relationship within society and with

nature (cf. Starkey and Crane 2003). Reflective deliberation and critical dialogue can work

to strengthen the concept of sustainable development, to challenge attempts at appropriation

or capture of the concept and ownership of the debate, and also to enhance accountability of

those who make use of the weak version of sustainable development. What is needed is

enhanced discursitivity and an inclusive approach representing the views of civil society and

communities (Springett 2003). Springett (2003: 72) calls for a dynamic, dialectical approach

that “contests the control exercised by political, ideological, epistemological and discipline-

based ‘stakes in the ground’ that compete for legitimacy”. The power of the dominant

paradigm over the concept of sustainable development reveals a “deficit of democracy”.

Consequently, the strengthening of a deliberative, inclusive democracy facilitates the

“contestation for ‘ownership’ of the concept” (Springett and Foster 2005: 272) and enables

plurivocity and accessibility to a plurality of life worlds for all citizens: “What is needed is

not a common future but the future as commons” (Banerjee 2003: 174), with enhanced

mutual accountability and responsiveness.

Different forms of activities or “green politics” (Jermier et al. 2006) can contribute to

the efforts towards achieving a paradigm shift and towards strengthening a lively, inclusive

democracy, ranging from activism and direct action over the classical approach via political

parties to the work within institutions and governance structures like the UN Commission

on Sustainable Development and the Earth Summits in Rio and Johannesburg (Jermier et al.

2006: 625f). A form of green politics gaining more and more significance within institutions

and governance structures is the creation of “collaborative spaces” (Skelcher et al. 2005)

like dialogue and multi-stakeholder processes, which assemble a range of stakeholders

around specific issues to shape a reflective and cooperative space. The collaborative spaces

can have a similar function to “mini-publics” (Fung 2003; 2006: 68). Dialogic activities

facilitate “the maintenance and enrichment of the fundamental democratic bond” and help to


22

prevent social fragmentation and isolation and therewith the erosion of democracy (Evans

2001: 771; see also Papadopoulos and Warin 2007). With the aim of increasing capacities

for critical reflection, dialogical processes enhance accountability (Roberts 2002) and “offer

considerable potential for social transformation” (Bebbington et al. 2007: 368).

Rooted in dialogical and democratic principles, multi-stakeholder collaboration fosters

accountability between stakeholders (cf. Hemmati 2002). As has been shown, dialogic or

collaborative processes around sustainability issues take place in a highly political,

contested terrain. The significance of politics and power in such processes is acknowledged

in the practitioners’ literature, where it is recommended that power issues need to be

addressed (Hemmati 2007), however, the question of how to do that often remains open. If

the power imbalance is so great that it will compromise the dialogue through cooptation by

the more powerful participants, a dialogue process may not be advisable (Pruitt and Thomas

2007: 71). The literature on deliberation and dialogue has so far paid very little attention to

the more sociological aspects of power and broader discursive paradigms, often resulting in

abstract and formalistic treatises, lacking some of the most important dynamics emerging in

practice (Ryfe 2007). This study aims to acknowledge the issue of power by embedding the

case in the broader discourses around sustainable development and by attending to the

details of the discursive enactment of collaboration. I am going to examine if and how the

different paradigms are invoked in participants’ talk, and I will use the paradigms as a

backdrop to map the various approaches to societal change.

2.2 Sustainable development, civil society and the UN – the

institutional context

2.2.1 Sustainable development and the UN

In 1972, for the first time environmental concerns entered the agenda of multilateral

negotiations at the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm. Developing and

industrialised countries were brought together to discuss global environment and

development needs. Out of this conference the United Nations Environment Program

(UNEP) was born and a series of subsequent UN Conferences on issues such as food,

housing and population were initiated. The World Commission on Environment and

Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission, set up by the UN in 1983,

resulted in the Brundtland Report “Our Common Future” in 1987. The seminal definition of

sustainable development – development that “meets the needs of present generations

without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” – has its

origins in this report. Twenty years after Stockholm, in 1992, the first United Nations


23

Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) took place. Its outcomes,

Agenda 21 and the Principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,

were based on the Brundtland Report. While in Stockholm environmental needs dominated,

development needs and the needs of the poor were given weight equal to environmental

needs. Along with the marked rise of public awareness to environment and development

issues through Agenda 217 and the Rio Declaration

8 and an enhanced political profile of

environmental issues9, the Conference led to the establishment of the UN Commission on

Sustainable Development (CSD) and to two legally binding conventions10

, the Framework

Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity (Dodds and

Strauss 2002; Gardiner 2002).

2.2.2 The rise of civil society

The 1990s have been described not only as the decade of corporate assimilation of the

UN (see above), but also as the decade of the rise of civil society. The decade is

characterised by an “emergence of a supranational sphere of social and political

participation in which citizens groups, social movements, and individuals engage in

dialogue, debate, confrontation, and negotiation with each other and with various

governmental actors—international, national, and local—as well as the business world”

(Anheier et al. 2001: 4). Of course, it is not by accident that the rise of corporate power and

ubiquity and the emergence of civil society claiming a strong voice both fall in the same

decade, as the latter is usually considered to be a reaction to the former. From this point of

view, global civil society arises as the political counterpart of economic globalisation under

the neo-liberal paradigm. At the same time, it is a reaction to the relative loss of power of

governments and IGOs (the governance without governments phenomenon, see

introduction). In a globalised world, the absence of a global state engenders a vacuum of

power and responsibility. Numerous humanitarian NGOs are providing a safety net to deal

with the effects of globalisation, and NGOs dealing with human rights and democracy-

building are helping to improve governance structures (cf. Anheier et al. 2001). Based on an

understanding of globalisation as growing interconnectedness in economic, political, social

and cultural spheres, Anheier and colleagues (2001: 7) propose that global civil society is

both feeding on and reacting to globalisation. Global civil society is difficult to define, as it

is a fuzzy and contested concept. While there is consensus on its core meaning, what is

7 a 40 chapter Programme of Action

8 a set of 27 Principles

9 Stakeholder Forum (Rosalie Gardiner), Earth Summit 2002 Briefing Paper, Earth Summit 2002 explained,

www.earthsummit2002.org/Es2002.PDF 10

and the non-legally-binding Statement of Forest Principles


24

included and excluded is not always agreed upon. Civil society activists usually see the core

meaning in enhancing the responsiveness of political and economic institutions and in

strengthening democracy, which would engender shifts in political power structures. Mostly

it is defined as being essentially non-violent and as being committed to common human

values transcending ethnic, national or religious boundaries, often stressing an emerging

global consciousness (Anheier et al. 2001). However, acknowledging the multiple origins

and multiple dynamics of the phenomenon, “global civil society is not a unified domain”

(Keane 2001). If defined as the counterpart to economic globalisation, civil society is

usually considered to be non-profit and non-governmental. This definition traces back to

Gramsci (in Anheier et al. 2001; 1971) who conceptualized civil society as the sphere

between state and market. Others criticise this divide and hence explicitly include the

private sector and draw attention to the fact that the borders between the three sectors

cannot be clearly drawn (Keane 2001). Some even include the private sector and

governments and IGOs: Dicke (2007) for example conceives global civil society as the

interplay between nation states, private agents, IGOs, transnational corporations, NGOs and

the like. This interplay might be reminiscent of what de Tocqueville (in Anheier et al. 2001:

13; 1945 [1835]) called “the art of associating together”. In this sense, the multi-stakeholder

movement, for example in the form of “global action networks” (Waddell et al. 2006) is

specifically concerned with boundary-crossing strategies. At the UN, business is in most

cases not subsumed under the term ‘civil society’.11

Hence, how civil society is defined

exactly plays a minor role. If based on an ‘exclusive’ understanding of civil society as non-

governmental and non-profit, the focus would be on the interplay of civil society with the

other sectors anyway. Of relevance for the context here is the overarching aim of civil

society networks, global action networks or multi-stakeholder networks/processes of calling

power-holders to account, thereby building a more equitable and inclusive society (Keane

2001) in a healthier ecosystem. Hence, the boundary-crossing action strategy aims for

societal change according to a public good imperative (Waddell et al. 2006).

11

See for example the UN homepage: www.un.org/english/, www.un.org/partners/index.html. However, it is used

sometimes comprising all societal groups except the United Nations bodies and governments (compare

www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/links/links.html: “The Summit will involve many organisations within the United

Nations family, governments and civil society.”)


25

2.2.3 Civil society involvement in multi-lateral processes

In the recent decades, civil society engagement increased in the United Nations and

other intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), such as the World Bank or the OECD

(Susskind et al. 2003). Starting off with four UN accredited NGOs in 1994, the 1990s saw

an enormous increase in numbers of NGOs (up to 2091 in 2000) that are active in the UN

Conference processes (Dodds and Strauss 2002). The new generation of civil society has

been urging for a greater voice in international deliberations and is using the space to bring

forth their concerns towards the governments. The inclusion of civil society is proposed for

multilateral efforts of analysing emerging problems, exploring policy options, and designing

new programs and practices. For many years, informal representatives of “unofficial”

stakeholder groups have been meeting with government representatives. Formally, only

governments can join the IGOs. However, non-governmental views and inputs are

increasingly involved through multi-stakeholder processes, as the legitimacy of their

decisions hinges on the acceptance of global civil society. Furthermore, engaging

stakeholders is a way to gain access to the large body of skills and knowledge12

required for

addressing complex problems (Susskind et al. 2003). Meanwhile, multi-stakeholder

processes or dialogues are an acknowledged tool within UN agencies and other multi-lateral

organisations (Ferenz 2002; Hemmati 2002). Indeed, it is more than a tool, as inclusive and

dialogical processes mirror the core values of UN values such as diversity, equality, respect

for human rights and peaceful conflict resolution (Pruitt and Thomas 2007).

The involvement of civil society, a major feature of sustainable development, was

specified in Agenda 21 in Rio, which is the first UN document to extensively address the

role of different stakeholders in the implementation of an international agreement (Hemmati

2002). Building on this document, the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)

developed the most advanced involvement of Major Groups in the UN system (and in any

intergovernmental process) in terms of openness, transparency and accessibility.13

The nine

Major Groups identified in Agenda 21 are Women, Children and Youth, Indigenous

Peoples, Non-Government Organizations, Local Authorities, Workers and Trade Unions,

Business and Industry, Scientific and Technological Community and Farmers.

12

“Under the Charter, the Economic and Social Council may consult with non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

concerned with matters within the Council's competence. The Council recognizes that these organizations should have

the opportunity to express their views, and that they possess special experience or technical knowledge of value to the

Council’s work.” www.un.org/Overview/Organs/ecosoc.html 13

compare www.un.org/esa/sustdev/mgstrategy.htm; “Briefing for Participation in Earth Summit 2002” by Stakeholder

Forum for Our Common Future, Felix Dodds with Michael Strauss (Eds.).


26

2.2.4 The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)

Ten years after Rio, the world met in Johannesburg to review what had been achieved

since then and to discuss how to move forward on implementing Agenda 21. The

Johannesburg Summit was the biggest UN conference ever, assembling around 22,000

delegates from government, stakeholders and the media for the official summit. The

Summit was preceded by an extensive preparatory process on the national, sub-regional,

regional and global level. On the global level, four Preparation Committees (PrepComs)

were convened, starting in April 2001. However, the sheer size of the Summit could not

disguise the fact that ‘Rio+10’ openly displayed both unwillingness and frustrations (Hauff

2007).

Due to the disenchanting results concerning the official UN outcome documents,

observers even dubbed the Summit “Rio minus ten” (cf. Bäckstrand 2006a), or “dialogue of

the deaf” (Sharma, Mahapatra and Polycarp 2002). It became clear pretty early during the

preparations that no major breakthroughs were to be expected, as some member states, first

and foremost the US, did everything to avoid binding targets. During the preparation

process they declared openly that there would be no new mandatory agreements.14

Indeed,

there was fear of falling behind what had already been achieved, and that the trade

liberalization agenda of the WTO would take primacy over the sustainable development

agenda (Bäckstrand 2006a). The official outcome documents, the Johannesburg Declaration

and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), mainly reaffirmed existing

commitments instead of agreeing on new goals, targets and timetables15

.

When this summit threatened to fail to produce strong enough agreements, a second

official outcome type was introduced by the Secretariat. Besides the official outcome

documents which are fully negotiated and agreed to by all governments, now called type I

outcomes, a second kind emerged: the non-negotiated (and non-binding) type II outcomes

(partnerships for sustainable development). The type II outcomes were voluntary multi-

stakeholder initiatives aimed at implementing sustainable development (Dodds, Gardiner,

Hales et al. 2002). Basically those non-negotiated and self-enforced agreements are

outcomes below the multilateral level. They can comprise any initiative started by any

stakeholder.16

By this means, non-state actors were not only enlisted as advocacy groups but

as responsible partners in the implementation of the JPOI and Agenda 21 (United Nations

2004). The overarching idea was to reduce the ‘implementation gap’ in sustainable

development through the ‘concrete action’ of ‘outcome-oriented’ partnerships, according to

14

See www.worldsummit2002.org 15

with few exceptions, mainly the sanitation target and some other commitments, see Bigg (2003) 16

www.worldsummit2002.org/index.htm?http://www.worldsummit2002.org/guide/prepcomm3.htm


27

the official rationale (Bäckstrand 2006b). The underlying assumption is that responsibility

for implementation of the complex and cross-sectoral issues cannot be limited to

governments but should be diffused into the various sectors of society (Bäckstrand 2006a).

In a strategic sense, the responsibility for implementing multilateral sustainability

agreements should no longer rest exclusively among governments, but should be extended

to civil society and business in a larger collaborative endeavour (Bäckstrand 2006b).

However, despite the widely recognised urgent need of implementation, the type II

partnership initiative was highly controversial during the run-up to, and at, the summit

(Whitfield 2005). It was seen as the cheap surrogate of what the governments should really

do: making progress on the further negotiation of sound agreements. The partnerships were

criticised as being in the first place a “rescue mission for the predicted failure of the

Johannesburg summit” (Bäckstrand 2006b). The concern was that there is no inducement on

unblocking the negotiations when governments can sidestep and buy their way out of their

primary task by sponsoring implementation initiatives. The background for creating the type

IIs was that the UN had to concede that the progress since Rio had been disenchanting:

“When the United Nations General Assembly authorized holding the World Summit on Sustainable

Development, it was hardly a secret— or even a point in dispute— that progress in implementing sustainable

development has been extremely disappointing since the 1992 Earth Summit, with poverty deepening and

environmental degradation worsening. What the world wanted, the General Assembly said, was not a new

philosophical or political debate but rather, a summit of actions and results.”17

Therefore the partnerships allowed for “at least SOME progressive results from the

Summit”18

, as these partnerships do not require approval by the member states contrary to

the negotiation process following the unanimity principle. The partnership initiatives were

especially promoted as key instruments for making progress towards sustainable

development by those countries which blocked binding agreements for the type I outcomes

(cf. Bäckstrand 2006b). Especially from the NGOs there was harsh criticism of this new

outcome format of the partnership initiatives (type II) and therewith over-reliance on

voluntary mechanisms. NGOs accused the governments of hiding their unacceptable

negotiation results by pursuing the type II outcomes as the main result of the Summit. The

special efforts on partnering with the business sector in particular were condemned as

“privatisation of implementation”, packaged as “good news stories”, “keeping everyone

busy”. Instead, the NGOs expected the governments to fulfil their global responsibilities

within the UN processes.19

In reaction to the critique of taking pressure from the

governments to negotiate the type I outcomes, the CSD in its session following the Summit

17

www.johannesburgsummit.org (The official website of the UN WSSD) 18

www.worldsummit2002.org/index.htm?http://www.worldsummit2002.org/guide/prepcomm2.htm 19

www.worldsummit2002.org/index.htm?http://www.worldsummit2002.org/guide/prepcomm3.htm, accessed 22nd

Feb

07


28

“reaffirmed that these partnerships contribute to the implementation of intergovernmental

commitments, recognizing that partnerships are a complement to, not a substitute for, intergovernmental

commitments.”20

Regarding civil society involvement, the WSSD set new standards, following the

Agenda 21 postulate of “broad public participation in decision-making”21

. The use of new

and innovative deliberative practice had been unprecedented in multilateral negotiations.

The Johannesburg Summit “has been cited as the most inclusive summitry due to the range

of styles and types of both formal and informal stakeholder and civil society participation”

(Bäckstrand 2006a: 482). At the Summit, 8000 major group representatives were

accredited22

(compared with 10,000 government delegates). Besides the partnership

initiative, another distinctive deliberative mechanism aimed at facilitating the interaction

between non-state actors and government officials characterized the summit: the multi-

stakeholder dialogues23

. The multi-stakeholder dialogue between the nine major groups and

government delegates were an integrated part of the preparatory process and the summit

itself. However, they were purely advisory rather than influencing the decision-making

process. For this reason, they “have been criticized for being cosmetic and symbolic and

representing pseudo-participation” and “were described more as monologues than

dialogues” (Bäckstrand 2006a: 485). The dialogues were marginalized not only because of

the lack of decision-making power. The voice of the stakeholders hardly obtained a hearing,

as high-level officials did not participate to a great extent. The position papers presented by

major group representatives received no substantial response from government delegates

(Bäckstrand 2006a).

Alongside the official UN negotiations, the summit and the preparatory conferences

were characterised by hundreds of side and parallel events. Some of the largest parallel

events were the civil society Global Peoples’ Forum, the Indigenous Peoples’ Summit, the

Local Government Session, the International Science Forum, the Water Dome exhibition

centre and the Stakeholder Forum Implementation Conference, featuring work on

sustainable development by civil society, governments and companies (Bäckstrand 2006a;

Bigg 2003). The latter is in the focus of this study.

20

www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships/about_partnerships.htm 21

§ 23.2, Chapter 23, Section III, Agenda 21, www.un.org/esa/sustdev/agenda21chapter23.htm

“Broad participation and inclusiveness are key to the success of sustainable development. All sectors of society have a

role to play in building a future in which global resources are protected, and prosperity and health are within reach for

all of the world's citizens.” (www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/basic_info/basicinfo.html) 22

In order to participate in UN conferences individuals need to get accredited to ECOSOC or to a specific conference

via their organization. The rules that govern NGO involvement within the UN Economic and Social Council are based

on an ECOSOC resolution from 1996 (Dodds and Strauss 2002: 12, 13). 23

www.un.org/jsummit.org/html/major_groups/multistakeholderdialogue.html


29

2.3 The case in focus of this study

2.3.1 The convening organisation

In line with the strategic vision in which collaborative multi-stakeholder processes

contribute to the advancement of implementation and refresh governance processes, the

Stakeholder Forum for our Common Future has shaped a coherent agenda linking multi-

stakeholder processes to sustainable development action. Stakeholder Forum has pioneered

a number of well-regarded multi-stakeholder processes and is a leading advocate of

stakeholder involvement in international and national environmental governance processes24

(Andonova and Levy 2003: 21). The international multi-stakeholder organisation works to

further the implementation of the sustainable development agenda by creating space for

dialogue and policy development. Stakeholder Forum (SF) supports stakeholders in entering

and taking effect within the UN sphere and provides dialogic multi-stakeholder platforms.

Furthermore, it is strongly oriented towards the UN CSD processes and works for reforming

the governance structures to enable broader stakeholder participation. Since the first CSD

meeting in 1993, SF has played an active role around the CSD process. Besides facilitating

stakeholder engagement, SF has contributed to the analysis of the CSD process and

suggestions for its future developments.25

During the CSD meetings and likewise at the

WSSD and its preparatory conferences, SF publishes a daily newsletter with analysis,

comment and opinion sought by stakeholders as well as by official delegates. As an

international stakeholder organisation, the SF is backed by an international advisory board

comprising representatives from most of the Major Groups. The strong linkage with the

CSD also becomes evident from the fact that Stakeholder Forum could win former CSD

members for their organisation: SF’s chair and vice-presidents include several former CSD

chairs and bureau members (Sherman et al. 2006). Concerning the frame of contents of their

endeavours, they follow milestone international agreements: “Our commitment to global

sustainable development is best expressed in Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration.”26

24

www.stakeholderforum.org/about/about.php, accessed September 2007; Previous to the IC, the Stakeholder Forum’s

conducted a project on MSPs, which led to the book ‘Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability:

Beyond Deadlock and Conflict’ (Hemmati 2002) 25

SF has published several books and reports of analysis of the CSD process (e.g. Ayre and Callway 2005; Dodds et al.

2002; Sherman, Peer, Dodds et al. 2006) which is an important resource for stakeholders engaging in meetings (e.g.

Dodds and Strauss 2002; 2004). 26

brochure “Implementation Conference”, September 2001 version, p. 12


30

2.3.2 The Implementation Conference Process

The project of the Stakeholder Forum on which this study is focusing is the

Implementation Conference (IC) Process with the purpose of strengthening concrete

collaborative stakeholder action, programmes and projects for helping to implement global

agreements on sustainability. The IC process is a multi-stakeholder process culminating in a

three-day conference event immediately preceding the WSSD in Johannesburg. 400

participants joined together to launch more than twenty action plans helping to fill the

implementation gap. The “Implementation Conference – Stakeholder Action for Our

Common Future” was Stakeholder Forum’s main event for Earth Summit 200227

and

formed a key part of SF’s strategy “of building a multi-stakeholder movement towards

sustainable development” in a long-term process.28

The process design relied on the strong expertise in multi-stakeholder processes of the

Stakeholder Forum. The initiation and preliminary design for the process was created by

the two IC coordinators and tuned with the Stakeholder Forum’s International Advisory

Board (IAB). From the beginning, professional facilitators were involved in setting up the

process. The preparatory meetings for the final multi-stakeholder conference event took

place during the formal preparatory conferences for the Summit and during some issue-

related international conferences29

.

Five key issue strands were chosen, eventually four were established: ‘Freshwater’,

‘Energy’, ‘Food Security’ and ‘Health’.30

Under consultations with the IAB, a Multi-

Stakeholder Issue Advisory Group (IAG) has been set up for the preparatory process of each

issue strand. Interested experts from different societal sectors and regions were pulled

together to design and guide the process, draft collaborative action plans, identify potential

partners and choose participants for the final Implementation Conference.31

The IAG

participants representing specific stakeholder groups are all somehow engaged in the CSD

Summit process, e.g. for lobbying reasons.32 The IAGs worked in an iterative process on

carving out their common ground, their common goal, and on identifying interested parties

and participants. Furthermore, they needed to consider how possible outcomes could be

financed to prepare the Implementation Conference.33

An important tool for this iterative

27

www.earthsummit2002.org/es/about/about.htm 28

brochure: Implementation Conference. Stakeholder action for our common future. September 2001 version. 29

For the issue strand ‘Freshwater’: the International Conference on Freshwater (Bonn, Dec 2001) and the stakeholder

dialogue on Sustainable Water Management (Rüschlikon, April 2002); for the issue strand ‘Food Security’: Food

Summit in Rome 30

The fifth issue strand was meant to be ‘Corporate Citizenship’ 31

Leaflet: Implementation Conference. Stakeholder action for our common future. Project Update. P. 2; brochure:

Implementation Conference. Stakeholder action for our common future. September 2001 version. 32

“We all have our agendas towards the governments” (Apr 02 Convener) 33

Issue Paper V4, p.2


31

process was the rolling Issue Paper. Working on the Issue Papers, the IAG members

identified the official sustainability agreements in which they anchored the planned

activities, and proposed 25 specific action plans to be launched at the IC in Johannesburg.

In the second half of the process, sub-groups were developed for the preparation of the

specific action plans.

The meetings of the IAGs or smaller group and bilateral meetings were always

organised around official conferences which the participants attended anyway, each with

their own agenda towards the official processes. They took place in conference rooms or as

‘dinner meetings’ in restaurants (because people have no time but everybody needs to eat34

).

In between the face-to-face meetings, telephone conferences were organised and IC-team

members communicated bilaterally with IAG members and potential IC participants and

donors. A comprehensive website supported the flow of information and the networking

tasks. At the Implementation Conference in Johannesburg, the majority of the time was

spent in working groups finalising the partnership arrangements drafted in the action plans

during the preparatory process. The elaboration in the smaller working groups is framed by

plenary sessions at the opening and the closing of the IC and by social events in the

evenings.35

The linkages to the official WSSD process were complex. As with the Stakeholder

Forum’s general activities at the CSD, the IC process is deeply embedded in and oriented

towards the official WSSD process. At the same time, the process is positioned as an

independent, stakeholder-driven alternative to the official process, pioneering innovative

forms of multi-stakeholder collaboration. The time schedules, venues and participants as

well as the issues are closely interlinked. Presentations or briefings of the process were

scheduled for each PrepCom and the WSSD to ensure the process’s visibility. Due to close

interconnectedness, the IC process was highly responsive to emerging changes within the

official process. Scheduling the IC conference just before the Summit in Johannesburg

signalled the stakeholders’ willingness and commitment to jointly implement UN negotiated

sustainability agreements in the face of the wary and partly backwards-oriented negotiation

process. Each action plan was linked to existing sustainable development agreements and to

WSSD outcomes.36

How exactly the linkages are defined was subject to recurrent

discussion among participants. For example, if the final action plans should be submitted as

type II partnership initiatives to the WSSD Secretariat could become an issue of debate, and

had to be decided by each action plan group.

34

as explained by the convener 35

IC Interim Project Report, 08 July 2002, p. 1 36

IC Interim Project Report, 08 July 2002, p. 1


32

The process of each of the issue strands developed quite differently. This study

focuses on the issue strand ‘Freshwater’, and, within that, on the action plan finally labelled

‘multi-stakeholder review of global water and sanitation supply strategies’. The Freshwater

IAG was a panel of more than 30 water experts from different societal sectors and regions.

Most of them are professional international “conference hoppers” and many know each

other from different occasions, where they are attending water-related UN negotiating

processes and other water-related events. Their common goal is ‘water (and sanitation) for

the poor’.

The participants connect to the “Millennium Goals” (2000)37

, “The Hague” (2000)38

and the “Bonn Conference” (2001)39

, the major past events/agreements of the water

community. These are common points of reference in their histories of bonds and clashes,

the relationships among some stakeholder groups seemed to have been pretty rocky. The

participants referred to ‘The Hague’ as having been dominated by fights, while ‘Bonn’ was

considered as the first step towards a more dialogic, collaborative way of working together

and is often referred to as outstanding example.

The concept and initial design of the Implementation Conference Process was finalised

in summer/autumn 2001. The first IAG ‘Freshwater’ meeting, the “engagement meeting”40

,

was held at the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, December 2001, which

provided an excellent opportunity to build on existing networks of key water experts. Also

at that conference, Stakeholder Forum was closely connected to the official conference

proceedings, as the director of SF and some IAG people were among the International

Steering Committee of the Bonn Conference, the IC coordinator was engaged as one of the

facilitators, and the later Chair of SF facilitated the Multi-Stakeholder Dialogues. Most of

the IAG members participated at this Conference. The outcome of this meeting was the first

version of the rolling Issue Paper, the so-called “‘non-paper’, based on recent international

agreements and the discussions at the Stakeholder Dialogues in Bonn”41

. It outlined possible

issues and formed the basis for the first IAG meeting held during PrepCom II in New York

in February 2002, the purpose of which was to agree on the IC process.42

The resulting Issue

37

Millennium Development Goals (MDG), declared at the UN Millennium Summit, March 2000, NY. A set of time-

bound and measurable goals and targets was agreed for “combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental

degradation [including: “Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water“],

and discrimination against women.” www.un.org/millenniumgoals/MDGs-FACTSHEET1.pdf

www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html 38

2nd

World Water Forum, 2000, The Hague; The Hague Ministerial Declaration 39

International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, December 2001, convened by The Federal Ministry for the

Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and The Federal Ministry for Ministry for Economic Co-

operation and Development, Germany; www.water-2001.de 40

www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/bonninvite.htm 41

www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/nyinvite.htm 42

www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/nyinvite.htm


33

Paper Version 2 outlined planned activities, possible focus areas and possible joint

stakeholder action towards governments and towards implementation. One of the identified

focus areas (which later developed into the action plan under focus) was reviewing the

impact of “private sector engagement in water supply and sanitation” as had been suggested

at the Bonn conference. This Issue Paper again was the basis of discussion for a telephone

conference in March with the aim “to get a clearer idea of focus areas for future stakeholder

action and to broaden, deepen and prioritise ideas” and to include missing items. Means and

ends of possible joint stakeholder action should be identified.43

It seemed to be difficult to

move from ‘statement talk’ to the formulation of concrete action plans. Controversial

opinions about the title of the action plan and the focus of the multi-stakeholder review on

‘private sector engagement’ surfaced. Accordingly, the title of the priority area was changed

in the IC Project Update44

and in the following draft action plans to “Multi-stakeholder

review of water supply and sanitation strategies”.

Before the next IAG meeting, more concrete draft stakeholder action plans were

formulated. The meeting during PrepCom III (end of March) should review those plans and

the IAG process and composition.45

The fluctuation of IAG participants was pretty high:

only two participants present at this meeting also attended the previous phone conference.

Discontent was expressed about how the draft action plans had developed.46

It was

considered necessary to put the action plans aside, to revise the process and to develop a

shared vision first.47

At the next IAG meeting in April at a water conference48

in Switzerland, the focus

shifted to a partnership mode, which was constructed as contrary to an issue driven mode.49

The course of this meeting differed substantively from the planned agenda.50

Instead of

working on the development of concrete action plans as was planned, the mission and

identity of the group, the link to the WSSD process and a framework for proceeding further

took up most of the discussion time.51

Despite the abandoned agenda, the meeting was

characterised by an exceptionally good mood. The participants praised the fact that they had

formed a constructive group despite a history of conflicts in the water community.

43

Minutes of Telephone Conference 15 March 2002 (issue coordinator) 44

released March 2002 45

Purpose IAG meeting 26 March 2002 46

Meeting Report 26 March 2002 47

Meeting Report 26 March 2002, follow-up mail (27 March 2002) 48

“Sustainable water management – priorities for policy frameworks and best practices”, 25-26 April 2002, a

stakeholder dialogue organised by IDA Rio (a committee of the Swiss government) and Swiss Re. 49

IAG meeting report (30 April 2002); meeting transcript 50

compare also [IAG coordinator]’s remark after the meeting 51

IAG meeting report (30 April 2002); meeting transcript


34

The next meeting took place during PrepCom IV in May in Bali. Compared to the

previous meeting, the atmosphere was completely changed: it was dominated by time

pressure and was strictly facilitated towards selecting a manageable amount of concrete,

feasible and financed action plans out of the about thirty presented ideas52

. Concerning the

multi-stakeholder review, the former champion of the action plan declared to abandon the

project now that the focus had changed, causing considerable irritation on behalf of the

coordinators. Several government representatives visited the meeting. After the participants

had presented the various action plans, the government representatives were invited to

comment on the IC concept and the brief presentations. Their role as possible donors

became evident – according to the type II outcomes there is an interest from the side of the

governments in partnering with stakeholders, while many of the action plan projects were

still in need of funding.

Between Bali and Johannesburg people were working in subgroups on their action

plans.

At the IC in Johannesburg in August 2002, the Issue Group ‘Freshwater’ assembled

118 representatives of NGOs, business, trade unions, farmers, academia, women, youth,

international agencies, governments, and others who worked in seven different groups53

,

ranging from Gender Mainstreaming in Integrated Water Resource Management, Local

Government Capacity Building, Rainwater Harvesting, Wise Water Use, Eradication of

Diarrhoeal Disease to Strengthening Public Water Systems.

The financing of the IC process and event and the action plans was based on a broad

range of sources: governments, international agencies, foundations, corporations and other

stakeholders contributed to the process.54

However, securing the financial support turned

out to be a severe challenge. Some of the promised payments were delayed for months,

reduced or actually dropped, also due to the criticism of the type II outcomes (see above)

through which partnerships in general came under fire. The financial situation became so

severe that shortly before the final conference, the IC’s existence was on the verge of

collapse, and the staff’s wage was not secured for months. Concerning the action plans,

funding had to be established for each of them separately by the partners involved or by

financial support from sponsoring organisations.55

52

transcript, p.3 issue coordinator’s introduction 53

IC draft full report, p. 5 54

www.stakeholderforum.org/practice/icj/outcomes.php; www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/partners.htm 55

Leaflet: Implementation Conference. Stakeholder action for our common future. Project Update, p. 2

Chapter 3 - Theoretical background – shaping a framework of collaborative identity

35

3 Theoretical background – shaping a framework of collaborative identity

In this chapter, I explore the theoretical background in which the case analysis is

embedded. After underlining the importance of multiparty collaboration for addressing

pressing social issues I map out an overview of the broad and highly diversified field of

collaboration research in general. Among the multiplicity of paradigms, theories and themes

I will briefly introduce what is used for this study – a study in which the discursive creation

of collaborative identity and its inherent tensions is being investigated in order to deepen the

understanding of the complexities of multi-stakeholder collaboration. The concept of

collective or organizational identity is introduced and its (rare) use for collaboration

research is presented. After having outlined the existing research in the areas of

collaboration and collective identity, I develop the conceptual model for this thesis, in

which the formation of a collaborative identity is considered as constitutive for the

collaborative organizing process. With this model I focus on four paradoxical identity

threads and their interwovenness – 1) constructing the issue and 2) positioning the

collaboration within its context in terms of creating legitimacy, 3) the relationships among

the participants in terms of integrating diversity, and 4) organizing the relationship between

participants and convenors in terms of leading the process and creating ownership. This

model should help in understanding some of the intractabilities of multi-stakeholder

collaboration and provide conceptual handles for reflective practice (Huxham 2003;

Huxham and Beech 2003).

3.1 Collaboration

The seriousness and interrelatedness of major problems and challenges on a global

scale is generally recognized today. Many agree upon the urgent necessity of societal

change to avoid further aggravation of environmental and developmental problems.

Awareness is growing of the increased interdependence of different actors within global

social and economic domains (Bouwen and Steyaert 1999). Accordingly, multi-party

collaboration has come to be appreciated as a valuable method for achieving strategic

change in response to such complex and weighty societal problems (Hardy, Lawrence and

Nelson 2006). The more these ‘metaproblems’ become intractable (Lewicki, Gray and

Elliott 2003), the more it is worth crossing traditional boundaries, bringing together multiple

stakeholders with their broad range of expertise and resources (Trist 1983) to engage in

collaborative strategies to tackle the challenges and jointly exploring new ways of


36

organizing. In order to holistically address problems which are characterized by unclear

boundaries and which are not confined to specific societal sectors, cross-sectoral

collaboration is a promising means, involving governmental, civil society, business and

other organizations.

It is not only global sustainability issues that are appropriately tackled by inter-

organizational collaboration in the form of partnerships, participation processes and

networks of various sorts. Indeed, there are hardly any social issues that do not belong to an

inter-organizational domain. Community development, poverty, health, education, security

and criminal justice issues on more local levels, to name just a few, call for coordinated, or

better, collaborative, approaches. Also within the sectors, multi-organizational collaboration

is commonplace, thus for example within the business sector, where joint ventures,

partnerships, strategic alliances and other forms of collaborative arrangements are prevalent

(Eden and Huxham 2001).

Corresponding to the wide variety of issues over the whole range of sectors

“(c)ollaborative relationships manifest themselves in a multitude of ways, with a multitude

of descriptive terminology and a multitude of purpose” (Huxham and Vangen 2005: 4),

labelled for example multi-stakeholder, multiparty, multi-constituency or multi-sector

collaboration. Huxham and Vangen define collaboration in a broad manner: they understand

collaboration as “the full range of positively oriented inter-organizational relationships”,

including all the various forms mentioned so far, and “all sectors and all collaborative

purposes”. In contrast to such a conception which also comprises a pretty homogenous

selection of organizations like business partnerships, Gray (1989: 11) emphasises an

inclusive selection of organisations as characteristic of collaboration: “Collaboration

involves a process of joint decision making among key stakeholders of a problem domain

about the future of that domain”. Hardy and colleagues, following Powell (1990) and Ouchi

(1980), explicitly exclude market- and hierarchy-based relationships. They define

collaboration “as a cooperative, interorganizational relationship in which participants rely

on neither market nor hierarchical mechanisms of control to gain cooperation from each

other” (Hardy, Lawrence and Grant 2005; see also Lawrence, Phillips and Hardy 1999;

Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000). Both of these modes of relating have been identified

by Trist (1983) as “maladaptive and unviable as social modes” since the “bureaucratic

legacy and the competitive win-lose mentality bar the way to an adaptive confrontation with

turbulence” (278f). In contrast to prevalent principles “appertaining to either bureaucratic

extensionism or to self-sufficient, dissociative reductionism” he puts forward


37

“socioecological principles” implying the “centrality of interdependence” and a

“considerable diffusion of power” (271). Such a “self-regulation within interdependence”

presents a new logical type of relating in the face of increasing complexity at the domain

level (272). As promising as this new way of relating might be for addressing complex

societal problems, it is difficult to put into practice. Or, as Hardy et al. (2005: 58) put it,

even though “collaboration has the potential to produce powerful results, not all

collaborations realize this potential.” Bringing together stakeholders with different

backgrounds, goals and approaches (Waddock 1989; Westley and Vredenburg 1991), and

most likely with significant power differences (Gray and Hay 1986), presents a considerable

challenge (Hardy et al. 2006). Due to the lack of predefined processes and mechanisms like

the ones common in market or hierarchy relationships, collaborative relations are highly

unstructured by nature. The way collaborative relationships are organized is subject to

ongoing negotiation processes (Lawrence et al. 1999; Phillips et al. 2000). Practices and

principles governing how participants relate among each other have to be designed,

developed and tried out. It is even more challenging to achieve effective collaboration which

is defined by Hardy et al. (2005: 58, 65) as “cooperative, interorganizational action that

produces innovative synergistic solutions and balances divergent stakeholder concerns”.

Generating collective action of diverse stakeholders is far from easy and often disappoints

expectations (Eden and Huxham 2001), let alone producing effective collaboration

characterised by innovative processes and outcomes and by balancing the divergent

stakeholder concerns. Some fundamental characteristics of multi-stakeholder collaboration

present major challenges: collaborations are messy, highly complex and dynamic and full of

contentious issues, histories of conflict, multiple views, interdependencies, tensions,

contradictions and dilemmas (Huxham and Vangen 2005). It is extraordinarily difficult,

from a functional point of view, to harness the diversity in order to achieve creativity and

synergy, and, from a more normative or ethical view, to balance the different concerns.

3.1.1 Description of the field

The field of inter-organizational, multiparty or multistakeholder collaboration research

is characterized by a huge variety of disciplines, research paradigms, theoretical

perspectives and sectoral focuses from which the topic is tackled. This wide variety of

literature engenders different understandings of even the most basic terminology as the

usage of terms like ‘collaboration’, ‘partnership’, ‘alliance’, ‘network’ or ‘inter-

organizational relations’ is hardly agreed upon. The diversity and complexity of

perspectives are as promising as they are confusing. A further characteristic of the field is

that the various literatures in most cases do not refer to each other. There are some


38

overlapping and interrelated literatures, but for the most part separate bodies of work have

developed which rarely acknowledge each other across paradigms and disciplines (Hardy,

Phillips and Lawrence 2003; Huxham 2003; Powell, Koput and Smith-Doerr 1996). In

particular, literatures regarding the public and private sectors are far apart. The business

literature on networks, alliances, and joint ventures hardly refers to collaboration research in

the public sector or to the more critically oriented work on the politics of collaboration

(Hardy et al. 2003). By corollary, studies of collaboration in public management are for the

most part lacking in insights from parallel literatures (O'Leary, Gerard and Bingham 2006).

Even within the sectoral fields, mutual recognition leaves much to be desired. O’Leary and

colleagues for example posit a missing connection between research on collaborative public

management, civic engagement, and public participation, not to mention the missing

connection to fields highly relevant to collaboration like negotiation, conflict resolution,

dispute system design, and consensus building. The authors bemoaning the isolation

contributed with their work a better interconnectedness of the field. However, Everett and

Jamal (2004) concluded that, even though theoretical coherence is lacking collaboration has

developed into a distinct area of organizational study (c.f. Gray 1985; 1989; Gray and Wood

1991; Hardy et al. 2005; Hood, Logsdon and Thompson 1993; Huxham and Vangen 2005;

Lawrence et al. 1999; Pasquero 1991; Westley and Vredenburg 1997; Wood and Gray

1991).

The multiplicity of disciplines contributing to collaboration research comprises

business studies (management, business policy, organizational behaviour), economics,

sociology and psychology (social psychology, organizational psychology, social and

organizational development), political science, public administration or public management

(public policy, planning) and law. Extensive overviews of strategic and economic

approaches to collaboration are offered elsewhere (Hardy et al. 2003; Phillips et al. 2000).

Political science and public administration or public management highlight the significance

of collaboration for the functioning of democracy. In particular public management as an

applied discipline has a long history of collaboration research (e.g. Thomson and Perry

2006). Law has contributed research on alternative dispute resolution which is becoming

increasingly significant in complementing the dominant model of negotiation to settle a

litigation (Bingham and O'Leary 2006).

Research paradigms guiding the work on collaboration range from more traditional to

postmodern perspectives and from quantitative to qualitative research methodologies. The

more traditional approach, proposing for example hypotheses about managerial behaviour

under specific predefined circumstances, takes into account fewer variables and brings

about tighter causal relationships (in Huxham 2003; McGuire 2002). Further, there is also


39

qualitative research that tends to adopt a functionalist rather than critical perspective (in

Hardy and Phillips 1998; e.g. Hazen 1994). Researchers deploring the neglect of a critical

view, illuminating asymmetrical power relations, politics and competing interests usually

underexposed within a managerial perspective, mostly stem from the postmodern, social

constructionist or political camp. Studies focusing on the political aspects of collaboration

(e.g. Hardy and Phillips 1998; Knights, Murray and Willmott 1993) have shown for

example how collaboration can be an important means of sustaining or increasing influence

over other organizations (Hardy et al. 2003). Social constructionism is hosting for example

narrative, discursive and relational perspectives on collaboration (e.g. the work of Hardy,

Lawrence, Phillips and Grant or Dewulf, Bouwen, Taillieu and colleagues).

Numerous diverse theoretical perspectives provide insights into collaborations,

including, for example, resource dependence theory (Connolly and James 2006; Pfeffer and

Salancik 1978; Selsky and Parker 2005), stakeholder theory (Freeman 1984), network

theory (Gulati 1998; Powell et al. 1996), game theory (Axelrod 1984; 1997; Ostrom 1990;

1998), institutional economics (Pasquero 1991), political economy theory (Benson 1975),

contingency theory (Emery and Trist 1973; Westley and Vredenburg 1997), negotiated

order theory (Bennington, Shelter and Shaw 2003; Nathan and Mitroff 1991; Pasquero

1991); (Drake and Donohue 1996), relational order theory (Donohue 1998), institutional

theory (Connolly and James 2006; Lawrence, Hardy and Phillips 2002; Phillips et al. 2000;

Sharfman, Gray and Yan 1991), agency theory (Axelrod 1997; Fleisher 1991), social

ecology theory (Emery and Trist 1973; Pasquero 1991); evolution theory (Waddock 1989);

Habermasian communications theory (Hazen 1994), social capital theory (Bourdieu 1993;

Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998; Putnam 1993), actor network theory

(Feldman, Khademian, Ingram et al. 2006), framing theory (Dewulf, Craps, Bouwen et al.

2005; Dewulf, Craps and Dercon 2004; Drake and Donohue 1996; Gray 2004; Gray and

Putnam 2003; Lewicki et al. 2003), and discourse theory (Hardy et al. 2005; Lawrence et al.

1999).

A related field from which collaboration research borrows is conflict research, dispute

resolution and mediation. There is growing interest in organisational conflict management

culture and dispute system design. Scholars have investigated the communication skills

required for collaboration and how creativity emerges through exchanging diverse views in

conflict resolution processes (Deutsch and Coleman 2000; Lewicki et al. 2003). Academic

conflict management resources can be found for both the individual and organizational

levels.1 In the field of consensus building, researchers discuss adequate design processes

1 See for example www.iacm-conflict.org/links, www.beyondintractability.org


40

and collaboration structures (e.g. Susskind, McKearnan and Thomas-Larmer 1999).

Extensive literature exists on convening and facilitation processes (Carlson 1999; Dukes,

Piscolish and Stephens 2000), on mediation (Moore 1996) and on multiparty negotiation in

environmental conflict resolution and public policy, a field with a 30-year history of

research on collaborative networks oriented towards solving practical policy problems

(Bingham and O'Leary 2006; O'Leary and Bingham 2003). In contrast to most research in

this area focusing on conflict resolution, Hardy and Phillips (1998) also explore the

potential benefits of pursuing conflictive strategies in order to achieve change and

innovation.

One of the main arguments for proposing inter-organizational collaboration is the

potential for integrative creative, innovative solutions to complex problems (Gray 1989).

Collaboration can serve to expand the set of potential solutions for all participants by

pooling their various perspectives and resources (Gray 1989). This is also the basic idea

underlying the strategy literature (e.g. Dyer and Singh 1998; Gulati, Nohria and Zaheer

2000) which emphasises the significance of collaboration for acquiring resources and skills

that cannot otherwise be produced internally. One of the most important effects of

collaboration from this perspective lies in its potential to build organizational capacities

through the transfer or pooling of resources. From a strategic point of view, resources that

lead to distinctive capacities therefore have the most value (Hardy et al. 2003). This

perspective is geared towards fostering a competitive advantage. A similar approach, but

geared towards achieving strategic change concerning societal problems like for example

sustainable development instead of competitive advantage, is used in domain theory (Brown

1983; Gray 1989; McCann 1983; Trist 1983; Westley and Vredenburg 1991) which argues

that collaboration helps to pool resources and produce innovative and creative solutions to

social problems (Hardy et al. 2003). Domain theory draws on the work of Emery and Trist

(1965) who introduced the notion of turbulent environments, where problems, characterized

by complexity, uncertainty, and unclear boundaries, are beyond the scope of a single

organization to solve. Lawrence et al. (1999: 482) therefore call it a “problem-focused

approach”. These complex, intractable metaproblems (Lewicki et al. 2003) call for

collaborative (Gray 1989) or inclusive (Warren 1967) decision-making requiring

organizations to pool their resources and expertise (Trist 1983) and acknowledge their

interdependence (Gray 1999). As representatives of organizations or individuals engage

with each other around their issue and jointly develop and share a vision of the problem to

which they see themselves, collectively, as part of the solution, they become stakeholders

(Phillips et al. 2000). As the appreciation of the meta-problem becomes more widely shared,


41

an identity of domain begins to be created. Through acquiring an identity, the domain

begins to take a direction suggesting certain courses of action which may be attempted on a

path into the future. As the identity of the domain is created, an internal structure evolves.

The resulting organizational structures are not “objectively given, quasipermanent fixtures

in the social fabric”, rather they are “ways we have chosen to construe various facets of it”

(Trist 1983: 274). They can be conceived as processes of social construction or meaning

creation wherein social order is negotiated (Gray 1989; Nathan and Mitroff 1991) to create a

social space in which to engage collectively. Within this space, participants seeing

“different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for

solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible” (Gray 1989: 5).

Furthermore, the access and agendas are opened up to wider participation, involving a wider

range of stakeholders (Gray 1989: 120). Writers on inter-organisational domains like Gray

draw on negotiated order theory (Strauss, Schatzman, Bucher et al. 1963) with its emphasis

on the socially constructed nature of collaboration (Phillips et al. 2000).

As the field develops, collaboration research diversifies and differentiates into sub

fields. Some literature specialises in specific organizational forms out of the wide range of

inter-organizational arrangements collaboration can take, like networks, alliances,

partnerships, joint ventures, etc. Some approaches delineate different phases or stages in the

life cycle of a collaboration (Das and Teng 1997; Gray 1989; Waddock 1989), or

preconditions, process, and outcomes (see for example the special issues of The Academy

of Management Journal 1995; The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 1991).

Preconditions or antecedents of collaboration are for example resources and conditions

facilitating collaborative activities, like trust, and outcomes are for example practices and

rules (Lawrence et al. 1999).

Research on collaboration is further diversified regarding a host of specific themes,

topics or issues identified as relevant within collaboration. Research specialises for example

in knowledge, learning, innovation and creativity. Some is concerned solely with the

transfer of existing knowledge (Gulati 1999; Powell 1990; Powell et al. 1996) while the

work on learning and innovation (Hibbert and Huxham 2005; Larsson, Bengtsson,

Henriksson et al. 1998; Mostert, Pahl-Wostl, Rees et al. 2007; Pahl-Wostl and Hare 2004)

argues that collaboration can facilitate the creation of new knowledge (Hardy et al. 2003).

However most literature from this area suggests that innovation in collaboration is

incremental rather than radical in nature (e.g. Roberts and Bradley 1991) and that learning is

usually confined to what Weick (1984) has called “small wins” (see also Bouwen and

Taillieu 2004 in their special issue of Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology;


42

and Turcotte and Pasquero 2001). There is literature on issues of membership or inclusion

or exclusion (Huxham and Vangen 2000a; Laws 1999), on the development of aims or

purpose (Eden and Huxham 2001), some on leadership (Crosby and Bryson 2004; 2005;

Huxham and Vangen 2000b; Vangen and Huxham 2003a). Trust is seen by some as a major

issue (Lane and Bachman 1998; Maguire, Phillips and Hardy 2001; Vangen and Huxham

2003b). There is also extensive work on trust within conflict management studies (for

reviews, see Lewicki et al. 2003: 289-97; Lewicki and Wiethoff 2000). Further, there is

some work on the emotional aspects of collaboration (Fiol and O'Connor 2002; Hardy and

Phillips 1998) and on power and politics of collaboration (Gray and Hay 1986; Hardy and

Phillips 1998).

Collaboration research also diversifies according to the sectoral focus. There is work

focusing on specific societal sectors like public (e.g. Sullivan and Skelcher 2002),

communities (e.g. Selsky 1991), third sector (non-profit or non-governmental organizations)

and private business organisations (Grandori 1999; The Academy of Management Journal

1997). Selsky and Parker (2005) consolidated literature on cross-sectoral collaboration in

four ‘arenas’, in the sectoral combinations business-nonprofit, business-government,

government-nonprofit, and trisector. Furthermore, collaboration literature can be

categorized according to theme-based sectors like for example health (Maguire and Hardy

2005; Scott and Thurston 1997; Sullivan and Skelcher 2003; Wyatt 2002), education

(Connolly and James 2006; Tracy and Standerfer 2003), waste (Bennington et al. 2003),

energy, biodiversity (Westley and Vredenburg 1997), biotechnology (Pangarkar 2003),

agriculture (Feldman et al. 2006) or water (Craps et al. 2004; Imperial 2005; Mostert et al.

2007; Pahl-Wostl 2002; Washbourne and Dicke 2001).

According to Huxham (2003) most collaboration research stemming from public

management or public administration addresses the policy level, focusing on collaboration

involving public and community organizations, thereby investigating the value and

relevance of governmental initiatives and policies (e.g. Deakin 2002) or on describing and

evaluating different forms of structures, processes and relationships etc. (e.g. Diamond

2002; Klijn 2002; Vigoda 2002). Research addressing the policy level potentially has

valuable but rather indirect practical relevance. Huxham and Vangen (Huxham 2003; 2005:

10f) posit that only a small amount of this research is explicitly concerned with the practice

of collaborating and identify four approaches addressing the practice level. The first one

conceptualizes collaboration in terms of phases and identifies the relevant activities that

should take place in each phase (Das and Teng 1997). The second approach works by

identifying factors, attributes or conditions impinging on the success or failure of


43

collaborations, like for example stakeholder selection, trust, shared vision, mutual

interdependence, transparency, governance structures, the initial dispositions toward

cooperation, or skilled convenors (Faerman, McCaffrey and Slyke 2001; Gray 1989;

Mattessich, Murray-Close and Monsey 2001). Some researchers have focused on the

competencies, skills and structures needed to manage those factors (Scott and Thurston

1997; Williams 2002). The third approach is concerned with the development and use of

tools and modelling methods to support collaborative workshops and events (Crosby and

Bryson 2004; Taket and White 2000). This branch also includes the literature and materials

produced by collaboration practitioners more directly involved in the action. One of these

genres is the ‘How to …’ guide (Austin 2000; Straus 2002). The Search Conferences, large-

group interaction methods and similar participatory approaches to developing joint agendas

also belong here, having a significant influence in social issue arenas (Bryson and Anderson

2000; Weisbord and Janoff 1995). A fourth approach is the psychodynamic perspective on

collaboration (Gray and Schruijer forthcoming; Prins 2006; Prins, Craps and Taillieu 2006;

Zagier Roberts 1994), which examines group processes and stems from group dynamics

(Bion 1961; Janis 1972; 1982; Miller and Rice 1967).

3.1.2 Contribution

As has just been shown, the existing work on collaboration is huge and very

diversified. However, this does not mean that the work is complete. Everett and Jamal

(2004) note that numerous questions about the processes constituting multi-stakeholder

collaboration are still unanswered (Hardy and Phillips 1998; Lawrence et al. 2002; Westley

and Vredenburg 1997). In contrast to much of what has been described so far, the theory

used here and developed further focuses on a conceptual description of the complex

discursive micro-processes involved in setting up a multi-stakeholder collaborative project.

This is then profoundly practice-oriented, as theory is deeply grounded in discursive

practice. The theory therefore can inform practice, not in the sense of ‘guidelines for

practice’ as such, but by providing conceptual handles for reflective practice (Huxham

2003; Huxham and Beech 2003).

A discursive understanding of collaboration views collaboration as a process of social

construction. Collaboration is enacted in a succession of conversations between diverse

representatives around a specific issue (Hardy et al. 2005). For collaborative action to ensue,

continued conversation is essential: “If the conversations break down so, too, does the

collaboration” (Hardy et al. 2006). The discursive approach illuminates the ways in which

language creates organizational or collaborative reality rather than reflecting it. By focusing

on the processes through which multi-stakeholder collaboration is enacted within its context


44

over time, the discursive approach to collaboration is inherently contextual and processual

(Hardy et al. 2005; Lawrence et al. 1999).

I focus on the discursive production of collaborative identity, whereby identity is seen

as constitutive of the collaborative organizing process, forming the basis for joint action. By

examining the discursive creation of the collaboration’s identity, its intricate processes and

inherent tensions are in the spotlight. The conceptual framework of collaborative identity as

it is developed here comprises the development of the joint issue, the embeddedness in the

context, the relations among the participants and issues of ownership and leadership.

Focusing on how collaboration is socially and discursively constructed draws attention to

the inherently political processes creating the collaborative identity. The definition of the

central issue or problem, providing the impetus for collective action, is highly political

(Eden and Huxham 2001; Hardy and Phillips 1998; Lawrence et al. 1999). Positioning the

collaboration within its context is likewise a highly political issue. Most research on

collaboration does not investigate the contextual embeddedness (Granovetter 1985) of

collaboration. Notable exceptions emphasising the importance of examining collaboration in

context draw on the social ecology or evolutionary perspective, where collaboration is seen

as embedded in larger social processes (Pasquero 1991; Waddock 1989), and institutional

theory, where institutional fields are viewed as a source of resources and rules of

collaboration which again reproduces, innovates and translates those rules and resources

within and between institutional fields (Phillips et al. 2000: 23f). To position collaboration

within its context, it needs to be legitimised discursively. Legitimacy is created through the

management of meaning (in Hardy and Phillips 1998; Smircich and Morgan 1982) in order

to secure a voice (Phillips and Hardy 1997). There has been some literature examining

organizational legitimacy and legitimating processes (Contandriopoulos, Denis, Langley et

al. 2004; Driscoll 2006; Suchman 1995), but hardly any that is specialising on collaboration,

even though successful collaborative action is significantly dependent on securing

recognition and legitimacy of the collaborative project (Gray and Hay 1986; Hardy and

Phillips 1998).

Furthermore, I investigate how the participants shape and negotiate how they are

relating among each other in order to tackle their issues, and how ownership and leadership

of the process is distributed and enacted.

Drawing attention to the political processes enacted in the discursive construction of

collaboration helps to fill a gap in collaboration research. Although the importance of power

in collaboration is acknowledged by some authors as central, it has been rather limited in

terms of relevance and scope in the work so far (Hardy and Phillips 1998; Phillips et al.


45

2000). In the literature on negotiations to resolve conflict, power is much more at the focus

of study (for review, see Coleman 2000; Lewicki et al. 2003). Everett and Jamal (2004)

posit that the theory of collaboration is far from complete due to the common lack of

attention to issues of power, which has the status of a taboo topic.

With this study, the importance of power in collaboration is acknowledged through

conceiving the construction of a collaborative identity as a highly political process. Power is

not conceptualized as something participants have, but rather as something they are enacting

in situ. They do so while they are constructing their collaborative identity aimed at

achieving change towards more sustainable ways of organizing. Power in multi-stakeholder

collaboration is defined here as “ability to influence or block change within the domain”

(Gray and Hay 1986). Power can shift continually. Rather than being attached to individual

participants, various “points of power” emerge as the collaboration unfolds (Huxham and

Vangen 2004).

The concept of organizational or collective identity hardly exists in collaboration

literature. Even though some attention has been given to identity issues in the study of

collaboration, this area is relatively underresearched (Beech and Huxham 2003). In the

following section the concept of collective or organizational identity will be introduced in

order to link it to collaboration in a further section.

3.2 Collective identity

The participants in the present case asked repeatedly: What is this all about? Who are

we as a group? What is our purpose? They spent a lot of time defining “who we are” as a

group (Beech and Huxham 2003). They seemed to affirm the view that a collective identity

“is critically important in achieving effective collaboration. The discursive construction of a

collective identity enables participants to construct themselves, the problem, and the

solution as part of a collaborative framework in which the potential for joint action is both

significant and beneficial” (Hardy et al. 2005). However, surprisingly little research has

been done into issues of identity in the context of interorganizational settings or

collaboration theories, and apart from Hardy and colleagues (2005), hardly anyone has

investigated the collective identity of the collaboration, instead of identities within

collaborative settings.


46

3.2.1 Development of the concept

Collective identity as a concept is based in classic sociological constructs, like

Durkheim’s ‘collective conscious’ or Marx’s ‘class consciousness’. It “addresses the ‘we-

ness’ of a group, stressing the similarities or shared attributes around which group members

coalesce” (Cerulo 1997). Identity claims are answering the question “Who are we as an

organization?” and thereby form an analogue of the individual identity concept (Whetten

2006) dating back to Mead (1934) and even further to ancient Greek philosophers (Corley,

Harquail, Pratt et al. 2006). An early theory of collective identity is social identity theory

developed by Tajfel and Turner (see also Abrams and Hogg 1990; Tajfel 1972; Tajfel and

Turner 1979; 1986). This theory relates collective identity to individual social identities and

deals with the nature of group membership and the categorization of individuals according

to being in-group or out-group members (Beech and Huxham 2003). It emerged from social

psychological research examining the causes and consequences of individuals identifying

themselves, and being identified by others as part of a social group (Ashforth and Mael

1989; Tajfel and Turner 1979). A detailed review is offered by Haslam and Ellemers (2005).

Cornelissen (2007) and Benford and Snow (2000) are also concerned with the

correspondence and alignment of individual and collective identities in their research on

social movements (compare also Castells 2004).

For organizational studies, the seminal definition of collective identity has been

introduced by Albert and Whetten (1985), proposing that organizational identity2 is

embodied in the self-referentially claimed “central character, distinctiveness, and temporal

continuity” (Albert and Whetten 1985; in Corley et al. 2006: 10) of a collective organizing

process, understood as organizational identity claims. Since then, the emerging field of

‘identity and organization’ has increased (Albert, Ashforth and Dutton 2000; Corley et al.

2006; The Academy of Management Review 2000) and is characterized by an “amazing

theoretical diversity” (Pratt and Foreman 2000). Diverse disciplines like social and

organizational psychology, organizational behaviour, strategy, corporate communications,

management, marketing and human resources contribute to the field. Organizational identity

is studied from diverse functionalist, interpretive, psychodynamic and postmodern

perspectives on identity issues (Brown 1997; Brown and Starkey 2000; Gioia 1998). Hence,

2 I am using collective identity and organizational identity interchangeably here, even though Whetten (2006: 221)

firmly distinguishes the concepts, defining organizational identity as the identity of a collective actor and collective

identity as the identity of a collection of actors. Thereby he emphasises that “organizations are more than social

collectives, in that modern society treats organizations in many respects as if they were individuals”. Taking this into

account, I still use both meanings interchangeably for two reasons. Firstly, I do not wish to discuss collaboration as an

organization (rather as an organizing process), and secondly within the discursive approach the distinction between an

individual level and collective level of analysis loses significance.


47

very different conceptualizations of the term ‘identity’ are used, referring for example to

beliefs, self-knowledge, capabilities, structures or discourse. Comprehensive recent reviews

of organizational identity are offered for example by Cornelissen (2006) and van Dick

(2001). The plurality and openness of interpretation associated with the concept of identity

engenders a considerable “interpretive viability” (Cornelissen et al. 2007). However, or as

others complain, “a concept which means everything means nothing”, and “identity – as an

explanatory concept – is often overused and under specified”, thereby blunting the

“potential utility of the concept” (compare also Albert et al. 2000; Haslam, Postmes and

Ellemers 2003; Pratt 2003: 162f; Whetten and Mackey 2002). In response to that critique,

the original definition has been further strengthened (Whetten 2006) and some of the

existing approaches have been organized, developing a point of reference from which

multiplicity and pluralism but at the same time clarity and transparency can be encouraged

to realize the concept’s “fuller potential as a source of explanation for complexity and

change in organizational life” (Corley et al. 2006).

3.2.1.1 Defining the concept

The CED definition – specifying the meaning of organizational identity as central,

enduring and distinctive – has been taken up by most of the authors studying organizational

identity. Capturing the essential meaning with the question “who are we?” highlights the

self-referential meaning of the concept. Those self-referential meanings may be more or less

explicit, consciously available or taken for granted. The self-referential meaning is at the

same time inherently relational (Whetten 2006) since identity is contextualized and

comparative in the sense of emphasizing similarity to and difference from other

organizations. Hence, rather than possessing a set of essential attributes, identity refers to a

relational positioning within its context (Corley et al. 2006). Collective identity is

constructed with regard to others in their field (Glynn and Abzug 1998; 2002; Glynn and

Marquis 2007). Furthermore, organizational identity is based on a shared understanding of

the collective. However, the meaning of ‘shared’ differs substantially across the different

approaches to collective identity (Corley et al. 2006), as well as the meaning of ‘endurance’

and ‘centrality’. Some authors depict organizational identity “as a highly stable property of

organizations, others characterize it as a relatively malleable property, readily and routinely

altered to reflect shifting environmental circumstances.” Some authors underscore

coherence and consistence, while others put forward that “an organization’s identity consists

of fragmented, often incompatible elements” (Whetten 2006: 220). However, Cornelissen

and colleagues (2007: S8) noticed that literatures are converging along some key insights

which have been emerging independently and which are seemingly compatible, forming “a


48

number of common truths” about the issue of collective identity in general. These insights

suggest that collective identities (a) are enacted through their positive distinctiveness, (b)

are inherently fluid rather than fixed, (c) form a basis for shared meaning-making and action

(including material outcomes), and (d) may be “strategically created and managed (i.e. with

a more or less conscious intention to differentiate a group or organizational unit from

others)”. Hardy and colleagues (2005) identified a trend within more recent work of

highlighting the importance of fluidity, tensions, and paradox in organizational identity

(Fiol 2002; Gioia, Schultz and Corley 2000; Pratt and Foreman 2000).

3.2.1.2 Different currents of collective identity research

Theories of collective identity have been categorized according to the level of analysis,

like individual, group, organization, culture (Brown 2001; Cornelissen et al. 2007) – with

the consequence of ending up in difficulties as to how those levels are related.

Alternatively, the various currents have been differentiated according to different

ontological and epistemological foundations in more traditional ‘essentialist’ approaches

and social constructionist or discursive approaches (Beech and Huxham 2003; Cerulo 1997;

Corley et al. 2006; Hardy et al. 2005), rendering the categorization according to individual,

group, organization, culture and the difficulties of how the different levels relate obsolete.3

A discursive approach enables the investigation of the ‘levels’ involved in collaboration

without reifying them. Within this approach discursive interactions are conceptualized

through text and talk that embrace and connect all ‘levels’ (Hardy et al. 2005).

Contrary to social identity theory for example, organizational identity is

conceptualized as organizational-level phenomenon which is distinct from individual and

collective levels of analysis (Albert 1998; Albert and Whetten 1985; Gioia 1998). Instead of

being a collective composed of individuals, from this perspective organizational identity

was conceived as having a form and dynamic of its own. While social identity theory

examines what people are thinking, since social identity tends to be seen as internalized

knowledge structure, organizational identity tends to be conceived as a system of shared

meaning (Cornelissen et al. 2007; Hardy et al. 2005). Adopting this view, organizational

identity is conceived by many authors as forming the basis for sensemaking within

organizations (Putnam, Phillips and Chapman 1996). From this perspective, organizational

identity can be seen as an interpretative system or as constructed through discourse and

patterns of action (Cornelissen et al. 2007).

3 This is presented here in a rather simplified manner. There are also examples where a discourse approach is used to

study the different levels, including the individual level and various collective levels, e.g. Jack and Lorbiecki (2007)

using a Foucauldian approach.


49

Furthermore there are differences as to how the concept of identity is associated with

the collective or the organization. Many approaches imply that organizations have identities.

From a social constructionist perspective, however, collective identities are discursive

constructs that are constitutive of the organization (cf. Brown 2006).

Different ontological, epistemological and theoretical foundations suggest different

ways to conceptualize identity criteria centrality and endurance and the characteristic of

sharedness. Hence they differ in viewing identity attributes as “essential” or “natural”

characteristics that are stable and resistant to change, or in contrast conceiving collective

identity as a dynamic process of social construction. “The social constructionist approach to

identity rejects any category that sets forward essential or core features as the unique

property of a collective’s members. From this perspective, every collective becomes a social

artifact” (Cerulo 1997: 387). A social constructionist or discursive approach locates identity

in the discursive processes or conversational practices instead for example of being located

in participants’ minds as a set of beliefs. The focus of discourse-oriented studies of

collective identity is primarily on the constructive effects of text and talk through which

participants describe themselves as a collective and how this relates to patterns of action

(Hardy et al. 2005). In the following, the different currents in the literature on collective

identity are described in how they conceptualize the notions of shared meaning, centrality,

endurance and distinctiveness.

Shared meaning

A primary concern in research on organizational identity is the form of shared

meaning as a basis for the collective identity, which bestows the collective with a

meaningful ‘we-ness’ (in Cornelissen et al. 2007; e.g. Gioia, Schultz and Corley 2002).

However, authors differ in their understanding of what ‘shared’ means. Some see it as an

aggregate property, that is, as a summary of participants’ beliefs and understandings of the

collective identity. Others see it as a kind of ‘gestalt’ property, that is that the “collective

identity might feature as an emergent property of the relational ties” (Brown 2006: 735)

which might arise from group dynamics (Corley et al. 2006). When collective identity is

conceptualized as possessing “natural” or “essential” characteristics, the members are

conceived as having internalized these attributes, suggesting a singular, unified social

experience (Cerulo 1997). Focusing on language and patterns of actions as constitutive for

organizational identity, there is a view that language and behaviours are shared (Cornelissen

et al. 2007). Within a more traditional approach, the notion of ‘shared’ is understood as

being congruent. Some authors emphasize the importance of convergence for action as it

increases organizational commitment (e.g. Ashforth and Mael 1989). From a discursive


50

perspective, ‘shared’ is meant “in the sense that members collectively engage in the

discursive practices that produce and reproduce it over time” (Hardy et al. 2005: 62).

Organizing and organizational identity is then seen as an ongoing social construction and as

discursively polyphonic (Hazen 1993), involving multiple discourses and multiple actors.

The narrative approach has a lot in common with the discursive approach regarding

collective identities. The narrative perspective draws attention to the “complex, and often

fragmented and heterogeneous nature” of collective identity, contrary to the widespread

tendency to emphasise what is common and shared, and what therefore “failed to capture

the interplay between different communities within organizations” (Brown 2006: 731).

Centrality

Whetten and Mackey (2002: 16) define ‘central’ characteristics as those that

“organizational members generally consider to be essential to the organization (‘without

these we would be a different kind of organization’)”. Centrality is conceived by many as

deeply rooted and as not to be changed easily. Furthermore, the notion of depth seems to

imply that identity characteristics are not necessarily obvious as they are more or less

consciously taken for granted.

There is discussion on the question of how many “cores” an organization or a

collective can have and on the importance of inherent consistency. Albert and Whetten

(1985) explicitly included hybrid or dual identities, and holographic hybrid identities. Many

writers have argued that organizations or collectives can have multiple identities (e.g. Glynn

2000; Golden-Biddle and Rao 1997; Pratt and Foreman 2000). Pratt and Foremann (2000)

point to the necessity of maintaining some degree of harmony, tolerance or balance between

the multiple identities (Corley et al. 2006). Multiple identities do not necessarily conflict

with each other, they might also be unrelated or even synergistic, while other authors also

emphasise tension, negotiation, power play, politics and hegemonic struggle in the

formation of the collective identity (Brown 2006; Corley et al. 2006; Fiol 2002). The

plurivocity enacted through the multiple versions of identity is not necessarily problematic,

on the contrary, some degree of pluralism may be adaptive, particularly in turbulent

environments, as Brown (2006) relates this notion to Ashby’s (1958) system-theory concept

of ‘requisite variety’. Some authors even conceptualise organizational identity as being

constituted to a significant degree by the relations to or interactions with external

stakeholders (Brickson 2005; Scott and Lange 2000), thereby including a multiplicity of

perspectives.


51

Continuity/endurance

The classical definition emphasizes stability (Albert and Whetten 1985; Whetten 2006;

Whetten and Mackey 2002), the same applies to social identity theory. From an essentialist

perspective, identity is conceived as stable and resistant to change (Beech and Huxham

2003). Gioia and Thomas (1996) posited that identity “must be more fluid than the

organizational literature has suggested”. Alternative views to the emphasis on stability range

from the notion of plasticity, explaining how an organizational identity may adjust flexibly

without changing fundamentally (Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal and Hunt 1998), to the possibility

of radical transformation of identity, emphasizing fluidity, inconsistence and shifts (Fiol

2002; Gioia and Thomas 1996).

Distinctiveness

Organizational identity serves the overall objectives of maintaining a sense of

uniqueness (Whetten 2006), differentiating the organization within its field and legitimizing

the organization for its members as well as for stakeholders in its environment (Cornelissen

2006; Hatch and Schultz 2002). Corley and colleagues (2006) bemoan that in organizational

identity literature the criterion of distinctiveness is only addressed superficially, if at all.

However, as with the collaboration literature (see above), the institutionalists are the ones

who offer a notable exception by emphasizing the embeddedness: they focus on

isomorphism and differentiation within institutional contexts (Glynn and Abzug 1998;

2002; Glynn and Marquis 2007; Rao, Philippe and Durand 2003).

3.2.2 Discursive understanding of collective identity

A strength of the discursive and social constructionist perspective is that the extent of

‘sharedness’, fragmentation, essentiality, endurance or discontinuity is not assumed a priori.

Instead, the degree to which collective identities are shared, fragmented, enduring or in flux,

and how much they are characterized by consent, dissent or change is an empirical issue to

be investigated. Theoretically, the discursive perspective privileges a dynamic process view

over the assumption of stability and conceives collective identities as being in a continuous

state of becoming (Brown 2006). The focus on the dynamics of identity results from

conceiving them as created through interaction instead of being attributed to externally

determined categories (Beech and Huxham 2003; after Deetz 1994). Stability and coherence

could also be subject to empirical examination, but are conceived as achievement. Likewise,

a discursive approach could focus for example on the processes which make groups

entitative (cf. Cornelissen et al. 2007: S11).


52

From a discursive view, the very fabric of organizations is being created and re-

created through the exchange, elaboration and contestation of conversations in a reflexive,

ongoing manner. Some of the discourses in use are deeply embedded, multifariously tied to

other discourses, while others occupy more peripheral positions with fewer ties to other

discourses. Some are only partial and fragmented while others are highly elaborate. The

identity of an organizing process is therefore in a constant state of becoming, variously

appearing relatively consistent and coherent, or rather fluid and full of tensions. At times

participants may converge on what they conceive as really central, enduring or distinctive

about their organization, at other times this might be heavily contested (Brown 2006). These

discursive processes form the basis for collective action – indeed, they present a form of

collective action.

Albert and Whetten (1985: 286; in Corley et al. 2006) conceptualized organizational

identity as organizational claims which are at the same time political claims. The concept is

therefore highly amenable to social constructionist, discursive and rhetorical approaches (as

well as feminist and psychodynamic ones), which pursue questions about power play and

politics enacted by articulating, negotiating and substantiating unstable and often

contradictory identity claims (Corley et al. 2006). Focusing on aspects of power, collective

identities can be theorized as locales of hegemonic struggle where claims are competing and

are being contested. Identities as discursive constructions are shaped and constrained by the

repertoire of available discourses. This also applies to concepts of collective and individual

identity, as Haubl (2002) and Ezzy (1998) have shown for the latter using a narrative

conception of identity, underlining its social sources and the role of power and politics

inherent in the narrations.

A further useful approach for studying power issues connected with a discursive

conception of identity can be pursued by using positioning theory (Harré and van

Langenhove 1999; Harré, van Langenhove and Berman 1999) which is introduced in the

next chapter. It fits the concept of identity used here, as positions are not fixed and stable

but rather multiple and shifting (Muncie 2006; Wood and Kroger 2000). The verb

‘positioning’ as a discursive practice refers to identity in-the-making. Identity and positions

are discursively produced and at the same time function as resources in the further

production of discourse. Positions are relational, for example a position claimed as powerful

requires positions claimed less powerful, or a position may be dominant in relation to a

submissive one, or definitive in relation to a tentative one (Harré and van Langenhove 1991;

1999). As interaction unfolds, the positions may be troubled through countering or resisting

them (Wetherell 1998), shifting the possibilities of action. The concept has been used to

replace the notion of individual identity (Wetherell 1998), but more and more it is used for


53

collectives (Harré and Moghaddam 2003; Harré et al. 1999; Moghaddam, Harré and Lee

2007). Hence it can be used to conceptualise the collaborative identity as a whole as well as

the relations between the collaborating stakeholders.

The discursive approach seems to offer a lot for tackling what has been recently

identified as requirements for future research on collective identity. By focusing on the

actual text and talk constituting the organizing process, the central question of “how the

identities that underpin the patternings and products of organizational life are actually

formed and constructed (as well as re-formed and re-constructed)” can be addressed

fruitfully by elucidating actual processes of identity formation and re-formation

(Cornelissen et al. 2007: S10). Specifying in particular the criterion of distinctiveness can

contribute to an area of organizational identity rather underresearched so far (Corley et al.

2006). An in-depth discursive study can contribute to a better understanding of “the role that

collective identity plays in creating the meaning, the form, and indeed the very possibility of

organizational life” (Cornelissen et al. 2007: S12) and help to realize the concept of

organizational identity’s fuller potential for studying complexity and change in organizing

processes (Corley et al. 2006).

3.3 Collaborative identity – collective identity in the

collaboration literature

Despite the practical difficulties of developing a sense of ‘we-ness’ among diverse

stakeholders assembled in a collaborative project, surprisingly little research has been

reported that links identity and collaboration by investigating issues of identity in the

context of multi-stakeholder collaboration (Beech and Huxham 2003). There is some

research on identity and community development, which is in some ways similar to

collaborative projects. For example, Bartel (2001) and Fiol and O’Connor (2002) examined

changes to identity, and Mayo (2000) investigated community identity and identity politics

connected to the development of social policy and community practices. In the few

examples of collaboration research in which identity issues play a role, it is mostly used as

identity in a collaboration instead of identity of a collaboration. That is, in most cases the

concept is not applied to the collaboration as a whole, but to the diverse identities of the

participating stakeholder groups or member organizations involved in the collaboration. For

example, Phillips and Hardy (1997) and Maguire, Phillips and Hardy (2001) examine more

or less conscious processes of identity assignment among participating stakeholders,

focusing on the discursive processes of mutual identity formation. Bouwen and Taillieu


54

(2004) describe how different parties enact and affirm their mutual identities while framing

and reframing the critical issues. Craps and colleagues (2004) depict how identities are

constructed within multiparty processes, using a community-of-practice approach. Gray

(2004) shows how (mutually) constructing their own identities can work to prevent

productive collaboration. Others focus both on identification processes with the

constituency organization on the one hand and with the collaboration itself on the other

hand. This was investigated from a social identity theory approach (Salk and Shenkar 2001),

a framing approach referring to social identity concepts (Gray 2004; Lewicki et al. 2003), or

a discursive/constructionist perspective (Beech and Huxham 2003; Maguire and Hardy

2005). Maguire and Hardy (Maguire and Hardy 2005) explore the tensions inherent in

identity work involving the identification with the constituencies as well as the

identification away from the constituencies towards their collaborative partners. Lewicki et

al. (in Gray 2004; 2003) identified certain framing patterns that contribute to prolonging

intractable conflicts. This is especially the case when there is a lack of common identity

frames and stakeholders instead adhere strongly to their key identity frames and produce

characterization frames which might engender negative stereotypes (Gray 2004), making

entrenchment or conflict escalation much more likely. Beech and Huxham (2003) suggest

that the way that parties identify themselves and each other is likely to be significant for

enabling the development of generative mutual relationships and for trust-building, as it

affects the quality of mutual appreciation and understanding. However, they only touch

briefly on the processes that impinge upon the creation of identity for the collaboration as a

whole. The authors conceptualize identity formation as a complex, tangled, interwoven

mêlée of interaction cycles, within which the mutual identity formation of participating

groups or individuals intermingle with the identity formation of the collaboration itself,

whereby the processes of identity creation may be more or less conscious or deliberative.

Just because the primary identification of collaborating participants is usually directed

towards the parent organization, while the identification with the collaboration falls behind,

strengthening the identity of the collaboration itself is of prime importance for positioning

the participants as a collective in their domain and to form a basis for joint action. This is

where my focus is. Instead of looking at mutual identity formation processes regarding the

participating groups’ identities, I investigate the processes of identity creation relating to the

collaborating group as a whole. The activities impinging on identity formation involve

negotiating its purpose, name, remit, inclusion/exclusion of participating stakeholders and

internal structuring (Beech and Huxham 2003).

The very process of engaging in joint activities often leads to a sense of group identity,

as it has been reflected with the concept of ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger 1998). By


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working together they develop a common understanding of their issue to be tackled and a

common experience of group identity (Bouwen and Taillieu 2004). This supports a joint

ownership of the collaboration and its goals (Eden and Huxham 2001). Representing

themselves as an inter-organisational collective agent bestows greater power and legitimacy

on the stakeholders than identifying themselves as individual organizations (cf. Lawrence et

al. 1999: 495)4. The concept of identity has already been used by Trist (1983: 274). He

speaks of the “identity of the domain”, comprising the collaborating organizations and the

meta-problem around which they are assembled. The domain begins to be identified as a

new meta-problem is recognized, appreciated and more and more widely shared. Having

developed an identity, the collaboration is enabled to set a direction as to what may be

attempted as courses of action. All this engenders some social shaping regarding external

and internal boundaries and regarding the manner in which divergent stakes are

accommodated while securing some common ground.

The few authors dealing with collaborative identity only touch upon it briefly. Hardy,

Lawrence and Grant (2005) stand out by focussing on the identity of collaboration as a

collective. They formulate a model of collective identity of collaboration from a discursive

perspective. The authors underline the crucial significance of collective identity for

achieving effective collaboration. They develop a model in which collaboration is described

as a two-stage process (being only analytically separable, as they do overlap). The first stage

describes the discursive creation of collective identity as production of generalized and

particularized membership ties, whereby the former connects the participants to their

common issue and the latter connects the participants directly among each other. The

resulting discursively constructed collective identity enables collective action. The second

stage describes the translation of this collective identity into effective collaboration,

qualifying collective action. The authors define effective collaboration as “cooperative,

interorganizational action that produces innovative synergistic solutions and balances

divergent stakeholder concerns” (2005: 58, 65). This balancing and generative effect is

facilitated by an ongoing simultaneous interplay of convergent and divergent interests.

In contrast to the two-stage picture, Beech and Huxham illustrate their elaborations on

collective identity with a picture of intermingled interaction cycles, thereby shedding more

light on the complex dynamics of the processes. They emphasize that collaborative identity

is inherently dynamic in that it may be shifting continually, however, it may also become

4 As with most research linking collaboration and identity, Lawrence et al.’s deliberations stem from collective

identities within collaborations instead of considering the identity of the collaboration as a whole. Yet this reasoning,

based on the acknowledgement of a discursive formation of identity which relates explicitly or implicitly to the social

context (Lawrence et al. 1999), applies equally to the identity of the collaboration as a whole.


56

crystallized for some time, becoming so deep-rooted that change may be very difficult. The

crystallization is not to be understood as fixed, rather as processes of continuous

confirmation of current understandings and practices, with an ever-present possibility of

change at the micro level. Accordingly, the authors postulate a tension between

crystallization and fluidity of identity or between change and inertia.

Identity as adequate concept?

Critics could argue that collective identity with its classical definition of embodying

the distinctive, central and enduring characteristics (Albert and Whetten 1985) might be

useful for studying organizations as relatively stable entities, but not for the fluid

complexities of an interorganizational collaborative project, limited in time, bringing

together representatives of extremely diverse organizations. As Hardy and colleagues (2005:

63) note, all three characteristics are difficult to achieve in collaborations. Centrality is

problematic since the constituent organizations continue to take priority. Durability as

characteristic applies at maximum for the duration of the project, however it remains highly

unlikely due to the dynamics inherent in multi-stakeholder collaboration. Developing

distinctiveness may be difficult when the collaborative project embodies a mixture of

characteristics of the member organizations. Instead of taking those difficulties as reasons

against identity as an adequate concept for collaboration, I would on the contrary suggest

that precisely because it is difficult to create the collective identity, it is all the more

critically important. The collective organizing needs to be enabled against all odds of

diverging constituent priorities, temporary existence and the complex field within which it

needs to be distinctively positioned. This is what renders the creation and continuous

recreation of a collaborative identity so precarious and in need of nurturing.

Whetten (2006: 229), who posits that participants mainly refer to their collective

identity in difficult situations, reasons that, consistent with this “pattern of exceptional

identity-claim use in organizations”, the concept of collective identity in organizational

studies is also most appropriately invoked as an “exceptional explanation”. He considers the

concept to be strongest when “it is used, by organizational members and scholars alike,

when other explanations simply won’t do.” In particular, he takes the concept as being

indispensable for studying organizations with multiple and conflicting identity claims.

Corley and his colleagues (2006: 96) demand that in order to claim contribution to

scholarship on collective identity, how the concept helps to “see and understand new

elements of organizations and organizational life that have heretofore been hidden” must be

examined.

Scrutinizing if the concept of identity is necessary and generic for theorizing

collaboration, I pondered possible alternatives. What is essential when the participants


57

construct their joint undertaking, their multi-stakeholder project? They need to legitimize

their venture. This concern is obvious in the data. So it might have been an alternative to

study legitimacy instead of collective identity in collaboration. It became clear, though, that

legitimacy is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. And it is comprised by the

concept of collective identity, which necessarily needs to be a legitimate identity (Whetten

and Mackey 2002). Legitimizing a project suffices for it to be accepted and acknowledged.

It is fundamentally necessary as without legitimacy a project lacks its right to exist. So

legitimacy must be established in terms of the possible participants and in terms of the

relevant context. But legitimacy alone is not enough to gain commitment and the investment

of time and energy from the participants. For that, a positive connotation and esteem is

required. Accordingly, in his more recent works, Whetten (2006: 229) prefers “to use the

term distinguishing, rather than distinctive, to capitalize on its dual meaning: different from;

better than”. A positively experienced collaborative identity makes it easier for participants

to “attach importance to an issue, collectively invest time and energy in it, commit to any

compromises involved in tackling it, take collective risks, and secure support from their

respective organizations” (Hardy et al. 2005: 63). Given the absence of market forces and

hierarchical control as drivers, collaborative identity provides a rationale for working

together cooperatively that is crucially important for its effectiveness (Hardy et al. 2005).

The degree to which collaboration requires commitment and the investment of time and

energy varies. Collaborations may range from a rather superficial information exchange to

intense interrelations. Beech and Huxham (2003: 46) report that practitioners regard the

creation of a positive identity for the collaboration itself as crucial since it facilitates the

process of getting stakeholders to identify with it and thus to buy into it. Furthermore, the

processes of identity formation affect generative collaborative practice in almost all of its

aspects. Accordingly, providing conceptual handles which enable reflection and deliberate

attention on how to foster the creation of a collaborative identity is vitally important.

Theoretical contribution

Collaboration does not occur in a social vacuum. Conceiving collaboration through a

collaborative identity lens emphasises the embeddedness within the social context. The

focus here is on relating to the context by balancing distinctiveness and connectivity. The

few works dealing explicitly with the relationship to the context refer to the

conceptualization of this embeddedness in terms of being linked to the context via resources

and outcomes: discursive resources provided by the wider domain are used and fed back

through being reproduced, innovated or translated, thereby affecting the domain again

(Lawrence et al. 1999; Phillips et al. 2000). The collaborative identity perspective, in

contrast, highlights the precarious balance between distinctiveness and connectivity which


58

needs to be maintained in order to position themselves legitimately as a collective within

their domain. Also the question of how the stakeholders relate among each other in order to

integrate diversity and how such a process is convened in terms of leadership and ownership

affects this legitimizing process.

3.4 Multi-stakeholder collaboration – creating a paradoxical

collective identity

The model used for this thesis focuses on the discursive creation of collaboration.

Through relational conversations and (re-)negotiations the participants create and position

the collaborative project as a whole and they position themselves within this collaborative

project. Thereby they construct discursively their collective identity – the ‘we-ness’ of the

collaborative group. Ideally, this collective identity should enable the group to work

productively by creating a safe ‘transitional space’ (Winnicott 1971). Such a temporary, safe

space allows the group to engage in creative experimentation and innovation, to express

their concerns, work them through, and to jointly design the future (Prins et al. 2006). Not

least due to the inclusion of divergent interests, the core characteristic of multi-stakeholder

collaboration, this collective identity is inherently paradoxical with regard to the positioning

of the collaboration towards the context and the positioning of the stakeholders within the

collaboration.

For the model used here I draw primarily on Hardy, Lawrence and Grant’s (2005)

concept of discursively constructed collective identity of inter-organizational collaboration.

In order to specify what collective identity means, I recall Albert and Whetten’s (1985)

seminal work on collective identity as it was revisited by Whetten (2006). The nature of

collaboration is seen by Hardy et al. as inherently paradoxical and full of tensions, this view

is further strengthened by the work of Huxham and colleagues (Huxham and Beech 2003;

Huxham and Vangen 2005).

In setting up a multi-stakeholder collaboration, the designers of the process and the

collaborating participants deal with the questions of ‘what is this all about’ and ‘who are we

as a group’. The creation of a collective identity is fundamental for organizing, legitimizing

and achieving collaborative action. Collective identity embodies the “we-ness” (Cerulo

1997: 386) of the collaborating participants. Collective identity emerges from what the

participants jointly construct as being the central, distinctive and ongoing (cf. Whetten

2006) characteristics around which the participants coalesce. The collaborative identity is


59

shared in the sense that it is interactively co-created in an ongoing process. By establishing a

collective identity, the collaborative project becomes meaningful to the group and the

collaboration becomes legitimized and positioned within its domain.

The collective identity forms the collaborative framework within which the group, the

issue and the ways to deal with the issue are constructed (cf. Hardy et al. 2005). In this

model, collective identity is conceived as the discursively created relations or ties that hold

the participants as a group together, or as the “unique social space” (Whetten 2006: 220,

222, my emphasis) or platform which the participants discursively create for themselves.

Both the connectivity language (ties) and the space language (social space, platform) seem

to be useful to convey the identity concept. The connectivity language is used by Collins

(1981) with his concept of ‘membership ties’ or in actor network theory with the

‘associations’ (see Feldman et al 2006 for an actor network conceptualization of

collaboration) or in relational theories on collaboration (Bouwen et al. 1999; Bouwen and

Taillieu 2004; Dewulf 2006).

Hardy et al. (2005) conceive collective identity as the ties which hold the participants

together and draw on Collins (1981) to build their model of collaborative identity. Collins

pictures collective identity as common ‘realities’ which are created through conversation

and which connects the members together, whereby the common reality signifies

membership (Collins 1981: 998). He points out that in these conversations “it is not

important whether what is said is true or not, but whether it can be said and accepted as a

common reality for that moment – that is what makes it an emblem of group membership”

(Collins 1981: 1000).

According to Whetten (2006: 220), the “unique social space” is signified by

organizational identity claims by which the participants define themselves as collective.

Following Albert & Whetten’s seminal definition, collective identity is embodied in what is

claimed to be the central, distinctive and enduring characteristics of a collective organizing

process (Whetten 2006). This definition had been developed for organizations. How can the

classical concept of collective identity (Albert and Whetten 1985) be applied to

collaboration? For the purpose of collaboration as a form of organizing which is much less

durable, which is an organization-in-the-making (Hosking and Morley 1991) par excellence,

‘enduring’ clearly needs to be relativised. At most, it can mean for the duration of the

collaborative project, but within such an emergent and fluid form of organising it can also

refer just to a certain phase. As with both of the other characteristics, centrality and

distinction, it is important to conceive all three as claims (instead of conceiving them as


60

attributes in an entitative sense). They might all change during the course of the process and

as they are subject to negotiation, they are rather ambiguous and contested in nature. For

example, ‘enduring’ is understood in the sense of providing a collective vision of the future

and, at least for a certain point in the process, a seemingly enduring rationale for a

collaborative process, which is seen as critical for effective collaboration (cf. Hardy et al.

2005: 64). So if something is claimed to be of more enduring character, enduring refers

rather to the content of the claim than to the actual duration of a certain characteristic. In the

following I suggest the use of ‘ongoing’ instead of ‘enduring’ in order to emphasise

plasticity instead of fixed and stable characteristics. Putting distinctiveness to the fore, the

concept of organizational identity can also be specified as the central and ongoing

characteristics that distinguish the collective process from its context, emphasizing the

fundamentally relational meaning of this concept. Put differently, centrality and ‘durability’

are of theoretical value as identity referents only insofar as they can serve to distinguish the

organizational process from others (Whetten 2006). The other way round, “if something

isn’t a central and enduring feature of an organization, then practically speaking, it isn’t

likely to be invoked as a distinguishing feature.” Centrality and durability are essential

features of collective identity because “organizations are best known by their deepest

commitments – what they repeatedly commit to be, through time and across circumstances”

(Whetten 2006: 224). However, this does not mean that those characteristics are carved in

stone. They are reproduced on an ongoing basis and therefore might change over the course

of the collaboration. But despite the inherent ambiguity and fluidity, in effect the identity

claims limit the level of ambiguity that can be tolerated (Czarniawska 1997). To better grasp

the plasticity of the concept, which still serves to ensure some kind of continuity, it is

helpful to follow Whetten’s (2006: 224) suggestion to conceive organizing and identifying

as parallel, if not identical, processes: “An organization’s identity denotes the kind of

organization that has to this point been formed; organizing is the process by which

organizations make themselves known as a particular type of social actor.” Organizational

identity claims therefore can be conceived as reminders of what has so far been co-

constructed by the participants. More precisely, identifying can be seen as organizing, but

this does not necessarily hold the other way round as not every organizing activity is

relevant for the formation of identity. Only what is claimed as the central, ongoing and

distinctive feature of organizing counts as identity. These claims ensure some level of

coherence and continuity and therefore a kind of ‘historical legitimization’ throughout the

course of the collaborative project. To ensure a certain level of coherence and continuity,

the collective identity claims engender enabling and constraining functions. The central and

enduring characteristics specify “both what is possible … and what is appropriate, given


61

previous choices” (Whetten 2006: 225). In organizing a collaborative project, is not only

important to ensure connectivity to the project’s history.

The collaboration also needs to be positioned within its domain, whereby what is

central and ongoing serves to distinguish the collaboration from its context. The actors do

not shape the collaborative identity in a vacuum but are embedded in a larger discursive

setting within which the conversations need to be legitimate and sensible (Hardy et al.

2005).

In order to create legitimacy for the existence of the collaboration in the domain, it

needs to be sufficiently distinct to create some ‘added value’, but still connected. The

necessity of establishing distinctiveness and at the same time maintaining connectivity

requires a paradoxical way of relating to the context. It is essential to maintain connectivity

to the larger discursive context. This larger discursive context constrains what is understood

as meaningful and legitimate action (Hardy et al. 2005: 65).

Hence, regarding the history of the project and the positioning within its context,

identity claims signify what it means to “act-in-character” and thereby span the boundaries

of appropriate action for the collaboration as a whole (cf. Douglas 1987; in Whetten 2006:

223) and for appropriate action within collaborative organizing. Accordingly, the claims for

distinctiveness also enable and constrain what is possible without jeopardizing the necessary

degree of distinction and connectivity, forming the basis for existence. The collective

identity affects the way in which participants understand and react to issues facing the

collaboration by influencing the significance that the collaborators attach to them, whether

or not they see these issues as a threatening or promising, and whether they are ready to

engage in terms of spending time and energy addressing them (after Gioia and Thomas

1996; Hardy et al. 2005).

As stated, the central, enduring and distinctive characteristics of a collaborative project

function as organizational identity claims. Participants are most likely to invoke these

claims as discursive resources in organizational discourse when dealing with critical issues

within the collaborative process (Whetten 2006). The collective identity serves as a resource

in so far as it can be referred to in order to deal with critical processes, for example

conflictive situations that have the potential to jeopardize the collaboration (Hardy et al.

2005). With their generally accepted meaning, the identity claims serve as shared decision

premises (Whetten 2006) constraining and enabling specific actions. Through this enabling

and constraining function of identity claims, a power dimension becomes clear.

Organizational identity can be viewed as a political claim (Albert and Whetten 1985: 286;

cited in Corley et al. 2006), in its production as well as in its effects. Organizational identity


62

is seen as an ongoing social construction by the participants who, with their stakes, take part

in influencing this process. Often this occurs in an emergent fashion. The actors co-produce

their collaborative identity with its enabling and constraining function, thereby affecting the

distribution of advantage and disadvantage. However, this might happen in ways that are

not necessarily intended. Some actors are more powerful than others in shaping the

collaborative identity (Hardy et al. 2005). Nevertheless, power continually shifts (Huxham

and Vangen 2004). Also, matters of inclusion and exclusion of participants or certain groups

are inherently political and depend on the way the collaborative identity has been shaped, as

well as on the larger discursive context shaping the domain. To be included, participants are

required to occupy some sort of legitimate position, whereby the range of legitimate

positions is limited within any discourse (after Fairclough 1992; Foucault 1972; Gray 1985;

Hardy et al. 2005). Conversely, who is included influences the shaping of the collaborative

identity (Hardy et al. 2005). Besides the power to exclude participants, there is also the

‘power of exit’ (Gray and Hay 1986; Huxham and Vangen 2004) which most actors have at

the very least.

Hardy et al. (2005) distinguish two types of discursively constructed relations which

provide the foundation for the collaborative identity: generalized membership ties and

particularized membership ties. With this distinction they draw on Collins (1981) and

modify his deliberations for their collective identity model.

Generalized membership ties are the discursively constructed relations that associate

participants with the “common issue around which the collaboration is organized” (Hardy et

al. 2005: 63). This common issue or problem is the centre around which membership in the

collaboration is arranged. The discursive production of participants’ “sense of belonging to

a broad community of concern around a particular issue” (Hardy et al. 2006: 102), or as

Collins (1981: 1000) put it, a “generalised sense of common membership”, generates an

interest among the diverse participants to engage in conversation with each other.

Particularized membership ties are the discursively constructed relations that associate

the participants with each other directly (instead of indirectly via the issue). They “provide a

set of discursive resources from which participants can position themselves as connected in

specific, identifiable ways. … Through these conversations, particularized membership ties

are produced as certain stakeholders are included, patterns of interdependence are

established, authority and status are conferred, and roles and responsibilities are assigned”

(Hardy et al. 2005: 65).

Generalized and particularized ties are not necessarily produced separately: both types

of relations might also be produced within the same conversations.


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Collaboration is considered on two levels. The first one is on a resource level or

content level, formed by interpretative repertoires (Potter and Wetherell 1987; 1995;

Wetherell 1998; 2006). The concept will be introduced in more detail in chapter 4, here I

briefly describe how it can be used in the context of collaborative identity: interpretative

repertoires are the building blocks through which participants develop accounts and

versions of relating in social interaction and through which they perform their collaborative

identity. They are specific ways of talking about or constructing relating in collaboration,

involving connected arguments, explanations, evaluations and descriptions. These ways of

talking provide a “basis for shared social understanding” (Edley 2001: 198) as they are

relatively coherent and are used recurrently. Nevertheless they can be countered, resisted or

challenged. They can be identified particularly well around controversial issues, as their

taken-for-granted-ness is then suspended. By focusing on repertoires, this level can also be

conceived as a content level. In the context of collaboration, the repertoires can serve as

constructions of the membership ties ‘relation to the issue and context’ and ‘relation among

each other and among participants and conveners’. Hence, the repertoires are a way of

understanding the content of the discourse on what participants construct as their

collaborative identity and how this content is organised (Potter and Wetherell 1995: 89). A

discourse analytic approach goes beyond the content level. The “interpretative resources

provide a set of potentials for action” (Potter and Wetherell 1995: 92), they are used to

achieve the advancement of diverse or joint stakes. Consequently, the second level for

studying collaboration is the interactive level. This is the level at which the repertoires are

produced, used and embedded interactively in participants’ conversations. In these

conversations the repertoires are brought into play, are taken up by others, sometimes for a

different use, or are countered or challenged. As the repertoires are often familiar and

established ways of talking among the collaborators, only a fragment of the argumentative

chain, evoking the relevant context of argumentation, suffices to be recognised, taken up or

challenged in the interaction (Wetherell 1998; 2006). Thus, the two levels are

complementary: the “snapshot” approach is complemented by a “moving picture” approach,

putting the active and interactional processes of meaning construction to the fore (Dewulf

2006: 286).

In the following, the chapter is structured according to the kind of membership ties or

relations which constitute the collaborative identity. I prefer to call the generalized ties

relations to the issue, and deeply intertwined with that, to the context, and the particularised

ties relations among the collaborators. In the first section, the discursive relations

connecting the participants to the issue and positioning the collaboration within its domain


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is elaborated on, and in the second section the focus is on the discursive relations within the

collaboration, connecting the participants directly to each other.

3.4.1 Relating to the issue and the context

3.4.1.1 Constructing the issue

Multi-stakeholder collaborations are commonly set up in response to complex societal

problems with the aim of achieving some sort of change in this issue area. The societal

problem or issue lies at the heart of the collaboration and draws the participants together. As

raison d’être it is constitutive for the collaborative identity. With the definition of the

problem or issue that the stakeholders intend to tackle collectively, the stakeholders connect

to the collaboration in a generalized sense. The generalized ties constitute the basis for the

existence of a collaborative identity as stakeholders face a specific issue collectively (Hardy

et al. 2005).

The issue definition or problem setting (Gray 1989) is anything but self-evident.

Negotiating and possibly agreeing the aims for cross-sector collaborations is argued to be a

complex and commonly painful process (Eden and Huxham 2001). Is it not unusual for the

discussion of the collaboration’s issue, in terms of purpose, goal, or aims, to form the main

agenda item for a meeting. If not explicitly discussed, the negotiation over the issue and its

boundaries takes place implicitly, often over a long period, as it is an inevitable implication

of discussing the further activities within the collaboration (Eden and Huxham 2001). Not

rarely, discussions over the issue are never really settled. A whole research strand within

collaboration literature concentrates on the specificities and difficulties of framing the

collaboration’s issue (Dewulf 2006; Dewulf, Craps et al. 2005; Dewulf et al. 2004; Drake

and Donohue 1996; Putnam and Holmer 1992).

In order to construct the common issue and to achieve change the stakeholders

produce accounts of “the world as problematic and as requiring action” (Lawrence et al.

1999: 489). It is important to note that issues are seen as accounts instead of occurring

naturally as such, meaning that they cannot be simply identified. They do not exist as facts

waiting to be discovered and handled. Instead they are constructed throughout the ongoing

interaction among the stakeholders involved (Gergen 1983). For example, the problem

domain can be constructed differently through the use of different ‘views of nature frames’,

describing for example nature’s regenerativity and the need for protection or different ‘risk

frames’ (Gray 2004; Hanke, Gray and Putnam 2002). These complex constructions of the

world engender calls for action (Blumer 1971; in Lawrence et al. 1999). According to Eden

and Huxham (2001), the complexity is particularly high when the collaboration targets

social issues due to the ambiguous nature of social issues themselves and due to the many


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organizations with conflicting, often ill-defined, stakes in the issue. This applies all the

more if the focus is on large-scale issues where the stakes are highly interrelated (Huxham

and Vangen 2005) and conflicting as is the case with sustainability and development issues.

The multi-stakeholder collaboration studied here focuses on the sustainability and

development issues around “freshwater”. Different societal groups lay different but

interconnected claims to this resource, ranging from mere survival and health claims to

ecological, economic, legal, cultural and spiritual claims. Water as a natural resource issue

is “not just out there in the natural world. Different social actors tend to acknowledge and

highlight different aspects of reality as problems or opportunities, and thus requiring

intervention” (Dewulf et al. 2004: 178). All their different perspectives come

simultaneously into play in order to collectively develop the issue (Bouwen et al. 1999; in

Dewulf et al. 2004; Salipante and Bouwen 1995).

These accounts of the world are jointly negotiated in an ongoing process. The

participants thereby “set the stage for creating a base for the negotiation of a proper

membership in the project community” (Bouwen and Taillieu 2004: 145). Through the joint

negotiation process the issues become more or less shared and, if they are sufficiently

accepted, a sense of belonging to the “broad community of concern” (see above) or a sense

of group identity (Eden and Huxham 2001) around these issues is created. This is

constitutive for the collaborative identity and provides a foundation for collective activity.

Sufficient agreement, at least on the existence of an issue, is necessary to connect

participants to the collaboration and to generate an interest among the diverse participants to

engage with each other, and thereby to provide an impetus for collective action (Hardy et al.

2005; Lawrence et al. 1999).

How the issue is understood and defined through conversations influences which

organization connects in what ways to the collaboration. The jointly defined issue or

problem provides the grounds on which participants identify themselves as stakeholders,

when they consider this issue as relevant to their constituencies in terms of being interested

or affected by it (Hardy et al. 2005). In order to attract all stakeholders to the table, the issue

needs to be framed in an inclusive, integrative manner (Gray 1999). Gray (1989) and

Chrislip and Larson (1994) recommend the inclusion of those as stakeholders who are

affected by the issue, who are needed to address the issue and who have the power to block

or support change in the issue domain. The careful selection of stakeholders according to

the issue does not tend to be straightforward, however. Stakeholders are not always easily

identifiable. Furthermore, they are rarely equally engaged with the collaborative issue, so it

can be difficult to persuade them to become involved (Gray 1985) and stay engaged. It


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remains difficult to ensure good representation, since even if there is willingness to do so in

principle, there remains the issue of how to achieve that (Huxham and Vangen 2005).

The other way round the definition of the common issue depends on the participating

stakeholder organizations. This means that there is an inherently dynamic relationship

between the development of purpose and shifting membership at the heart of the

collaboration (Huxham and Vangen 2000a). New members may achieve a shift in purpose,

which again suggests the need to include new members (Huxham 2003). Drawing

boundaries around the issue by including or excluding certain aspects and elements means

drawing boundaries among stakeholders (Dewulf 2006), implying who is included and who

is excluded in the collaboration and in defining the issue boundaries.

The fact that the acknowledgement of an issue leads to action ensures that issue

development is highly political. Likewise, the manner in which an issue is constructed

brings about significant political consequences: besides influencing who may legitimately

participate in the collaboration, it enables and constrains potential interactions (Gray 1989;

Gray and Hay 1986; Hardy et al. 2005), therefore limiting the potential outcome, and it

privileges some participants at the expense of others (Phillips et al. 2000). This political

struggle belongs inherently to multiparty collaboration because of the “fundamental

paradox” (Huxham and Vangen 2005: 82) which lies at the heart of any multi-stakeholder

collaboration: the reason why such collaborative ventures are set up is that it is hoped to

capitalize on the differences between the stakeholders, regarding their expertise and

resources. Yet precisely those differences originate from the different organizational

purposes. This inevitably means that the participants will seek different benefits resulting

from the collaboration (Huxham and Vangen 2005). As actors are primed to realize their

interests and aims within the collaborative activity, collaborative issues are contested and

subject to extensive discursive struggle. Participants shape the definition of the issue not

uninterestedly. “The fact that collaboration requires some sense of intersection of purpose

and requires the negotiation of mutual benefits and mutual responsibilities in the context of

a cooperative venture ensures that the construction of issues will be a highly political,

contentious, and sometimes divisive activity” (Lawrence et al. 1999: 490). Some

participating organizations might be more powerful in defining the issue than others, which

is also shaped by the larger discursive setting. The discursive creation of the key issues

“often occurs in an emergent fashion as actors coproduce those constructions that affect the

distribution of advantage and disadvantage, although in ways that were not necessarily

intended or predicted” (Hardy et al. 2005: 64).


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A collaboration generally is brought into being with a suggested issue from the

initiating party or parties. This might rather take the form of a “label” functioning as “the

declared reason for the initiation of the collaboration” (Eden and Huxham 2001: 378) in

order to convene a first group meeting. Then the discussions, tensions and some political

manoeuvring over the purpose unfold, as the meaning of the declared purpose gets clarified

and negotiated, and additional, competing or complementary, purposes are suggested (Eden

and Huxham 2001). An inherent feature of multi-stakeholder collaborations is that, by their

very nature, a large number of aims interact, forming “a web of interacting sets of aims”

(Huxham and Vangen 2005: 99). These intermingling aims form a continuously changing

complex hierarchical aims system (Eden and Ackermann 1998). Along with the ongoing

negotiation process a “dynamic entanglement of aims” develops. The aims are “in a

constant state of flux” as they develop over time, for example due to shifting membership,

to changes in the context or the budget. Sometimes “aims emerge from unintended

outcomes”, which is similar to Mintzberg and Waters’ (1985) “notion of emergent strategy”

(Huxham and Vangen 2005: 96, 97, 101).

The multitude of aims within a collaborative project may differ in several dimensions.

The broad purpose of collaboration may range from the delivery of a short-term project to

the strategic level with the advancement of a shared vision; it might also incorporate both

within the web of interacting aims. Regarding the focus, collaborative aims can be

distinguished in substantive outcome aims (what?) and process aims (how?). The process

aims “can relate to any aspect of collaborative processes so might, for example, relate to

modes of communicating, to the kind of relationship between members or to a myriad of

other possibilities” (Huxham and Vangen 2005: 89). Furthermore, Huxham and Vangen

distinguish between aims according to genuineness, explicitness and ownership. For

example, some aims may serve purely sabotage ends. Such “sabotage aims” work in a

defensive manner in order to maintain their proponents’ presence or dominance in a specific

area (Huxham and Vangen 2005: 90).

Huxham and colleagues (Huxham and Vangen 2005) noticed a tendency in the

literature on collaboration (especially in practitioners’ literature) to emphasise the

importance of having: ‘common aims’; ‘agreed aims’; ‘compatible aims’; ‘well-defined and

tangible purpose’; and/or ‘shared values’. For example, Mattessich and Monsey (2001)

argue for the virtues of ‘concrete, attainable goals’ and a ‘shared vision’, others recommend

to ‘identify and appreciate a common sense of purpose’ (Gray 1985), to write a ‘shared

vision statement’ (Winer and Ray 1994), to ‘have long term goals in which the relationship

plays a clear role’ (Kanter 1994), to ‘have a strong sense of mission and purpose’ (Coe


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1988), to have ‘clarity of purpose’ (Hardy, Turrell and Wistow 1992) and similar (Eden and

Huxham 2001). The agreement about the purpose is usually argued to be essential for

successful collaboration, by researchers as well as practitioners engaged in collaboration.

Often this recommendation is presented as pretty straightforward. “It is taken to be simply a

matter of those involved remembering that deciding what they are there to do is a

preliminary activity that must be carried out before trying to do it” (Eden and Huxham

2001: 374). In contrast, Huxham and Vangen argue, based on their extensive research and

experience in collaboration, that constructing the issue and the purpose is often very

difficult: “we paint a picture that argues that there will be a mass of different aims that

individuals and organizations will be aiming to pursue through the collaboration, and that

many of these will not be obvious”. There will be tensions regarding the question of how far

it is necessary to make aims explicit and to agree on aims before beginning to take

collective action. Huxham and Vangen (2005: 33) propose with their theory “that managing

(rather than agreeing) aims is a central, continuous and inherently difficult aspect of

collaboration practice, rather than a precursory task to be got out of the way so that the main

business of getting on with the job can be accomplished.”

3.4.1.2 Constructing the relations to the context

Intertwined with constructing the issue of the collaboration is how the relations to the

context are constructed, how the participants position themselves as a collaborative group

towards their context. The participants position the collaboration within its domain.

Following Trist (1983), ‘domain’ is understood, put simply, as the collaboration between

the organizations together with the meta-problem that they are tackling. In this case the

domain comprises the natural resource “freshwater” with all its ramifications and the ‘water

community’ which is dealing with the resource and its multiple interconnected functions,

uses, users and non-users, the millions of people lacking access to healthy water and

sanitation and with the deteriorating quality of freshwater world wide.

The domain is conceptualized as the “problématique” together with the relevant

stakeholders (Trist 1983: 270). The domain formation happens through the organizational

structures of the inter-organizational collaboration as well as through the way they (jointly)

recognize and appreciate (in Trist 1983; Vickers 1965), and therefore identify, the meta-

problem. By sharing or negotiating this appreciation, the domain’s identity and the path of

action begins to be developed. “All this entails some overall social shaping as regards

boundaries and size: what organizations are to be included, heterogeneity, homogeneity,

etc.” (Trist 1983: 274). These “constructions of the world” are, like the intertwined

construction of the issue, also a contentious, highly political, and sometimes divisive


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activity (Lawrence et al. 1999: 490). The boundaries of a domain are therefore often

unclear, shifting or in dispute. Hence, domains have been referred to as underbounded

(Alderfer 1979), underorganized (Brown 1980; Gricar and Brown 1981) or loosely coupled

(Weick 1976). Creating a collaborative identity thus becomes a process of creating

boundaries (Gray and Hay 1986; Prins et al. 2006), which has also been conceptualized as

structuring (Trist 1983) or establishing negotiated orders (Gray 1999).

There are also organizations or institutions which are not included in the collaboration

but which are identified by the participating organizations as belonging to the domain as

‘key players’. They form the context to which the collaboration is oriented, which they

might influence, or on which they depend. In this case, the collaboration is embedded in the

intergovernmental UN Summit process. The collaboration project is in some ways oriented

towards and dependent on the governments within and the secretariat of the Summit

process. The larger context is formed by other players in the scene, players who might

interfere with their undertaking in the way they are oriented towards the governments or as

potential critics of the process.

Constructing the “identity of the domain” (Trist 1983) is part of constructing the

collaborative identity. Within this identity development process, the collaborative project is

positioned within its domain, as the participants define and redefine the boundaries towards

their larger social context (Prins et al. 2006; Tracy and Standerfer 2003: 112). Accordingly,

the collective identity is constructed “with regard to others in their field” (in Corley et al.

2006: 92; Glynn and Abzug 1998; 2002; Glynn and Marquis 2007). Collaborations are

usually confronted with a fuzzy boundary of identity. The challenge is to develop a

multifaceted identity by establishing the boundary of identity that is sufficiently firm, yet

adequately fluid, permeable and flexible (Prins et al. 2006). The boundaries are

continuously constructed, changed and renegotiated, displaying multiple loyalties. The

participants construct the collaborative identity with its boundaries differently at different

junctures in the collaboration process (cf. Tracy and Standerfer 2003). This means that the

boundaries are not to be conceived as reified structures separating groups from their

contexts but rather as created by interactions that shape the collaborative identity and

establish distinction and connectivity to the context. This dynamic contextual

interdependence is enacted through discursive processes, whereby the relevant context itself

is a product of social construction (cf. Stohl and Putnam 2003).5

5 These considerations on boundaries stem from the field of bona fide group research. The bona fide group perspective

was developed and refined by Putnam and Stohl (Putnam 1994; Putnam and Stohl 1990; 1996; Stohl and Putnam 1994).

It was born in the field of research on groups in context and developed to explore the creation and recreation of

interconnected social contexts, social boundaries and collective identities (Stohl and Putnam 2003). Bona fide groups


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In order to create and maintain legitimacy, the collaboration needs to be positioned

adequately within its context. To legitimately influence the domain, connectivity and

distinctiveness need to be created continuously. The collaboration is not being set up around

the issue in a vacuum, it is embedded in a larger discursive setting: “only conversations that

are sensible and legitimate within the context of prevailing discourses will produce

generalized membership ties” (Hardy et al. 2005: 64), the ties which connect the

participants to the common issue. Maintaining this kind of connectivity has an enabling as

well as a constraining function regarding potential collaborative activities. Legitimacy is not

only ensured through connectivity to the larger discursive setting, but also through

distinctiveness, which, as a central feature of the collective identity concept, is critical for a

collaborative venture. In the strategy literature, this is formulated as imperative regarding

the notion of “strategic balance”, positing that “organizations should be as different as

legitimately possible” (Deephouse 1999; in Whetten 2006: 222). Not only that, while

connectivity needs to be warranted, distinctiveness is essential for a collaborative project to

gain legitimacy. This necessary balance could also be called ‘optimal distinctiveness’6.

In order to ensure legitimacy, distinctiveness needs to be qualified. It is not only about

establishing a difference in relation to the context. The collective undertaking needs to

distinguish itself in a positive sense. In accordance with identity theory (Abrams and Hogg

1988; Czarniawska 1997; in Whetten 2006), a sense of esteem needs to be associated with

distinctiveness in order to create (a legitimate) identity. This is not meant as normative

theorizing: a positively connoted identity is seen as a necessity: it is indispensable for

maintaining legitimacy, since the existence of an organization or a collaborative project

depends on it.7

To create legitimacy in relation to the context, it is also important to take into account

the critical voices of those who are excluded or those who have chosen to exclude

themselves from the collaboration.

are defined through stable yet permeable boundaries and interdependence with the immediate contexts (Putnam and

Stohl 1990). Later, a third criterion was added on another level, modifying the first one: unstable and ambiguous

borders (Stohl and Putnam 1994). According to this shift in emphasis, Stohl and Putnam (2003) recommend discourse

analysis as one of the most promising but so far underutilized research methods for investigating bona fide groups. I do

not consider the term ‘bona fide group’ to be of much use, though. The term is rather justified historically as it served to

dissociate this perspective from the traditional “container model” of groups, studied in laboratories, to which it presents

an alternative (Frey 2003). With this label, the perspective positions itself as a deviation from a standard (see also

critique Tracy and Standerfer 2003: 111f). This positioning is now obsolete as this container model standard is out of

date. Within a discourse perspective, the categorization of a group as “bona fide” in the literal sense of genuineness or

authenticity remains questionable anyhow. 6 Following Brewer (2003), who brought up the principle of optimal distinctiveness, focusing on the tension between

the equally important need for uniqueness and need for assimilation, referring to individual and social identity. 7 This is what distinguishes the concept of organizational identity from the concept of individual identity, as

Czarniawska (1997: 52) illustrates nicely: “an organization cannot legitimately claim to be autistic or boast of defective

‘other-perception’”


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In summary, in order to achieve change in the domain the stakeholders construct their

common purpose by producing “accounts of the world as problematic and as requiring

action” (Lawrence et al. 1999: 490). While constructing the issue, these accounts serve to

position the collaborative project in relation to its context. They locate the causes of the

problem and attribute responsibility for the problem’s existence and for change efforts,

propose strategies to solve the problems or to bring about change, and they make a case for

the urgent need for action and efficacy of the change approach. This is similar to how social

movements organise for change by using diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing

(Benford and Snow 2000). By constructing the issue and thereby the need to achieve change

in the domain, the participants tie themselves to the collaborative project as a whole. As

generalized membership ties formed by the joint interest in the issue, they serve to maintain

participants’ engagement, including an emotional and motivational aspect. The emotional

significance of the membership ties can range from indifference to obsession with an issue,

whereby a healthy balance would be an engaged interest (Hardy et al. 2006).

3.4.2 Relating among each other

As described in the previous section, the collaborative identity is created to a large part

through the development of a common issue and purpose (the generalized membership ties

connecting the participants to the collaboration and providing the basis for the existence of a

collaboration) and, intertwined with that, the positioning towards the context. Also

important for the construction of the collaborative identity are the particularized

membership ties, the discursively constructed relations that associate the participants with

each other directly. They “provide a set of discursive resources from which participants can

position themselves as connected in specific, identifiable ways. … Through these

conversations, particularized membership ties are produced as certain stakeholders are

included, patterns of interdependence are established, authority and status are conferred, and

roles and responsibilities are assigned” (Hardy et al. 2005: 65). The particularized

membership ties “involve routines, procedures, and structures” (Hardy et al. 2005: 64)

within which the participants position themselves towards each other. The particularized ties

provide the procedural and structural foundation for each participant to address the issue in

a particular forum (Hardy et al. 2005) in which the respective participant is positioned in a

particular way. For conceptualizing the particularized ties, I consider the notion of

positioning to be more helpful than the concepts of roles, status and structures used by

Hardy and colleagues (drawing on Collins), as it is more dynamic and underlines the

process in-the-making. Rather than on elaborating on individual roles, status and the like,

the emphasis in this thesis is on the general patterns of interdependence among the


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participants, and on the relation between participants and conveners. The stakeholders talk

about their interdependencies in specific ways, and at the same time they create their

interdependencies through their talk. Within their discourse, specific action logics emerge

that shape participants’ acting and talking and, consequently, their interrelating (cf. Bouwen

and Steyaert 1999).

The way the participants relate among each other plays into the construction of the

issue and the relations to the context, as these are constructed interactively. Vice versa, the

construction of the issue and the positioning towards the context suggests certain ways of

relating among the collaborators in order to achieve the collaborative purposes.

Within their social space or collective identity, with the focal issue at its centre holding

the participants together, the participants need to organize their relationships among each

other in such a way that effective collaboration becomes possible. This means that they need

to create a forum within which they deal in an adequate manner with the diverging interests

of the participating stakeholders. The negotiation of those diverging interests inevitably

means that the discursive construction of the particularized membership ties – of how

participants relate among each other and which procedures are invoked – is a political

process (Hardy et al. 2005; Hardy and Phillips 1999). Embedded in their particular context

the participants create relational networks by engaging in joint activities and develop

interactional patterns, defining, negotiating and reflecting their interconnectedness and

interdependence. By engaging in reciprocal practices, participants position each other in

specific membership roles, defining specific relationships (Bouwen and Taillieu 2004;

Dachler and Hosking 1995). Diverse as well as convergent stakes are defined by drawing

boundaries. These boundaries, including conflict lines, are continuously constructed,

changed and renegotiated (Tracy and Standerfer 2003). The participants are thereby further

shaping their collaborative identity, which is constructed differently at different junctures in

the collaboration process (cf. Tracy and Standerfer 2003).

With regard to the relating among the collaborators, the main challenge is to balance

the tension between divergence and convergence, which is the focus of the following

section. The next section deals with the question of how such a process is convened.

3.4.2.1 Relating among the participants

The complexity of the issue alone presents a challenge, as it does not lend itself to an

easy determination of methods for addressing it (Huxham and Vangen 2005). What is

considered as legitimate practices for dealing with the issue has yet to be jointly developed.


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The interactive processes that define the collaborative identity can occur in many different

ways. They might vary along the degree of co-operation, conflict and democracy, whereby

both conflict and co-operation are basic elements in collaboration (Gricar and Brown 1981;

Phillips et al. 2000). Hanke and colleagues (Hanke et al. 2002) for example identified

different ways of how stakeholder groups made use of more or less collaborative ‘conflict

management frames’ (see also Gray 2004; Gray and Putnam 2003) and ‘power frames’.

The conversations that create the “generalised sense of common membership” (Collins

1981: 1000) generate an interest among the diverse participants to engage with each other in

order to work on a joint issue. The sense of common membership implies that the

participants must acknowledge not only their connection to the issue in question, but also

those of the collaborative partners. This is where it becomes difficult: The basic feature of a

multi-stakeholder collaboration is the challenge to deal cooperatively with divergent

interests of the participating organizations and, in the best case, to harness this diversity to

produce innovative and synergistic outcomes which balance the divergent stakeholder

concerns. Collaboration brings together stakeholders with different agendas, backgrounds

and ideologies in the hope that, despite – and because of – their differences, they can find

generative and concrete solutions to some of the complex problems which they are tackling

jointly. Exactly this ‘despite and because of’ constitutes the fundamental paradox of the

attempt to capitalise on the different and potentially contradictory aims and philosophies.

Hence, multi-sector collaboration is inherently characterised by the tension of divergence

and convergence as participants struggle to manage their obligations as both representatives

of their constituency and participants in the collaboration as a whole (Hardy et al. 2006).

Accordingly, participants display multiple loyalties (Tracy and Standerfer 2003), towards

the context as well as within the collaborative group. Hardy et al. (2006: 108) therefore

describe multi-sector collaboration as a “juggling act”, as participants must deal with the

often contrary responsibilities of serving their constituency and fulfilling their mandate to

collaboratively work together with other organisations in order to find joint solutions.

Somehow the differences between the collaborating stakeholders need to be overcome, even

though this might engender activities that are at odds with their constituency needs. Those

countervailing tensions have been a focal point in the collaboration literature ever since

(Gray 1985; 1989; Huxham and Vangen 2005; Prins et al. 2006; Waddock 1989; Westley

and Vredenburg 1991; Zagier Roberts 1994) and was extensively researched by Hardy and

colleagues (Hardy 1994; Hardy et al. 2005; Hardy et al. 2006; Hardy and Phillips 1999;

Lawrence and Phillips 2004; Lawrence et al. 1999; Phillips and Hardy 1997). Still, the

question of how these countervailing tensions are managed effectively remains topical.

Upsetting the balance towards either side threatens the collaboration.


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At best, participants should to a certain degree also identify with the goals of their

partners in order to support a collective approach to tackling the issue. Focusing purely on

the interests of the constituency will undermine the collective interest, as “conversations

will either never start, break down, or be steamrollered by the more dominant partners”

(Hardy et al. 2006: 109). Promoting exclusively the vested interests of the constituency

means that participants do not sincerely engage in joint problem-solving activities, instead,

the collaboration is sabotaged and stalls or is used to advance their own agendas at the

expense of others, meaning that in the extreme case the collaboration is coopted for

exploitative purposes. Even without going so far as to hijack the collaboration, if

precedence is given to the protection of a particular constituency, the diversity of ideas that

spring from other constituencies suffers severely. In such a case the risk is “that the

collaboration may lose out on a wider range of expertise, alternative views and innovative

solutions” (Hardy et al. 2006: 107). By focusing exclusively on the collaboration the

constituency’s interests are neglected and the collaboration might end up in purely self-

referential activities. When participants are too preoccupied with the needs of their

collaborating partners, “conversations may proceed smoothly but any outcomes run the risk

of being out of touch with the needs of constituencies” (Hardy et al. 2006: 104, 108).

This means that, in order to secure a potential for success, the inherent tensions due to

the dual role of the collaborators need to be addressed and, if possible, counter-balanced in

the conversations within the collaboration.

It is essential that the participants mutually recognize their respective interests and

legitimize and authorize each other to work collaboratively on their common issue. The

diverse members “all have to find a way to be acknowledged in their specificity and

recognized for their contribution to the common activity that is being set up” (Bouwen and

Taillieu 2004: 146). In this manner the participants can try to accommodate the differences

in interests, competencies and power. In the very best case, all participants, despite different

degrees of power they enact, contribute to the conversation and take part in shaping the

definition of issues and resolution of problems by sharing and contesting their perspectives,

ideas and values (Bouwen and Taillieu 2004). Ideally they engage in an open and fair

dialogue, in which they are responsive to other stakeholders’ interests and arguments,

acknowledging the differences as different but equal (Dachler and Hosking 1995; Gray

1989; Hardy et al. 2006). Bouwen and Steyaert (1999; see also Hazen 1993) coined the

metaphor of polyphony, literally meaning ‘multivoicedness’. Drawing on a composition

technique of music from the 15th

and 16th

centuries, the term describes “multiple melodic

lines” of independent but organically related and equivalent voice parts (Bouwen and


75

Steyaert 1999: 309). Building on the notion of multivoicedness and dialogue after Bakhtin

(1986) as interactive and dynamic process of meaning-making and the principle of

multivalence (the validity of multiple truths) they propose to create an arena where the

diversity of meanings can be juxtaposed and appreciated in a mutually inspiring manner.

Within such an arena differences can be respected without being necessarily bridged, and

without necessarily becoming equal, by exploring different, contrasting, conflicting or

asymmetric voices. Exploring the strange then means uncovering potential for creativity,

change and development. However, the task remains of channelling this diversity into some

joint action that all parties can accept. Hence, relational practices are needed that

simultaneously encourage and manage the diversity involved. Depending on the situated

needs, existing differences can then be reinforced or ameliorated (Gray and Schruijer

forthcoming).

Relating among each other is studied on two levels. The particularized ties are

conceived as resulting from an interactive process while at the same time serving as a

resource for this interactive process. Hence one level is the interactive process producing

and using the membership ties and the other level is formed by the particularized ties

themselves. The ties as a “set of discursive resources” (Hardy et al. 2005: 65) are

conceptualised here as interpretive repertoires.

The various repertoires shaping the mode of togetherness within the diverse group (the

particularised ties) bring with them different ways and procedures of connecting the

participants among each other. Each describes a specific way of positioning and a certain

pattern of coordination and interdependence between the participating stakeholders. They

are all different modes of relating among each other in order to balance and manage the

tension between divergence and convergence. Each of the repertoires engenders specific

consequences on how much convergence is needed, how diversity and conflict is dealt with

and how change comes about. The different modes of relating are used to define their social

space or collective identity which holds the participants together and enables collective

action while balancing the stakes.

Also Hardy et al. (2005) investigate collaboration on both levels, on the

resource/content level and the interactive level. Accordingly, they identified two aspects of

conversations that are essential for effective collaboration where the countervailing tensions

between convergence and divergence have to be managed. The first aspect, on the content

level, is the “construction of key issues”. They are ‘at issue’ with the production of


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generalized as well as particularized ties: they refer to construction of the key issue of the

collaboration as a whole, and the issues regarding the relating to the context, and to what is

at issue concerning the relating among each other and among participants and conveners.

Furthermore, they are also ‘at issue’ when the collective identity defined through those ties

translates into collaborative action.

The second aspect that characterizes these conversations, this time on the interactive

level, is “styles of talk”. These conversations are critical in so far as they reflect the tensions

resulting in conflict and ambiguity among the divergent stakeholder interests. Both aspects

reflect the tension between convergence and divergence, or between the commitment

towards the collaboration and commitment towards the constituency. According to the

discourse analytic approach used here, the constructions of key issues are achieved by

developing interpretive repertoires which refer to the content/resource level, and the styles

of talk refer to the interactive process level in the sense of how those repertoires are

produced, used and embedded in the interaction. It is not always easy to disentangle the

levels. The way participants relate and interact with each other can itself become a topic (an

issue) in their conversation. Then it is investigated as construction of key issues. Even

though those issues are an explicit topic of discussion, they do have implicit consequences

on how participants are positioned and on their interactions (cf. Dewulf 2006).

Figure 1 – Hardy et al.’s (2005) “Model of Collective Identity, Conversations, and Effective Inter-

organizational Collaboration”; from their figure on p. 62

Repertoires - construction of key issues

Hardy and colleagues argue that in participants’ conversations two types of

constructions must be established to counter-balance the tensions between convergence and

divergence in order to achieve effective collaboration: firstly the common (or convergent)


77

constructions of key issues and secondly the private (or divergent) constructions of those

same issues. The authors note that these constructions may be created in the same, different

or overlapping conversations” (Hardy et al. 2005: 66). According to the conceptualization

used here, I will call them convergent and divergent repertoires.

Within collaboration literature, considerable work has been done on issue framing

(Dewulf 2006; Dewulf et al. 2004; Gray 2004; Lewicki et al. 2003). Even though I wish to

write about ‘issue construction’, ‘issue account’ (Lawrence et al. 1999) or ‘issue

negotiation’ or, like Putnam and Holmer (1992), ‘issue development’, the framing literature

strand is useful to anchor some considerations on the construction of key issues. The

concept of repertoires is more specifically attuned to a discursive approach than the concept

of frames, which is accused of neglecting the role of discourse (Steinberg 1998).8 Although

framing has also been conceptualised discursively (by Dewulf, for example), it is common

within a wide variety of epistemological approaches and therefore prone to conceptual

confusion. The framing concept has been criticised for this conceptual confusion and its

usefulness questioned (Steinberg 1998; Zalesny 2003). Dewulf et al. (2005) thereupon

provided some clarification by disentangling six main approaches to frames and framing,

associating them with a cognitive respectively interactional approach. Steinberg’s critique

targets particularly the cognitive perspective on framing for its inattentiveness to discursive

processes. The cognitive approach is not of relevance here.

With Dewulf and colleagues, a frame is conceived as the definition or meaning of an

issue, whereby issues are not objective agenda items but correspond to topics of concern

and are therefore the subject of discussion and negotiation within the collaboration. “While

they are giving information, asking questions, or arguing about a situation, actors stress

specific aspects of a situation and employ particular formulations that delimit and define

how the issues should be understood or labelled” (Dewulf, Gray et al. 2005: 9). This is

broadly congruent with the construction of key issues. Lewicki et al. (Lewicki et al. 2003; in

Zalesny 2003) also describe frames as a similar concept to social constructions. Especially

the framing perspective is interesting here, as it helps to understand the creation and

interplay of constructions as a dynamic, interactive process. This is explored in more detail

in the section ‘interactive process’.

Convergent repertoires. A common feature of collaborations is that the participants

use different language or professional jargon to make sense of the same situations. Multi-

stakeholder collaborations that involve civil society, private and public sector can be

8 For a discursive use of the concept, I cannot make much sense of this metaphor either. Thinking of a frame in the

figurative sense triggers the question ‘what’s in the frame?’, suggesting a rather entitative understanding of an issue,

which is then merely ‘framed’ differently. A ‘construction’, in contrast, constitutes the issue itself in its literal sense.


78

particularly problematic (Huxham 1996). In order to achieve effective collaboration

crossing the public-private-voluntary divide, participants need to engage in conversations

that produce shared or convergent repertoires which are used as resources to jointly make

sense of the issues within the collaboration. These repertoires reflect general agreement.

Hardy et al. (2005) call them “common constructions” and understand them as discursive

objects. “They occur when participants negotiate a general agreement regarding the causes,

symptoms, assumptions, and potential solutions that relate to the issue around which the

collaboration is formed.”

Convergent repertoires and collective identity ties relate to each other reciprocally.

The collective identity can be used as a resource for producing convergent repertoires to

translate the collective identity into joint action. While elaborating on the way in which

participants jointly construct key issues, they can draw on their connections to the issue

(generalised membership ties) and to each other (particularised membership ties).

Conversely, convergent repertoires are used as resources for the ongoing discursive

accomplishment of these membership ties. Actually, both ties and the convergent repertoires

may be created within the same conversations (Hardy et al. 2005).

In this case, there is broad agreement on a “negotiation gridlock” in the WSSD

process, on the “implementation gap” in delivering international agreements and resulting

from that, on the necessity of “joint stakeholder action”, whereby the stakeholders commit

to the international agreements. Regarding the relationship among each other in order to

tackle the issues, there is agreement for example on the necessity to recognise differences

and to enable each of the participants to bring his strength to bear.

Common constructions which reflect general agreement like the ones just mentioned

are essential for effective collaboration, because they enable participants to communicate

with each other well enough to coordinate joint action (Huxham 1996). Sufficient

convergence is important for collective sense-making of complex problems (Weick and

Roberts 1993), as it is needed to bridge the different “thought worlds” between the

participants (Dougherty 1996). The way the participants relate to each other must comprise

a certain degree of convergence in order to create a basis for communication. On this basis,

participants can deal with their different interests and make synergistic outcomes possible

(Hardy et al. 2005).

Without shared and convergent constructions, conversations among participants would

be confusing and contradictory or, the differences would be simply insurmountable.

Confusion involves lengthy processes of clarification and may lead to stagnation or

breakdown in communication (Huxham 1996). The lack of common constructions makes it

very difficult to produce a synergistic outcome; instead, the ‘solution’ is more likely to be a


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compromise or, if one party proves more powerful, it is likely to be imposed. This may be

common in bargaining and negotiations (compare also Feldman et al. 2006; in Hardy et al.

2005; Wells and Liebman 1996). Hence, effective collaboration is squandered.

This doesn’t mean that stakeholders need to speak exactly the same language, though.

What is important in order to jointly make sense within the collaboration is that they

understand something of the other ‘languages’ and interpretive frameworks used by other

participants. During the process, the stakeholders need to develop collectively “a coherent

set of understanding regarding the problem, the process used to address it, and the nature of

potential solutions.” They need sufficient understanding that they “recognise the various

symbolic representations used by other partners; and that they accept the validity of other

interpretations” in order to enable debate and discussion (Hardy et al. 2006: 105).

Divergent repertoires. The conversations on key issues associated with collaboration

do not only engender agreement. As much as common repertoires are needed for effective

collaboration, ‘private’ constructions are required. I prefer to call them divergent

repertoires, as ‘private’ tends to be associated with hidden or undisclosed. Divergent

constructions “are produced in ways that attach them to particular participants instead of the

group as a whole. Thus, divergent constructions are discursive objects that lead individuals

to make sense of and express key issues in disparate and often conflicting terms.” Divergent

constructions are significant to ensure that the collaborative action balances the divergent

stakeholder interests, as some of them are rooted in the conversations taking place in the

different stakeholder groups (Hardy et al. 2005: 67).

The use of divergent repertoires is essential to avoid conformity. Giving precedence to

convergent over divergent repertoires would inevitably lead to conformity in the sense “that

comprehension between participants becomes so seamless that a common language,

interpretive frameworks, symbols and assumptions is taken for granted” (Hardy et al. 2006:

106). In a sense this means that communication between participants becomes too easy, to

the detriment of creativity associated with tension, diversity and difference. This may foster

the emergence of the ‘group think’ phenomenon, where conflict avoidance and group

cohesion take precedence over the confrontation and exchange of divergent understandings

(after Dougherty 1996; Fiol 1995; Hardy et al. 2006; Janis 1972).

In the context of interorganizational collaboration, divergent repertoires often come

into play with the diverging goals of the different member organisations. But divergent

repertoires do not only crystallize around defining goals, but also around methods of how to

reach those goals, time frames, selection of stakeholders (Hardy et al. 2005) and modes of

relating among participants. The differences are not necessarily associated with the diverse

member organizations or stakeholder groups. They can occur simply through the interplay


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of different actors. Still, different stakeholder groups might be more inclined to bring into

play specific perspectives, making use of preferred repertoires.

Divergent repertoires are essential for fostering creativity by juxtaposing “widely

divergent bodies of knowledge and experience” (Fiol 1995: 71), whereas a prevalence of

convergent repertoires inhibit the discovery and exploration of contrary experience which

gives rise to innovation (Hardy et al. 2005; after Jehn 1997; Lovelace, Shapiro and Weingart

2001). Put differently, while convergent constructions facilitate communication and allow

for an atmosphere of mutual understanding, divergent constructions allow for creativity and

the generation of new ideas through the creation of task-oriented conflict (cf. Dougherty

1996; Fiol 1995; Jehn 1997). The significance of diversity for creativity and innovation is a

well-established idea in collaboration research (Gray 1989; Hardy et al. 2005; Huxham

1996).

To accomplish effective collaboration, it is essential to create and maintain a tension

between convergent and divergent repertoires. Convergent repertoires provide the basis for

shared social understanding (Edley 2001) and thus a basis for moving forward with joint

action, whereas divergent repertoires ensure the inclusion of the concerns associated with

the diverse stakes and enable creativity and innovation by providing differences. For

effective collaboration to occur, Hardy et al. (2005) recommend that both convergent and

divergent repertoires are produced and circulated on an ongoing basis. Likewise, Craps et al.

(2004) recommend that participants simultaneously reflect and explore their common

ground and differences and that they alternate divergent and convergent interactions. The

resulting tensions and ambiguities of this interplay are fruitful for creative and balanced

outcomes. While ambiguity is traditionally regarded as a problem to be solved, a discursive

approach appreciates ambiguity as an opportunity for innovation (cf. Eisenberg 1998).

As already mentioned, Hardy and colleagues elaborated on this issue in another article

(2006: 103) as tension between confusion and conformity, whereby they identify the healthy

balance between those poles as “coherence in understanding and meaning”. Coherence

implies that understandings converge, but without quashing all differences. On the other

hand, it is not helpful to continuously question their basic assumptions. By maintaining the

tension and ambiguity, the participants have a basis for communication as well as for

creatively making use of the emerging differences (Hardy et al. 2006).


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Interactive process

Convergence and divergence among the participating stakeholders is reflected not only

in the occurrence of convergent or divergent repertoires, but also in the way they are used

and embedded in conversation. Not only the content (in terms of constructions) influences

the balance of convergence or divergence in order to achieve effective collaboration. The

mode of interaction also contributes to fostering convergence or divergence. The mode of

interaction within collaborative settings has been studied in different ways.

Hardy et al. (2005) study the mode of interaction in terms of “styles of talk”, where

they subsume “the patterns in tone, style, rhythm, and format of conversations”. They

regard the styles of talk as essential in collaboration as they embody the emotional energy

which is needed for effective collaboration to occur. As with the important tension between

convergent and divergent repertoires, creating and maintaining a tension among styles of

talk which foster convergence and styles of talk which foster divergence is critical. The

authors distinguish between cooperative talk and assertive talk. This differentiation

resembles the integrative and adversarial conflict tradition identified by Gricar and Brown

(1981).

The cooperative mode of interaction occurs when the style of talk emphasizes the

willingness of participants to listen to and accommodate and engage with each other’s

positions and interests and preferences. By using this style, participants’ shared interests,

similarity and mutual affiliations are emphasized. Cooperative talk enables action to be

generated collectively and inclusively in the sense of sharing power, as participants

authorize each other mutually to come to a shared decision. Engaging in the cooperative

style of talk ensures that the less powerful partners are also included, as meaning is

coproduced by all participants (Gray 1989; Hardy et al. 2005). A study of Hardy/Phillips

1998 suggests that it is particularly important for the more powerful participants to engage

in the cooperative style of talk in order to achieve some power sharing. Cooperative talk

“helps participants to maintain their common constructions as central to the conversation

and to integrate private constructions in a way that is more likely to produce the synergistic

outcomes associated with effective collaboration” (Hardy et al. 2005: 69).

The assertive mode of interaction arises when the style of the conversations

“emphasizes participants’ insistence on articulating their own views and positions” (Hardy

et al. 2005: 69). Assertive talk helps to achieve effective collaboration as participants using

this mode ensure that their organizational interests are considered in the actions generated

by the collaboration. Participants engaging in assertive talk attempt to influence the

direction of the discussions (Hardy et al. 2005; after Westley 1990). The assertive style

energizes the differences among the collaborators and provides a basis for achieving


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outcomes that are synergistic, rather than simply compromising. Assertive talk legitimizes

participants’ representational roles as central aspects of the process: “In engaging in

assertive talk, participants demonstrate their commitment to the proprietary interests of the

organizations they represent” (Hardy et al. 2005: 70). Assertive talk ensures that divergent

repertoires are articulated strongly. Divergent repertoires are made to be heard so that they

can be explored, promoted, and pursued. Without assertive talk, divergent repertoires are in

danger of remaining peripheral – gently stated, but not pushed forward for inclusion in

collective sensemaking and decision-making processes. Furthermore, assertive talk can

serve to critically challenge common constructions, whereas cooperative talk tends to

reinforce them. “Since effective collaboration depends on innovation and creativity, the

forceful promotion of private constructions and the critical examination of common

constructions are both essential elements in this process” (Hardy et al. 2005: 70). The

authors therefore recommend the maintenance of an ongoing tension between assertive and

cooperative talk in order to create a collaborative identity which enables collective action.

Cooperative talk facilitates the advancement of convergent repertoires and the integration of

divergent repertoires, both of which form the basis for collective action. Assertive talk

ensures that divergent repertoires are leveraged, organizational responsibilities are

acknowledged, and convergent repertoires are scrutinized, all of which help to achieve

creativity and innovation and ensure that stakeholder interests are clarified. Effective

collaboration is driven by a continuous interplay of both styles of talk and will emerge from

situations in which agreement is both fostered and regularly challenged. Due to the critical

role each style of talk plays in the accomplishment of effective collaboration, neither can be

suspended. They need not always feature together in an individual conversation, but they

will have the greatest potential for generative collaboration representing the multiple

interests if both are fluidly interwoven over the life of the collaboration (Hardy et al. 2005).

Feldman and colleagues differentiated between an ‘interest-based approach’, which

does not allow for real change, and a ‘way-of-knowing approach’ within which new

associations can be made, allowing for change in self-interest and relations (Feldman et al.

2006). Thus, in order to achieve creativity and change, it is not enough to produce divergent

constructions as such. They have to be sufficiently integrated and must not be too rigid,

otherwise the danger is to end up with bargaining and negotiation of the interest-based

approach.

Another way of conceptualizing the interactive processes on the micro-level of

conversations is suggested by Eden and Huxham (2001). They use the concept of episodes,

during which the collaborators are engaged in dealing with the tension deriving from an


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incompatibility of stakes or positions. The episodes they identified in collaborations are

characterized for example by cohesion, disinterest, threatening, vetoing and more.

As mentioned earlier, the framing perspective is also suitable for studying the

interactive process. Within this perspective not the frames or the constructions as such are in

the foreground, but the dynamic, interactive process of issue framing. The focus is on how

participants negotiate the meanings of issues in social interaction. Each move in a

negotiation frames the issue in a particular way; hence, a frame can be accepted or rejected

by other participants in interaction by maintaining or altering the frame in their response (in

Dewulf, Gray et al. 2005; Drake and Donohue 1996). Framing research is “interested in the

way an issue becomes defined in a situated context, and in the ways in which interaction

contributes to establishing, negotiating or affirming a definition of the situation” (in Dewulf,

Gray et al. 2005; West 1984: 491). For the interactive process perspective, this approach is

very useful, as issue framing “is a dynamic process, responsive to preceding moves and

anticipatory of possible reactions of others to these moves” (Dewulf, Gray et al. 2005: 10).

While Hardy et al. (2005) emphasise the interplay of diverse constructions and their

embeddedness in contrary styles of talk, this perspective highlights the process of how the

constructions are developed, contested, changed, aligned and accommodated. Starting from

the diverse frames which are brought into the collaboration by the stakeholders, it looks at

how they are aligned and accommodated in order to develop convergent constructions

serving as identity ties – how they develop as issue frames for the problem formulation and

relationship definition – and as action frames regarding the implementation (cf. Bouwen and

Fry 1991; Bouwen and Taillieu 2004).

Figure 2 – Adapting Hardy et al.’s model to my framework of collaborative identity


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3.4.2.2 Relating among participants and conveners

In the last section it became clear that maintaining the balance between the interests of

the collaboration as a whole and the divergent stakeholder concerns is extremely difficult.

The stakeholders need to collaborate despite (and because of) having divergent and

potentially contradictory philosophies and objectives (Hardy et al. 2006). This presents a

challenge not only to participants, but all the more to the conveners who are faced with

significant managerial challenges. It is important then to create an understanding of how

leadership in collaboration could or should be enacted in order to tackle the difficulties and

hence reap the potential benefits (Vangen and Huxham 2003a).

Firstly, the challenge lies in managing effectively the trade-off between participants’

dual roles as stakeholder representatives with divergent interests and as collaborators

working on a joint project (cf. Hardy et al. 2005). The challenge of driving a multi-

stakeholder collaboration is, therefore, “how to sustain conversations between members of

organisations with different backgrounds, ideologies and agendas in ways that embrace and

leverage these tensions” (Hardy et al. 2006: 108). Given the inherent tensions in multiparty

collaboration and the difficulties in managing them, the issue of leadership is highly

relevant. Huxham and Vangen (2000b; 2005) note that, surprisingly, leadership does not

feature very much in collaboration research. This is perhaps not much of a surprise, though.

The thematic gap in the literature may reflect a tendency in participative processes of some

kind of disavowal of leadership. This is the second leadership challenge in collaborative,

participative processes. Enacting leadership for such a process is a challenge in itself, since

for the management team the task of convening a stakeholder-driven process is inherently

paradoxical. They should lead the collaboration without taking the lead, because

empowerment and participation are central considerations of multi-stakeholder projects. The

paradox is aggravated by the prevailing condition of such a process, that the responsibility

for driving the process is a central issue to the core management team, but the collaboration

is usually far less significant for the participating organizations, those who should be the

ones owning the process, since the constituency’s interests mostly have a higher priority.

Still, the collaborative process requires attention and energy (Hardy et al. 2006) from the

participants. A lack thereof results in the conveners’ responsibility to uphold the necessary

level of attention and energy on the side of participants. At the same time, the conveners are

appointed as a “resource” for the collaboration, in the sense that they organize the activities

and offer support (Huxham and Vangen 2000b; 2005) for a project driven by stakeholders

instead of driving the process themselves. This means that, especially for the conveners,

multi-stakeholder collaboration is a “juggling act” (Hardy et al. 2006: 108). The challenge


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of collaboration lies in embracing the inherent tensions resulting from managing the

divergence-convergence paradox and the leadership paradox itself.

Paradoxical participative processes

The paradox of convening a stakeholder-driven collaborative project relates to the

more general paradox of participation. Participation has been a major theme in governance

processes since the 1970s (in Bouwen and Taillieu 2004; Huxham 2000; Mostert 2002;

Pahl-Wostl 2002; Taillieu 2001). The seminal work in the literature of participatory

democracy is Sherry Arnstein’s “A Ladder of Citizen Participation” from 1969 (Fung

2006). Participation aims to reinforce democracy and responsible citizenship through

sharing power and creating “mini-publics”, and, furthermore, to address inefficiencies, lack

of legitimacy and organizational messes of bureaucratical-hierarchical forms of decision-

making (Bouwen and Taillieu 2004; Fung 2003; 2006). The involvement of citizens in the

management of public, environmental and social issues varies from public hearings and

supplying at best some information through consultation to collective decision-making, the

latter also implying shared responsibility for the outcomes (Borrini-Feyerabend, Favar,

Nguinguir et al. 2000; in Bouwen and Taillieu 2004; Fung 2006; Tyler 2003). Participation

can be employed and argued for in a purely instrumental sense, “as a managerial technique

of joint superior-subordinate decision-making, focusing on effectiveness contingencies”

(Bouwen and Taillieu 2004: 138), substantiated for example with citizen’s distinctive

capabilities which might improve public action (Fung 2006). Participation can also be

introduced as part of a paternalistic managerial practice, as some power sharing offered by

superiors to subordinates, which can always be taken back. Another way to enact

participation is as a value in itself, as a management philosophy of meaningful citizen

involvement with the aim of sharing legitimate authority, power and responsibility (Bouwen

and Taillieu 2004; Chisholm and Vansina 1993). Bouwen and Taillieu conceptualize

participation as creating a new relational network and as moving away from an “expert top-

down planning-implementation action mode” towards a “joint involvement action mode”

(2004: 144). Shifting the mode comes across as a relatively unproblematic choice there. A

different view is presented by Quaghebeur and colleagues who conceptualise participation

as inescapably paradoxical. Using a Foucauldian perspective, they define the paradox of

participation as being characterized by “a strong commitment to emancipation while relying

on often very directive, precise and hierarchically structured methodological measures and

guidelines” (Quaghebeur, Masschelein and Nguyen 2004: 154) and they describe the “dual

logic” (after Mosse 1995: 144–156; Mosse 2001: 25; 2004: 160) with its tension between

the participatory logic and the logic of efficiency and effectiveness. They enlarge upon the

difficulties of realizing the commonly assumed goal of participatory processes, which is


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reversing or subverting power relations. Put differently, they find that participatory projects

presenting bottom-up instead of top-down, sustainability, emancipation and democracy

values do not necessarily serve stakeholder interests. This is the case particularly when the

participatory logic serves first of all to legitimize the project towards donors and/or

responsible authorities and external stakeholders (establishing the upward and outward

oriented legitimacy) instead of guiding concrete actions. The concrete actions in contrast are

then rather guided by the second logic, the logic of efficiency, which relates to the

immediate operational concerns of managing the project. Furthermore, they draw attention

to the fact that participation is “not a neutral principle, but that it is instead a very specific

cultural concept and part of an equally specific vision of society” (Quaghebeur et al. 2004:

161).

For the multi-stakeholder collaboration at hand, participation plays a role in a two-fold

sense. The collaborative project is embedded in the multi-stakeholder movement aiming for

better participation in decision-making from the local to the international level. For

conducting the multi-stakeholder collaboration itself, the same principles should of course

apply in order to put the core values into practice. This again serves to establish credibility

and to give an example. Participation then is a process aim of the collaboration as well as a

substantive outcome aim. Both aims are connected by a concurrent outward and inward

orientation. On the one hand, participation provides a rationale on which the project can be

‘marketed’. Positioning the project as a truly participative one establishes outward

legitimacy by creating distinctiveness (as one of the few ‘truly’ participatory processes) and

connectivity (by putting into practice the widely shared value of participatory democracy),

appealing to the target group which is meant to be influenced as well as to the donors. On

the other hand, it establishes inward legitimacy: those values are likewise approved and

adopted by the participating stakeholders as they are enabled to assume a position within the

collaboration (cf. Quaghebeur et al. 2004).

Leadership concepts

The question of leadership is critical regarding the complexity of collaboration.

Accordingly, the leader or convener of such a process plays a significant role (Bouwen and

Taillieu 2004; Gray 1989: 70-72). Conveners may act as facilitators encouraging dialogue

(Gray 1989) or as “bridging agents” (Brown 1993; in Gray 1999; Westley and Vredenburg

1991) who mediate between stakeholders with often substantial power differences (Gray

1999). However, in collaborations as participative processes, leadership is dispersed by

definition and is therefore not confined to the conveners’ position. Any participant should

be able to engage in leadership activities of influencing and enacting the collaborative


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agenda (Huxham and Vangen 2000b). The dispersion of leadership correlates with a view of

emphasising the increased interdependence of organisations in response to major social and

environmental issues (cf. Crosby and Bryson 2005).

Conventional theories of leadership in organizations are not suitable for translating

them into inter-organizational collaborative settings. Common presumptions of leadership

in organizations are the hierarchically organized leader-follower relationship and the

achievement of specified goals. This cannot apply to collaborative settings as the

participants come from different organizations and the goal-setting is part of the

collaborative process, according to the notion of a stakeholder-driven bottom-up process

(Huxham and Vangen 2000b). Instead, an important feature of leadership in collaboration is

sharing power, control and responsibilities (Gray 1999). Authors concerned with leadership

in collaborative or participative processes therefore emphasise “shared responsibilities”

(Murrell 1997), “shared leadership” (Judge and Ryman 2001), “dealing with the

fragmentation of power” (Chrislip and Larson 1994) and “sharing leadership” in a “shared-

power world” (Bryson and Crosby 1992; Crosby and Bryson 2005). For the dispersed

leadership within “shared-power arrangements”, Crosby and Bryson (2005) identified eight

main leadership capabilities: personal, team, organizational, visionary, political, ethical

leadership, political entrepreneurship and leadership in context. Pahl-Wostl and Hare (2004)

are using the concept of “distributed leadership”. These distributed forms of leadership are

in need of deep understanding and acceptance of power interdependencies among the

collaborators.

Theories of leadership in organizations are also of use for inter-organizational

collaboration if they stem from a constructionist perspective. They do not build upon

individualised notions of leadership, in contrast to conventional theories assuming a formal

leader (Huxham and Vangen 2005). Hosking (1988: 315) with her notion of informal or

emergent leadership conceives leadership as the “processes in which flexible social order is

negotiated and practiced so as to protect and promote the values and interests in which it is

grounded” which is just as applicable to collaborative situations.

Since they refrain from an individualised understanding of leadership, leadership is

considered so dispersed that it often does not feature any more in constructionist and

relational theories on collaboration under this term. Instead, some authors prefer to write

about governance, joint involvement, engagement or ownership. For example, Bouwen and

Taillieu (2004: 144) recommend experimenting with multi-layered and participatory forms

of governance in order to achieve a “joint involvement action mode, leading to active and

responsible membership across levels.” Within this mode, the diverse participants


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acknowledge and work with the interdependencies among multiple forms of expertise

instead of pursuing a single dominant “expert top-down planning-implementation mode”.

Furthermore, discretionary leadership and decentring of leadership provide a relational

and facilitative outlook and could, at least partly, be transferable to collaborations.

Discretionary leadership recognizes the requirement for cooperation in “delayered”

organizations (Korac-Kakabadse and Korac-Kakabadse 1997; after Murrell 1997). The

‘decentering’ of leadership stems from the organizational culture perspective focusing “on

the heterogeneity of modern organizations” (Martin 1992). Within this perspective the

cultural value of diversity, fluidity and ambiguity are highly acknowledged (Bryman 1996).

Huxham and Vangen (2000b) criticise though that the meaning of ‘decentering’ remains

rather fuzzy.

Consistent with the constructionist approach, this study disregards classical notions of

leadership, instead the focus is on how leadership gets enacted in an ongoing process. More

specifically the discourse perspective brings to the fore how leadership and ownership of the

collaboration is constructed discursively and how it gets negotiated over the course of the

process.

With this study, I draw mainly on Huxham and Vangen’s (2000b; 2004; 2005)

understanding of leadership, but I use it with a discursive, interactional lens. Leadership is

conceived as the mechanisms that lead collaborative activity and the actual outcomes of the

collaboration in one direction rather than another. The concern is with what is central to the

shaping and implementation of the collaboration’s policy and activity agenda, and hence

with the mechanisms that finally lead towards collaborative inertia or collaborative

advantage. More plainly, leadership is conceived as what “makes things happen” (2005:

202). This conceptualization provides a holistic view of leadership by taking the notion of

leadership beyond individual actors and formal positions. The authors therefore emphasise

the significance of “contextual leadership” and draw attention to the shaping of structures

and processes. Structures and processes are as important in affecting agendas as are the

participants engaged in the collaboration. However, the differentiation of individual actors,

structures and processes loses significance within a discursive perspective. Huxham and

Vangen (2000b: 1168) themselves highlight how much the three leadership media which

together provide contextual leadership are deeply intertwined: “Structures influence process

designs and what participants can do. Processes influence the structures that emerge and

who can influence agendas. Participants influence the design of both structure and process.”


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A multi-stakeholder collaboration needs to be conducted by providing a space for the

diverse stakeholders to come together so that innovative and synergistic outcomes may

emerge. In order to reap generative outcomes, the tension between divergence and

convergence needs to be maintained and managed. Accordingly, Bouwen and Taillieu

(2004: 151) describe the convener role as to “invite for reflection to create ‘learning

moments’ and to open up some transitional space where ambiguities can be fostered

towards new meanings and new memberships.” Feldman and colleagues (2006: 93) point in

a similar direction with their concept of inclusive management based on actor-network-

theory. Inclusive management works by purposefully engaging different ways of knowing.

They understand inclusive management as facilitating “the practice of democracy by

creating opportunities for people with different ways of knowing public problems to work

together in a collective space to solve problems.” Inclusive management is based on two

premises. Besides the normative reasoning, that “informed deliberative processes are

fundamental to democracy”, there is also a functional argument, stating that “bringing

people together from different perspectives in ways that allow them to appreciate one

another’s perspectives enhances the design and implementation of policies”. Inclusive

management therefore serves not only to achieve inclusion, but also to engage purposefully

and generatively with different ways of knowing in the continuous process of problem

solving. An inter-organizational collaboration then forms a boundary organization (e.g.

Guston 2001; Miller 2001) by drawing together actors from different bases of expertise

ways of knowing (Feldman et al. 2006).

In its core, the process of multi-stakeholder collaboration has to do with working on

communalities and differences in the lived and enacted diversity of ideas and interests.

Therefore the process should be designed and convened in such a way that it provides a

forum for diverse stakeholders to engage in joint activities so that their perspectives, values

and ideas can be shared and contested. Relational networks are created and shared norms

and interactional patterns are developed in a particular context, producing and reflecting

interconnectedness and interdependence. By engaging in reciprocal practices, participants

position each other in specific membership roles, defining specific relationships and

positioning the collaborative project as a whole, thereby constructing collective

responsibility. Sharing the responsibility for the construction of their relationships implies

that possible differences in the understandings of relationships need to be addressed and

negotiated explicitly. Ideally, leadership activities should ensure that a voice is given to the

multiple perspectives of participants, recognising and respecting the differences as different

but equal (Bouwen and Taillieu 2004; Dachler and Hosking 1995).


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Ideally, leadership and ownership should be dispersed in a stakeholder-driven process.

It is not so easy though to create co-ownership of all the participants. In order to maintain

the necessary level of attention and energy, stakeholders need to be reassured that the

collaborative space is “safe and productive and, consequently, worthy of continued support”

(Hardy et al. 2005: 72). Huxham (2003) draws attention to the membership ambiguity, as

there is often a lack of clarity about membership, status and representation. For example, the

participants in the advisory group of the multi-stakeholder process differ to what level much

they behave as members, co-owning the collaboration. Some tend to be visiting, interested

in what others are doing, others limit themselves to giving advice, and others are very much

engaged in driving the process forward. Maintaining ownership is compounded by shifting

membership because of the difficulty in maintaining continuity and responsibility for

driving the process. Pahl-Wostl and Hare (2004) show how difficult it is to create ownership

of the stakeholders, in spite of an intensive and well-guided interaction among the

collaborators. As critical aspects they identify how the legitimacy of the convening party is

experienced and the acknowledgement of power interdependencies between the different

stakes. In an inter-organizational collaborative setting, it is common for leadership functions

to be enacted by a “lead organization” (Alexander 1995; Ryan 2001). They are taking the

role as positional leaders (French and Raven 1958; in Huxham and Vangen 2000b; Weber

1947), meaning that their leadership legitimacy is acknowledged by others because of their

position within the collaboration. In other cases, the lead is taken by the organization that

initiates and convenes the collaboration in the first place. Mostly, the positional leader role

is assumed by or given to a management committee, steering group or board or to an

individual chair or manager of same. The way such a position is enacted critically affects

how other participants can engage in leadership activities. “A dominant convenor has the

positional power to strongly influence their decisions, but a weak one may leave them

directionless” (Huxham and Vangen 2000b: 1168). Depending on how much space is

provided for negotiating the convening functions explicitly, an ongoing implicit power

negotiation comes into play (Vansina, Taillieu and Schruijer 1998). In order to be able to

convene such a process, the conveners must be seen by the participants as legitimate,

powerful and as willing to entertain diverse points of view (Gray and Hay 1986).

The positional leadership function within a stakeholder-driven collaborative project is

inherently paradoxical. On the one hand, convenors, coordinators or managers are appointed

to organize the activities and are therefore employed as a resource for the collaboration

rather than a driving member. Strictly, therefore, they report to and support the members

rather than directing them, meaning that they cannot lead through the exertion of formal

positional power. In principle they often do not have the legitimacy to shape the content of


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the agenda. On the other hand, they often actualize a strong lead from their position at the

centre of the collaboration. Furthermore, their influence is highly significant because they

alone are employed for the multi-stakeholder collaboration and care about it as their sole

employment activity. On that score they often also have a much greater level of

understanding of the collaboration than any of the participants (Huxham and Vangen 2000b;

2005; Vangen and Huxham 2003a).

Two modes of leadership

Huxham and Vangen (Huxham 2003; Huxham and Vangen 2004; 2005; Vangen and

Huxham 2003a) identified two modes of leadership mirroring the paradox, which is

comparable to the dilemma between idealism and pragmatism (cf. Vangen and Huxham

2003a). The first is the rather obvious mode for participative processes, this is why it is

called leadership in “the spirit of collaboration”. The second at face value contradicts what

is conceived to be collaborative, this is why the authors label it “collaborative thuggery”. In

the following, I will refer to those styles of leadership activities as ‘facilitative, supportive’

and as ‘directive’.

The facilitative mode is consistent with an “ideology of collaborative working”.

Leadership activities in this mode “are highly facilitative and are concerned with embracing,

empowering, involving and mobilizing members” (Huxham and Vangen 2004; reprinted in

Huxham and Vangen 2005: 78) This leadership mode is the one which features most

prominently in collaboration literature, where processes for supporting, inspiring, and

nurturing are outlined (Chrislip and Larson 1994; Crosby and Bryson 2004; Feyerherm

1994). Communication should be fostered that coordinates and aligns participant’s actions,

that nurtures trust-building, mutual understanding, commitment and creative problem-

solving (Crosby and Bryson 2005). Therefore an atmosphere of respect, openness and

information sharing is required (cf. Kouzes and Posner 2002). Active listening and dialogue

are mentioned for example as helpful methods (Fletcher and Käufer 2003; Schein 1993).

Relational skills such as honesty, empathy, patience and deference are needed (e.g. Eckert

2001; in Vangen and Huxham 2003a). The facilitative mode resembles a democratic

leadership style emphasizing consideration and responsiveness. However Vangen and

Huxham (2003a) show with their research that the facilitative and supportive leadership

mode, although being both required and expected, is not sufficient to enable generative

collaboration.

The directive mode in contrast is engendered with “pragmatism needed to get things

done”. These leadership activities are seemingly much less collaborative. Within this style,

the conveners decisively engage in agenda setting and in the framing of conversation

themes. This might even go as far as “manipulating agendas and playing the politics”


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(Huxham and Vangen 2000b; 2005: 78).9 Such a political maneuvering is often strongly

evident in collaborations (Lawrence et al. 1999). Conveners tend to enact a “pragmatic

leadership role” and influence the collaborative agenda directly, indirectly unintentionally

or even unconsciously in order to move the collaboration forward. It is part of their job to

avoid collaborative inertia. Not surprisingly, some tend to actively push the agenda forward

rather then facilitating the participants to jointly develop and implement their own agenda

(Vangen and Huxham 2003a). However, in principle conveners lack the legitimate power to

define and decide on participants’ activities, so they have to use alternative means like

forms of political maneuvering (Huxham and Vangen 2005).

Those two modes of leadership reflect the dilemma of idealism and pragmatism

connected to successfully convening multi-stakeholder collaborative projects. However,

even though the two modes appear to be bipolar, they do not imply a clear dichotomy.

Instead, they are intertwined, because, for example, taking the lead in a more directive

manner can serve supportive ends. Yet, some similarities are evident to dichotomies raised

in classic leadership theories. The opposite ways of enacting leadership may resemble the

dichotomous pairs of leadership styles like democratic versus autocratic, participative

versus directive, relationship-oriented versus task-oriented or the transactional versus

transformational leadership (and Bass 1981; after Burns 1978; Vangen and Huxham 2003a).

In order to fruitfully convene a multi-stakeholder collaboration, the tension must be

managed to find a balance between facilitative-supportive and directive activities (Huxham

and Beech 2003). A trade-off needs to be achieved between fostering genuinely

collaborative activities, which are often difficult and time-consuming, and ‘getting things

done’. Huxham and Vangen therefore recommend switching continually between both kinds

of leadership activities, often carrying out both simultaneously. As both aspects are

fundamental to moving forward, conveners should operate from both perspectives on an

ongoing basis. An overemphasis on either style would jeopardize generative collaboration

(Huxham and Vangen 2004; Vangen and Huxham 2003a).

9 Original article (Huxham and Vangen 2004) reprinted in Huxham and Vangen 2005


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Figure 3 – Framework of the paradoxical collaborative identity

Chapter 4 - Methodological and conceptual considerations

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4 Methodological and conceptual considerations

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is an ongoing social accomplishment through the

negotiation of meanings and interests. It is highly discursive as it depends on an ongoing

process of coordination and negotiation through language. In order to consider this key

aspect of collaboration, the epistemological and methodological approach needs to

appreciate the social construction of the collaborative organising process and the interactive

creation of meaning (cf. Lawrence et al. 1999499).

This chapter serves to clarify the epistemological foundation of the study by pointing

out the basic principles of social constructionism and a performative view of language. I

will introduce the discourse analytic approach and methodology and tailor it to the case at

hand. The proposed methodology for studying collaboration-in-the-making attends to

language-as-action, language-in-action and to the interactively created, situated multiplicity

of meaning. The key theoretical concepts used for analysing the case, tensions, dilemmas

and paradoxes are elaborated, and the methodological implications for the collection and

analysis of the discursive data is outlined. Finally, the role of the researcher and warranting

strategies for ensuring the quality of the research are explained.

4.1 The interactive construction of realities

For theorising about societal change processes it is less productive to ponder how the

reality is. The question how realities become, based on an “ontology of becoming” (Chia

1996: XI), is much more suitable for studying societal change processes. From this

ontology, the social world is conceived as a dynamic, ongoing accomplishment. Multi-

stakeholder collaborative change efforts are responding to conditions created in social

interaction and in interaction with(in) our ecological environment. The circumstances are

not simply given, they are created and fluid, thus offering opportunities for change. This

way of deliberating follows a Heraclitean-inspired cosmology1: the “process, transformation

and the becoming of material and social relations are accentuated” (Chia 1996: XI). An

ontology of becoming highlights the pervasiveness of change instead of privileging stability

(Tsoukas and Chia 2002). Accordingly, research objects are not regarded as static and fixed

entities. From a becoming perspective, organising processes like collaboration are

conceived as ongoing complex, multi-faceted, negotiated social accomplishments (Berger

and Luckmann 1966; Lawrence et al. 1999).

1 Heraclitus’s famous allegory: “one cannot step in the same river twice”


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4.1.1 Language as action – the language game perspective

Collaboration is conceived as interactively accomplished through language as action

(in the form of face-to-face talk, reports, outlines, rolling papers, phone conversations etc.)

and through nonverbal practice (like physical presence or absence, the creation of the spatial

setting, the use of music, financial aspects, etc.). These activities form a “complex and

interwoven fabric” of flexible and interconnected language games (Mauws and Phillips

1995: 332). The language game metaphor was introduced around 1930 by Wittgenstein’s

“philosophy of psychology and language” which led, with some delay, in the 1980s to a

fundamental shift in the social sciences – the linguistic turn (Wood and Kroger 2000). The

language game perspective gives special prominence to the reality-constituting power of

language. Language is not reduced to depicting (outer or inner) realities or transmitting

some kind of information, instead it is emphasised how language co-creates realities.

Language creates and limits the possibilities of our thinking and of what is conceivable, as

individuals as well as society. In using language, we are categorising the world according to

the categories provided through the language in use. We are performing acts with every

utterance. Through language games we produce particular kinds of worlds in which we

bring certain objects, rules, practices and ourselves as subjects into being, all of which are

interrelated in a particular way (cf. Mauws and Phillips 1995). The performative aspect of

language has been emphasised by Austin (1962; in Gergen 1999). He maintained that

language is a specific kind of practice, as we “do things with words”. Language is

embedded in practice and at the same time frames practice: practice embraces talk, and talk

helps to structure practice. Through this embeddedness in interaction, language is

continuously evolving. This reciprocity Both together is creates our world and “provides

particular tools, concepts and practices which further facilitate interaction” and which are

“fundamentally constitutive of the ‘reality’ within which we find ourselves” (Mauws and

Phillips 1995: 325). The game metaphor evokes the fluidity of bringing rules and entities or

categories into being. These categories and rules “are constantly adjusted, modified, or even

ignored” in the carrying out of actual organisational activities (Tsoukas and Chia 2002:

577).

As a newly emerging, not yet institutionalised practice, multi-stakeholder

collaboration lacks predefined language games. The particular practices, rules and objects in

collaboration have yet to be developed in the process of ongoing interaction to ensure a

reasonable degree of coordination. Studying an emergent collaborative process therefore

means studying an ‘organization-in-the-making’ (Hosking and Morley 1991) par excellence.


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4.1.2 Social constructionism and the dialogic creation of meaning

Within the social constructionist paradigm (Bouwen 1998; Gergen 1994; Hosking and

Morley 1991; Shotter 1994), organisations and organising processes are conceived as

interactive and dynamic achievements. The object of study is the ‘organization-in-the-

making’ (Hosking and Morley 1991). Organisational contexts consist of complex webs of

interactions within and across organisational boundaries. Thus, the organisation exists

merely in enactments and meanings as people construct and negotiate their mutual

relationships through language and further symbolic exchanges (Dewulf 2006). Hence,

organisational problems, as they would emerge in organising a multi-stakeholder process,

are not just given as facts to be discovered and handled, organizational problems are created

throughout the ongoing interaction among the stakeholders involved (Bouwen and Taillieu

2004; drawing on Gergen 1983). This thesis relies on the premise that collaboration and

societal change processes as dynamic processes can be approached more adequately through

attending to the relational qualities of the ongoing interaction processes among the

stakeholders involved (Bouwen 1998).

Social or relational constructionists emphasise the multiplicity, variability and

ambiguity of meaning. Meaning is never fixed, as “everything in the human world is, in

some measure, indeterminate” (van Langenhove and Harré 1999). Gergen (1994) proposes a

relational theory of meaning, which states that an utterance in itself possesses no meaning.

The potential for meaning is not realised until other actors provide some supplementary

action. Therefore Gergen (1999: 145) conceives meaning as an “emergent property of

coordinated action”. Or, as Shotter (1993) puts it, meaning results from ‘joint-action’.

Gergen (1999: 131, 142, 147) accounts for dialogue as the origin of social construction and

as “the key organizing metaphor for social constructionist theory”, as meaning is always

generated in dialogic relationship. Put differently, there is no unilateral control of meaning,

not even of our own words (Bakhtin 1981; in Dewulf et al. 2004). Such a dialogic

understanding of language and interaction recognizes the heterogeneity of discourses, which

is always in place, at least to a certain extent. Bakhtin (1981) uses the concept

“heteroglossia” to refer to the multiplicity of socio-ideological languages within a specific

cultural space (Bebbington et al. 2007; Dewulf et al. 2004; Gergen 1999). It should be

added here that this meaning of dialogue refers to its axiomatic sense. The second meaning

of dialogue refers to some special kind of relationship, a generative and transformative

quality of relating (Gergen 1999). The impossibility of a unilateral control of meaning,

however, does not mean that all involved are in equivalent positions to control the meaning

of their own and others’ utterances (Dewulf et al. 2004). There is always a privileging and

silencing of particular discourses in a specific context, through which power is enacted.


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Such monologic, univocal tendencies are oppressive in character (Gergen 1999) as they

seek to blanket stifle social diversity, heteroglossia and polyphony of different viewpoints

and aspirations (Shields 1996). They reject the open-ended dialogic nature of meaning in

favour of a closed and unitary sense of the world (Bebbington et al. 2007). In response to

that, the second meaning of dialogue as generative and transformative comes into play. In

this sense, Bakhtin’s dialogism privileges a heterogeneous interaction within a multi-voiced

dialogue (Shields 1996). Non-finalisable dialogic processes among different perspectives

are a way of expanding meaning and understanding (Bebbington et al. 2007), whereby

understanding is understood in the dialogical sense as responsive, interactive contextual,

contingent and non-total (Shields 1996: 288). In a multi-voiced setting, “even agreement

retains its dialogic character, that is, it never leads to a merging of voices and truths in a

single impersonal truth” (Bakhtin 1984: 95; cited in Bebbington et al. 2007: 367).

For social change dynamics, language and the contest for meaning become crucial.

Accordingly, change agents focus on providing platforms where normally unheard voices

come to be heard, and were new meanings can emerge (Bebbington et al. 2007).

Both the language-game perspective and the relational constructionist perspective

view the social world as an ongoing accomplishment and emphasise the performative

quality of language. This epistemological foundation prepares the ground for discourse

analysis. From this view, collaboration as social achievement is always in the act of

‘becoming’ and is precariously held in place through discursive struggle. Discourse analysis

enables researchers to attend to the ongoing, dynamic nature of organising collaboration

(Hardy et al. 2005).

4.2 Discourse analysis

In line with conceiving language as action, the central object of study in discourse

analysis is language in use. Language use is increasingly being understood as the most

important phenomenon in social and organizational research, not least because it is highly

accessible for empirical investigation (Alvesson and Karreman 2000). Studying language as

action is not ‘reducing’ organizational life to ‘mere’ language while neglecting concrete

action, instead, discourses are very ‘concrete’ as they “produce a material reality in the

practices that they invoke” (Hardy 2001: 26). Traditional qualitative approaches usually

assume a social world and then seek to understand this world for its inhabitants. Discourse

analysis, in contrast, studies how the socially produced notions and categories in that world

are created and maintained in the first place (Dewulf 2006). Hence, discourse is a key


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concept in social constructionism. Traditionally, research on interorganisational

collaboration has tended to privilege action at the expense of talk, as effective collaboration

is associated with action orientation and not with talk-shops. The importance of action is not

at all disavowed, yet the focus of discourse analysis is on the way in which talk constitutes

the foundations for action collaboration (Hardy et al. 2005).

Discourse analysis (DA) is multidisciplinary in origin (Grant, Keenoy and Oswick

2001), it is rooted in philosophy, sociology, social psychology, linguistics, post-

structuralism and literary theory. Multiple versions and interdisciplinary approaches exist.

DA “is a field in which it is perfectly possible to have two books with no overlap in content

at all” (Potter and Wetherell 1987). The version used for this study is ‘Discourse Analysis in

Social Psychology’ (DASP), also called ‘(critical) discursive psychology’ after Potter and

Wetherell, Edwards and Billig. DASP is influenced by speech act theory,

ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, semiology and post-structuralism (Wetherell and

Potter 1988). Other versions are Critical Discourse Analysis, based on a Foucauldian

approach (e.g. Fairclough 1992) and versions relating to linguistic and cognitive

psychology. Discursive psychology analyses “what people do”, and therefore studies

discourse as “texts and talk in social practices” in specific social settings (Potter 1997: 146).

Discursive psychology focuses on the situated flow of discourse, and looks at the formation

and negotiation of interactional events (Wetherell 1998). The different versions of DA

conduct the analysis on a range of levels, from the micro- through meso- to the macro-level,

or grand and mega level (Grant et al. 2001; Hardy 2001). DASP focuses on concrete,

situated language use but takes into account the wider social and ideological effects. In that,

they are in a mediating position between the two approaches they are influenced by –

conversation analysis and the post-structuralist critical discourse analysis. Wetherell (1998:

402) aptly describes the difference between these: “If the problem with post-structuralist

analysts is that they rarely focus on actual social interaction, then the problem with

conversational analysts is that they rarely raise their eyes from the next turn in the

conversation”.

The discursive approach, especially DASP, offers compelling methodological

advantages. Unlike more traditional approaches ‘intentions’, ‘attitudes’ or given ‘social

structures’, discursive psychology is much more straightforward and epistemologically on

firmer ground, as the objects of study are observable linguistic practices and the effects of

these practices on social relationships and action (Potter and Wetherell 1987). Collaborative

identity is thus situated in language in use and not in some sort of given outer social or inner

psychological realities. Furthermore, the difficulties that arise from conceptualising the

individual and the organisation separately and on different levels, together with the


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problems of relating them to each other again, can be avoided by focusing on discourse.

With objects of analysis being “observable instances of talk and text”, discursive studies are

strongly empirical (Hardy et al. 2005: 73).

The potential of discourse analysis lies in its interactional orientation (Wood and

Kroger 2000). Discourse analysis lets us work up how people concretely accomplish

collaboration through talk. Particularly in cases in which participants struggle with

ambiguity and multiple meanings, discourse analysis offers a lot as it attends to the details

of language with its subtle variations in meaning. Treating nothing as given and fixed, a

discursive view makes alternative realities conceivable as it points to possibilities for

change in people’s discursive practices.

4.2.1 Resource perspective and rhetorical perspective

In their talk, people draw on linguistic resources to achieve practical consequences.

Speakers are constructively manufacturing the discourse through selecting pre-existing

discursive resources with specific properties to achieve practical consequences, i.e.

functions (Wetherell and Potter 1988). Discursive psychology “focuses on both participants’

discursive practices and the resources upon which they draw” (Wood and Kroger 2000:

199). Hence, in discourse analysis, texts can be studied from an action-oriented rhetorical

perspective and/or from a resource perspective. “Rhetoric” is not meant in the sense of

ornamentation (Billig 1996), or of what can be learned in rhetoric seminars. These

conceptions of rhetoric stand in stark contrast to “natural” talk. Instead, rhetoric is

conceived in its original sense of putting the effect of talk in the foreground. The question

under this perspective is: What is achieved through talk, what are people doing with their

talk? Under the resource perspective the question is: What discursive resources do people

draw on?

In the end, the functional/rhetorical question is the preferred one from a discourse

analytical view, because, according to the performative nature of language, it is the basic

DA question. Discursive resources, however, are not studied for their own sake. Discursive

resources are used and created interactively, as these entities only come into being through

language games (Mauws and Phillips 1995). Linguistic resources are not seen as fixed

entities with a firmly attached meaning. The question therefore is, how are people using the

discursive resources and what effects do they achieve thereby?

Both perspectives and the selected analytical tools for this study that correspond to

these perspectives are presented in the following.


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4.2.2 Resource level – interpretive repertoires

The guiding question within the resource perspective is, ‘what discursive resources do

participants employ in collaboration?’

A discourse analytic tool focusing on the resource level is the concept of interpretive

repertoires. The term “interpretative repertoire”2 was first introduced by Gilbert and

Mulkay (1984) and was imported into social psychology by Potter and Wetherell (Edley

2001). Interpretive repertoires are general explanatory resources upon which people can

draw to construct discourse, versions of events, persons, internal processes etc., and to

perform other particular actions (Potter and Wetherell 1995). They are the building blocks

through which people perform identities and social life in interaction (Wetherell 2006).

Potter defines interpretive repertoires as a “systematically related sets of terms, often used

with stylistic and grammatical coherence, and often organized around one or more central

metaphors” (1996: 116). Another definition reads: “An interpretative repertoire is a

culturally familiar and habitual line of argument comprised of recognizable themes,

common places and tropes” (Wetherell 1998: 400). Interpretive repertoires as “broadly

discernible clusters of terms” and “figures of speech” (Potter and Wetherell 1995: 89)

include key values, certain premises, explanations, evaluations and can serve as a rationale

within the rhetoric process.

To put it more simply, interpretative repertoires can be seen as distinctive and

“relatively coherent ways of talking about objects and events in the world” (Edley 2001:

198, 202).

The repertoires “comprise members’ methods for making sense” in their context

(Wetherell 1998: 400) through the way concepts, claims, values, principles and rules are

systematically related according to a certain inherent logic. Interpretative repertoires are

“part and parcel of any community’s common sense, providing a base for shared social

understanding” (Edley 2001: 198). A repertoire constitutes a specific ‘logic’ in that it

comprises basic assumptions, often about constraints, problems and their solutions around

an issue. This implies a logic of accountability through which the responsibility for the

problem and for its solution is located (cf. Wetherell and Potter 1988). Interpretive

repertoires come to play in particular around controversial issues (Wetherell 2006).

Having identified the repertoires, the question remains how interpretive repertoires as

devices are played out in a discourse. Despite the “strong concern with content in the

traditional sense” in the work on interpretive repertoires, “the focus is on the kinds of

2 also labelled “interpretive repertoire”, see for example Wood and Kroger (2000)


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functions such repertoires perform, on the actions that they enable or constrain” (Wood and

Kroger 2000: 109). Speakers use the repertoires to perform their actions in context and to

position themselves in interaction. The repertoires provide or suggest certain positions.

They “are the common sense which organizes accountability and serves as a back-cloth for

the realization of locally managed positions in actual interaction”. It is from this common

sense that “accusations and justifications can be launched” (Wetherell 1998: 400, 401). If

they are culturally familiar, they are a very effective means for rhetorical performances.

With only a fragment of the repertoire, speakers can invoke the relevant context of

argumentation for their listeners with its respective premises, claims and counter-claims

(Wetherell 1998). Such a fragment may provide “an adequate basis for the participants to

jointly recognize and sometimes resist and challenge the version of the world that is

developing” (Wetherell 2006: 155).

From a wide range of interpretive repertoires, people can select those that fit in their

current context and serve their performative purposes. Ordinary language can therefore be

used flexibly, and provides a set of potentials for action (Potter and Wetherell 1995). With

interpretive repertoires, discursive resources are provided which make certain activities

possible while they constrain others. At the same time, as they are used in interaction, they

are subject to amendments.

Considering the wider ideological effects similar to a Foucauldian analysis,

interpretive repertoires can be investigated for how they are used to sustain specific social

practices (Potter and Wetherell 1994). Edley explains how ideology is conceived in the DA

perspective: “in becoming native speakers” in a distinct way of talking, “people are enticed

or encultured into particular, even partial, ways of understanding the world. In short, they

are committed or tied to the concept of ideology” (2001: 202). In this context he points out

that interpretive repertoires are often used in much the same way as ‘discourses’ (in the

plural). Watson for example uses ‘discourse’ “in the sense of a connected set of statements,

concepts, terms and expressions which constitutes a way of talking or writing about a

particular issue, thus framing the way people understand and act with respect to that issue”

(compare also Burr 1995: 48f; Watson 1995: 816). In this sense, interpretive repertoires are

used as alternative term for ‘discourses’ (Burr 1995: 176). The difference which sometimes

surfaces is due to distinct disciplines within DA, the latter is adopted more by a Foucauldian

perspective, emphasising the operation of power and tending to view people, if anything, as

subjectified. In contrast, interpretative repertoires are taken to be “less monolithic”, “much

smaller and more fragmented, offering speakers a whole range of different rhetorical

opportunities” and therefore place “more emphasis on human agency” (Edley 2001: 202).


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For proponents of the more ‘agency-prone’ approach, it is exactly this flexibility in

argumentation that is crucially important to ideological effectiveness (Wetherell and Potter

1988).

These considerations are intended to make clear that, in discourse analysis, the

resource perspective is never detached from the performative function. In particular, the

rhetorical branch of discursive psychology focuses on the performative function of

discourse.

4.2.3 Interactive, functional level – rhetorical perspective

Here, the main questions are ‘What are people doing with their talk?’ and ‘What

effects do they achieve with the use of their discursive resources in collaboration?’

Discourse analysis focuses on text and talk as social practice and in social practice and

therefore on its “essential and inescapable ‘action orientation’” (Heritage 1984; in

Wetherell and Potter 1988: 168). The interest is in how people discursively orient or relate

towards each other and how they position themselves and others to achieve specific ends, in

short, how utterances are organised rhetorically (Billig 1996). This means looking at the

functioning of utterances and how they are interlocked.

The rhetorical approach is especially enlightening in conflictive contexts: “Rhetorical

analysis has been particularly helpful in highlighting the way people’s versions of actions,

features of the world, of their own mental life, are designed to counter real or potential

alternatives” (Potter and Wetherell 1995: 82, emphasis added). In Billig’s rhetorical

approach the emphasis is on the “generally argumentative nature of discourse, that is, the

way it is oriented (not necessarily explicitly) to other versions or claims” (Wood and Kroger

2000: 199). The main function is seen in achieving persuasiveness. Billig revived

Aristotle’s, Cicero’s, Pareto’s and especially Protagoras’ notions in explaining the rhetorical

or argumentative organization of utterances with basically two opposing spirits: the spirit of

identification and the spirit of contradiction (Billig 1996). The two main rhetorical thrusts

are criticising/countering and justifying. The emphasis is on countering and undermining

real or potential competing alternatives. According to Billig, the two performances or

“opposing spirits” are

• Making an argumentative case and justifying it (defensive rhetoric),

positioning oneself in identity

• Challenging or undermining alternative cases (offensive rhetoric),

positioning oneself contradictorily

The significant thing about such a conception is that it is not concerned with

categorising a specific utterance per se, but that with a single utterance co-vibrates its


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complement, the “positions which are being criticised, or against which a justification is

being mounted” (Watson 1995: 807). According to the relational or dialogical creation of

meaning, the utterance is oriented towards its supplement and is therefore inherently

interactive. The meaning of a rhetorical move or statement does “not merely reside in the

words employed, but it also takes its force from the rhetorical context” (Billig 1996: 278).

The meaning of an utterance therefore cannot be seen in isolation. It is always embedded in

an ongoing process of conversation: It refers to previous utterances: picking them up, being

triggered by those, being called into action by them. The utterance is embedded by its

context, e.g. previous utterances and following utterances, which offers possibilities for its

meaning. Meaning is crafted interactionally and remains fluid, open and ambiguous.

Billig’s version of the rhetorical organisation of discourse implies constituting

interaction as competitive. Other authors offer a more dialogic understanding of discourse.

Utterances are then also understood as inherently interactive, but not necessarily in a

defensive or offensive sense. For example discursive moves or strategies may also orient

towards exploring (Dewulf 2006) or reconciling (Maguire and Hardy 2006) competing

discourses, therefore enacting a cooperative rather than adversarial mode of relating.

4.3 Key theoretical concepts

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is conceived as being full of tensions and dilemmas,

indeed as inherently paradoxical. Furthermore, collaboration involving divergent stakes is

highly political, and power aspects cannot be ignored. Both paradox, tension and dilemma

on the one hand, and power and stake on the other hand are key theoretical concepts for this

study and must therefore be described briefly.

4.3.1 Paradox, tension, dilemma as invitation to act

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is founded on a fundamental paradox. On the one

hand it brings together diverse stakeholders because of their diverse interests, views,

expertise and resources, on the other hand precisely those divergent and potentially

contradictory interests engender different goals and purposes with which the stakeholders

approach the collaborative venture. The inherent diversity is in need of some form of

coordination and ‘organisation’ in order to achieve a joint process. Collaboration is

therefore characterised by the countervailing tendencies of divergence and convergence and

hence constitutes a continuous ‘juggling act’ (Hardy et al. 2006). Within the literature, the


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notions of paradox, dilemma and tension are not clearly separated.3 From a social

constructionist view with an emphasis on multiple (and often incompatible) meanings, they

are all unavoidable as they pervade social and organisational life.

The notion of paradox has a long history in rhetorical and philosophical studies. For

logicians, paradox has a specialised and strict meaning: a logical paradox consists of two

contrary or even contradictory propositions each of which is incontestable (Poole and Van

de Ven 1989). For rhetorical scholars, paradox “designates a trope which presents an

opposition between two accepted theses” (Poole and Van de Ven 1989: 563). For this study,

paradox is used in a “lay-sense” of challenging contradictions, oppositions and tensions that

occur in practice (and Beech et al. 2004; in line with Poole and Van de Ven 1989: 563). For

my purpose, a paradox is characterized by the simultaneous presence of contradictory yet

interrelated elements (drawing on Cameron and Quinn 1988; cf. Clegg, da Cunha and

Cunha 2002).

Billig offers a rhetorical conception of dilemmas especially suitable for the discourse

analytic approach. Dilemmas occur through rival values, principles or common-places

which might be applied to a situation. Controversies emerge about the interpretation or

about the appropriate application of those values and principles to the situation at hand

(Billig 1996). Dilemmas are conceived on the interactive/social level. Hence, Billig

conceives them as social dilemmas (1996), or ideological dilemmas (1988). Dilemmas are

pervasive and unavoidable, as a multiplicity of values and contrariety between values

prevails. “Social dilemmas are not unfortunate accidents, but are an inevitable consequence

of there being principles or values”. Drawing on Pareto, Billig states that “each principle

needs to be held in check by the countervailing force of contrary principles”. Billig, 1996

(1996) An ideological dilemma traces back to ‘lived ideologies’, “composed of the beliefs,

values and practices of a given society or culture”, which can be conceptualised as

consisting of diverse interpretive repertoires (Edley 2001). The lived ideologies are

dilemmatic, inconsistent, fragmented and contradictory.

3 What follows from comparing the two articles by Beech and colleagues (Beech, Burns, de Caestecker et al. 2004;

Huxham and Beech 2003) is that it is much more important to distinguish the perspective taken on these three terms

tension, paradox, dilemma than to distinguish the terms themselves. In the earlier article on tensions (Huxham and

Vangen 2003), the authors conceptualise “multiple interacting tensions” as “multiple dilemmas” or “dilemmas,

trilemmas and multilemmas across many dimensions”. Furthermore, they distinguish the paradox theories from their

tension theory because paradox theories would privilege one side of the paradox over the other and would strive for

synthesis or resolution of the paradox. In the later article on paradox (Beech et al. 2004) the authors follow Poole and

Van de Ven’s (1989) classification in four options for addressing paradoxes, whereby option 1 resembles the tensions

conceptualisation of the earlier article and the other three options match the paradox theories that were marked off from

this conceptualisation of tensions.


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Referring to management practice and good practice advice, Huxham and Beech

(2003: 74, 81) use the notion of tension as the choice between alternative (i.e. mutually

exclusive) forms of management practice.

The definitions are similar or overlapping. The literature differs much more on how

the paradoxes, dilemmas or tensions are best dealt with. Huxham and Beech (2003) noticed

that mostly, the approaches aim to ‘resolve’ the paradox or seek win-win outcomes (e.g.

Lewis 2000). Drawing on Knights (1997) they criticise the dualist approaches for inevitably

privileging one side of the tension, and that pluralist approaches tend to reconcile the poles,

whereby this new, reconciled perspective is then again privileged over each side of the

tension. According to Poole and Van de Ven, two strategies for dealing with paradox are

aimed at resolving the paradox through spatial or temporal separation, whereby spatial

means situating the two oppositions at different levels or locations in the social world. A

further strategy attempts to resolve the paradox through a new perspective which eliminates

the opposition, whereby the new perspective is achieved through synthesis. All three in

effect do reduce, collapse or displace the paradox. What happens, though, is that often other

problems are introduced (Beech et al. 2004). The fourth, and for this study most interesting

strategy is “to accept the paradox and learn to live with it” (Poole and Van de Ven 1989:

566). However, this does not mean ignoring the paradox. Rather, the contrast of the

opposition is appreciated and the implications of the paradox are pursued actively (Poole

and Van de Ven 1989). Hence, for this thesis, paradox, dilemma and tension is understood

as invitation to act (Beech et al. 2004). Instead of removing, resolving or denying the

existence of paradox, the paradox could be ‘kept open’ for ‘working with or through it’

(ibid. 1314). This way, “the paradoxical dimensions of experience are created and recreated

in different patterns of interacting. In keeping paradox open, action can be seen as an

essentially creative or transformative phenomenon” (ibid. 1315). Beech and colleagues

explore the experience and consequences of keeping the paradox open by conceptualizing

dealing with paradox as ‘serious play’ (after Gergen 1992). Serious playfulness invites

purposeful action which expresses emotion, not simply rationality, which challenges rules in

a creative manner, which plays between multiple meanings by taking advantage of

ambiguity and which experiments with boundaries. Transforming or ‘moving on’ a paradox

through action prevents the collaboration from being blocked by the paradox (Beech et al.

2004). This might also entail transforming it into a different tension, as multiple tensions are

interacting. The tensions and paradoxes are often multi-dimensional in the sense that they

are interrelated or that they ‘pull’ in many directions (Huxham and Beech 2003). This

interrelatedness and fluidity is also acknowledged in the discursive, rhetorical approach,

where it is seen as fostering (discursive) activity. The indeterminate exchange of opposing,


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contradictive or inconsistent positions is seen as enabling creativity. Billig and colleagues

(1988) claim that it is the productive tensions which stimulate an ongoing discursive activity

itself (cf. Edley 2001: 204).

4.3.2 Power as enacted in relations

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is deeply suffused with power. From a discursive

perspective, power is conceived as privileging and silencing of particular discourses. Or, in

an even more general sense, as continuously re-enacted relations that enable some actions

and constrain others (Feldman et al. 2006; after Latour 1986)4. Discourses and discursive

resources, like interpretive repertoires, create the ideas, relationships, categories and

theories through which people understand the world and relate to each other. Discourse

shapes how we can speak about and act upon a domain of objects, whereby certain

outcomes and possibilities are realised rather than others. These outcomes and possibilities

again privilege certain actors at the expense of others. Actors can therefore actively engage

in creating meanings that may privilege their position (Maguire and Hardy 2006). This

privileging and silencing respectively enabling and constraining is situated in context and is

never absolute, as meanings can and will be contested. Power is not conceptualized as

something participants have, but rather as something they are enacting in situ, and which

may therefore shift continually.

Hence, this study does not focus on power differences between stakeholders for their

own sake. Rather, the analysis traces how power is enacted in the relations between the

stakeholders (cf. Dewulf et al. 2004). Power is studied as occurring at the micro-level (the

level of interaction), focusing on how it is produced through (discursive) actions.

Within discursive psychology, a useful approach for studying power as enacted in

relating can be pursued by using the positioning theory, developed by Harré and colleagues

(Davies and Harré 1990; Harré and Moghaddam 2003; Harré and van Langenhove 1991;

Harré et al. 1999). The notion of positioning is inherently relational and was introduced to

the social sciences by Hollway (1984), having its origins in the field of marketing where

products get ‘placed’ amongst competing products through certain communication

strategies. In any social episode, the ‘position’ enables some actions and constrains others.

The positions and how they are related are produced discursively and may shift continually.

4 Latour and also Feldman et al. use the term “associations” instead of “relations”, the use of the original term would

require the description of the whole actor network theory (ANT) with one of its core characteristics, the relevance of

things within social relations. In ANT, things, nature and technology are also considered to have agency, whereas some

varieties of discourse analysis can justifiably be criticised for neglecting their relevance. Although I prefer not to

introduce too many terms and theories, I am still borrowing the definition. I’m not interested in discourse per se but in

discourse in interaction, an interaction that also takes into account the relevance of material aspects, especially for this

case dealing with social and environmental concerns around the natural resource freshwater.


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Based on the premise that meanings are not fixed, as everything in the social world is to

some extent indeterminate, positioning is a procedure of making meaning, at least

momentarily, determinate (van Langenhove and Harré 1999). Indeed, only momentarily, as

“the flow of interaction variously troubles and untroubles these positions” through patterns

like formulation – counter-formulation – resisting the counter-formulation (Wetherell 1998).

Harré (2006) uses the concept of ‘positions’ as patterns of a local moral order with its

specific distribution of rights and duties, suggesting some actions while limiting others.

Depending on the distribution of rights and duties, or benefits and responsibilities, some are

more advantageously positioned than others. Within any discourse, meaningful, legitimate

and powerful positions are distributed in specific ways (Hardy et al. 2005). Moreover, the

capacity of positioning as “mastery of technique” (Harré and van Langenhove 1991) with

the aim of shifting or stabilizing positions differs. The distribution of rights and duties or the

like – the management of accountability – is continuously re-enacted as participants may

acquiesce or challenge, contest, subvert or transform the positionings (Davies and Harré

1999; Harré and van Langenhove 1999), thereby shifting the possibilities of action.

4.3.3 Stakes and interests as discursively negotiated reasons for action

The participants in an MSP are stakeholders, those with a stake or interest in a certain

issue. They act within a political arena, that is, an arena where interests are pursued and

negotiated. Within the theoretical perspective of this study, a stake or interest is not seen as

prior or causal to stakeholders’ activities. Stake/interest is enacted in stakeholders’

utterances and practices. Interests provide reasons for (in-)action, however not in a causal

or determinate sense. Acting in one’s interest means achieving effects which benefits or

privileges the actor in some way. In this regard, interests provide assessable reasons for

action (Lawrence et al. 1999). Concepts such as ‘interest’, ‘stake’, ‘intention’ or ‘role’ of a

stakeholder are not viewed as internal, hidden events or things which are “determinant of

the particulars of social interaction, we see them as constructed in and through the

discourse” (Wood and Kroger 2000: 105, 14). Interests and stakes therefore “emerge out of

the discursive processes that constitute the context in which collaboration occurs” and

“cannot stand outside of the context in which they are situated” (Lawrence et al. 1999: 491).

As “elements of discursive availability” (Clegg 1989: 181) they can be used by actors to

achieve beneficial or privileging effects regarding their own position. Rather than being

objectively defined, interests and stakes are discursively negotiated. In this sense, the

criterion of ‘assessability’ also needs to be understood: the assessment of participants’

interests is essentially indeterminate but subject to negotiation. This is of significance

especially because interests are often formulated by others for an individual or a stakeholder


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group (Lawrence et al. 1999). Generally “people treat each other, and various kinds of

collectivities, as agents who have a stake or interest in their actions” (Potter and Wetherell

1995: 82).

4.4 Methodological implications

What has been elaborated so far, the discourse analytical approach and its

epistemological foundation, has specific implications on data collection and analysis, on the

researcher’s role and on warranting the analysis. The methodology takes into account that

collaboration is regarded as discursive achievement. The focus of the study is organizational

interaction through language: on the discursive creation of collaboration and on the way

participants discursively deal with emerging tensions (which are also produced

discursively).

4.4.1 Data collection

4.4.1.1 Selection of the case

The sampling process for the study began with the choice of this specific multi-

stakeholder process and its convening organisation, the Stakeholder Forum. I found the

Implementation Conference Process through a web-search inspired by Gergen’s (1995)

article on corporate ethical leadership, presented as answer to the criticism of globalised

business expansion. Gergen studied the ethical potentials of relational practices drawing on

the case of a multi-national pharmaceutical corporation. These ethically generative practices

were enacted through dialogic processes and stakeholder collaboration, serving to integrate

multiple voices. Years later, the same corporation happened to collaborate with Stakeholder

Forum5 on a multi-stakeholder project

6 preceding the IC process (Enayati and Hemmati

2002).

Starting from a general interest in dialogical forms of relating on the one hand and in

the societal embeddedness of the business sector and the relations between corporations and

other societal stakeholders on the other hand, Stakeholder Forum’s website on Multi-

Stakeholder Processes7 was very appealing to me. In contrast to other multi-stakeholder

activities found by catchword search, they attracted my attention through the importance

they attach to communication and process design: valuable information on these issues is

offered, including their book on MSPs. Furthermore, I wanted to study a multi-stakeholder

5 that time: UNED Forum

6 www.earthsummit2002.org/msp/workshop.html

7 www.earthsummit2002.org/msp/


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process which was not convened by a company, since my interest was in societal

stakeholders (including companies) rather than in stakeholders centred around a company in

Freeman’s (1984) sense. Fortunately, the interest in the MSP research was mutual, and so I

got in contact with my ‘gate-keeper’, the convener of the IC process, who gave me the

opportunity to attend the conferences.

4.4.1.2 Selection of the data

The selection of the data needs to yield enough material to gain a sufficiently

comprehensive understanding of the process and to grasp the processual character of the

case.

Entering the field and collecting the data

I entered the process, which had been running since the end of 2001, about half-way

through in spring 2002. During the second half I participated in the main preparatory

conferences and the final Implementation Conference at the WSSD in August 2002 (see

Appendix). Apart from a few informative and exploratory phone-calls, I had to work myself

into and gain a basic understanding of this new field by studying a lot quantity of

documents and websites. As a participant I entered the process at the PrepCom III in New

York. This conference served as my first orientation: the Stakeholder Forum team and I got

to know each other, and I was immersed in the UN conference sphere. In the basement of

the UN headquarters I listened to various meetings of PrepCom III, most of which were not

related to the Implementation Conference Process but formed its background. Having

gained an initial overall impression of the IC process, I chose, in consultation with my

gatekeeper8, to follow the Freshwater Issue strand

9 and later the specific action plan group. I

attended and taped the main preparatory events (three conferences, one telephone

conference and some smaller meetings) up to the three-day final IC event. Together with the

convener I selected the specific action plan group within the issue strand ‘Freshwater’ – the

multi-stakeholder review of water and sanitation supply strategies – because of the civil

society – business interface, which seemed to come to bear most strongly here.10

The

expectation was that the diversity of stakeholders was particularly high – which was not the

case in the end, however. Furthermore, the issue strand ‘Freshwater’ seemed to develop the

strongest – though vividly discussed – group identity. Additionally, a more practical

8 one of the two IC coordinators

9 out of the four issue strands ‘Freshwater’, ‘Energy’, ‘Health’ and ‘Food Security’

10 For the same reason I was originally most interested in the fifth issue strand “corporate citizenship / corporate

accountability” which was then dropped.


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consideration was data availability, meaning that with the Freshwater IAG I could attend

more meetings than with other issue strands.

Data sampling strategies

The multi-stakeholder collaboration, conceived as a processual achievement, has been

studied over time, crystallising in several meetings, conference events and rolling

documents. Due to the processual character of the case study, in which I followed a

sequence of different events in a highly complex setting, a huge amount of data accrued.

The collected and available material comprises documents (produced by the Stakeholder

Forum, by participants and by other organisations in the context), correspondence,

participation, taped and thoroughly transcribed meetings and 13 interviews.

Ultimately, I concentrated on the collected data that was ‘naturally occurring’ in the

ethnographic sense (Marshall and Rossman 1989), the meeting transcripts and the

documents. Data generated in response to the interviews (researcher-elicited data)

engenders different methodological considerations. Moreover, even greater care must be

taken with regard to protecting the participants’ anonymity. Therefore, and admittedly also

because of the sheer amount of material, I chose not to take them into the analytical focus

and limit their use to enhance my contextual understanding.

I attempted to carry out some data sampling through cluster formation, and therefore

also by excluding what might be less relevant. In a first attempt, I planned to focus on the

transcripts of two preparatory meetings, which were very distinct in character, and of the

final three-day conference event. The further data and documents should have served as

context data. Then, as I gave more importance to the processual aspects of organising the

collaborative process, it became clear that I needed all the data I could get from the whole

course of the process in order to make sense of it. After I had gained sufficient overview

over the course of the process, I expected to eliminate certain blocks of data from the huge

amount of transcripts, reports etc. This was planned to happen at an early stage of the

analysis for reasons of simplification and focus. But this also turned out to be inadequate:

due to the strongly processual nature of the analysis, I could not discard things because I

needed to retrace in detail what the participants were referring to (see more below, in the

section ‘data analysis’). Even though the reports and emails were of major importance for

making sense of the process and also for analysis, the meeting transcripts were the preferred

source of material for capturing the richness and variety of available repertoires and the use

of rhetorical strategies in detail.

A note of caution needs to be sounded concerning the retrospective view on the

meetings which took place before I entered the process. The data available in the form of

minutes and notes are, strictly speaking, not appropriate for DA. This kind of ‘second hand’


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data is generally not considered as ‘valid’ discourse data. Discourse analysis depends very

much on the exact formulation of language as it was uttered. It is not possible to derive from

minutes how exactly something was discursively achieved in this meeting. However, they

were necessary in order to reconstruct what was going on in the process as a whole. The

minutes and notes that are taken up in the process constitute a different case, however: these

constitute text-in-use within the IC process. They can then be analyzed in their situational

function as minutes taken up in the process, but not as representing what was going on in

the meeting to which the notes refer.

4.4.2 Data analysis

Here in the research report, the structure of the research proceedings suggests a linear

course of action for reasons of clarity. The linear description does not match the actual

proceedings, though. Rather, it was a process of continuously adapting the methodological

proceedings. The research approach was deeply grounded in and guided by the empirical

material. Before entering the field, the discourse analytic approach with its epistemological

underpinnings and my topical interest in dialogic/collaborative processes dealing with a

business – civil society interface was predefined. The selection of the concrete analytical

tools – interpretive repertoires and rhetorical moves and strategies as discursive devices –

was then elaborated in a continuous interplay between data and theoretical concepts and

therefore to a sufficient extent then guided by the data (Wood and Kroger 2000).

The ‘grounded’ approach was also indicated because only very few previous studies

on discursive resources and moves in the concrete interactive settings of a multi-stakeholder

process existed. I fully concur with Dewulf (2006: 166) who suggests that a reason for this

may be that studying multi-actor contexts is very demanding, “as issues are ambiguous,

structures are in-the-making and outcomes are moving targets” or, simply stated, because

multi-actor collaboration is extremely messy. Furthermore, studying the participants’

discursive activities is very time-consuming, as it requires attention to detail on multiple

levels. For the same reasons it is also very difficult to reduce the focus of analysis at an

early point of the research. In retrospect I understand very well why similar research in the

literature has commonly been conducted by research teams rather than by a single

researcher, as more resources would seem better matched to the messiness and the sheer

size of such projects.


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4.4.2.1 Participants’ meanings and analytical concepts

Discourse analysis involves a continuous interplay between the data and our notions of

it. Discourse analysis focuses on participants’ meanings. At the same time analysts have to

recognise that the way we see the world is constructed by our own concepts (Wood and

Kroger 2000). In the attempt to be guided by participants’ meaning, the analyst is asking to

what participants orient and attend (cf. Wood and Kroger 2000). Analyzing discourse

therefore does not mean claiming to know a certain and fixed meaning of what other people

have said. It is rather pointing at possible meanings, since “discourse can have multiple

functions or meanings” (Wood and Kroger 2000: 29), and “meaning can never be finally

fixed; it is always in flux, unstable and precarious” (Wetherell 1998: 393).

Opinions differ about the extent to which analysis can actually be based on

participants’ meanings. It is also in this respect that discursive psychology is located in

between conversation analysis and post-structuralist versions of discourse analysis, like

critical discourse analysis (see above). Some conversation analysts seem to have little

problem with this epistemological question. Analysts merely need to be well-trained to treat

the material “in an unmotivated way” (see also Edwards 1997; Sacks 1984; in Wood and

Kroger 2000: 107). However, Billig (1999) questions this assumption: the rules, premises

and technical terms of CA, as pure as it sounds, are quite a specific way of treating the data.

In contrast, post-structuralist-inspired discourse analytic work often applies precast

sociological categories, for example power structures, to the data. As an unavoidable

epistemological issue, analysis can never be purely grounded in the data and free from

previous theoretical conceptions. Hence, the art of using theoretical concepts lies in

attending to them without being overly constrained by these notions. Rather than applying

categories to the discourse in a mechanical way, as analysts we need to deploy them as

‘sensitizing concepts’ (Blumer 1954) In this sense, analytical concepts “can suggest what to

look for and help us to interpret what we see” (Wood and Kroger 2000: 99).

The identification of how exactly the concepts of (fruitful) collaboration and dilemmas

are endowed and what exactly the repertoires will comprise as well as the specific rhetorical

forms of relating is guided by the data, as working with these concepts cannot be transferred

from other research case examples but needs to be tailored to this specific case.


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4.4.2.2 ‘Doing context’

Within DA, context is a problematic notion, at least as long as it is taken as a given.

With its literal meaning – what is ‘with’ the ‘text’ – it refers to what immediately occurs

before and after a specified text as well as to the broader situational background or

environment relevant to some specific interaction. Hence, context is always shifting,

depending on what is defined as text or as relevant (Wood and Kroger 2000). This is why

Wood and Kroger prefer to think of context as activity, in the sense that the question of

studying context is not what is with the text but what is put with the text. They refer to the

Latin origin of the word contexere, to weave together. Here also the basic DA question

applies: what is being done with statements about context? This is a matter for both

participants and analysts. Participants orient to context, make context relevant and construct

context. Analysts use context to understand and discuss analysis. In line with Wood and

Kroger and the more general DA focus on participants’ meanings, context in the analysis is

described according to what participants include as context and how they draw distinctions.

What is studied is what is made relevant by participants. The context categories exist as they

are worked up and attended to in the participants’ talk under analysis. A large section of the

analysis (chapter 5) is headed ‘constructing the relations to the context’, whereby the

context forms the ‘domain’ of the collaboration (see chapter 3). Firstly, the context itself is

not part of the analysis, only the relations which are constructed by the participants, and

secondly – in line with DA principles – the context is not treated as a given but

reconstructed according to how it is invoked by the participants. However, for analysing as

well as for presenting the analysis it is also necessary to refer to further sources for

understanding and explaining the background (especially for the type II discussions and the

public-private divide). Referring to further sources for reasons of understanding is

especially important as I as researcher was not at all familiar with this new context.

4.4.2.3 Transcription

According to the discourse analytic emphasis on detail and completeness, it is

necessary to transcribe the data at least verbatim, but also to go beyond mere orthographic

representation by also including paralinguistic aspects like pauses, overlaps, interruptions,

emphases, speed, loudness, laughter and so on. I transcribed the tapes according to a

simplified version of the Jefferson system (see Atkinson and Heritage 1984) which was

developed for conversation analysis but is increasingly used also for other varieties of

discourse analysis.

A special challenge was posed by the meeting situation where people often talked at

once or where the talk was interrupted by coughs or rustlings from other participants and


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also by the highly specialised language. Furthermore, understanding the many participants

whose first language is not English was very demanding, especially for me as researcher

whose mother tongue is not English either. Although a thorough transcription is very time-

consuming, it is vital for DA as it enables the researcher to attend to the subtle variations in

language use and therefore to reconstruct how collaboration unfolds discursively. The

transcript also contains some non-verbal actions like decisive head shakings or the like

which I noted by hand if it seemed to be important for how the interaction unfolds.

Discourse analysis, albeit focusing on talk, is not dismissive of non-verbal actions, as what

is under study is language-as-action and language-in-action.

Not least because the transcribing process is so laborious, it can be seen as a

distinctive first stage of analysis (Wood and Kroger 2000). However, when I inserted the

extracts into the analysis report, I ‘pruned’ most of what goes beyond an ordinary

orthographic representation, as it turned out not to be very relevant as evidence for my

analysis claims. Moreover, the extra notations came across as rather irksome for the reader.

For me, the transcripts appeared too disfluent and in a way also very ‘unnatural’, as all the

repetitions and ‘uhs’ and ‘uhms’ seem much more pronounced than they do when listening

to the tape. In this way, for example, the transcript from speakers who use a lot of ‘uhs’ and

‘uhms’ would disadvantage them to a disproportionate extent. Since the transcription

process itself was so intense, I still vividly remembered and experienced the ‘sound’ and the

atmosphere even months and years later when reading the extracts again.

4.4.2.4 Data review and first sense-making of the process

The first round of analysis served mainly for an overall sense-making of the process. I

reconstructed how the process and themes developed over time, assembling and retracing

the different sources of material and the references to previous and following events. This

way I gained some sense of coherence and looked for what continued throughout the

process and what was dropped respectively. In this first stage, I also attended to the critical

trouble points, to enactments of power, as well as the specific role of the private sector.

A first system of categories emerged, with the content-oriented code families ‘actors’,

‘agency/power’, ‘process/relating’, ‘trouble points’ and ‘values/goals’. In parallel, I started

to analyse some meetings from the rhetorical perspective on a turn-by-turn basis, with the

aim of identifying each turn as a rhetorical move and, on a more abstract level, finding

larger patterns of interaction.

In a second step, I carved out the categories employed by the participants as they set

up the process, according to their core activities, main concerns and how they themselves

structured their material. The categories guided by participants’ meanings were


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‘selecting/defining the actors’, ‘defining the issue’, ‘setting the goal’, ‘defining the links to

the context’. These categories were evident in how they structured their documents and

meetings. The further categories ‘relating among each other’, ‘dealing with differences’ and

‘invoking power’ were made topical by participants in several instances. Again in parallel, I

used rhetorical categories like ‘criticising’, ‘suggesting alternatives / new practices’ or

‘prioritising’. A first version of dilemmas emerged, like ‘who is driving the process’ and

‘facilitating as leading vs. serving the participants’, ‘developing joint vision vs. concrete

action plans’ and ‘continuity vs. flexibility’.

Working with the text material was supported by software for grounded qualitative

analysis (ATLAS.ti). The software was used rather for placing ‘orientation markers’ in the

transcripts than for isolating and reassembling key sentences. I initially tried to do the latter,

but after some endless rearranging of relevant key sentences in tables it became clear that, in

order to grasp the processual character, utterances could not sensibly be detached as ‘text

snippets’ from their context. This is also why working with ATLAS.ti was useful mainly for

the first stage of the analysis. In the later stage I worked with the transcripts as a whole,

supported by the orientation markers.

4.4.2.5 Emergent framework

Starting from what I identified as participants’ categories, a framework of collective

identity formation emerged through continuous drafting and redrafting. The collective

identity is understood as centred around their common project, the implementation

conference process. This framework constitutes the final analytical categories and is only

briefly described in the following, as it is was already modelled in detail in the chapter 3 and

empirically filled in the analysis chapters (chapter 4 and 5). Oriented towards participants’

concerns, I carved out several core activities in the formation of what I comprised as

collaborative identity:

a) ‘relating to the context’ and ‘constructing the issue’ which together serve for

‘positioning the collaborative process within its domain’,

b) ‘relating among each other’ and, more particular, ‘dealing with controversies,

c) ‘driving the process’ which is connected to ‘relating among participants and

conveners’.

Especially in relation to their context (the official WSSD process and the activities of

other key stakeholders within the WSSD context), the participants used a lot of time to

discuss how they connect to and how they differentiate themselves from their context, and

what kind of interdependence they have with the context. The manner how the collaborators

are relating to the context shapes the boundary of the identity. Also regarding the main


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controversial issue, the public-private divide, the concern was strongly with boundary issues

– if the issue should be defined in such a way that the boundaries between sectors and stakes

are sharply defined or if they should better be blurred. The core activities that organise the

togetherness internally are subsumed under b) and c). The internal and external relations are

linked in particular through the construction of the issue.

Guided by participants’ core activities, their concern about boundary-setting and about

the recurring question of identity ‘who are we as a group?’, a collective identity framework

seemed to be most adequate to frame the empirical data.

4.4.2.6 Working with the theoretical concepts and methodological tools

In this section I will explain the way in which I work with the theoretical concepts and

methodological tools described above for analysing the data, and how the material is dealt

with to derive patterns and eventually claims concerning the strategies of dealing with

dilemmas in collaboration. The identification and interpretation of patterns in DA is

achieved by searching for systematic variability or similarity concerning the used resources

and the use of resources. This leads to the formation and checking of claims about functions

and effects through a search for evidence in the discourse (Potter and Wetherell 1987; Wood

and Kroger 2000). Variations provide an important lever for discourse analytic work.

“Discourse is constructed in the service of particular activities which lead to variation, and

that variation can, in turn, be used to help identify features of construction. This is probably

the single most important analytic principle in doing discourse analysis. Attention to

variation works on a range of different levels and senses” (Potter and Wetherell 1994: 55). It

is not only about “comparing actual variation but also potential variation” in the sense of

“why is the text this way and not that way? Why do these words or phrases appear rather

than others?” (Potter and Wetherell 1994: 56) These deliberations are based on a conception

of discourse as contingent and actively constructed. How variation is used for finding

patterns and eventually forming claims is explained more concretely in the section

‘interpretive repertoires’.


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Trouble Points, Tensions, Dilemmas and Paradoxes

Trouble points (Tracy and Ashcraft 2001) were used as a first indication of tensions

inherent in the process. They are straightforward to identify as they are marked by obvious

discussions, for example pro-/contra discussions, disagreement, anger or any kind of

difficulty. Also making something recurrently a subject of discussion or the recurring

questioning of a specific topic would mark a trouble point. According to the discursive

criterion of orienting at participants’ meanings, I identified trouble points as such when

participants treat some elements as incompatible through their talk. From a discursive view,

trouble points can be considered as interactive accomplishments. In order to reconstruct a

collaborative identity formation process, it is useful to start from trouble points, because

collective identity gets referenced when the internal relationships within the collaboration is

at issue (see chapter 3). While collaborative identity is being shaped in an ongoing process,

at the same time it acts as a resource for the stakeholders to address internal conflict among

members or differences in organizational interests or other kinds of trouble points that might

otherwise jeopardize the collaboration (Hardy et al. 200563).

On a more abstract level, I identified the tensions underlying the trouble points. Often

several trouble points related to the same tension. On an even more abstract level, I

attempted to understand the general paradox underlying the respective tensions. In sum, the

trouble points embody the dilemmatic/paradoxical tensions inherent in the formation of the

collaborative identity. Similar to Tracy and Ashcraft’s (Tracy and Ashcraft 2001) approach,

the dilemmas or paradoxes were derived and formulated inductively, in contrast to Billig’s

deductive approach (see above).

For example, a trouble point which emerged at a preparatory meeting was the issue of

the date and venue for the final IC conference. Participants were upset about the conveners’

suggestion to hold it several days ahead of the Summit. It was presented as impossible for

all the ‘key decision-makers’ to spend even more time in Johannesburg than the two weeks

reserved for the Summit. An underlying tension was between involving ‘key decision-

makers’ who, by nature, are always under time constraints, and who were also involved in

the official summit the following two weeks, and involving ‘grass-roots’, who might be less

involved in the official part anyway. A further concern was to link up with the ‘water

community’ in a common venue, which was countered by the concern to work closely

connected with the other issue strands of the IC. The underlying tension was between the

internal connectivity and the connectivity to the wider domain. Both tensions played a part

in what I then identified as basic paradox in relation to the context – the balance between

distinction and connectivity.


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Interpretive repertoires

Crystallising around trouble points, I identified divergent interpretive repertoires. I

clustered the key terms and arguments assembled around a specific trouble point according

to internal coherence within a specific repertoire and variation between the repertoires. The

search for systematic variability and similarity is facilitated by anchoring this search in the

identification of trouble points, as this is where inconsistencies come to play most

obviously. These “inconsistencies and differences in discourse are differences between

relatively internally consistent, bounded language units” – namely interpretative repertoires

(Wetherell and Potter 1988). Starting from the trouble point, the alternative or even rival

lines of arguments can be clustered with reference to this specific controversy or trouble

point. The cluster of each repertoire may comprise central terms, key values, metaphors,

rules, basic principles, basic assumptions, problems/constraints, solutions, accountabilities,

responsibilities, claims, arguments/rationales, and, not unimportantly, absences. The

elements are connected among each other according to an internal ‘logic’ of the repertoire.

In relation to the dilemmas underlying the trouble points, I identified two different

kinds of repertoires. The first kind is the repertoires which constitute the respective

contradictory poles of the dilemma. The dilemma is then defined as contradictory and

mutually counterbalancing repertoires. This conception draws on Edley (2001) who draws a

connection between the rhetorical organisation of discourse, interpretive repertoires and

Billig et al.’s (1988) ideological dilemmas. He sees the presence of an ideological dilemma

enacted in people’s switching between contradictory interpretive repertoires or ‘common-

places’. Edley describes interpretive repertoires as constructed rhetorically in that different

ways of talking about an event or object “develop together as opposing positions in an

unfolding, historical, argumentative exchange” (2001: 204). In the case at hand, this way of

conceptualising the relation between interpretive repertoires and dilemmas is used for the

study of ‘who is driving the process’ in terms of leadership and ownership, whether it is a

stakeholder-driven or convener-driven process. Or, formulated from the conveners’

perspective – whether they should rather enact a facilitative or restrictive leadership mode.

Later in the analysing process, I developed a second way of conceptualising repertoires in

relation to dilemmas. Here, the repertoires constitute different ways of dealing with the

dilemma. This conceptualisation of repertoires was used to answer the questions ‘how do

the collaborating stakeholders position themselves towards their context’ and ‘how do they

relate among each other’. Each repertoire in itself then contained a specific way of dealing

with the dilemmas ‘creating distinction and connectivity towards the context’ and

‘integrating diversity while focusing on concrete action’. To clarify the differences: by

using the first conceptualisation, the respective repertoires would be something like ‘we are


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distinct to our context in that we are innovative’ and ‘our project is characterised through

close embeddedness in and good connections to the official context’. Or, regarding the other

dilemma, ‘integrating diversity is our first priority’ and ‘our first priority is to agree on a

joint, concrete goal’.

Issue constructions

Regarding the collaborative core activity ‘defining the issue’, issue constructions were

identified for the IC project as a whole and for the action plan of the multi-stakeholder

review in particular. With regard to the former, there was largely convergence, whereas the

latter was characterised by a fierce struggle, forming a significant trouble point. Here,

instead of focusing on repertoires, I identified three competing ‘issue constructions’ or

‘issue accounts’, two adversarial and one ‘in between’. According to Lawrence, Phillips and

Hardy, an issue is an account “that constructs the world as problematic and as requiring

action” (Lawrence et al. 1999: 489). An issue construction consists of a number of

interrelated issue elements. When they construct an issue, speakers stress certain aspects

while they downplay others. Hence, people assemble specific issue elements and relate them

in a specific way (e.g. by establishing certain cause-effect, means-ends or condition-

consequence patterns) to form a meaningful whole. They do so with a rhetorical orientation

in order to suggest or avoid certain implications of these constructions, like distributing

blame or responsibility (Dewulf 2006). Hence the constructions imply certain ways of

positioning (see above).

To argue for specific issue constructions in the interactive issue development process,

however, various repertoires regarding organising societal relations were invoked. To

clarify the different concepts: the repertoires used in this study refer to relational aspects

(the relations to the context, the relations among the participating stakeholders, the relations

between participants and conveners and the broader societal relations), whereas the issue

accounts are much more content-focused. The competing issue accounts are constituted by

the specific conflict, or, vice versa, the conflict is constituted by the opposing issue

accounts. The issue accounts are closely connected to the enactment of stakes, because the

discursive construction of the issue produces an account of the world that demands some

sort of action. Hence the stake or interest connects the issue to the stakeholders by

articulating how change might affect those involved (Lawrence et al. 1999).

The various interpretive repertoires can be used to advance a certain issue construction

or stake. However, it is difficult to keep those different concepts disentangled, as the

relating is also sometimes at ‘issue’ and the issue constructions entail relational aspects,

especially as they are used rhetorically to position the various stakeholders in a specific

way.


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Rhetorical moves and strategies

The rhetorical perspective addresses the functions and effects people achieve with

their talk. Rhetorical moves are identified on a turn-by-turn basis. They are ‘smaller’

rhetorical devices than strategies. Rhetorical strategies are more abstract than rhetorical

moves and may consist of a whole chain of rhetorical moves. The question with strategies is

what people achieve with their talk over a larger episode of the process. Also the interactive

use of the interpretive repertoires is studied as rhetorical strategy, since the question is what

people are doing with invoking a specific repertoire. Furthermore, the analyst should ask on

what occasions and for what purposes do they oscillate between the different interpretive

repertoires?

In most cases, functions cannot be straightforwardly identified (Wetherell and Potter

1988). Generally, utterances can have multiple functions, they are rarely explicit and readily

available for analysis, and the functions may depend on the level which is referred to,

ranging from the next turn (e.g. demanding an answer) to wider purposes like ideological

effects. This means that, in analysing functions, interpretation is immediately involved and

the discourse analytic task is to develop hypotheses about the functions, purposes and

consequences of utterances: “The elucidation of function is one of the endpoints of

discourse analysis. That is, functions are the findings rather than the raw data” (Wetherell

and Potter 1988: 170). As one possible method for revealing functions, Wetherell and Potter

suggest again the study of variation: “by identifying variation, which is a comparatively

straightforward analytic task, we can work towards an understanding of function. We can

predict that certain kinds of function will lead to certain kinds of variation and we can look

for those variations” (Wetherell and Potter 1988: 170f).

That functions usually cannot be straightforwardly identified was one of the first

lessons in the beginning of the analysis. In the first runs, I tried to identify the discursive

function of each turn, in relation to the preceding and the next turn, similar to conversation

analysis. What I was able to extract from that were very obvious turn-by-turn functions like

questioning, informing, criticising, confirming, prioritising and the like. This was not much

help for making sense of the process as a whole. Moreover, often I could not identify the

function just from looking at the preceding or the next turn, as participants naturally

oriented to talk that had happened much earlier or to things in the context which I could not

trace back, and usually they oriented to numerous aspects at once. When I got to know the

data and the context better, it was then mostly possible to trace back participants’

references. However, a certain degree of indeterminacy remains, as this is an inherent

feature of discourse. With the emergence of collaborative identity framework and the focus

on trouble points and tensions, functions like the following became relevant:


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Connecting, anchoring, disconnecting, pointing to incoherencies, distinguishing, drawing boundaries, including,

excluding, embedding, challenging, criticising, critically appreciating, confirming, polarising, justifying, legitimising,

de-legitimising, focusing, broadening, emphasising, prioritising, up-playing, down-playing, strengthening, elaborating,

exploring, reframing, invoking interpretive repertoires …

This is by no means an exhaustive list. It developed out of an interplay of deliberation

about the specific turns, the emerging framework, and inspirations from the literature (e.g.

Edwards 1997) Repeatedly I tried to introduce an order among these rhetorical devices

and/or to limit the number of rhetorical devices to look for. However, this did not prove

useful as the interactive situations were multifarious and the rhetorical devices were

engaged for very different kinds of achievements.11

Therefore the lists developed during the

analysis served for sensitising purposes to increase attention to what could have been done

with a specific discursive move.

The sense of identifying these discursive moves also changed during the analysis. In

the beginning I expected to identify the turns and that certain patterns would crystallise from

that. This was not the case though, as regularities were not at all recognisable. Instead,

identifying the moves served to grasp the processual character of the management of

legitimacy, responsibility and accountability, in sum, the creation and maintenance of the

collaborative identity with its inherent paradoxes. Instead of regular patterns, strategies

could be identified which were used by participants for dealing with the tensions.

Positioning and relational achievements

The interpretive repertoires and issue constructions engender a specific configuration

for various positions. Interpretive repertoires “are the common sense which organizes

accountability and serves as a back-cloth for the realization of locally managed positions in

actual interaction”, from which “accusations and justifications can be launched” (Wetherell

1998: 400). Similarly, issue constructions position the stakeholders among each other and

the collaboration as a whole within its domain in certain ways – this is why they can

become so contentious. The interpretive repertoires as discursive resources, the issue

constructions and the discursive moves and strategies are used to define the relations of the

multi-stakeholder collaboration through particular ways of positioning. As stakeholders

make use of the discursive resources, moves and strategies, they produce relational

consequences in terms of (re-)creating their collaborative identity. If the repertoires and

constructions are broadly shared, they constitute the membership ties in terms of what is

jointly seen as central and ‘enduring’ and distinctive about their collaborative project. With

regard to their context, the collaborating stakeholders position their project in specific ways

11

To compare, some authors limited the discursive strategies to be identified, for example Dewulf (2006) or Maguire

and Hardy (2006)


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to balance distinction, connectivity, interdependence and influence. With regard to the

relations among the stakeholders, they position themselves towards each other in specific

ways to balance the integration of diversity and the need for focus, the opening up and

closing down of meaning, and the leadership among stakeholders and conveners. As a

whole, the discursive creation of the collaborative identity is a relational achievement

through which legitimacy, responsibility and accountability are managed.

According to the notion of ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973), the analysis report

presents how the participants make use of the discursive resources, moves and strategies

over the course of the process in order to manage the paradoxical tensions.

It should be noted that the difference between the discursive resource level (the

repertoires), the issue constructions and the interactional level (the discursive moves and

strategies) is not as clear-cut as it has been presented here. Rather, the difference is fuzzy, as

the repertoires and issue constructions themselves are in a process of reconstruction and are

therefore moving.

4.4.3 Emergent theorising

A preliminary theory of collective identity was developed in an iterative and emergent

fashion from working with the data. Following the participants’ key concerns, I carved out

the core activities of what I conceive as identity formation process. The understanding of

emerging collaboration as collective identity formation process was developed out of the

participants’ questions and discussions, rather intuitively. The conceptual framework on

collaboration with the core activities of identity formation and the respective underlying

paradoxical tensions was developed without referencing specific literature.12

Having

finished the analysis, I backed up the emergent theoretical framework with literature, also

checking potential alternatives to conceiving the case as an identity formation process. Even

though some of the potential alternatives were fruitful for looking at specific aspects, e.g.

issue framing, none of these delivered a larger frame for my analysis. I found just one article

combining collaboration and collective identity (Hardy et al. 2005), luckily also written

from a discursive perspective, on which I could then build for moulding the theory. The

intention was to embed my findings in the literature and to gauge them to what others have

found out. Having set up my framework, I explored how it could be embedded in and how it

relates to existing theory.

12

Of course I do not claim that the framework emerged without any influence by any of the literature I had read thus

far, for the same reason that claiming to work purely inductively would make little sense.


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4.4.4 My role as researcher

The ‘groundedness’ of my approach was strongly enhanced by the lack of almost any

previous knowledge about the field and the political context. At least this is how I felt when

I was immersed into the field, in the midst of the buzzing activities of all those specialised

experts in the stuffy basement of the UN headquarters. Making sense of the multitude of

interwoven official and unofficial processes on a large amount of topics is extremely

challenging for a complete newcomer. I spent my time attending meetings of various types:

In addition to following the official negotiation process I listened for example to major

group meetings of the indigenous people, to the women’s caucus or the peace caucus

meetings and attended book launches or events from major NGOs. The day started with a

one-hour Stakeholder Forum breakfast meeting where the team members were briefed about

the latest political developments and the proceedings for the day were discussed and

scheduled. Where possible, in order to help out, I took part in SF’s ‘floor-managing’ work,

where the official meetings had to be minuted in specific templates. Through the floor-

managing, in addition to their informal talks ‘on the corridors’, SF was always up-to-date

with the most recent developments, as the organisation published its daily newsletter and

produced comments and analysis of the process. In the meantime, I read and assimilated all

this commentary and informational material produced by the Stakeholder Forum to gain

some understanding of the context. Part of it was specifically addressed to newcomers, in

line with the SF’s mission to enable stakeholders to get involved, for example their guide on

acronyms and the one on lobbying.

Above I emphasised that I concentrated on the ‘natural occurring’ data, the discussions

in the meetings, in contrast to researcher-elicited data. However, the recording might affect

the naturalness of the interaction. Especially in this political context, taping was a delicate

issue. In some meetings outside the IC process, people checked first who else was present in

order to judge how openly they could speak. Even though the convener (my ‘gate-keeper’)

was very supportive regarding my taping, I decided not to tape the first IAG Freshwater

meeting I attended but to wait until the next time so that at least some of the participants

would be used to the researcher presence.

All the meetings started with an introductory round as there were always new faces,

and this was when I told them about my role as a researcher, the importance of taping and

the anonymised treatment of the data, asked if there were any objections and assured them

that the tape could be turned off by myself or participants at any time. At one pretty hectic

meeting the facilitator just jumped into the discussion, omitting the introductory round.

Before I got a chance to explain myself, two participants asked about the microphones, so it

was definitely something to be very careful about and a potentially disturbing activity on the


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part of the researcher. Most of the time, though, my impression was that the topics were so

engrossing that people were not really aware of being taped. However, at some point in

every meeting, a reference was made to being recorded, usually as a joke. For example,

when somebody admitted to agree on a specific point with someone who was obviously a

longstanding adversary, this caused laughter and clapping on the part of the group and the

exclamation “and this is on TAPE!!!”13

. Or when somebody made a friendly joke about

another participant (again with rather adversarial stakes, again causing the whole group to

laugh heartily), the other person addressed me, asking “Can you remove that expression

from the tape?”14

In both instances, the reference to the taping situation caused even more

laughter. These few examples show that there is no way of eliminating the effects of

recording on discourse (Wood and Kroger 2000).

The analysis phase was very intense and secluded. During that time I worked deeply

grounded with the material, so that it was not really possible, as it turned out, to relate to

existing literature on collaboration or to literature clarifying the political context. Every

attempt to do so was only bewildering and distracting. Only when I felt that I had made

sufficient sense of the case itself did it became fruitful to relate it to the collaboration

literature and to embed it in the broader political context.

Upon submission of the dissertation, analysis and interpretation will have been

accomplished by the researcher in what is essentially a monologue. Indirectly, of course,

countless other voices from what I had read before my ‘secluded’ phase of analysis

influenced the analysis, furthermore countless other voices are represented in the numerous

references used in the other chapters. However, the analysis as it is now is not complete or

finalised in the sense that the matter can be ‘closed’, and this is not only for reasons of a

necessarily partial or ‘biased’ (Huxham and Vangen 2005) description. I’m looking forward

to sharing insights and reflecting on what has been going on together with IC conveners and

participants, as their ‘supplement’ is still missing in a mutual, dialogic process of meaning-

making and creative understanding (Shields 1996).

13

April 02, convener 14

IC1 2927


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4.4.5 Ensuring quality in discourse analytic research

Warranting strategies are used to ensure that the study fulfils scientific quality criteria.

As a researcher I need to warrant my research by providing justification and grounds for my

claims (Wood and Kroger 2000). The quality of analysis depends on a whole range of

issues: “how well they account for the detail in material, how well potential alternatives can

be discounted, how plausible the overall account seems, whether it meshes with other

studies, and so on” (Wood and Kroger 2000: 99). Important criteria are plausibility,

systematicity, coherence, and a well-grounded analysis (Wetherell 1998). What it means to

establish a well-grounded and rigorous discourse analysis can be illustrated with what it is

not, as Antaki, Billig, Edwards and Potter (2003) have done. They identified six common

shortcomings of numerous examples under the increasingly popular label of discourse

analysis. The authors remind analysts not to fall short of proper discourse analysis by under-

analysis through summary, under-analysis through taking sides, under-analysis through

over-quotation or through isolated quotation, the circular identification of discourses and

mental constructs, false survey, and analysis that consists in simply spotting features. One

of the most important techniques is the research report itself. “The overall goal is to openly

present the entire reasoning process from data to conclusions” (Wetherell and Potter 1988:

183). The research report needs to contain “a set of claims, along with all of the excerpts

from which they were derived” and with “documentation of how the claims are supported”

(Wood and Kroger 2000: 98). In the end, the most powerful criterion is generativity or

“fruitfulness” (: 175) – the contribution to theory and practice. Regarding theory, it should

productively reframe issues, create links between previously, unrelated issues and/or raise

interesting new questions. With regard to practice, it should deliver a helpful, critical

problem-framing and suggest how problems might be transformed .

Chapter 5 - Positioning the multi-stakeholder process in its domain

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5 Positioning the multi-stakeholder process in its domain

With this analysis I examine how the organisational identity of the multi-stakeholder

process is constructed discursively. In multi-stakeholder processes (MSP), diversity is used

to achieve change through the joint action of diverse stakeholders, whereby innovative,

synergistic outcomes may emerge (Hardy et al. 2005). This change should in turn benefit

diversity by balancing the divergent stakeholder concerns. My aim is to investigate how, in

this collaborative identity construction process, diversity is integrated and made use of in

order to achieve change towards sustainable development, and to identify the main tensions

that emerge and examine how they are dealt with.

As elaborated in chapter 3, organisational identity is not seen as coherent and stable

but as contradictory, ambivalent, paradoxical and fluid (Fiol 2002; Gioia et al. 2000; Hardy

et al. 2005; Pratt and Foreman 2000). This is the case all the more since change and

diversity are the inherent goals of a multi-stakeholder process. The aim of the multi-

stakeholder movement is to contribute to a more sustainable world by involving a broad

range of diverse actors and by giving a voice to those who cannot otherwise have their say

in decision-making processes affecting them. The diverse actors bring with them diverse

stakes, diverse approaches towards achieving change and diverse concepts of sustainable

development (see chapter 2). Depending on their stakes, some are more and some are less

interested in bringing about change and in integrating diversity.

The process is conceived as construction of a collaborative identity according to the

model outlined in chapter 3. In this chapter, I examine how the collaborative process is

positioned by constructing its issue, and therewith orienting towards, connecting to and

distinguishing from its context in order to secure legitimacy and recognition. In chapter 6, I

analyse how the relations among the participants are constructed. Looking at the relations

within, I then investigate how the participants organise their togetherness among each other

and how the relations between conveners and participants are organised in terms of

ownership and leadership.


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Hence, the process is studied in four strands:

• How do the stakeholders jointly construct their issue?

• While constructing the common issue, how is the collaborative process as a whole

positioned by orienting towards, connecting to and distinguishing from the

collaboration’s context?

• How are the relations among the participants organised, how do participants

construct their togetherness?

• How are the relations between conveners and participants organised and constructed

in terms of leadership and ownership?

Regarding the issue construction and the relationship to their context, a main

paradoxical tension that had to be dealt with could be identified: the tension of making a

difference while at the same time maintaining connectivity. Directly or indirectly, the

process aimed at exerting influence or ‘making a difference’ in order to achieve change in

the domain. Furthermore, the participants constructed distinctiveness towards their context.

At the same time a certain degree of connectivity needed to be maintained. The process was

meant to contribute to change towards sustainability. This was to be achieved by taking

action to implement international sustainable development agreements. By so doing, the

participants connected to their context and drew a distinction at the same time: they

delivered what has been agreed in international processes, but what has so far not been

implemented by those who forged the agreements. Connectivity was also created through

engaging diverse stakeholders from the UN sphere, distinctively supplemented by

participants from outside the UN sphere (from the ‘ground’).

Regarding the relating among participants, which is studied in chapter 6, the main

paradoxical tension to be dealt with is integrating diversity while focusing on concrete

outcomes. The complexity inherent in the inclusion of diversity had to be narrowed down in

some way to become manageable, to enable focused proceeding. This tension between

divergence and convergence can more generally be conceived as a tension between opening

and closure or between broadening and restricting.

Different modes were discussed and enacted of how to achieve the joint focusing-

towards-action process while benefiting from diversity. For managing the tension between

convergence and divergence, an equitable process driven by stakeholders1 was envisioned,

suggesting a specific mode of leadership and ownership. The leadership activities therefore

had to balance the bottom-up and top-down tendencies of driving the process.

1 Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0274-75


128

To conclude the analysis, the final section of chapter 6 draws attention to how the core

activities analysed in chapter 5 and 6 are interrelated, emphasising the multi-dimensionality

of the interacting, interrelating collaborative paradoxes (cf. Huxham and Beech 2003).

In this section, the discursive resources and strategies are studied which are used by

the participants in their conversations for constructing the purpose of their undertaking and

the relationship to their context in order to achieve change. I will briefly recapitulate the

theoretical considerations regarding issue construction and relating to the context from

chapter 3. By constructing the purpose or through the issue of the collaboration the

participants create the constitutive ties for their collective identity (the generalized

membership ties, Collins 1981; Hardy et al. 2005). The purpose of the collaboration

provides the reason for its existence. Deeply intertwined with constructing the issue is the

construction of the relationships to their context. The development of the collaborative

identity goes together with the formation of the identity of the domain (Trist 1983), whereby

domain is understood as the meta-problem to be tackled together with the relevant

stakeholders. The collaborating stakeholders jointly recognize and appreciate (Vickers

1965) and therewith identify the problématique. By sharing and negotiating this

appreciation, the domain’s identity begins to be developed. With the overall aim the

collaboration takes a direction into the future. This aim roughly defines what activities may

be attempted over the course of the process. “All this entails some overall social shaping as

regards boundaries and size” (Trist 1983: 274), like the selection of stakeholders and the

definition of the scope.

By positioning the collaboration towards its context or within its domain, the process

gets anchored in, oriented towards and at the same time distinguished from its context, that

is, the collective identity is constructed by participants “with regard to others in their field”

(cited in Corley et al. 2006; Glynn and Abzug 1998; 2002; Glynn and Marquis 2007). In

order to construct the collaborative identity, legitimacy needs to be created and managed by

proving that the process has something to offer which makes a difference – in terms of

diversity and change. This ‘added value’ needs to be appreciated and recognised in order to

legitimately influence the domain. To provide for this recognition, connectivity and

distinctiveness need to be created continuously.

Recurrent questions during the whole process are ‘what are the links to the official

process?’2, “how does the IC fit into the Earth Summit?”

3, “what is the IC about?”

4 ‘who is

2 E.g. Apr 02, May 02

3 Report 26

th Mar 02, p. 4

4 Apr 02 Convener 1730


129

our audience?’5, ‘what is the uniqueness?’

6, ‘where do we add value?’

7, ‘do we have

legitimacy?’8. These questions are evidence of the crucial issue of creating a collective

identity.

The organizations or institutions that are identified by the participating organizations

as belonging to the domain as ‘key players’ or ‘decision-makers’ form the context of the

collaboration to which it is oriented, which it might influence, or on which it depends. In

this case, the collaboration is embedded in the intergovernmental UN Summit process. It is

therefore in some ways oriented towards and dependent on the negotiating governments and

the secretariat of the Summit process, or more precisely the decision-making processes

including its governance structures. The larger context is formed by other players in the

scene who might either interfere with their undertaking in the way they are oriented towards

the governments or as potential critics of the IC process. These critical voices are also taken

into account in some way.

The IC process is anchored in the international agreements relating to the four issue

areas ‘freshwater’, ‘sustainable energy’, ‘food security’ and ‘health’. They are taken as a

basis, and the aim is to work for diminishing the “implementation gap”9. This is the change

and the added value the process should deliver as a result, which can be categorised as

substantive outcome aim. At least as important as the result is the process aim, using the

multi-stakeholder approach. In its core, the IC process serves to promote multi-stakeholder

involvement in decision-making, and with that they profile themselves as forerunners. The

process should serve as an example aiming at improving environmental governance

processes in order to make them more inclusive and effective. Both aims, implementing

international sustainability agreements and promoting the multi-stakeholder approach, are

widely shared among the participants, however different nuances are emphasised entailing

different versions of the common purpose and issue. Both of these main aims are described

in the following in more detail, and how the process is positioned towards its context

through these aims is outlined.

5 Apr 02 Public-Water-1 1984-85, IC1 Facilitator 1745

6 May 02 0481

7 E.g. Apr 02 0387, IC1

8 IC1 NGO-1 3026

9 IC1 Director-SF 2117


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5.1 Constructing the issue

5.1.1 Implementing international sustainable development agreements

The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the “Implementation

Summit”10

as it has also been dubbed, was hoped to be a milestone for implementing what

had been agreed since Rio. In advance of the summit though, scepticism prevailed over

hope regarding its ability to substantially address environmental problems and poverty since

little or nothing had been achieved ten years after Rio. Hence, the summit with its 60 000

participants was prospected as “the biggest talk-shop ever”11

. What has been the most

prevalent apprehension is where the Stakeholder Forum’s multi-stakeholder process aims to

make a contribution. The main purpose of the multi-stakeholder process is expressed in its

name: the “Implementation Conference” Process. This primary purpose is articulated again

and again, in the outline, the invitations, and is often invoked by the participants in the

discussions:

The purpose of the “Implementation Conference – Stakeholder Action for our common future”12

is

“to inspire stakeholders to create collectively, clear, measurable on-going action to deliver the

Sustainable Development Agreements”13

“The Earth Summit 2002 in South Africa offers an ideal context for stakeholders to come together

to discuss how to implement the Sustainable Development Agreements.”14

“Global sustainable development agreements need sustained and proactive global action to deliver

the desired results. The IC has been created to facilitate implementation of agreements, on selected

issues, through COLLABORATIVE STAKEHOLDER ACTION. … This meeting has been set up to

make the link from the International Freshwater processes so far to the possibility of rigorous

action and implementation through stakeholder collaboration and the IC process.”15

This substantive outcome aim consists of several elements, each of which is described in

more detail in the following:

• taking international sustainability agreements as a basis (‘water for the poor’)

• delivering/implementing them

• with a rigorous action-orientation

• ensured by monitoring, follow-up

By and large there is consensus on the substantive outcome aim with its elements, as it is

described here. Beyond that, another aim emerged and was the subject of discussions: the

10

e.g. www.rio-plus-10.org/en/positions/24.php; www.un.org/jsummit/html/whats_new/feature_story15.html 11

Andile Mngxitama, land rights co-ordinator at the National Land Committee, South Africa in The Nation (Nairobi)

via All Africa, 14 August 2002, http://allafrica.com/stories/200208130619.html 12

Outline Sep 01, p. 1 13

Outline Sep 01, p. 3; www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/ 14


Invite Dec 01


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aim of lobbying the governments to come up with stronger agreements. In this section I

concentrate on the convergent aim of implementation. The more controversial aim of

lobbying pertains to the section ‘constructing the relations to the context’, as the controversy

consists mainly of the different ways of relating to the official process.

5.1.1.1 International sustainable development agreements as a basis

Already with its name “Stakeholder Forum for Our Common Future”16

, the convening

organisation anchored itself in the seminal document that formed the base for the

sustainability efforts in the global political arena, the report of the World Commission on

Environment and Development “Our Common Future”17

from 1987. Likewise, what the

process is meant to deliver is “Stakeholder action for our common future”18

. Stakeholder

Forum connects to what has been achieved at the Earth Summit 1992: “Our commitment to

global sustainable development is best expressed in Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration”.19

The issue strand ‘freshwater’ in particular grounds its endeavour in the water paragraphs of

the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and in the outcome documents of the

international20

water conferences in The Hague and Bonn21

.22

The participants in this issue

strand chose as their overarching aim “water for the poor”23

. With that they referred mainly

to the Bonn Conference, where the hosting Minister said in her closing speech:

“our principal concern is now about water for the poor. … We must have the focus on fighting

poverty. This is the over-arching goal for our international cooperation.”24

During the whole process, the links to international agreements and to this overarching aim

of benefiting the poorest25

are recurrently invoked and confirmed:

“if we’re looking for an objective for us being here, then it’s to realise those goals [MDG].”26

“We’re taking as our marching orders the international agreements. And in the documentation you

have here you can see where we’ve taken those marching orders from. Obviously from the

16

Meanwhile it was renamed as „Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future”, “feeling that Stakeholder Forum for a

Common Future looked back to the Brundtland Report in 1987, while Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future

looked forward” (www.stakeholderforum.org/about/about.php) 17

transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to document A/42/427 - Development and International Co-

operation: Environment; www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm 18


Aug 02 Description Stakeholder Forum 20

In the outline (Sep 01, p. 3) regional agreements are also mentioned: “implementing international and regional

sustainable development agreements” to account for regional needs, but in the process the international ones were in the

foreground. 21

The Bonn Recommendations do not count as proper international agreements. But they were likely to become an

“intergovernmental text” at the WSSD, which they eventually did. 22

See for example TelConf Mar 02, p. 11, Action Plan Mar, Jul 02 23

Apr 02 Business-2 1038, 1054, Business-3 1631, 1638, 1646, NGO-9 1662, Business-5 1918, IAG-coordinator 2469 24

Closing Address by Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, www.water-2001.de/days/speech9.asp 25

“The overall objective is access and delivery of water and sanitation services to the poor.” (Submission Women-1, p.

1); “Water and energy infrastructure should benefit the poorest in society” (Submission NGO-14, p. 1) 26

Apr 02 Business-3 2441-48, see also Apr 02 IGO-1 2181-82


132

millennium declaration, halving by 2015 the proportion of people unable to afford safe drinking

water. But also I think we’re going back to Dublin and to Rio. And building from that.”27

The issue paper which is produced during the process is “based on recent international

agreements and the discussions at the Stakeholder Dialogues in Bonn”28

. Its structure, as

well as the participants’ contributions, follows those agreements to a certain extent.29

Hence, there is no doubt about the anchoring of the process in the relevant international

agreements. However, the question emerges whether those agreements, especially the

MDG, offer a structure that can serve as a holistic, overarching framework for the process.

This question is discussed in the process, whereby the participants are negotiating the way

in which they can connect to the agreements and the extent to which they need to go beyond

them.

Generally there is a view that the water problématique “is a major issue, you will have to

deal with it holistically”30

but that the MDG is “not holistic”31

. One participant comes to

the conclusion that it also depends on how the MDG is read and that a big framework,

which is seen as essential, can be indirectly derived:

“But when you’re actually sitting there and read the thing carefully, first of all, they’re all put

under sustainable development … all three have been set in a hierarchy. And then this overarching

one on environment natural resource management gives you that structure that you could say, OK,

we need the big framework, integrated water resources management.”32

The weakness in those agreements is seen as “the failure of not looking at the macro”33

.

What is specifically missed is a sanitation goal complementing the water supply goal. This

is then solved by pointing to the non-obvious elements of the MDG34

and by supplementing

them with the Bonn recommendations:

“I think what we should do is to use the Bonn stuff and amplify. And put this as a chapeau. We’ve

got this broad agreement that this is what poverty reduction is about and how water in a very broad

context is positioned [yeah]. Then you could add (...) stuff in, as one might choose, but the issue is,

that, if we get hung up in those, then we’re not gonna do anything interesting. All we do is talk

about you know diplomatic blabla. Which, you know, which is all written or negotiated and that’s

not gonna get us forward. Basically we need that as a point of departure to keep certain people

happy.”35

27

IC1 Director-SF 0549 28

Invitation Jan 02, see also Apr 02 Convener 2066-69: “Maybe we shouldn’t forget the structure or the headings that

are in the issue paper? Because that’s putting much base on what came out of Bonn, that are the areas that are

addressed in the Bonn recommendation.” 29

Apr 02 IGO-1 2115-24, see also Apr 02 Government-1 2986-88 30

Apr 02 MSO-1 2650 31

Apr 02 IGO-1 2692 32

Apr 02 IGO-1 2615-21 33

Apr 02 IGO-1 2634 34

“There is a sanitation goal in there (if you) actually read it, there is a hundred million slum dwellers (...) sanitation

by 2020. There is a sanitation goal. Look! But it’s not obvious. And it’s not holistic.” (Apr 02 IGO-1 2683-92) 35

Apr 02 IGO-1 2715-2724


133

The significance of adopting a structure from those agreements is therefore fairly relativised

and flexibly dealt with. Here they are conceived as a pragmatic “point of departure” to give

a broad orientation and legitimacy to the project.

The connectivity to those international agreements is further secured as quite a few

participants have attended the conferences where those agreements were achieved and can

draw on that.36

They not only have the text outcomes as their base, but also the joint

experience of progress, at least since the Bonn conference, which shaped the group’s

identity to a large extent:

“for me Bonn is the major stepping stone”37

“fantastic progress”38

“what you see around this table, is a group of people and group of organizations that are

committed to trying to make some new initiatives that will breathe life into that new platform (...)

created (in) Bonn. … Bonn really did something, right, and provided a platform and another

step!”39

“there is a dynamic here, which is positive (...) action-oriented.”40

Positioning. By taking the international sustainability agreements as their basis, the

participants create a clear linkage to the formal processes, which yields legitimacy,

significance, visibility and orientation. This became obvious when the mission statement

with its reference to the MDG and to the Bonn outcomes was discussed:

“for example the millennium goal goes to our mission statement. Which covers everything. Which

gives us the legitimacy. Which gives us the linkages to the WSSD.”

“they’re all coming out of Bonn. It gives us legitimacy, it gives us visibility”41

.

A visiting government representative also invoked the legitimising quality of anchoring the

project in the international agreements: “I think it’s very convincing if we start with the

millennium development goals as your political mission as a group.”42

Through this linkage, the significance of the project’s issues is clear as they are of global

scope, massive impact, and subject to hard negotiations. There is also a pragmatic aspect in

that the broad goal is already fixed, accepted and legitimate. The participants have a solid

foundation that does not need to be discussed further (to avoid the “diplomatic blabla”, see

above). Yet, in order to yield legitimacy, not just connectivity but also distinctiveness is

important in order to present the added value of the collaboration. Regarding the

international agreements, the group constructs a more holistic picture and aims to “amplify”

36

So that they can refer to them from their own experience, e.g. “So basically thinking of what you know we said in The

Hague, what we said in Bonn, actually was said yesterday at :) the OECD, and what we discussed, I put into ten

themes” (Apr 02 IGO-1 2104-07) 37

Apr 02 MSO-1 0898 38

Apr 02 MSO-1 1083 39

Apr 02 Business-2 1066-1073 40

Apr 02 Convener 1102-03 41

Apr 02 MSO-1 2522-47 42

Apr 02 Government-1 2957-59


134

what they are taking as their basis, going beyond a mere anchoring in those agreements.

Furthermore, they are connected to those agreements not only by taking them as a formal

basis, but also through the participants who, most of them at least, attended the international

conferences where those agreements were forged. They build upon this experience, but also

go beyond this connection by proceeding from there on, by launching “new initiatives that

will breathe life into that new platform (...) created (in) Bonn.”43

5.1.1.2 Delivering, implementing those agreements

The problem of the ‘implementation gap’ is widely recognised. Even if stronger agreements

are clearly desirable, just implementing the existing ones could be seen as huge progress.

The need to put them into practice is stated: “Global sustainable development agreements

need sustained and proactive global action to deliver the desired results.”44

This is the main

purpose, it is what the process is about:

“the process is about implementing the agreements on freshwater from the different international

processes.”45

“That’s why we call it an Implementation Conference, implementing international agreements

pertaining to these issues, maybe the most prominent … the millennium goals. … and we use one

methodology, partnerships, stakeholder action, joint action to deliver a particular slice of the cake

towards these goals. That’s the vision.”46

Next to the concrete implementation outcomes of some action plan groups, what is also seen

as essential is to produce guidelines and processes or mechanisms on how to achieve

implementation:

“Action oriented guidelines will be needed to support achievement of these goals”47

,

“So what you deliver at WSSD is actually a process for achieving the millennium goal, with respect

to water. And, and then, you know, that might be useful. This is how we as a group think you can

deliver the millennium goals. … No one as far as I’m aware has come to deliver at any stage a

process for meeting these goals. And until someone does, they won’t be met, they won’t be

achieved.”48

Positioning. With the conversations on the implementation gap the stakeholders deliver

accounts of the world as problematic and requiring action. The IC process connects to the

intergovernmental agreements and from that, anchored in the general call for

implementation, they promote change “from words to action”49

. This is an important phrase

characterising their distinctness and this is where they see the added value they can deliver

43

Apr 02 Business-2 101067-1069 44

Invitation Dec 01 45

Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0112-14 46


Submission IGO-1, p. 7 48

Apr 02 Business-3 2756-76 49

Outline Sep 01, p. 3


135

(“stop talking start acting”50

). The governments are positioned as producing mere words

and neglecting to care about implementation of what they have successfully negotiated. This

is contrasted with what they should do: “Government principles should lead to practice –

what we need is the implementation of policies and principles that have been agreed …

Mechanisms for implementation needed”51

. What governments do with their negotiation

processes is presented as disconnected from what happens in the real world, therefore it is

necessary to establish that connection, “to make the link from the International Freshwater

processes so far to the possibility of rigorous action and implementation”.52

The added

value lies not only in delivering their share of actual implementation work, but also in

delivering processes and mechanisms for implementation which can be of use for other

players in the domain.

5.1.1.3 Rigorous action orientation

The Implementation Conference is described as “an event where concrete, collaborative

action plans can be agreed and subsequently pursued.”53

The stakeholder action should be

“clear” and “measurable”54

. Already the choice of the four issue strands was determined

by this selection criterion, that “they are likely to allow for concrete, action oriented

strategies to be developed”55

. The meeting agendas remind the participants of their primary

task “to achieve tangible outcomes”56

and to “gain an idea of how action will look like”57

.

The action plans that were then drafted by the conveners were criticised on the grounds that

they lacked the necessary action orientation: “The Action Plan seems to be a lot about

process – where is the substantive action?”58

When the action plans became more concrete

and it was time to finally select those which should be pursued at the implementation

conference, the projects were examined for their potential to deliver ‘action’: The purpose

of the projects (action plans) needed to be explained, they had to be convincing in that they

were “real”, “substantive” and that they were going to deliver concrete outcomes.

Therefore they were checked to ensure that they had proper funding59

, a realistic schedule,

50

Apr 02 Business-2 1970-71 51

TelConf Mar 02, NGO-1 p. 5 52





Agenda TelConf Mar 02 57

TelConf Mar 02, minutes p. 4, IAG-coordinator 58

Report 26th Mar 02, p. 2 59

May 02 0240, 0427


136

and a committed leader and committed partners60

: “Because as all of you know … there is

great criticism of the idea that partnerships aren’t real anyway.”61

Positioning. This concept emphasises that the participants are really up for visible change,

recognisable by clear results, contrasting to what is going on in their context, but connected

to the widely shared urgent need to make change happen. This action-orientation is meant to

be the distinguishing feature and added value of the IC process. For example, it was used to

switch from an obviously tiring and not completely satisfying conference to the IC meeting,

which had been organised subsequent to this international conference:

“let’s step out from the conference in our different process, a process driven by stakeholders, a

process towards action”62

.

The rigorous action orientation is also invoked when the issue arises of who the participants

in the final IC event will be:

“the goal is implementation. … We, I think, are quite keen to get partnership initiatives off the

ground. … We want to get the decision-makers in that group, but we also want very much, we want

the people from the ground, we want people who are actually going to implement the process from

all different stakeholder groups.”63

Such a composition of participants also serves to distinguish the group from the usual UN

sphere. The action-orientation refers mainly to their own conference outcomes, but with that

they also want to “push for action”64

in their context.

When the action-orientation serves to distinguish the stakeholder process from its context,

this also means that this is what governments expect from them to be legitimate:

“If the Action Plan stays as it is I do not see it getting past any politician if ‘action’ is missing.”65

5.1.1.4 Monitoring, follow-up to ensure sustained action

To ensure “measurable”, “ongoing”66

and “sustained”67

action, it was seen as essential to

install follow-up and monitoring processes. An initial follow-up of six months and a follow-

up beyond that was part of the plan.68

Due to severe lack of finance and changes in personel

in the convening organisation, this could not be pursued to the planned extent. Nine months

after the conference, an initial review of three sample plans (out of more than twenty) was

carried out69

, but not a full monitoring and follow-up process.

60

May 02 0227, 0474, 1026, 0248 61

May 02 0055-57 62



Submission Youth-1 65




Outline Sep 01, p. 4, 7 69

www.stakeholderforum.org/practice/icj/one-year.php


137

Positioning. It was planned to “monitor implementation of conference outcomes and report

back to the intergovernmental process.”70

This would have served as an example and a

signal of how good implementation needs to be done and that stakeholders take their

commitment seriously, enhancing their credibility and legitimacy.

5.1.2 Promoting the multi-stakeholder approach

At least as important as the substantive outcome aim of implementation was the process aim

of convening a process that deserves to be labelled a multi-stakeholder process. The process

aim therefore also has an underlying substantive rationale (Huxham and Vangen 2005: 93,

97), as the multi-stakeholder approach was being promoted for environmental governance

processes. There was also general consensus regarding this aim. There were some instances

though where it seems to be contested, but this is touched upon the next chapter (6.1.3.4)

with the ‘excluding-sharpened-positions approach’.

5.1.2.1 Embedding the process in the stakeholder movement

Stakeholder Forum embedded itself and its project in the multi-stakeholder movement:

“The Implementation Conference … forms a key part of the long-term process of building a multi-

stakeholder movement towards sustainable development. The conference process is building on

existing networks and will strengthen multi-stakeholder collaboration on a number of key issues.”71

According to the aim of building on existing processes, links to existing initiatives were

being established.72

A selection criterion for choosing the issues was that there is a

possibility to

“build on dialogues and other processes of stakeholder communication over the last few years”73

.

At the same time Stakeholder Forum was positioning itself as forerunner for this movement:

as “the lead organisation in the development and facilitating of multi-stakeholder processes

for sustainable development”74

and its project as accelerator: “a successful conference will

be a catalyst enhancing the shift towards the desired stakeholder culture.”75

They

distinguished themselves as “a unique multi-stakeholder, non-governmental organisation –

a network and forum on sustainable development”76

.

70



TelConf Mar 02: IAG-coordinator, p. 4; Convener, NGO-1, p. 7: women, GWP, ICLEI; Convener, p. 8, SARD

group; Women-1, p. 9: World Bank and IRC methodology for assessment; NGO-1, p. 9: “Mechanisms which exist,

Greater linkages between processes”; Co-coordinator, p. 11: “CEO Panel”; Professional-Association-1, p. 12: IWA’s

panel of CEOs, Professional-Association-1, p. 13: “Professional associations: list of actions”, tools, …; Convener, p.

13: “I have a few ideas here”. 73


www.stakeholderforum.org/about/about.php 75


Aug 02 Description Stakeholder Forum


138

With the outcomes of the conference, SF aimed to build the “foundations for long-term

stakeholder implementation.”77

“The IC represents a new approach,” and the whole

process was “designed to support the movement of citizens and organisations coming

together in multi-stakeholder processes or partnerships, at local, national and international

levels.” 78

During the process, many participants urged a linking up with other water stakeholders for

their final conference. The ‘water community’ had its own venue during the Summit, the

WaterDome79

, a huge platform for water-related issues. One participant even made the

question of being able to deliver added value dependent on linking up with the water

community:

“I still am not very clear, where we will be adding value, if at all we will add value, then I think the

opportunity is, to get on to the initiative of the Dome, because that is where it is all been put

together in a way that you demonstrate at that point the solidarity that exists between the water

actors”80

He and the next speaker hint at the powerful influence which can be achieved by assembling

the diverse water actors and by displaying their solidarity and their achievements regarding

implementation.

“I think the Dome it will be very important. And therefore if we can put this there to show it isn’t

only words or promises that will be done, but here it is demonstrated reporting on what has

happened. In fact I think it will come as a big surprise to them when they find that really the first

incipience in (implementation) of the global water movement has already started. And I think that is

something which we need to show to the governments who are going to be there. And I think they

might self find it comforting in some ways, challenging in other ways, and also enable them to set

the agenda for the future.”81

And I think so you [the convening organisation] have (...) a really important role, provided, you

integrate with the dome, where all your major water actors are going to be, and build on their

work. And they’ll see it. And they will be really happy to provide you all the information, where they

are going, and I think a very interesting story can emerge. Which together will then begin to (...) is

coming out of that dome this way for feeding into the Johannesburg process!”82

The location of the dome was also proposed in order to “bring more people”83

, the water

community on the one hand and the delegates on the other hand, as they would be even

more attracted by the assemblage of all the water actors. This view was affirmed by the

visiting government representative:

“because what you really want to do, you want to give a signal to the political world, that here, as

it has been said by [Name of MSO-2], that the water community in the broadest sense can

77


www.stakeholderforum.org/practice/icj/one-year.php 79

www.iwmi.cgiar.org/waterdomebook/index.htm 80

Apr 02 MSO-4 0378-82 81

Apr 02 MSO-1 0387-96 82

Apr 02 MSO-4 1507-43 83

Apr 02 MSO-1/MSO-4? 3808-09


139

demonstrate that things are going on. … and with the help of the dome, you can really demonstrate

it, that water is a key element.”84

Positioning. There seems to be convergence on the importance of anchoring the project in

the multi-stakeholder movement and to link up with the water community. The convening

organisation tends to position the collaboration as a distinctive path-breaking project

anchored in the stakeholder movement, while the participants rather emphasise the

dependence on good connections with the larger water community.

5.1.2.2 Promoting stakeholder involvement in governance processes

The primary aim of the convening organisation was to support and strengthen multi-

stakeholder involvement in official decision-making processes.

“Stakeholder Forum’s primary objective is to promote sustainable development through facilitating

the involvement of major groups and stakeholders in the policy work of the United Nations and

other inter-governmental institutions.”85

“Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future is … supporting the increased involvement of

stakeholders in international and national governance processes.”86

This primary aim was stated explicitly for the convening organisation, not for the IC process

in particular. The explicit IC aim was the implementation aim, which should be achieved by

the means of a multi-stakeholder process. However, since the IC process was at that time

one of the biggest projects of the Stakeholder Forum, it served, at least indirectly, the

organisation’s primary aim of fostering the institutionalisation of stakeholder involvement.

The multi-stakeholder approach as such was based on the outcomes of the Earth Summit in

Rio 1992. Agenda 2187

identified “broad public participation in decision-making” as

“fundamental prerequisites for the achievement of sustainable development” and promoted

the “access to information relevant to environment and development”. Both thrusts can also

be found in Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration88

:

84

Apr 02 Government-1 1560-81 85

Aug 02 Description Stakeholder Forum 86


Agenda 21 Chapter 23 “Strengthening the role of major groups – Preamble”:

23.2. One of the fundamental prerequisites for the achievement of sustainable development is broad public participation

in decision-making. Furthermore, in the more specific context of environment and development, the need for new forms

of participation has emerged. This includes the need of individuals, groups and organizations to participate in

environmental impact assessment procedures and to know about and participate in decisions, particularly those which

potentially affect the communities in which they live and work. Individuals, groups and organizations should have

access to information relevant to environment and development held by national authorities, including information on

products and activities that have or are likely to have a significant impact on the environment, and information on

environmental protection measures.

23.4. The programme areas set out below address the means for moving towards real social partnership in support of

common efforts for sustainable development. 88

Principle 10 (Rio Declaration): “Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned

citizens, at the relevant level. At the national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to information

concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and


140

“Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens … States

shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely

available.”

The distribution of responsibilities between governments and stakeholders was anchored in

the Rio outcome documents.

Governments’ responsibility for implementation, including participation

Governments have the primary responsibility for implementing the sustainability

agreements of Agenda 21, including the implementation of participative governance

structures.

The successful implementation of Agenda 21 …

“… is first and foremost the responsibility of Governments. … The broadest public participation

and the active involvement of the non-governmental organizations and other groups should also be

encouraged.”89

“States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information

widely available.”90

Governments’ responsibility is reaffirmed in the Bonn outcomes, which are used as a

preamble for the IC freshwater group.

“The primary responsibility for ensuring equitable and sustainable water resources management

rests with governments. It requires the participation of all stakeholders who use or protect water

resources and their ecosystems. … The responsibility to act is ours … we need new coalitions”91

.

The conveners also anchor the IC process (and its legitimacy) in those agreements to secure

its existence. Since governments have the responsibility to enable the stakeholders to fulfil

their responsibility to implement, by adequate governance structures as well as by financial

support, they have convincing reasons to apply for funding.

“I think that the Johannesburg Summit will be very important because it’s actually where I think

governments will have to come with funds to enable us to take the responsibilities of their talking

about (this taking of) partnerships. And that requires some refocusing of their present aid programs

but by and large it requires more new and additional finance.”92

activities in their communities, and the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes. States shall facilitate

and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available. Effective access to judicial

and administrative proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided.” 89

“Agenda 21 addresses the pressing problems of today and also aims at preparing the world for the challenges of the

next century. It reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and

environment cooperation. Its successful implementation is first and foremost the responsibility of Governments.

National strategies, plans, policies and processes are crucial in achieving this. International cooperation should support

and supplement such national efforts. In this context, the United Nations system has a key role to play. Other

international, regional and subregional organizations are also called upon to contribute to this effort. The broadest

public participation and the active involvement of the non-governmental organizations and other groups should also be

encouraged.” (Agenda 21 Preamble: 1.3.) 90

Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration 91

from the outcome documents of the Bonn Freshwater Conference, used as Preamble in the Issue Paper 92

IC1 Director-SF 0629-34


141

Stakeholders’ responsibility to implement

Agenda 21 touches on the stakeholders’ responsibility regarding the sustainability

agreements by expecting their commitment:

“Critical to the effective implementation of the objectives, policies and mechanisms agreed to by

Governments in … Agenda 21 will be the commitment and genuine involvement of all social

groups.”93

Accordingly, one of the desired outcomes for the Implementation Conference is the

“increased commitment of stakeholders towards taking their role in implementing international and

regional sustainable development agreements” which helps to build the “foundations for long-term

stakeholder implementation.”94

The director of the convening organisation invokes this commitment in his introductory

speech for an action plan group at the final conference. In his speech, he increases the

responsibility of the stakeholders, as governments have obviously not managed to ensure

proper implementation for ten years:

“We’re taking as our marching orders the international agreements. … And building from that.”95

“The hope is that (we would be able) to deliver these commitments that our governments have

signed up to over the last ten or twenty years. And where in many cases we have found an enormous

gap of implementation. And (I think that’s) now our responsibility. And if you (look) back to Rio the

Agenda 21 was our first document that (wrote in the) rights and responsibilities of stakeholders.

Ten years on in Johannesburg, it’s how do we take these rights and responsibilities (to) work

together to ensure that those agreements are implemented.”96

The IC project was of strategic importance for serving Stakeholder Forum’s objective by

exemplifying the organisation’s general work on promoting multi-stakeholder processes

(see chapter 2). The Implementation Conference project should exemplify the design and

realisation of such a process, since there is “no evidence yet that multi-stakeholder

collaborative action actually works”97

. The objective is to show that it does work and that

stakeholders are able to come up with a “joint contribution” for delivering the targets

agreed in the international processes.98

The necessity of promoting multi-stakeholder processes also became evident in the

suggestions on key themes that were submitted by participants in the preparatory stage. The

majority99

emphasised the significance of good governance (and new forms of governance)

comprising participatory approaches and access to information in decision-making or policy

93

Agenda 21 Chapter 23.1 “Strengthening the role of major groups – Preamble” 94



IC1 Director-SF 0611-19 97

IC1 introductory presentation Director-SF, flipchart 98


Submission NGO-14, p. 1, Submission NO, Submission NGO-1, Submission MSO-4, Submission Local-Authorities-

1, Submission Business-4, p. 3, Submission IGO-1 full structure, p. 2


142

processes to ensure or enhance accountability and sustainability. Transparency, openness

and the equitable review of all options of decisions were highlighted in this context.

This is why not only the implementation outcomes are emphasised as result of the process,

but also the process as such (in contrast to the single event) is valued highly and is

communicated accordingly:

“The Conference was the result of a 15 month process” 100

; “for us the conference is the last tiny

bit”101

; “we have been working together as a team to develop this process for some months, no, a

full year!”102

Likewise, for selecting the action plan projects for the final conference, an action-oriented

outcome was not the only important criterion. The multi-stakeholder approach was a

necessary condition to be included on the list. The question “stakeholder focus?”103

was

addressed when the eligible projects were discussed in May. For one of the projects, there

was doubt as to whether it fulfilled the condition of being multi-stakeholder based, as the

“uniqueness of this Implementation Conference”104

was firmly associated with the

stakeholder approach. Accordingly, the project in question scrutinised for this criterion in

order to maintain the distinctive uniqueness of the process instead of offering space for any

kind of projects.

“What is the uniqueness of that proposal to come to the Implementation Conference that talks

about stakeholders? ... that’s the challenge I think, first, to actually understand the added value

through the Implementation Conference rather than just offering alternative venues.”105

“what

would be the most important criterion from our side is that there is value added for a multi-

stakeholder approach”106

, “we need to make it stakeholder based, and is this proposal doing

that?”107

, “the question is not, can we imagine a kind of appropriate stakeholder focus for the

(project) (...) but, does the project proposal actually have that in mind.”108

100

www.stakeholderforum.org/practice/icj/one-year.php 101

Apr 02 Convener 0831 102

May 02 NGO-1 1223-24 103

May 02 0535 104

May 02 NGO-1 0482-83 105

Apr 02 NGO-1 0481-88 106

May 02 Convener 0506-12 107

May 02 NGO-1 0525 108

Apr 02 Facilitator 0553-36


143

Repertoires used to account for promoting multi-stakeholder processes

Promoting stakeholder involvement in governance processes is substantiated and

legitimised in two different manners. The respective repertoires were not competing, rather

they were used complementarily. However, the use of the functionalist repertoire prevailed.

Ethical-normative repertoire. Within this repertoire, MSPs are accounted for by invoking

its normative and ethical foundations. It emphasises the ‘moral’ right of being able to

participate in decisions by which people or organizations affected as stakeholder 109

MSPs

are advocated in order “to ensure that decisions taken are based on a fair, open and

equitable review of all options”110

.

Functionalist repertoire. In contrast, this repertoire follows an outcome-oriented logic.

MSPs are accounted for in a functional sense by underlining the effective outcomes for

decision-making due to the integration of diverse expertise, ensuring high quality and the

development of broad ownership, credibility, legitimacy and outreach. Within this

repertoire, the multi-stakeholder approach is promoted “for maximum quality and

credibility” and “increased outreach for the promotion of its outcomes” which are

“supported by key stakeholders”111

.

Some more examples of its use:

“use the outreach capacities of the stakeholders involved”112

.

“The quality of the work is higher by the nature of bringing (our different) expertise to the table. …

having a great outreach.”113

“focus on maximising involvement and participation to develop ownership and commitment for the

conference outcomes.”114

“While much can be achieved by individual organisations, working in partnerships can often be

more effective.”115

“to allow for broad based understanding and support”116

.

109

Outline Sep 01 110

“Improved watershed management requires new forms of governance and information sharing. … Management

must be based on the principles of good governance – openness, participation and accountability – to ensure that

decisions taken are based on a fair, open and equitable review of all options. By 2007 stakeholder participation and the

right of access to information should be implemented in all countries.” (Submission NGO-14, p. 1) 111

Action Plan Mar Jul 02; in this case it is not about implementing international agreements, but non-binding

recommendations resulting from the Bonn Conference. 112

Action Plan Mar 02, MSR 113



IC Executive Summary Sep 02, p. 2 116

“Public participation and disclosure of information are important processes to allow for broad based understanding

and support” (Submission IGO-1 full structure, p. 2)


144

The identified repertoires correspond to the concepts of ‘input legitimacy’ (ethical-

normative repertoire) and ‘output legitimacy’ (functionalist repertoire) (compare also

Andonova and Levy 2003: 19; Bäckstrand 2006a: 473; 2006b).

5.1.2.3 Engaging and balancing the full range of diversity

Multi-stakeholder processes benefit from diversity (diversity as a resource in terms of

outreach, creativity, expertise and the like), and at the same time aim to benefit diverse

stakes.

The most important tool for integrating diversity in the Implementation Conference process

is the selection of participants. The balanced participation of the full range of stakeholders is

the essential feature of every multi-stakeholder approach. The composition is challenging

and needs to be done carefully, as it is a vital means of legitimising the process and

distinguishing it from processes where ‘participatory’ is a mere label.

For the implementation conference, it was planned to engage as participants

“Key stakeholders for each conference issue, by invitation, balanced by region, gender and

stakeholder group”117

.

The stakeholder groups were largely oriented towards the Major Group categories used in

the CSD118

, but the selection was not confined to these representatives (whereby again

connectivity and distinctiveness could be ensured).

Since the issue of selecting a diverse and balanced range of participants is so essential, it

was important to account for the process of identification. This was done by invoking the

expertise on multi-stakeholder processes of the convening organisation and by the

involvement of stakeholders in the identification process:

“Stakeholder groups will be identified per conference issue, through careful analysis of the issue

area, reflecting experience with previous multi-stakeholder processes, and consultation with

stakeholder groups. Participation will be by invitation; participants will be identified by

acknowledged stakeholder group organisations and associations.”119

The convening organisation is itself backed by a multi-stakeholder board, the Issue

Advisory Board: “Stakeholder Forum’s work Towards Earth Summit 2002 is guided by an

International Advisory Board reflecting the stakeholder groups outlined in Agenda 21”120

.

117


Agenda 21 recognizes nine major groups of civil society: Women, Children and Youth, Indigenous People, NGOs,

Local Authorities, Workers and Trade Unions, Business and Industry, Scientific and Technological Communities,

Farmers (www.un.org/esa/sustdev/mgroups/about_mgroups.htm)

Since the creation of the CSD in 1992, major groups participate as non-governmental actors with the overall purpose of

informing the Commission’s decision-making processes. “Major groups participate in interactive dialogues, develop

coordinated statements through thematic caucus groups, and lobby for particular initiatives that they feel should be

supported.” (www.un.org/esa/sustdev/mgroups/mgroups.htm) 119

Outline Sep 01, p. 2, see also p. 3: “Participants identified through consultations within stakeholder groups” 120

Aug 02 Description Stakeholder Forum, emphasis in the original


145

This ‘fairly large’ board121

is important to introduce Stakeholder Forum as a multi-

stakeholder organisation.

Participation was not confined to the Major Groups, also “journalists” and “representatives

of governments and intergovernmental bodies [were] invited to attend.”122

Participants

mentioned several times that it is important to include governments and local governments

in the process: “We want, this has been raised many times by the participants of the group,

we want government participation.”123

During the whole preparatory process it was an essential task to identify further participants,

for the Issue Advisory Group or for the final Implementation Conference. For the first

meeting of the Freshwater Issue Advisory Group (IAG) “the stakeholder representatives

who coordinated the multi-stakeholder dialogues at the Bonn Conference, and

representatives from women and youth” were invited.124

Reviewing the “Composition of

IAG”125

as well as identifying possible IC participants126

were important tasks of the IAG

participants during the preparatory stage.127

Even with the participants who already committed to the process as IAG members the task

remains of keeping them engaged. The participants have their main agenda at the Summit,

which does not leave much energy for concentrating on the IC process128

, even though they

also gain a lot for their constituencies from what is developed in the process.129

It was also

planned to encourage wider contributions to the preparatory process (from outside the IAG),

which turned out to be difficult, though.130

And within the IAG continuous engagement was

not easy because of the fluctuating attendance at the meetings.

121

Introduction meeting 26th

Mar 02, Convener 122



www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/f_prep.htm 125

Agenda TelConf Mar 02; Agenda 26th

Mar 02 126

Agendas for the Meetings 26th

Mar, 26th

Apr, May 02; TelConf 15th

Jul 02 127

TelConf Mar 02: NGO-1, p. 7; Professional-Association-1, p. 9; See also submissions, only a few made suggestions 128

Notes 26th

Mar 02, talk after the meeting with Co-coordinator 129

E.g. Apr 02 Public-Water-1 3508-21: the participant appreciates the newly developed framework for auditing

partnerships on which she comments “this becomes a very valuable tool for me to take back to my organization and to

various partnerships” 130

“Membership of the IAG is not a prerequisite to enable comments and inputs to be contributed – we should

encourage as wide as possible contributions. … How do we connect with people who aren’t here?” (Report 26th

Mar

02, p. 4). For the meetings, guests were welcome from outside the IAG, e.g. government representatives and once a

journalist. (e.g. Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0104-06)


146

Horizontal diversity

Most of the stakeholder groups could be engaged for the preparatory stage of the process:

business, farmers, intergovernmental bodies, local governments, multi-stakeholder

organisations, NGOs, professional organisations, scientific community, trade unions,

women and youth. It was not easy to engage participants from every stakeholder group as

planned. During the whole process, the IAG lacked members from the indigenous people,

farmers engaged in sustainable agriculture, landless people and representatives of UN

Habitat. Those groups were declared as missing at the meeting in March. “We must pro-

actively seek out people and make it very attractive for them to be involved.”131

Also within

stakeholder groups already represented, more diversity was identified as desirable by some

participants, for example regarding the private sector: “Within the private sector a greater

diversity of actors is needed in the process”132

. Apart from representing the whole range of

stakeholder groups, the selection of participants should be gender- and region-balanced.

Vertical diversity

So far diversity has been described mostly as ‘horizontal’ diversity. Vertical diversity also

needs to be ensured. The “key” stakeholders as well as the “grassroots” or “people from the

ground” should be involved. The composition of participants is much more prone to the

“key” stakeholders, as it is set up in the context of the international UN negotiations, where

the “elite” of each stakeholder group is active. The issue of integrating ‘vertical’ diversity

turned out to be difficult. It was not only noted as a problem within the IC process but also

within the participating organisations that it is difficult to involve not only the “elite”.133

It

was also noted that especially the marginalised stakeholder groups were missing.134

The

conveners then replied ‘that’s why we have the issue of group composition on the agenda …

to get your suggestions’135

and added that ‘people who are not here are not excluded from

the process,’ but can feed into it.136

For the multi-stakeholder review this issue of inclusive

participation came up as a significant issue as well: “Can I ask us to think of how do you do

that? … So, as well as listing, can we think of how we might do it in a realistic way.”137

The

speaker points to the tendency to always take representatives from the same international

institutions, instead of people “from the ground”. The ‘outreach problem’ was pondered

131


TelConf Mar 02: NGO-1, p. 5 133

‘Even in the alliance it is the elite …’ (Notes 26th

Mar 02, Women-1) 134

‘Some stakeholder groups are not around’ like the ‘landless groups’ (Notes 26th

Mar 02, NGO-12) 135

Notes 26th


Notes 26th

Mar 02, IAG-coordinator 137

IC2 NGO-1 1060-66


147

several times. There was a warning not to expand the outreach strategy too much, that less is

better, whereupon the convener replied in favour of involving people from the ‘ground’:

Whether participants are ‘expanding or not expanding – it is important to get them involved, not

necessarily as IAG participants. More important is to outreach to people who finally do the stuff for

implementing on the so-called ground.’138

The involvement of the missing groups was firmly advised by a person from the WSSD

secretariat who was attending a meeting as visitor:

‘If you think they have a stake, you should make every effort to get the people on board.’139

During the preparatory phase, only the ‘elite’ participated, since those were people who

were at the UN conferences anyway. The ‘eliteness’ also became obvious in the

introducing-myself-habit of the participants at the meetings. It was not uncommon to hint at

the amount of people represented by a participant’s organisation140

(if the organisation’s

‘power’ was not well known anyway). And if this was omitted, people would ask to be

informed about it:

“Just to ask, how many farmers worldwide do you represent with your organisation?”141

Some of the ‘grassroots’, the “small organisations doing the work on the ground”142

could

be included for the final conference, which had not been possible for the preparatory stage.

138

Notes 26th

Mar 02; Convener 139

Notes 26th

Mar 02, WSSD-Secretariat 140

E.g. “I’m [name of representative] with [name of organisation], we’re the global federation of public sector unions

operating in a hundred and fifty countries with two hundred million members.” (May 02 Unions-1 0205-07) 141

May 02 1104 142

Apr 02 Convener 0666


148

5.1.3 Setting up a MSP within the MSP – constructing the focus of the

review

One action plan excelled at setting up a multi-stakeholder process within the multi-

stakeholder process: the multi-stakeholder review of water supply and sanitation strategies.

This was to demonstrate a process designed by the relevant stakeholders from scratch,

promoting and putting into practice stakeholder participation and good governance.143

This

is the action plan group in the focus of this study (out of the final seven action plan groups

within the issue strand ‘freshwater’). The substantive aim of this action plan group is related

to the overall implementation aim of the IC, but more on a meta-level, since different water-

related implementation strategies were to be reviewed. Regarding the IC collaboration as a

whole, there was consensus about the overarching substantive aim ‘implementation of

international sustainability agreements’. Accordingly, it was clear that the review was going

to deal with water-related implementation strategies. This is the generalised tie around

which the collaboration within this specific action plan group is formed. However, this

action plan group had severe trouble defining its focal issue. The focus of the review was

heavily contested. The controversy was mainly between a focus on a specific sector and on

reviewing all sectors. The divide was between focusing on the impact of implementation

strategies under private sector participation and on the implementation strategies of all the

sectors. Intertwined with that was the question of focusing on a specific criterion like

efficiency of implementation strategies, or on a broader spectrum of criteria. Hence, the

divergent constructions of the action plan group’s collaborative issue were:

• focusing on a specific sector (the private sector) and on a broad spectrum of criteria,

versus

• focusing on the whole range of sectors and on a specific criterion, in this case

efficiency.

Focusing on the private sector and on a broad spectrum of criteria

The original proposal was outlined in the Issue Paper under the heading “Private sector

engagement in water supply and sanitation”. As “Possible Joint Stakeholder Action” the

suggestion was to “Design and conduct a multi-stakeholder review of the social, economic,

and environmental impacts of privatisation in the water sector”144

.

143

Stakeholder participation and good governance are the main criteria for the review (Action Plan Jul 02, MSR) 144

IP V2, Feb 02, p. 4


149

Efficiency was supplemented by sustainability145

, and in the second version of the action

plan more criteria were added:

“participation/good governance, ownership, adequate consideration of cultural context,

beneficiaries, risk reduction strategies, equal responsibilities and benefits distribution between

women and men, including distribution of work, paid opportunities and capacity-building, …”146

Focusing on the whole range of sectors and on efficiency

The final issue of the action plan group was a “Multi-stakeholder Review of Global Water

Supply and Sanitation Strategies”147

. The output of the group was planned to be a “Report

on different strategies to provide access to clean and affordable water and sanitation”148

.

In the first version of the action plan efficiency as criterion was explicitly emphasised:

“Recommendations regarding an agreed set of criteria, such as efficiency”149

.

The construction of the issue is deeply intertwined with membership in the collaboration

(Huxham 2003). The generalised ties connect the participants to the common issue around

which the collaboration is organized. On the one hand these ties are constructed by the

participants by jointly defining the issue, on the other hand the way the issue is defined

determines which stakeholders can identify an issue as relevant and consequently identify

themselves as interested in it (Hardy et al. 2005). In this group, participants were struggling

hard to define their issue. Some stakeholders were putting all their weight on the discussion

by making their membership dependent on the definition of the review’s focus. The way

that the issue is framed in this particular group makes the interrelation between issue

construction and membership even more intense. The stakeholder groups represented by the

collaborating participants who are struggling to define the issue at the same time are at issue

or do everything to avoid being at issue. Defining the issue in this case means drawing the

boundaries between the stakes more or less sharply.

Background

The original proposal with its focus on the private sector was anchored in the recent

international water conference in Bonn in December 2001. This conference with multi-

stakeholder dialogues as an integral and central part was widely recognised as a big step

forward regarding the stakeholder interaction in the water sector. One of the results of the

Bonn Conference was the suggestion to conduct a multi-stakeholder review focusing on

private sector engagement in the water sector, since privatisation had been a central yet

145

In a submission it was suggested to replace ‘efficiency’ with ‘sustainability’. 146

Action Plan Jul 02 147

www.stakeholderforum.org/practice/icj/outcomes.php 148

Action Plan Mar, Jul 02 149

Action Plan Mar 02


150

heavily controversial concern of development policy during the 1990s (see chapter 2). This

suggestion was taken up by the IC process. In a later stage of the process a participant

propounds the significance of the suggestion:

“At the International Conference on Freshwater [Bonn Dec 2001], the idea of a multi-stakeholder

review of private sector participation in water and sanitation came up in many instances. Reactions

to it were generally positive, especially since such a review seems to be the best way towards

understanding a policy that arguably was most controversial during the conference. In her closing

remarks at the conference, German Federal Minister for Economic and Development Cooperation,

Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, welcomed the proposal to begin “a stakeholder dialogue to review the

issues linked with privatisation, because it could lead to a better understanding of the successes and

failures in this regard.” The Implementation Conference provides an opportunity to progress this

review.”150

To illustrate the context, I will cite the section “public-private partnership”, which is

relevant here, of the minister’s closing remarks, to which the participant points. Most of the

IAG participants attended this conference, and it was also during this conference that the

first meeting of the Issue Advisory Group “Freshwater” took place.

“The role of the private sector in water infrastructure and services has been a sensitive issue at this

conference. On one hand [sic!] we need and we want the partnership with the private sector.

On the other hand, there is concern that control over the resource water might slip away from the

public and that the poor may suffer. The recommendations show real progress on a way forward.

The key is to create an environment which both allows the private sector to work successfully, and

at the same time maintains the authority of the public to define rules under which the providers

operate.

Let me add that benchmarks for success of service providers of course include business success,

and that means profits, but first and foremost good service to water users, including, not excluding,

the poor.

We want efficient, responsive and financially sound service providers, whether they are from the

private or the public sector. And we want the private sector as partner in development. When we

look at the magnitude of the challenge in developing countries, it is not possible for the public

sector alone to provide adequate answers. The public sector needs to open up to partnerships with

business, and let me add, not only with business, but also with local and community-based

initiatives.

There are legitimate concerns, however, from stakeholders who feel disadvantaged and powerless

vis-à-vis large international service providers. I welcome the proposal to begin a stakeholder

dialogue to review the issues linked with privatisation, because it could lead to a better

understanding of successes and failures in this regard.”151

5.1.3.1 Competing stakes and issue constructions within the controversy

What are the stakes behind this controversy, and by which constructions and repertoires are

they enacted? Each party has its own way of constructing the issue and the problem domain.

They all start from their particular stakes and competencies within the problem domain to

define the issue and the way it should be tackled (cf. Bouwen and Taillieu 2004; Salipante

150

Submission NGO-1; insert by participant 151

Closing Address by Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, www.water-2001.de/days/speech9.asp


151

and Bouwen 1995). Here I concentrate on the two opposing stakes which are at the centre of

the controversy: the stake favouring the focus of the review to be on “the social, economic

and environmental impacts of private sector engagement in water supply and sanitation”

and the stake favouring the “review of water supply and sanitation strategies” across the

sectors, focusing on efficiency. In a simplified manner I will call the competing stakes the

‘critical-stance-towards-privatisation’ and the ‘efficient-service-provision’.

Critical-stance-towards-privatisation stake – focus on private sector

Stake. The stake enacted with the issue construction ‘focusing on private sector

engagement’ is a critical stance on any form of privatisation of the natural resource or

common good water. This critical stance is directed particularly to the large multinational

corporations. The control over this resource should remain with the public. These concerns

were not explicitly uttered during the process, as everybody knew what the controversy was

about. Since the participants mostly refer to the Bonn conference outcomes, an extract from

the hosting Minister’s closing speech is used here to depict these concerns:

“there is concern that control over the resource water might slip away from the public and that the

poor may suffer. The key is to create an environment which … maintains the authority of the public

to define rules under which the providers operate. …benchmarks for success of service providers …

include … first and foremost good service to water users, including, not excluding, the poor. …

There are legitimate concerns, however, from stakeholders who feel disadvantaged and powerless

vis-à-vis large international service providers.”152

According to the critical positioning towards a dominance of large multinational

corporations, it was stated that

“Within the private sector a greater diversity of actors is needed in the process”153

or “in order to

bring reality into the picture involve small and medium sized businesses in developing countries in

the partnership proposal for water access and water resource management. The big organizations

are already well represented”154

Furthermore, the private sector was specifically criticised several times for the

“Exploitation and pollution of groundwater by industry”.155

Facing the phenomenon of increasing privatisation of water services, the critical stance

towards the private sector is complemented by the supportive stance towards the public

sector. Accordingly, the ‘alternative’ action plan group to the controversial one was the

group with the aim of “Strengthening the public sector”156

.

152


TelConf Mar 02 NGO-1 p. 5, see also Submission IGO-1, full structure, p. 3: “Greater diversification of the private

sector actors in the process” 154

Submission NGO-2 155

TelConf Mar 02 NGO-9 p. 5; see also p. 6, 9 156

This thrust was already hinted at by Unions-2, p. 5 at the TelConf Mar 02.


152

Stakeholders. The users of this repertoire were the unions, especially the public sector

unions, and some NGOs. It can be assumed that the big NGOs known for their critical

stance towards a dominance of MNCs (multinational corporations), like for example

Friends of the Earth International157

, abstained from participating in any kind of

collaboration and partnerships with MNCs and were therefore not involved in this multi-

stakeholder process. For an overview of civil society forces against (and pro) privatisation,

see Dicke (2007: 127).

Sectoral focus. The focus is exclusively on the private sector: on “private sector

engagement” or “privatisation”158

as it was suggested in the Bonn outcomes with the

“proposal to begin a stakeholder dialogue to review the issues linked with privatisation”159

.

Therewith the boundary between public and private providers is drawn sharply.

Criteria. Contrary to putting solely the criterion ‘efficiency’ in the foreground,

“there was more discussion about say, well, it’s not only the efficiency, that we should be looking

at, but the sustainability, and the reliability or the ability, capacity to provide reliable and

affordable services.”160

What came out in this discussion of broadening the range of criteria was put in the issue

paper:

“participation/good governance, ownership, adequate consideration of cultural context,

beneficiaries, risk reduction strategies, equal responsibilities and benefits distribution between

women and men, including distribution of work, paid opportunities and capacity-building, …”161

The efficiency criterion was not only broadened and supplemented with other criteria. It was

also questioned whether efficiency should be reserved the private sector. On the association

between efficiency and the private sector, a public sector participant later counters in her

submission:

“Call on governments at the Summit not to discount the role of public-public partnerships. Public

sector involvement can’t be automatically associated with less efficient delivery, and there are

public sector organisations with capacity that should be maximized rather than marginalised.”162

Substantiating with controversy. The necessity of such a review was substantiated on the

grounds that it is the most controversial issue. In the issue paper the proposal was founded

157

FoEI are strongly campaigning and provide extensive documentation on the topics of water and privatisation:

www.foei.org/publications/water/index.html, e.g. the 2005 publication “Privatisation: Nature for Sale – the impacts of

privatizing water and biodiversity”. 158

The term “privatisation” is given two different meanings: sometimes it is used as a generic term to refer to increasing

private sector engagement, also when only some parts of the water provision services are organized privately.

Sometimes it refers to privatizing the whole water provision service. 159

Bonn Conference Dec 01 Closing Address by Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul,

www.water-2001.de/days/speech9.asp 160


Action Plan Jul 02 162

Submission Public-Water-1, p. 9


153

on the “ongoing discussions about the actual scope and the actual impacts of private sector

engagement”163

.

This controversy should be better understood in order to resolve it. This reasoning also

came out of the Bonn conference, where …

“reactions to it [the proposal of such a review] were generally positive, especially since such a

review seems to be the best way towards understanding a policy that arguably was most

controversial during the [Bonn] conference. … ‘a stakeholder dialogue to review the issues linked

with privatisation, because it could lead to a better understanding of the successes and failures in

this regard.’”164

“the issue on the review of privatisation was specifically raising privatisation because it is so

controversial, because there are opposite (camps) that we need to clear (it here).”165

“But it’s obvious throughout the MSD process that especially the privatisation is very controversial

(...) if we can have a multi-stakeholder process to review what’s going on then maybe we can get

over some (...) and find agreed-upon data and (...) I think that’s useful!”166

Method of the review. Accordingly, in order to resolve this controversy, the different

stakeholders should “find agreed-upon data”167

with their joint review.

Legitimising/anchoring. The proposal for the review was anchored in the recent

international freshwater conference, ensuring its significance and high-level appreciation:

“At the International Conference on Freshwater … the idea of a multi-stakeholder review of private

sector participation in water and sanitation came up in many instances. Reactions to it were

generally positive, … In her closing remarks at the conference, German Federal Minister for

Economic and Development Cooperation, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, welcomed the proposal to

begin ‘a stakeholder dialogue to review the issues linked with privatisation’ … The Implementation

Conference provides an opportunity to progress this review.”168

Stakeholder involvement. The multi-stakeholder approach is promoted and it is explicitly

stated that “all stakeholders would be in the review of privatisation”169

, including the

business community.

Logic / structuring of problem and solution. The control over the scarce common good

water, access to which is recognised as a human right, needs to remain with the public in

order to serve the poor:

“there is concern that control over the resource water might slip away from the public and that the

poor may suffer.”170

163

IP V2, Feb 02, p. 4 164


May 02 Unions-1 0764-66 166

May 02 Unions-1 0775-80 167

May 02 Unions-1 0780 168


May 02 Unions-1 0787 170



154

Power, condition of membership. The contrary issue construction is considered to be

different and therefore not compatible with the original proposal. Accordingly, some

proponents of the critical stance (the public sector unions) used the “power of exit”

(Huxham and Vangen 2004) and chose to pursue the alternative action plan ‘Strengthening

the public sector’.

De-legitimizing the contrary issue construction / positioning the contrary stake. The

contrary issue construction, promoting the broadened review, was indirectly de-legitimized

as being different to and incoherent with the proposal coming out of the Bonn conference.

Accordingly, when the expanded review was put on the agenda, the critics wanted to “keep

coherence with the space obtained in Bonn”171

. Broadening the focus and thereby blurring

the line between public and private suppliers is seen as “watering down”172

the

effectiveness of the review.

Involving-the-private-sector stake – focus on efficient-service-provision

Stake. Firstly there is the private sector stake in being involved in the provision of water

services. Thereby the interest is in pursuing business success, i.e. generating profits. The

private sector needs at least to have its investment rewarded:

“investment has to be rewarded and it is not helpful to attract investment if a statement like ‘profit

should not be made etc’ is left in [the issue paper]. I strongly suggest this phrase be deleted.”173

Secondly there are the stakeholders who emphasise the necessity of involving the private

sector as the public sector alone cannot fulfil the implementation of the MDGs:

“On one hand we need and we want the partnership with the private sector… The key is to create

an environment which both allows the private sector to work successfully … benchmarks for

success of service providers of course include business success, and that means profits, but first and

foremost good service to water users, including, not excluding, the poor. We want efficient,

responsive and financially sound service providers, whether they are from the private or the public

sector. And we want the private sector as partner in development. When we look at the magnitude

of the challenge in developing countries, it is not possible for the public sector alone to provide

adequate answers. The public sector needs to open up to partnerships with business, and let me

add, not only with business, but also with local and community-based initiatives.”174

Stakeholders. This stake is enacted here mainly by private sector, professional associations,

some government representatives and by the director of the convening organisation.

Sectoral focus. The sectoral focus of the review is explicitly on the whole spectrum of

sectors: participants state the “Need to look at broader spectrum”175

. Accordingly the issue

of the action plan is constructed as follows:

171


Aug 02, talk with Unions-1 173

Submission Business-4 174


TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1 p. 11


155

“Develop a multi-stakeholder review of water supply strategies, which include different utilities

(public/private, and their combinations) and their capacities to provide equitable access to safe and

affordable drinking water and sanitation”176

.

Criteria. “EFFICIENCY” is the one criterion stated over and over (and sometimes in

capitals) within this repertoire:

“Re public or private: the question is: What should an effective water utility look like?”177

“In the water management issue – wants to see an emphasis on EFFICIENCY irrelevant of the

water supplier – look at the whole range of public, public-private, private etc.; Methods to gain

efficiency – part of benchmarking e.g. Like communities are able to compare themselves across

various parameters such as cost or man hours and make value judgements”178

Even though in the last citation communities were cited as an example instead of the private

sector, the meaning of efficiency was with “cost or man hours”, clearly framed according

to a business understanding, instead of for example being formulated in terms of the social

or environmental aspects of sustainability.

In the following citation a kind of efficiency criterion is left more open in its meaning:

“Improve access to safe and affordable water and sanitation through the implementation of the best

possible supply strategies” with the “Key Question: Which situation is best matched by which

supply strategy?”179

Substantiating with agreement. Within this issue construction the focus of the review is

substantiated on the grounds that it is necessary to start from an area of agreement:

“Carve out a smaller area where the group could have a dialogue and agree on a role.”180

This argument is recalled by the convener in a later meeting:

“the suggestion made by [the business representative], say, can we broaden this and maybe not use

the word privatisation so I could actually bring my business companies, my members into this to

have a joint review that would include the stakeholder groups around the table and look at the

efficiency of water supply strategies private-public, public-public and so on.”181

The condition for private sector participation was not to address the controversy, at least not

the controversial term ‘privatisation’:

“Privatisation: difficult, divisive term, needs dropping; Leads to agreement if you use instead:

‘efficient delivery of water services for all’”182

Method of the review. The method of the review should be one of learning from good

practice examples. The mutual learning is also beneficial in order to reduce the existing

tension resulting from the controversy.

176

Interim Project Report, 8th

July, Action Plan 1, p. 3, and Action Plan Jul 02 as sent out for Telephone Conference 177

TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1 p. 6 178

TelConf Mar 02 Business-2 p. 5 179

Action Plan Mar Jul 02 180

TelConf Mar 02 Business-2 181


TelConf Mar 02 Business-2 p. 11


156

“the goal is to take some examples. … You would choose a couple of each of those a private sector

one or private-public sector one, community based one. And (to) try and (draw around) those the

experiences. … (which) we might then build on (that) we might learn something. And actually might

reduce the tension. Between the complex that we have at the moment over private versus public.”183

The expansion of the focus of the review in particular is accounted for with the learning

opportunities which are created by examining the whole range of sectoral strategies:

“by having a broader discussion we might actually learn things that could be cross-fertilised. So it

may be that we learn stuff from the private sector, we might be (able) to learn stuff from the public

sector, that learning hub would actually benefit everybody.”184

“the collection of this kind of information will enable us to share between … the different

approaches that are undertaken so that others may learn from (them because) many of you said …

(that you) come to learn. You all want to try and find a better way of doing things than we have in

the past.”185

Legitimising/anchoring. The suggestion of broadening the focus of the review originating

from the Bonn Conference was made by the World Bank.186

Instead of anchoring the focus

in the recent significant international water conference, with this issue construction the

participants connect to the influential intergovernmental body, which, from this point of

view, amended the original proposal.

Stakeholder involvement. As within the contrary issue construction, here also the multi-

stakeholder approach is promoted. The review with the expanded focus needs to be

legitimised by the participation of all stakeholders.

Logic / structuring of problem and solution. In order to structure the problem domain, the

division of means and ends was introduced and emphasised several times: “‘Means’: such

as private sector engagement; ‘Ends’: relate to targets, e.g. access to safe drinking

water”187

. Often when the discussion came to private sector engagement from a critical

viewpoint, the focus was shifted towards the ‘ends’: “Delivery of access of water to the

poor”; “Is the overarching objective: ‘delivery of water services to the poor?’”188

The

efficiency criterion is complementary to this structure: “The ends: water & sanitation for

all, needs well managed water resources”189

.

The issue of control was not brought up within this repertoire.

Power, condition of membership. Looked at retrospectively, the stake enacted by this

repertoire was the powerful one in defining the issue. When it was asked that the term

‘privatisation’ be dropped (see above), the action plan was designed according to the

183




IC1 Business-1 0800-0801 187

TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1 p. 4 188

TelConf Mar 02 Business-2 p. 5,6 189

TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1, see also IGO-1, NGO-1, p. 7


157

expanded focus on suppliers of all sectors. However, since the strongest proponents of the

contrary stake used their ‘power of exit’, severe legitimacy problems remained.

De-legitimizing the contrary issue construction. The focus on private sector involvement

was depicted as “very narrow and limiting”190

:

“The reason why it was expanded, it was felt was, it was a limiting recommendation.”191

Furthermore, the exclusive focus on the private sector might have been indirectly positioned

as inappropriate,

“because (my understanding is that only) five percent of water is delivered by the private

sector”192

.

The most blatant way of de-legitimizing the focus on the private sector was framed like this:

“I think (…) that the original idea of private sector involvement exercise was I think flagged up as

part of the religious dogma debate”193

.

Positioning the contrary stake. The NGOs (as the sectoral group with the most critical

stance towards the private sector) were positioned by a private sector representative in such

a way that they were oriented critically not exclusively towards the private sector but

likewise to the public sector:

“NGO group is ombudsman; Holds the govt, & service providers (public & private) to account”194

.

Thereby he accounts for a broadened review while still integrating the NGO’s critical

stance, and he calls on the NGOs to also direct their critical stance towards other sectors.

These issue constructions and stakes are fuzzy at the fringes. In the course of the process

more concerns come to the fore, some of which blur the clear divide or which are not very

closely associated with one of the contrary stakes.

Blurring-the-boundary fragments

Fragments that help to blur the boundary posit the necessity of a cross-sectoral approach to

cope with the large-scale problems:

“When we look at the magnitude of the challenge in developing countries, it is not possible for the

public sector alone to provide adequate answers. The public sector needs to open up to

partnerships with business, and … not only with business, but also with local and community-based

initiatives.”195

190

IC1 Professional-Association-1 0752 191



IC1 Business-1 0797-98 194




158

The fragments offer a variation of the exclusive sectoral focus on the private sector. The

critical focus on the private sector is reframed as a critically appreciative focus: put at the

centre of attention for what might be positive impacts.

“explore the many other ways the private sector can be involved” beyond the controversial

privatization, “new way of raising cash”, “fundraising capacity”.196

What is explicitly maintained is that control remains in public hands:

“The key is to create an environment which … maintains the authority of the public to define rules

under which the providers operate.”197

Another way of blurring the boundaries without necessarily putting the private sector focus

in question is to de-homogenize what is under focus. In several instances the need was

expressed to enhance diversity within the represented sector – beyond the large

multinationals:

“Within the private sector a greater diversity of actors is needed in the process”198

; or “in order to

bring reality into the picture involve small and medium sized businesses in developing countries”199

In the literature, a similar stance is presented in Dicke (2007; Wilson’s contribution).

Wilson proposes to complicate the understanding of the sectoral divide in public and

private, thereby blurring the boundary. She bases her argument on the urgent need for

technologies, infrastructure and innovation and on the fact that relying on government alone

to provide good service has far too often not been successful. She criticizes the anti-

privatisation position with some arguments, all of which contribute to the blurring of the

boundary.

• The distinction between public and private is drawn too sharply in ideal terms,

while the differences between different contexts (like North and South, assuming

that the South will follow the North model) are neglected.

• The focus is on TNCs, while other forms and scales of private sector engagement

tend to be overlooked, even though those are the ones injecting innovation and

dynamism into the sector.

• Likewise, actors blurring or transcending the distinctions between the sectors are

neglected (like social entrepreneurship, multi-disciplinary knowledge networks,

alternative technology networks and innovative partnerships).

196

IC1 Business-3 0807-0815 197

IC1 NGO-3 198

TelConf Mar 02 NGO-1 p. 5, see also Submission IGO-1, full structure, p. 3: “Greater diversification of the private

sector actors in the process” 199

Submission NGO-2

Ta

ble

2 –

Div

erg

en

t is

sue c

on

stru

cti

on

s co

nst

itu

tin

g t

he c

on

tro

versy

Issu

e c

on

stru

cti

on

F

ocu

s o

n p

riv

ate

secto

r i

nv

olv

em

en

t F

ocu

s o

n e

ffic

ien

t se

rv

ice p

ro

vis

ion

B

lurrin

g t

he b

ou

nd

ary

fra

gm

en

ts

Sta

ke

Cri

tica

l-st

ance

-to

war

ds-

pri

vat

isat

ion

sta

ke

Inv

olv

ing

-th

e-p

riv

ate-

sect

or

stak

e B

lurr

ing

th

e b

ou

nd

ary

bet

wee

n t

he

stak

es

Tit

le o

f th

e M

SR

“M

SR

of

the

soci

al,

eco

no

mic

, an

d

env

iro

nm

enta

l im

pac

ts o

f p

riv

atis

atio

n i

n t

he

wat

er s

ecto

r” o

r “P

riv

ate

sect

or

eng

agem

ent

in

wat

er s

up

ply

an

d s

anit

atio

n”

“MS

R o

f G

lob

al W

ater

an

d S

anit

atio

n

Su

pp

ly S

trat

egie

s”

Bo

un

dar

ies

Dra

win

g t

he

pri

vat

e -

pu

bli

c b

ou

nd

ary

sh

arp

ly

Dis

solv

ing

th

e p

riv

ate

- p

ub

lic

bo

un

dar

y

Blu

rrin

g,

exp

lori

ng

an

d r

edra

win

g t

he

bo

un

dar

ies

bet

wee

n p

ub

lic

and

pri

vat

e

Mai

n s

tak

eho

lder

s P

ub

lic

un

ion

s, N

GO

s P

riv

ate

sect

or,

pro

fess

ion

al a

sso

ciat

ion

s,

som

e g

ov

ern

men

t re

pre

sen

tati

ves

, d

irec

tor

of

con

ven

ing

org

anis

atio

n

Fo

cusi

ng

F

ocu

s o

n t

he

con

tro

ver

sial

iss

ue

pri

vat

e se

cto

r

eng

agem

ent

/ p

riv

atis

atio

n

Sec

tora

l fo

cus

on

pri

vat

e se

cto

r

Alt

ern

ativ

e se

cto

ral

focu

s: s

tren

gth

enin

g t

he

pu

bli

c se

cto

r (a

s th

ere

is “

suff

icie

nt

focu

s o

n

pu

bli

c-p

riv

ate,

pu

bli

c-p

ub

lic

nee

d m

ore

focu

s”)

“Car

ve

ou

t a

smal

ler

area

wh

ere

the

gro

up

cou

ld a

gre

e” b

y f

ocu

sin

g o

n e

ffic

ien

cy

Bro

aden

ing

L

oo

kin

g a

t th

e b

road

er i

mp

acts

, ef

fici

ency

is

no

t th

e ex

clu

siv

e cr

iter

ion

, b

ut

on

e am

on

g

oth

ers,

po

ten

tial

ly l

ess

imp

ort

ant

than

sust

ain

abil

ity

an

d p

ov

erty

era

dic

atio

n.

“Lo

ok

at

a b

road

er s

pec

tru

m”

Th

e w

ho

le r

ang

e o

f u

tili

ties

, al

l se

cto

rs.

Sec

tora

l fo

cus:

“W

ith

in t

he

pri

vat

e se

cto

r a

gre

ater

div

ersi

ty o

f ac

tors

is

nee

ded

in

th

e

pro

cess

”;

“it

is n

ot

po

ssib

le f

or

the

pu

bli

c se

cto

r al

on

e to

pro

vid

e ad

equ

ate

answ

ers.

Th

e p

ub

lic

sect

or

nee

ds

to o

pen

up

to

par

tner

ship

s w

ith

bu

sin

ess,

and

… a

lso

wit

h l

oca

l an

d c

om

mu

nit

y-b

ased

init

iati

ves

.”

Cri

teri

a S

ust

ain

abil

ity

, p

ov

erty

era

dic

atio

n,

safe

,

reli

able

, af

ford

able

ser

vic

es;

effi

cien

cy n

ot

red

uce

d t

o e

con

om

ic t

erm

s: “

ben

chm

ark

s fo

r

succ

ess

of

serv

ice

pro

vid

ers

… i

ncl

ud

e …

firs

t an

d f

ore

mo

st g

oo

d s

erv

ice

to w

ater

use

rs,

incl

ud

ing

, n

ot

excl

ud

ing

, th

e p

oo

r”

Eff

icie

ncy

In

no

vat

ion

, af

ford

abil

ity

Issu

e c

on

stru

cti

on

F

ocu

s o

n p

riv

ate

secto

r i

nv

olv

em

en

t F

ocu

s o

n e

ffic

ien

t se

rv

ice p

ro

vis

ion

B

lurrin

g t

he b

ou

nd

ary

fra

gm

en

ts

Po

siti

on

ing

C

riti

qu

ing

:

Pu

ttin

g t

he

eng

agem

ent

of

the

pri

vat

e se

cto

r

(esp

ecia

lly

th

e m

ult

i-n

atio

nal

s) a

t th

e ce

ntr

e o

f

the

crit

iqu

e

Str

eng

then

ing

:

Alt

ern

ativ

ely

: st

ren

gth

enin

g t

he

pu

bli

c se

cto

r

Lea

rnin

g/i

mp

rov

ing

fro

m a

po

siti

ve

stan

ce

Cri

tica

lly

ap

pre

ciat

ing

:

Var

iati

on

of

the

sect

ora

l fo

cus

on

th

e p

riv

ate

sect

or:

pu

t it

at

the

cen

tre

of

atte

nti

on

fo

r w

hat

mig

ht

be

po

siti

ve

imp

acts

: “e

xp

lore

th

e m

any

oth

er w

ays

the

pri

vat

e se

cto

r ca

n b

e in

vo

lved

”,

“new

way

of

rais

ing

cas

h”,

“fu

nd

rais

ing

cap

acit

y”,

ex

plo

rin

g “

the

rela

tiv

e m

erit

s o

f

pu

bli

c an

d p

riv

ate

sect

or”

; ca

llin

g f

or

“a m

ore

def

ined

pri

vat

e se

cto

r ro

le”

An

cho

rin

g

(co

nn

ecti

ng

,

leg

itim

isin

g)

Inte

rnat

ion

al C

on

fere

nce

on

Fre

shw

ater

, B

on

n

20

01

:

“I w

elco

me

the

pro

po

sal

to b

egin

a

stak

eho

lder

dia

log

ue

to r

evie

w t

he

issu

es

lin

ked

wit

h p

riv

atis

atio

n,

bec

ause

it

cou

ld l

ead

to a

bet

ter

un

der

stan

din

g o

f su

cces

ses

and

fail

ure

s in

th

is r

egar

d”

Th

e IC

act

ion

pla

n M

SR

is

seen

as

a d

iffe

ren

t

pro

ject

(in

stea

d o

f k

eep

ing

“co

her

ence

”)

Pre

fere

nce

fo

r th

e o

rig

inal

ver

sio

n w

hic

h i

s

kep

t al

ive

Bo

nn

as

“sta

rtin

g p

oin

t”,

bu

t th

en u

sin

g t

he

Wo

rld

Ban

k’s

rec

om

men

dat

ion

to

bro

aden

the

focu

s as

a b

ase

IC a

ctio

n p

lan

MS

R:

Dif

fere

nt

pro

ject

as

it i

s an

IC

pro

ject

(“P

roje

ct n

um

ber

on

e. A

nd

no

t n

eces

sari

ly

abo

ut

this

su

gg

esti

on

th

at c

ame

ou

t o

f B

on

n,

as i

t w

as.”

)

Str

ateg

y o

f d

eali

ng

wit

h t

he

con

tro

ver

sy

Bec

ause

it

is s

o c

on

tro

ver

sial

, th

e is

sue

of

pri

vat

isat

ion

nee

ds

to b

e at

th

e ce

ntr

e, t

his

is

wh

at m

akes

th

e re

vie

w “

use

ful”

Pu

ttin

g t

he

con

tro

ver

sial

iss

ue

exp

lici

tly

in

th

e

fore

gro

un

d

Rea

chin

g a

bet

ter

un

der

stan

din

g o

f o

ne

of

the

mo

st c

on

tro

ver

sial

iss

ues

in

th

e w

ater

do

mai

n

Bec

ause

it

is s

o c

on

tro

ver

sial

, th

e te

rm

‘pri

vat

isat

ion

’ n

eed

s to

be

dro

pp

ed.

Mu

tual

lea

rnin

g i

n o

rder

to

“re

du

ce t

he

ten

sio

n”.

Ref

rain

ing

fro

m c

on

tro

ver

sy b

y f

ram

ing

th

e

con

tro

ver

sial

iss

ue

as a

‘m

ean

s’ (

amo

ng

oth

ers)

an

d b

y s

hif

tin

g t

he

emp

has

is t

o t

he

‘en

ds’

an

d t

o t

he

seem

ing

ly n

eutr

al c

rite

rio

n

of

‘eff

icie

ncy

’ o

f m

ean

s, n

o m

atte

r b

y w

hic

h

sup

pli

er

Mea

ns:

pri

vat

e se

cto

r en

gag

emen

t;

En

ds:

del

iver

ing

wat

er s

erv

ices

fo

r th

e p

oo

r

Ref

ram

ing

cri

tica

l fo

cus

on

pri

vat

e se

cto

r:

“ex

plo

re t

he

man

y o

ther

way

s th

e p

riv

ate

sect

or

can

be

inv

olv

ed”

bey

on

d t

he

con

tro

ver

sial

pri

vat

isat

ion

Issu

e c

on

stru

cti

on

F

ocu

s o

n p

riv

ate

secto

r i

nv

olv

em

en

t F

ocu

s o

n e

ffic

ien

t se

rv

ice p

ro

vis

ion

B

lurrin

g t

he b

ou

nd

ary

fra

gm

en

ts

Ov

erar

chin

g a

im

(leg

itim

isin

g)

Th

e o

ver

arch

ing

aim

is

no

t d

iscu

ssed

at

len

gth

, in

stea

d i

t se

ems

to b

e as

sum

ed.

“ou

r p

rin

cip

al c

on

cern

is

no

w a

bo

ut

wat

er f

or

the

po

or.

…

We

mu

st h

ave

the

focu

s o

n f

igh

tin

g p

ov

erty

.

Th

is i

s th

e o

ver

-arc

hin

g g

oal

fo

r o

ur

inte

rnat

ion

al c

oo

per

atio

n.

Th

is i

mp

lies

so

me

re-o

rder

ing

on

ou

r p

oli

cy a

gen

da.

”

En

ds:

‘d

eliv

erin

g w

ater

ser

vic

es f

or

the

po

or’

(th

is a

im i

s re

pea

ted

ov

er a

nd

ov

er a

gai

n)

Sta

keh

old

er

par

tici

pat

ion

Fu

ll r

ang

e is

nec

essa

ry

Co

nfi

den

ce t

o p

urs

ue

the

ori

gin

al v

ersi

on

of

the

MS

R w

ith

th

e “a

ll s

tak

eho

lder

s”

Fu

ll r

ang

e is

nec

essa

ry.

Ch

ang

e o

f fo

cus

and

om

issi

on

of

the

term

‘pri

vat

isat

ion

’ n

eces

sary

to

bri

ng

bu

sin

ess

com

pan

ies

in

“th

e p

urp

ose

of

the

pro

po

siti

on

was

to

incl

ud

e in

a j

oin

t re

vie

w t

he

bu

sin

ess

com

mu

nit

y”

Co

nce

rn /

sta

ke

“Co

nce

rn t

hat

co

ntr

ol

ov

er t

he

reso

urc

e w

ater

mig

ht

slip

aw

ay f

rom

th

e p

ub

lic

and

th

at t

he

po

or

may

su

ffer

. …

sta

keh

old

ers

wh

o f

eel

dis

adv

anta

ged

an

d p

ow

erle

ss v

is-à

-vis

lar

ge

inte

rnat

ion

al s

erv

ice

pro

vid

ers”

“In

ves

tmen

t h

as t

o b

e re

war

ded

”

Pu

bli

c se

cto

r al

on

e ca

nn

ot

del

iver

MD

Gs

Co

ntr

ol

Issu

e o

f C

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163

5.1.3.2 Underlying repertoires regarding the organising of societal relations

The stakes, issue constructions, fragments and concerns relate to some underlying

repertoires describing how water issues should best be organized, coordinated or regulated

in the face of the domain’s complexity: the integrative-water-management repertoire, the

water-as-a-human-right repertoire, and, in the background, the water-as-having-an-inherent-

value repertoire and the water-as-a-commodity repertoire, whereby the latter is countered by

the two preceding ones. These repertoires are about organising the general togetherness of

the diverse stakeholders or sectors around the natural resource water, beyond the

collaboration project. They relate to the broader discursive paradigms introduced in chapter

2. The repertoires set the direction of change for the water domain, elaborating on how the

collaborators want to “change the way we manage it”1. These repertoires can work to blur

the public-private boundary or to reinforce it. They are comparable to Washbourne and

Dicke’s policy narratives (2001: 94), which “prescribe the direction in which the world

should change. They incorporate both a description of a problem situation and the direction

of the solution … Policy narratives present arguments as to why a certain situation is

problematic and how this problem situation should be dealt with.” As policy narratives or

policy repertoires they can be used to “underpin, defend or attack certain policies”. They

“are taken by one or more parties to the controversy as underwriting and stabilizing the

assumptions for policy-making in the face of the issue’s uncertainty, complexity or

polarization” (Roe 1994: 3; in Washbourne and Dicke 2001: 94).

Integrative-water-management repertoire

The integrative-systemic repertoire captures the natural resource issue’s complexity and

interrelatedness in a holistic picture. This comprehensive approach to freshwater is most

prominently conceptualized with integrated water resource management (IWRM), a concept

used a lot in the IC process.

“the process and the principle is the integrated water management approach.”2

“Promoting an Integrated Approach for Water Management”3.

“Wants to approach water in an integrated way; maintain the overarching aspect and include

poverty and management”4, “An integrated approach is needed”

5.

Usually, the integrated approach entails more inclusive governance processes:

1 Preamble of the Issue Paper

2 Apr 02 Government-1 2959-63

3 Submission IGO-1, p. 1, submitted before the April 02 meeting

4 TelConf Mar 02 Unions-2

5 TelConf Mar 02 NO


164

The “integrated approach for water management … often provides a framework for multi-

stakeholder input in decision making … Governance and accountability are central issues that need

to be addresses for effective water management … public participation and disclosure of

information are important processes for broad based understanding and support”6.

The emphasis of the integrative-water-management repertoire may be either on ‘integrative’

or on ‘resource management’, corresponding to the reformist paradigm with its strong or

weak form. With an emphasis on ‘integrative’, the notion of holism is crucial. This holistic

picture also takes into consideration the diverse meanings of the resource:

“Valuation of water should be looked at in a holistic manner that includes a wide range of

economic, cultural and spiritual aspects of water use”7,

“Valuing water in a non-financial sense”, “Cultural, spiritual emotional thing”8.

These aspects partly form an overlap with the ‘water-having-an-inherent-value’ repertoire

(see below). The integrative-water-management repertoire is similar to the policy narrative

“comprehensive water management” identified by Washbourne and Dicke (2001: 97). The

basic assumption of this narrative is that water is conceived as a system in which all aspects

of water and its use are interlinked. This interconnection means that changing one aspect

will inescapably affect other aspects. This understanding is usually embedded in a larger

systemic framework of nature into which humankind must fit. It is build on “an

understanding that we cannot fight against nature, because in the end we will lose the battle”

(Washbourne and Dicke 2001). In contrast, with an emphasis on ‘resource management’,

the relationship to nature is constructed in terms of control, based on the assumption that

nature can be ‘managed’, whereby nature, reduced to a “resource”, is suppressed in the

rather traditional management paradigm, for example with “Integrating the Ecological

Dimension into Water Management”9. Both the weak and the strong variant rely on an

anthropocentric philosophy, whereby the strong version respects nature according to its

cultural value (see chapter 2).

Water-as-human-right repertoire

During the Summit process and long before it, many policy-makers and advocates called for

the recognition of water as a human right as significant step in ensuring that action is taken

to enable access to clean water for all. The hope is that the legal obligation would help to

achieve effective changes in policies and resource allocation and give civil society firmer

ground on which governments can be pressured. The acknowledgement of the right to water

was also used by privatisation critics in order to reinforce the arguments for strengthening



8 TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1, p. 10



165

the public sector’s role. Meeting such a crucial need was seen by some as incompatible with

the profit motivation of the private sector. Soon after the Summit, in November 2002, the

UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights affirmed access to water as a

fundamental right of all people: “the human right to water is indispensable for leading a life

in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights.” Even

though this is not legally binding it is internationally recognized and carries the weight and

influence of “soft law”.10

In accordance with this repertoire, at the Bonn conference the importance was emphasized

of maintaining the “control over the resource water” and the authority “to define rules

under which the providers operate” with the public.11

The ‘ownership’ of the resource also

needs to be in public hands. The Summit took place a few months before the right for access

to water was recognised by the UN, so it was still a big issue during the IC conference.

“I think principally in Bonn one of the (sentiments) particularly of civil society, major groups or

NGOs they considered (and they constantly put) across was that access to water is a human right

and if access to water is a human right everyone deserves as basic necessity to have this access

therefore it should be provided by the public sector by everyone’s governments. … for example, a

certain portion of ODA should be given to government, to the public sector to have the public

sector predominantly providing access to water supply and actually sanitation.”12

“The point is there was actually a side session in Bonn on the private sector’s role. In helping to

provide access to water and sanitation. And it was civil society, NGOs that claimed: if we’re going

to say access to water is a human right, everyone deserves this, who’s watching the private sector

coming into any developing country and be the principle supplier of water? No, it should be the

public sector, everyone has a government.”13

The outcome of the ‘alternative’ action plan to the MSR, “Strengthening Public Water

Systems”, posited a statement on this issue:

“We believe that access to potable water is a human right, as is the right to live in a healthy

environment - which includes adequate sanitation services. It is a state obligation to provide basic

water and sanitation services to everyone in the nation. We advocate that the social value of water

must be recognized and strengthened. Water is a common property, a public good, to be used for

providing water security for people, local production needs and ecosystems.”14

This repertoire was also referenced when possible starting points for discussing private

sector engagement were suggested:

10

United Nations . 2003 . International Year of Freshwater. Backgrounder: The Right to Water. Water as a Human

Right. United Nations Department of Public Information, DPI/ 2293F – February

(http://www.un.org/events/water/TheRighttoWater.pdf , accessed 26th

March 07). 11


IC1 NGO-3 0825-34 13

IC1 NGO-3 0856-62 14

www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/f_public.htm


166

“Private Sector engagement discussion could be: … Philosophical – i.e. only the state should

provide basic services; basic services should be free at the point of delivery; profits should not be

made from basic services”15

.

The water-as-a-human-right repertoire was also described by Washbourne and Dicke (2001:

103) who labelled the policy narrative “water as a god-given right”. They noted that within

this narrative, efficiency (in the broadened sense) is best safeguarded by public control. The

water-as-a-human-right repertoire corresponds to the strong reformist paradigm or the

paradigm of environmental justice, with a stronger tendency towards anthropocentrism than

to ecocentrism due to its focus on humanism.

Water-as-having-an-inherent-value repertoire

The water-as-having-an-inherent-value repertoire, respecting the intrinsic value of the

‘source’ (instead of ‘resource’) water, would correspond to the ecocentric paradigm. It is

interesting to note that this paradigm hardly played a role in the process. It is implied only

in a very small number of citations:

“Valuing water in a non-financial sense”, “Cultural, spiritual emotional thing”16

.

The repertoire is possibly also reflected in the persistent criticism of industrial practices

during one conference:

“Exploitation and pollution of groundwater by industry”17

,

“Protecting of water resources from external contamination”18

.

Water-as-commodity (water-as-economic-good) repertoire

The water-as-commodity repertoire was also not used in its pure form within the IC process.

It was still present as it was countered, first and foremost by the water-as-a-human-right

repertoire. The repertoire which is based on the neo-liberal paradigm was described by

Washbourne and Dicke (2001: 104) as water as a commodity policy narrative, within which

efficiency is secured by market mechanisms in a free market. This repertoire gave rise to the

increasing privatisation of water services which turned out to be so controversial. During the

preparation stage for the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the Dublin Principles were declared,

the fourth of which promotes water as an economic good.

“Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic

good. Within this principle, it is vital to recognize first the basic right of all human beings to have

access to clean water and sanitation at an affordable price. Past failure to recognize the economic

value of water has led to wasteful and environmentally damaging uses of the resource. Managing

15

IP V3 Mar 02, p. 7; the phrase “profits should not be made” was strongly contested later(Submission Business-4), the

counter-arguments were then included in the next version of the issue paper. 16

TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1, p. 10 17

TelConf Mar 02 NGO-9, p. 5 18

TelConf Mar 02 NGO-9, p. 9


167

water as an economic good is an important way of achieving efficient and equitable use, and of

encouraging conservation and protection of water resources.”19

Even though it is qualified here with water as a human right, the Dublin Principles stand for

the profound influence of neo-liberal ideas on international development and policy debates

in the water sector in the 1990s. In the wake of the Dublin Principles, international

organizations realigned their position regarding water supply. The World Bank played a

leading role in promoting new approaches in accordance with the perspective on water as an

economic good. International financial institutions as well as development agencies

promoted private sector participation, often together with neo-liberal structural adjustment

programmes (Budds and McGranahan 2003). The stances taken by development agencies

and the conditions attached to development finance were perceived by critics as a means of

pursuing the donor countries’ private sector interests rather than those of the recipients (in

Budds and McGranahan 2003; Schulpen and Gibbon 2002).

Furthermore, repertoires for organising societal relations in general (not specifically based

around water as an issue) were invoked. They are highly relevant since the ‘stakeholder

movement’ aims to achieve change in respect of societal relations. Various conceptions

about how societal relations are and should be organised exist and came into play within the

process. The use of the repertoires aims to alter (or preserve) relations between the different

societal sectors or functions like state, civil society, market and community. For example,

regarding the integration of civil society, the participatory democracy (good-governance)

repertoire counters the dominance of the state or market, where civil society’s participation

is confined to decisions as electors and consumers, as enacted within the traditional-

representative-democracy repertoire or the neo-liberal repertoire. Regarding the integration

of the market sector, two of the relevant repertoires are the embedded-market-economy

repertoire on the one hand and the neo-liberal repertoire on the other.

Participatory-democracy (good-governance) repertoire

This repertoire basically reflects the collaboration’s main process aim of ‘promoting a

multi-stakeholder approach’ in the sense of institutionalising participation (see above). The

notion of a participatory, inclusive democracy is also found in the ecocentric paradigm (see

chapter 2). The repertoire was often to used to qualify or scrutinize the respective

suggestions for water provision:

19

WMO (1992) The other three principles read:

Freshwater is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and environment;

Water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-

makers at all levels;

Women play a central part in the provision, management, and safeguarding of water


168

“Promote public-private partnerships by providing stable and transparent regulatory frameworks,

involving all concerned stakeholders, and monitoring the performance and improving

accountability of public institutions and private sector companies through good governance and the

development of a code of ethics.”20

“Private Sector engagement discussion could be: … governance focused – how do you achieve

managerial systems of control with disparate power / financial imbalances …?”21

The participatory approach to water management had already been part of the Dublin

Principles since 1992.22

Embedded-market-economy repertoire

Within this repertoire, the use of market-mechanisms and private sector engagement is

regarded as valuable and is taken advantage of. In order to achieve the most efficient

management of the scarce resource, market mechanisms should be employed. A business

language is prevalent. The resource needs to be properly managed23

, with an “emphasis on

EFFICIENCY” in terms of “parameters such as cost or man hours”24

; “The ends: water &

sanitation for all, needs well managed water resources”25

and “Basic principles for

benchmarking”26

, “Action Guidelines on effective utilities”27

. The extent to which making

use of market mechanisms is embedded in public or state forms of regulation remains open.

In this respect it relates to the reformist paradigm (see chapter 2), allowing for both its weak

and strong versions. In the weak version, public governance is jeopardized. According to the

stronger version, in which market mechanisms complement public decision-making, public

or state regulation and control are taken into account:

“(there are) many ways (in which the) public sector can retain the responsibility for access. But you

can still involve the private sector. The public sector can licence access. But actually the delivery

can be through the private sector. But essentially, the public sector doesn’t lose control of

access.”28

Also state support is welcomed, e.g. in form of official development assistance (ODA),

whereby the efficiency criterion is applied to the best possible use of ODA money (“Never

enough ODA money, use the little ODA money more effectively”29

). However, the aim to do

without subsidies is also pursued, whereby those excluded from the market economy so far

should become empowered to take part as consumers:

20

Submission MSO-4, this comment was included in the next version of the Issue Paper (IP V4 p. 9) 21

IP V3 Mar 02, p. 7 22

see footnote on the last page 23

TelConf Mar 02 IGO-1 24


TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1, see also IGO-1, NGO-1, p. 7 26


TelConf Mar 02 NGO-1, p.7 28

IC1 Business-3 0868-77 29

TelConf Mar 02 Business-2, also Professional-Association-1, p. 12


169

“Well, it should be pursued in every program you implement for the poor, to do with water, to do

with poverty alleviation, to do with whatever, you really need to involve the private sector. There

are some cases for subsidies, generally subsidy is not acceptable. hh (...) we try to get away from

subsidies. We try to develop technologies that are affordable to the poor so they can be treated as

customers and not as charity cases, so, you know, this is sort of another look (...) there are some

cases for subsidies”30

.

Another way of benefiting from market mechanisms is the fundraising capacity of the

private sector:

“The other aspect is of course the private sector does have a whole new way of raising cash. Which

the public sector (won’t have) access to. (…) So it’s about how that fundraising capacity could be

mobilised (as well).”31

Traditional-representative-democracy repertoire

Within this repertoire, participation of citizens is reduced to electing politicians who are

then acting on their citizens’ behalf. Decision-making is therefore reserved to a small

political elite. This repertoire does not appear in the process itself, only as a repertoire

which is being countered, for example through some of the “principles of stakeholder

collaboration” stated in the project’s outline, “inclusiveness”, “ownership”, “participation

& engagement” and “voices, not votes”.32

Neo-liberal repertoire

This repertoire goes along with pushing privatisation in whatever conceivable societal areas,

according to a neo-liberal agenda. Market mechanisms are given first priority and tend to

become disembedded (Keane 2001). Here also societal decision-making is elitist,

privileging the economic elite. This repertoire was not explicitly used within the process but

serves as a backdrop which is countered, which is gauged as dangerous or which needs to be

attenuated after what has been experienced not only in the water sector.

5.1.3.3 Development of the controversy

The development of the MSR action plan group’s issue turned out to be controversial

enough for the creation of generalised membership ties to be severely impeded. In the

process of constructing the group’s common issue and its boundaries, divergent rather than

convergent constructions prevailed. The definition of the issue and its boundaries has

implications for defining the boundaries between the stakeholders and how they are

positioned towards each other. In the following, I delineate the controversy as it unfolds and

as it is dealt with during the process. I investigate how the participants interactively and

30

Apr 02 NGO-11 2314-23 31

IC1 Business-3 0804-15 (representative of a company which is a “Sector leader in the global Dow Jones

Sustainability World Index” according to the company’s website) 32



170

controversially construct their issue with its boundaries and how they thereby position

themselves and each other, enacting their collective or mutual identities (compare also

Bouwen and Taillieu 2004; Dewulf et al. 2004).

The participants construct the issue, invoke the repertoires and therewith enact their stakes.

With the issue accounts they are strengthening their stake and challenging the contrary

stake. They do so by drawing, blurring or dissolving boundaries, by focusing or broadening

the issue, by up- or downplaying, in- or excluding certain aspects, by connecting or

distinguishing their stake or by pointing out incoherencies of the other issue accounts, and

by establishing certain cause-effect, means-ends or condition-consequence patterns. The

accounts and repertoires are (re-)constructed and invoked in interaction. The participants

make use of the following moves in interaction: they challenge and polarise issue

constructions and repertoires or explore, reframe and embed (Dewulf 2006) the different

constructions and repertoires. The processes on both the level of issue constructions and

repertoires and the interactional level have relational consequences as they position the

participants or the collaboration as a whole in certain way, while they are managing

responsibility, accountability and identity.

As already mentioned, the original proposal for the MSR group’s issue was that which came

out of the Bonn conference with the focus on impacts and effects of private sector

engagement in water services. Accordingly, this proposal was outlined in the first two

versions of the rolling issue paper. The controversy later arose around the focus of the

review being solely on private sector engagement instead of looking at the whole range of

utilities. The Issue Paper formed the basis for the discussions at the telephone conference,

where the suggested review’s focus was contested from several sides. The following

citations refer to the minutes of the telephone conference on 15th

March 02 as they were sent

out by the coordinator later. The first comment touching upon the review seemed to be a

neutral structuring suggestion, at least at first glance:

Professional Association representative:

- A division into means and ends will add clarity

- ‘Means’: such as private sector engagement

- No mention of financing, which is a means

- ‘Ends’: relate to targets, e.g. access to safe drinking water33

Yet, the division into means and ends does not only add clarity, it can be considered also

as shifting the emphasis. What is classified as ‘means’ is downgraded compared to what is

classified as ‘ends’. The contentious issue of private sector engagement is not what some

wish to have as the focus of the review. The speaker prepared the ground by viewing private

33

TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1 p. 4


171

sector engagement as one means among others, thereby questioning the exclusive focus on

this specific means. The two subsequent speakers are shifting the focus as well:

Trade Union representative:

- There is sufficient focus on public-private-partnerships

- Public-public-partnerships need more focus

- Focus needs to be at the workplace level where it can be more significant

Business representative:

- Supports [Trade Union representative]

- Public/public

- Public/private are both important

- In the water management issue – wants to see an emphasis on EFFICIENCY irrelevant of

the water supplier – look at the whole range of public, public-private, private etc.

- Methods to gain efficiency – part of benchmarking

e.g. Like communities are able to compare themselves across various parameters such as

cost or man hours and make value judgements34

While the focus on privatisation in the original Bonn suggestion resulted from a

confrontation of the issue of privatisation with a critical stance, here a member of the

Unions chooses a different strategy: shifting the focus away from public-private

partnerships to public-public-partnerships. Focusing in this case is not about giving critical

attention but about strengthening, supporting. This is in turn supported by the business

representative who will later explicitly reject the focus on privatisation. He gives equal

importance to different organisations of supply and puts the organisational form in the

background in favour of focusing on efficiency, thereby dissolving the boundary between

different suppliers. Thereby, he introduces a general criterion which well-suits the sector he

belongs to since efficiency is often regarded as the private sector’s core competency. The

example he chooses, communities, is neither public nor private, lending his statement and

the suggested criterion a neutral stance. However, the chosen efficiency criterion “cost or

man hours” renders a business imprint instead of including for example community

parameters relating to poverty or environmental issues. The discussion went on, touching on

different aspects of the issue around private sector engagement:

NGO:

- Within the private sector a greater diversity of actors is needed in the process

NGO:

- Exploitation and pollution of groundwater by industry

Business:

- Delivery of access of water to the poor

Business (after two other turns both concerning ecosystem and pricing)

- Is the overarching objective: ‘delivery of water services to the poor?’

Unions:

- Wants to approach water in an integrated way

- Maintain the overarching aspect and include poverty and management

34

TelConf Mar 02 Unions-2, Business-2, p. 5


172

Professional Association:

- Impossible to separate the issues

- Need water supply to the poor therefore need to charge for water resources

- Re public or private: the question is: What should an effective water utility look like?

Intergovernmental Body:

- Conserve and manage resources for rich and poor

NGO:

- Progress on water and sanitation

- What is the resource we want to preserve

Farmers:

- An integrated approach is needed35

The different aspects coming to the fore in this discussion blurred the boundary of the

opposition of pro and contra private sector engagement. So far, the categories discussed

were public, private, public-private and so forth, with that, the sectors were constituted as

internally homogenous. Now an NGO participant draws attention to a greater diversity

within the private sector and demands the inclusion of that diversity in the process. The

critical stance is particularly oriented towards the large multi-nationals. Besides the strategy

of concentrating on those, an alternative strategy is to include for example local small-scale

providers in order to enrich the picture. This explicit inclusion refers to both, to the focus of

the review and to participating stakeholders.

In the next turn, another NGO representative further broadens the private sector picture by

invoking its ecologically detrimental activities and therefore illuminating negative aspects

(she comes back to this aspect two more times during this conference). The business

representative’s direct reaction is to ignore this aspect and to shift the focus to the delivery

of water services to the poor (to the ‘ends’), thereby diverting from this critical issue. He

will re-emphasise these ‘ends’ after two turns in which the integrative-water-management

repertoire comes into play. Similar to the system-thinking comments, the next speaker

suggests framing the issue by an integrated, overarching approach, which embeds the

business speaker’s topics, poverty and management as parts in a whole. In the following

turn, the interconnectedness of those issues and also the importance of efficiency is

confirmed, and the notion of the ‘effective utility’ is introduced36

. The next three speakers

also put the integrated approach in the foreground, including the resource aspect. After two

speakers elaborating on other topics, the efficiency topic arises again to serve “The ends:

water & sanitation for all, needs well-managed water resources”37

. Like before38

,

35

TelConf Mar 02 p. 5 36

see also TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1, p. 7 37

TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1, see also IGO-1, NGO-1, p. 7 38

TelConf Mar 02 Business-2, p. 5


173

efficiency measures are suggested: “Basic principles for benchmarking”39

, “Action

Guidelines on effective utilities”40

.

Business:

- Need priorities

- NGO group is ombudsman

- Holds the govt, & service providers (public & private) to account

- Carve out a smaller area where the group could have a dialogue and agree on a role.41

The business representative defines the role of the NGOs42

according to their traditional

holding-to-account repertoire (see below). At the same time the definition serves the

request to critically examine all sectors, not only private, but also public. By referring to the

priority-setting process (priorities needed, carving out smaller area) it also becomes clear

that it is about selecting and therefore also excluding issues. The conditions for

participating in such a review will be prepared by defining the stakeholders’ roles and the

focal area.

So far, what the participants did at the telephone conference while discussing the various

themes was to add more or less specific suggestions for new and existing priority areas,

shift priorities, suggest organisations which should be considered to participate, suggest

some restructuring of the topics, or establish links to existing processes. The mode of

discussion was rather to add to the ideas. Now, when the topic of “Private Sector

Engagement in Water Supply and Sanitation” is discussed, a participant demands that a

term be dropped:

Business:

- Privatisation: difficult, divisive term, needs dropping

- Leads to agreement if you use instead: ‘efficient delivery of water services for all’

- Q: how 100% public need ppp or ppp

- Professional Association:

- Need to look at broader spectrum

This demand was formulated as condition for the participation of business.43

Accordingly,

the proposed action plan was now about a “multi-stakeholder review of water supply

strategies” and the term ‘privatisation’ was dropped. Instead it was broadened to explicitly

include “different utilities (public/private)”, while focusing on “efficient” service delivery.

The goal now was to “Improve access to safe and affordable water and sanitation through

the implementation of the best possible supply strategies” with the “Key Question: Which

39


TelConf Mar 02 NGO-1, p.7 41

TelConf Mar 02 Business-2, p. 8 42

see also TelConf Mar 02 Business-2, p. 12 43

See the convener's description of the discussion in May 02


174

situation is best matched by which supply strategy?” The outcomes of the study are

projected as follows, invoking the functionalist repertoire:

- “Review existing supply strategies with a multi-stakeholder approach for maximum quality

and credibility of the review and increased outreach for the promotion of its outcomes:

Conduct a thorough review of high credibility and develop recommendations which are

supported by key stakeholders

- Promote the implementation of recommendations”44

Recalling the origins of the suggested review in Bonn, the reason why it was proposed was

exactly because it was the “most controversial” issue (see above). Now the same reason is

used to remove it: because of being “difficult” and “divisive”. This change of focus will

lead to a controversy later. Here at the telephone conference this suggestion is not contested,

on the contrary two participants endorse it. The focus is shifted on the one hand by ‘carving

out a smaller area’ (focusing on efficient delivery), and on the other hand by ‘looking at a

broader spectrum’ (including all kinds of suppliers).

After the next meeting, two participants from different NGOs argue for the significance of

the original proposal in their submissions, anchoring the proposal in the Bonn

Conference.

The “Multi-Stakeholder Review of Private Sector Participation” is one of the “two main

themes that [the representative’s constituency] would like to pursue at the Implementation

Conference … [what follows is the citation in the beginning of the section 5.1.3]”45

. He

underlines the importance of the proposal by referring to the recent and highly

acknowledged international water conference, to the “many instances” where the idea came

up, to the “generally positive” reactions and to a person of position – the hosting Minister

who supported the project. He reasons that it is essential to understand the prevalent

controversy to move forward: “such a review seems to be the best way towards

understanding a policy that arguably was most controversial during the conference” citing

the hosting Minister: “because it could lead to a better understanding of the successes and

failures in this regard.”46

The other NGO representative also demanded in her submission that the original version of

the review be maintained:

“keep coherence with the space obtained in Bonn and privilege the results of the proposed exercise

on privatization to be done among multi-stakeholders on the review of the social, economic and

environmental impacts of privatization in the water sector”47

.

44

Action Plan Mar Jul 02; in this case it is not about implementing international agreements, but non-binding

recommendations resulting from the Bonn Conference. 45

Submission NGO-1 46

Submission NGO-1 47

Submission NGO-2


175

In several submissions the narrow focus on efficiency as main criterion was also

countered, and the sustainability criterion added:

“Comment re action plan on review of most efficient service provider: look at sustainability as

main criteria rather than efficiency”48

;

“We should add to the phrase ‘change the way we manage it’ something along the lines of ‘and

adopt a more sustainable approach to its use’”49

.

In line with the original focus of the review on the “environmental impacts of privatisation

in the water sector”50

, at the telephone conference the call came from the NGO side to

protect water resources from exploitation and contamination by industry.51

The private

sector representative came back on this issue in his submission, clarifying that there is no

need to control, regulate or instruct the business sector on what to do in this regard:

“Companies know what to do when building factories, they make sure there’s no waste, toxics don’t

go into the water.”52

Furthermore, some participants contest an exclusive association of efficiency with the

private sector and take this as a reason to strengthen the public sector:

“Call on governments at the Summit not to discount the role of public-public partnerships. Public

sector involvement can’t be automatically associated with less efficient delivery, and there are

public sector organisations with capacity that should be maximized rather than marginalised.”53

Also blurring-the-boundary fragments are represented in the submission, for example by

invoking the many different ways the private sector can be involved:

“Private sector investments may take on a wide variety of forms”54

.

At the IAG meetings in New York (March 02) and Switzerland (April 02) the controversy

about the focus of the review was not touched upon. At the next meeting in Bali (May 02),

all action plans were scheduled to be finally discussed regarding their eligibility as IC

project, hence also this one with its new title and focus. To the surprise of the conveners the

action was redrawn by its current champion, a public sector unionist: “I think this is not an

issue for the IC”55

. The convener inquired: “can you explain why? And what it was?”56

After a pause, as the addressee of the question seemed to be absentminded or busy with his

48

Submission Local-Authorities-1 49

Submission Business-4 (environmental services business representative), referring to the Issue Paper Preamble. Also

IGO-1 in his submission (full structure, p. 3f) thoroughly elaborates on enriching the efficiency criterion with an

ecological dimension. 50

Emphasis added 51

TelConf Mar 02, NGO-9 p. 5, 6, 9 52

Submission Business-2 53

Submission Public-Water-1, p. 9 54

Submission IGO-1, full structure, p. 6 55

May 02 Unions-1 0579 56

May 02 Convener 0612


176

laptop, and in reply to a further question by the convener “no, just to explain, what

happened to the issues, why you are redrawing”57

, he replied:

“oh no, it’s not that, it’s just, the question for all these things is, is it appropriate for the IC or the

IAG or not, and this one comes out of the Bonn conference where there was to be (...) a multi-

stakeholder review of the impact of privatisation in water. But that’s not an IC project, so, it just

got on by, I guess by, I don’t know, this is something that probably will happen, and should happen,

but not necessarily under the IC IAG, o.k.? (Pause)”58

A further participant who had to leave earlier and was eager to present her project

interrupted. The convener later came back to the issue:

“I’d like to come back to number one, because I have, in the interest of transparency I would like to

know, why. And to-”59

The facilitator intervened to get the addressee’s attention60

, as once again he was engrossed

in his laptop. After some confusion on the part of the unionist and some annoyance on the

part of the convener, the latter insisted on questioning the decision to redraw:

Convener: “I want to recall the discussions we’ve had. I don’t oppose to things being taken off or

put on at all. But I want to recall the conversations we’ve had that led to the thing being on the list

in the interest in transparency and a good decision-making. The suggestion of reviewing the impact

of privatisation, I’m phrasing it that way (...) something that came out of Bonn”61

Unionist: “yeah, that’s correct”62

Convener: “do a joint review of the impact of privatisation, during our first telephone conference, I

believe it was the first telephone conference of the Issue Advisory Group for the Implementation

Conference Freshwater strand, I recall a conversation about that. And the suggestion made by

[name of Business-2], say, can we broaden this and maybe not use the word privatisation so I could

actually bring my business companies, my members into this to have a joint review that would

include the stakeholder groups around the table and look at the efficiency of water supply strategies

private-public, public-public and so on. And then, there was more discussion about say, well, it’s

not only the efficiency, that we should be looking at, but the sustainability, and the reliability or the

ability, capacity to provide reliable and affordable services. If I, my personal recollection of that,

this was nearly like a UN negotiation on text [group: laughter], to come out with a formula where

everybody would feel kind of alright (...) might be wanting to look into that. And that is something

that might be a bit different from what you’re saying this is not something that should be discussed

at the Implementation Conference. I’m not really sure I understand why.”63

Unionist: “Well, I’ve missed a number of the conference calls, so-”64

Convener: “that’s why it is phrased the way it is phrased [unionist: right], that’s important to

know.”65

57

May 02 IAG-coordinator 0624 58

May 02 Unions-1 0627-32 59


“Hold on a minute, [name of Unions-1], this is a question aiming in your direction. [Pause] [name of convener] is

formulating a question in your direction” (May 02 Facilitator 0712-14) 61


May 02 Unions-1 0737 63


May 02 Unions-1 0758


177

Unionist: “the issue on the review of privatisation was specifically raising privatisation [convener:

mmm] because it is so controversial, because there are opposite (camps) [convener: yeah, that’s

true] that we need to clear (it here), if we broaden that then it becomes something else! So, if-”66

Convener: “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, that’s why I’m talking about number one. And not

necessarily about this suggestion that came out of Bonn, as it was. Sorry to interrupt.”67

Unionist: “right. So then by all means, if that’s the concern or the interest, then the IC can (do as)

it wishes in that respect. But it’s obvious throughout the MSD process, that especially the

privatisation is very controversial (...) felt that, if we can have a multi-stakeholder process to review

what’s going on then maybe we can get over some (...) and find agreed-upon data and (...)

[Convener: sure] and yeah, I think that’s useful! If [name of Business-2] is proposing something

broader, then, o.k. (...) but it’s different.”68

Convener: “Oh yeah, the purpose of the proposition was to include in a joint review the business

community.”69

Unionist: “All stakeholders would be in the review of privatisation.”70

Convener: “O.k., so you got o.k. fine, then we discuss that (...) right.”71

The unionist managed to make his preferred project (or the project that came out of Bonn)

unassailable. The convener recalls how this project developed or was altered and with that

legitimises the alteration. The unionist refuses this version by not taking part in the

discussion in the first place, by answering scantly and in an offhanded manner and by not

accepting the changed action plan as ‘his’ project. He also lends a casual touch by using a

generalising formulation like “it’s just, the question for all these things is, is it appropriate

for the IC or the IAG or not”. He does not contest the alteration, but simply insists that it is

a different project. He underlines the original title with his insert “yeah, that’s correct”. He

keeps the original project version alive, declares the IC process not to be the adequate space

and displays confidence that the project is going to happen later in a different organisational

frame. The convener accounts for the change by mentioning the condition that the review

should include the business community and hints at the fact that at least in this process the

business community was not inclined to participate if the original version of the review was

kept. The unionist does not directly enlarge upon this argument but presents it as a matter of

course that the realisation of the original project would comprise all stakeholders, whereby

he refrains from mentioning the business community explicitly. The convener propounds

that in its development the project not only conformed to the business concerns but also to

65

May 02 Convener 0761 66

May 02 Unions-1 0764-67 67


May 02 Unions-1 0775-80 69


May 02 Unions-1 0787 71

May 02 Convener 0790


178

the concern to include criteria other than just efficiency. By comparing the procedure to a

UN negotiation on text, she puts the effort behind that process to the fore.

After this conflictive episode, the expanded focus of the review was maintained. The action

plan initiative was planned under the title:

“Develop a multi-stakeholder review of water supply strategies, which include different utilities

(public/private, and their combinations) and their capacities to provide equitable access to safe and

affordable drinking water and sanitation”72

.

As “possible event at the IC” it was projected

“(t)o get a clear, shared understanding of the most important questions that need to be asked in the

review, based on the needs, interests and views of the different stakeholder groups. Solicit precise

input from stakeholder groups on relevant criteria … Let the group decide if there is space for a

global review process. …73

So the creation of the particularised membership ties was scheduled for the IC conference:

tying the participants to the collaboration around a specific and “shared” issue and

positioning this collaboration into its “space” within the context, given that they confirm

that such a process is required.

At the Implementation Conference, the action plan for the review of water and sanitation

supply strategies comprising the whole range of utilities lacked the unions’ participation.

Instead, the unions championed the other action plan “strengthening the public sector”. This

did not mean that the controversy around the focus of the review was finally settled – it

lived on in the controversy around the requirement of the review. The question of the

requirement was explicitly included in the agenda for the IC workshop (which was not the

case for other action plan agendas).

The participant who requested the discussion of the requirement issue (which was also

endorsed by others) begins by anchoring the requirement or necessity of the multi-

stakeholder review (MSR) in the recommendation of the former international water

conference:

“Is everyone aware of the Bonn freshwater conference? And (the) recommendation there, there

should be a review of private sector participation in water. Which I see as a starting point for what

we’re talking about now.”74

For the new version of the MSR, focusing on the expanded range of utilities, the

requirement question is open. Since the expansion had been controversial, it was in need of

justification. In the following the discussion surrounds the question of why the review was

72


July, Action Plan 1, p. 3, and Action Plan Jul 02 as sent out for Telephone Conference 73


July, Action Plan 1, p. 3 74

IC1 Professional-Association-1 0741-44


179

expanded from a “review of private sector participation in water” to a “review of water

and sanitation supply strategies” of all sectors. The participant is accounting for the

decision to expand the review by designating the original focus on the private sector as

“very narrow and limiting”75

, thereby de-legitimising the original focus. The director of the

convening organisation offers to give some more details76

:

“Well, there was a feeling that (the review is) around the impact of the private sector in delivering

water as (…) (whether that was good or bad in a) number of different areas. (…) The reason why it

was expanded, (it was felt) it was a limiting recommendation. And by expanding it, (we wanna)

address more because (my understanding is that only) five percent in water is delivered by the

private sector and so, by having a broader discussion we might actually learn things that could be

cross-fertilised. So it may be that we (learn stuff from the) private sector, we might be (able) to

learn stuff from the public sector, that learning hub would actually benefit everybody.”77

He also uses the argument that the original version would be limiting and further

underscores his argument by emphasising that only a small percentage is delivered by the

private sector, thereby rendering the exclusive focus inappropriate. He goes on to argue that

by expanding the focus it is also possible to expand the learning and thereby take full

advantage of the multi-stakeholder approach.

The following speaker, a business representative, comments more sharply:

“I think (…) that the original idea of private sector involvement exercise was I think flagged up as

part of the religious dogma debate (that reverted) to (…) and the counter-suggestion that it should

be widened up, if my recollection is correct, came from the World Bank mentioning that they felt

there was a much wider issue (that needs) to be looked at. Which supports what you just said.”78

Beyond accusing the original proposal of being narrow and limiting, he completely

disparages it as being part of a religious dogma debate, whereas he legitimises the

expansion by referring to the authorship of the World Bank as institutional authority.

By accounting for this decision in a rather degrading manner (positioning the other stance

as limiting and as advocating a religious dogma) the division between the proponents and

opponents of an expanded review becomes rigidified and polarised.

The rigid borders become softened by the following contribution:

“I think the debate was (really) about privatisation. And it started from the thought that the private

sector can only be involved if we privatise (the delivering) industry. And the review I think is, is

meant to explore the many other ways the private sector can be involved (…). [the director of the

convening organisation] is right, it’s about six percent I think of the supply and sanitation what is

in the private sector (at the moment). The other aspect is of course the private sector does have a

75


IC1 Director-SF 0767 “I could (give you) some more details personally.” 77


IC1 Business-1 0795-0801


180

whole new way of raising cash. Of which the public sector (won’t have) access to. (‘Cos the) money

is (…). So (it’s about how that) fundraising capacity could be mobilised (as well).”79

The speaker supports the original focus on privatisation but without going as far as a critical

stance, rather promoting a critical appreciation. With regard to the review’s focus, he

distinguishes between privatisation (which had been criticised) and the private sector (which

can be involved without privatising the delivering industry and thereby without taking the

control away from the public). By pointing to this difference and by adding alternatives, he

diffuses the dual opposition. Additionally he puts a functional strength of the private sector

to the fore, its “fundraising capacity”. He has shifted the boundary by introducing the

difference between privatisation and the other ways of involving the private sector and

thereby dissolving the sharp public-private divide. He still appreciates private sector

involvement as the focus of the review, but reframes it by looking instead at what it can

yield when private sector involvement is embedded.

The next speaker brings into play the water-as-a-human-right repertoire to account for an

exclusive public sector provision of water services, connecting to the Bonn conference.

“I think principally in Bonn one of the (sentiments) particularly of civil society, major groups or

NGOs they considered (and they constantly put) across that access to water is a human right and if

access to water is a human right everyone deserves as basic necessity to have this access therefore

it should be provided by the public sector by everyone’s governments. How would this play into, to

financing, for example, a certain portion of ODA should be given to government, to have the public

sector predominantly providing access to water supply and actually sanitation.”80

“The point is there was actually a side session in Bonn on the private sector’s role. In helping to

provide access to water and sanitation. And it was civil society, NGOs that claimed, no, if we’re

going to say water is, access to water is a human right, everyone deserves this, who’s watching the

private sector coming into any developing country and be the principle supplier of water, no, it

should be the public sector everyone has a (government).”81

With his argumentation “who’s watching the private sector” he assumes private sector

activities to be operating beyond public sector control. The facilitator asks would “anyone

else like to respond to that?”82

In the next turn, this assumption was countered by exploring

and reframing the polarised relationship between the sectors.

“Yeah, I think really to explore that (thought) (‘cos of course there are) many ways (in which the)

public sector can retain the responsibility for access. [(to be certain?)] But you can still involve the

private sector. The public sector can licence access. But actually the delivery can be through the

private sector. And so it’s a sort of partnerships. That need to be formed to make that idea work.

79

IC1 Business-3 0804-15 (representative of a company which is a “Sector leader in the global Dow Jones

Sustainability World Index” according to the company’s website) 80

IC1 NGO-3 0825-34 81

IC1 NGO-3 0856-62 82

IC1 Facilitator 0865


181

And, you know, the key is partnerships. (Of course there are) many, many different ways (in which

that can be) (…). But essentially, the public sector doesn’t lose control of access.”83

The former speaker affirms the reframed version with the emphasis on the public sector's

control.

“There is the key, (that) the public sector does not lose control.”84

The director of Stakeholder Forum expounds the problems of the water-as-a-human-

right repertoire by drawing attention to what it might render invisible, the question of cost:

“I just wanna make a comment on the issue on water, access to water as human right. Human

rights do not necessarily mean that they are free. Education is a human right, health is a human

right (which doesn’t) mean that it’s free. (Safe) as responsibility. (By) frameworks for that. So (I

want you to remember) that.”85

According to this argument, people need to be aware of the cost of providing water. How

this cost is eventually met is open to debate. This argument can also be used as a ladder to

argue for privatisation, as public funds often do not suffice to meet those costs, and

therefore society would be better off privatising the service (Dicke et al. 2007).

Connecting to the question of financing the costs of the water services, the next speaker, an

NGO representative, posits that the real issue is missed and suggests a shift in focus. He

fundamentally questions the boundary between the sectors as it is drawn with their taken-

for-granted key characteristics concerning their borrowing capabilities. By questioning this

basic feature, he reasons that this boundary is actually an artificial one and that the question

should be posed differently.

“I’m thinking of the question of finance which I actually think we really miss. Because we, we don’t

really (talk) about finance mechanisms. Why can’t the public sector borrow (in the same as) the

private sector. In the UK, we, you know, we shifted an industry from the public sector to the private

sector, (…) because (…) the public sector (borrowing environment (in) in terms) of private sector.

Still have (to raise) money. I mean, it seems that we create some artificial barriers between public

and private. In order to deal with other financial reason that (I don’t know) the subject at all. But it

seems as if one of the big issues is around having to get in more finance into the sector. Shouldn’t

that be the subject of the issue that we deal with and (then for) (governance) then who should (we)

be talking to and how we deal with things. I don’t think ODA in itself, though I agree that ODA

should be increased, is actually the financing route. Because it, [hesitates] it is an important, but

not sufficient route. … It’s this whole issue about where the borrowing comes from and who can

borrow. … But if the issue is around how do we halve the number of access to water and sanitation

services (that’ll) change the thing. … where is the money going to come from. And it’s largely

(going to) come from sources that we currently don’t have. [“Right”] Because otherwise we would

be doing it.”86

83


IC1 NGO-3 0880 85


IC1 NGO-1 0912-35


182

The following speaker aligns with the shifted focus on finance mechanisms but does not

follow the previous speaker’s dissolution of the boundary between the sectors. He takes the

private sector’s characteristic, the borrowing capability, as the key advantage.

“(…) [name of the private sector representative], can you correct me if I(’m stressing something

improperly) [I’ll try. hh] If a major international company takes on a contract to supply water in

the developing world. That company will do the borrowing, and therefore it’s not a debt burden on

a developing country. And it can be as simple as that. The operator takes on the risk. Of the

borrowing. (May I assume maybe) a very poor developing country doesn’t. Now, it’s much more

complex, you know. But I think that this is, this is one of the key advantages of bringing into play

the private sector’s financial capability.”87

This logic then is challenged by the previous speaker, who maintains that despite private

sector engagement this advantage has so far not been realised at all. He concludes that the

focus of the review should be on the financial structures rather than on the different sectors.

Such a fundamental reframing of the focal issue would then lead in a very different

direction.

“(But then I mean) how much money has, you know, company X or company Y borrowed on the risk

capital market to fund (urban / rural) water in Africa. I mean, my understanding is that it’s zero.

My understanding, all the money that’s been generated from the international private sector, it’s

(…), it’s guaranteed funding through international financial institutions. You know, aren’t we

actually barking at the wrong tree? By assuming that there’s money out there to be borrowed over

the timescale that would be required, (in order) to justify the commercial rate of returns, (that the

people go) and spend that money in water and sanitation in other countries (that will be) quicker

rate of return i.e. not the poorest countries, or they’ll put it into Vodafone or telecommunication

(where your) rates of return are (you know) bigger and quicker and faster realised. So, is then, is

then money out there? (Or) isn’t it. [Professional-Association-1: Isn’t, isn’t that (undermining) the

review] (…) (is) the review about the financial [Business-3 (…)] structures. That’s what I’m

saying.”88

“I think it’s [(…)] partly.”89

The next speaker, a business representative, answers the question with yes: he posits that

there probably is money out there and depicts the opposite answer as a false truism. Starting

from this assumption he invokes the efficiency criterion.

“It’s partly, though (…) [(…)] I think one of the issues that [the director of SF] raised just now is

important or perhaps before going to that, … [interrupts himself and elaborates on all the complex

interlinkages across the different levels, that’s why a review is needed] back to [the director of

SF]’s point, that, what is a right is not necessarily free. And I think we’re all, the world at large is

saying, there isn’t enough money to solve the millennium declaration objectives. This is probably a

false truism. There probably is enough money to solve those things. If it was being collected and

managed and distributed in the most efficient manner. And the debate we’ve just been having here

on (…) is to some extent a red herring on that issue. But it isn’t a red herring when you (draw)

right, right down (it). It’s all what I’m trying to say. We’re faced with a vastly complex subject in

87


IC1 NGO-1 0965-86 89

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183

here and we’ve got out of the (half-…) discussion we’ve had already. I don’t know how many half

understood (facets) of thi-h-s, of this problem, on which lots of people have written lots of stuff. But,

one other point on that (which) we do need to understand. And it again links to this issue on the one

hand of structures, but also, what are the fundamental, we’re trying to compare and look at the

relative merits of public and private sector and how (would you tune) one or the other, is actually,

what is different, and what is common about the public sector and the private sector. Because there

are some fundamental differences. That mean that things can or can’t be done in one sector or

another. And we need to take those as a backdrop, as to what, what, what a framework (of the) kind

of debate we’re having. I think there’re very few people, who really understand what are the

differences, and what are the constraints. (And aren’t we) kidding ourselves (and the big world), if

we can’t come to some point on those. And there again is a huge (…hh…) to (…)”90

With the efficiency criterion the business representative is crossing the boundaries

between the sectors. After elaborating on the complex and only half-understood domain he

reintroduces the boundary, assuming that there are fundamental differences, but suggests

exploring the boundary, as due to the high complexity it is not so clear what these

fundamental differences are really about. This would be yet another focal issue for the

MSR.

The discussion goes on about the huge scope of the review, its purpose, audience and

problem to be solved. Then the director takes the turn again, arguing against too broad a

focus of the review.

“The review isn’t an (intention) to do a review of everything. … (the goal) is to take some examples.

… You would choose a couple of, of each of those a private sector one or private-public sector one,

community based one. And (to) try and (draw around) those the experiences. … (which) we might

then build on (that) we might learn (then) something. And actually might reduce the tension.

Between the complex that we have at the moment over private versus public. I think that that’s an

area that I’d like to explore.”91

The method he suggests for tackling the broad scope and for narrowing the focus is to

pursue an exemplary approach. He proposes starting from concrete examples, thereby

ignoring the boundary as it is enacted through the public-private divide but exploring

the differences in a learning mode anew and from concrete experiences. Thereby he hopes

to reduce the tension connected to the public-private divide. The business representative in

the next turn again proposes leaving the public versus private boundary behind and, instead,

departing from the sectoral approach and looking at the different scales which are to be

served from the water providers, no matter from which sector.

“I’m, sorry I’m (in danger) perhaps (‘we’re not overseeing’) the discussion. A little while ago, (I

was) debating with [the professional organisation’s representative] and others with IWA meeting in

Melbourne92

. (Where we were) debating over two days the problems of regulation and governance

in the water industry. And the advantage of the (IWA) approach is that it gets away from this public

versus private very quickly. Because it covers both sectors. And I think that that was something that

90

IC1 Business-1 0992-1026 91


IWA World Water Congress Melbourne, April 2002 (IWA: International Water Association)


184

was very helpful. In the Melbourne discussion. And to pick up your point, one of the things that

started to emerge from there started by being the idea of the ideal utility. And it seems to me that no

such thing could possibly exist. … However, I think we might be able to look at a family or a

progression through different stages if we, if we look at the way human communities develop for the

most simple to the most complex. Are there boundary conditions that at a certain point in time the

evolutionary process takes us through. And that (leads) us in to naturally a different kind of

structure. A different scale, a different kind of management, with different problems that arise from

that. (That might be a way of)”93

Studying those different scales would again be a different focus of the review. The NGO

representative contests this suggestion sharply for its “evolutionary progress” language.94

The business representative repairs the misunderstanding, clarifying his suggested shift of

focus on the different scales from family to big city, “not, is it public or is it private.”95

The professional association representative explains the emergence of the public private

divide with public sector failure (not without mentioning exceptions) and with the

introduction of the private sector as a solution which was then “pushed too hard”.96

The

review should therefore look at other options for reforming the water sector.

“What we’re trying to look at is the other options (of reform of the water) sector. … give people a

chance to explore the other options. (At the) moment. [Name of NGO-1] was talking about barking

at the wrong tree. I think in some sense there is only one big tree we’re barking at. (It’s the question

of) trying to find what the other trees are.”97

So starting from the public-versus-private boundary and public sector failure, he identifies

private sector engagement as the only tree that is being barked at at that time. He dismisses

this exclusive focus and demands that more options be explored.

The next speaker identifies the problem as a crisis of governance rather than of scarcity.98

This implies a preference of the participatory-democracy repertoire over the embedded-

market-economy repertoire and over the focus on efficiency. The NGO representative

cautions against the terms “public sector has failed”, as this is not the case where it is well

resourced. Therefrom and from the public sector's legitimacy and responsibility for the

water services he reasons that the public sector can be strengthened.

“I don’t think we’ll progress, if we don’t recognize that there is a very great legitimacy (for) the

public sector. And that they need be strengthened (…) to deliver, not to be seen as (you know)

bypassed. I know that’s not what you’re saying. [business representative: No] But the language can

get interpreted to (…) [“absolutely”, several talking].”99

93


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IC1 Professional-Association-1 1222-52 98

IC1 NGO-3 1314-22 99

IC1 NGO-1 1328-39


185

He signifies the ‘evolutionary progress language’ as something which might give

precedence to the private sector provision for the most ‘progressive’ stage. Here the private

sector representative takes the opportunity to build on his reparation work and reinforce his

neutral stance towards both of the sectors. This supports his original preference for the

review’s issue: to conduct a cross-sectoral study or look at both sectors.

“Can I as a private sector person support that one hundred percent because I really do think that

those ideas of public sector has failed are very often (taken to) (completely) wrong. And I think that

if this review is to be useful, it really has to look at both sides. (…) the, the private sector companies

that failed? [yes (sure)] … So let’s, let’s look at the fundamental issues, that managing water ( )

public o-h-r priva-h-te.”100

The director emphasises that it is not just those two sectors but others as well and suggests

that examples be taken from the whole range, community, public and private suppliers.101

The next speaker poses the question of how to address the differences across the countries

regarding public sector failure or success.102

A local NGO representative brings forward rainwater harvesting as a powerful solution; this

would circumvent the public-private divide by focusing on the community level.103

After some more discussion on how to address the differences in public sector success and

failure in the different countries, the next speaker (with occupational experience in both

sectors) also suggests that the boundary of the public-private divide be dissolved and instead

focus be placed on the different scales from a good-governance point of view.

“Can I just very quick (…) But I’m (…) public sector (and the private) sector. And they both failed.

[H] [Hh] I’ve been around there and seen both. And it doesn’t help to think °in terms of the° public

and private. For instance (…) public sector. (A lot what doesn’t) work (was done by the) private

sector. (…) (contracts).[mhm] And that’s how it will always be. We touched (on) governance. … I

think ineffective governance is a major barrier to progress in my view. And, when I think that

governance (helps) I like to think of it in a sort of scale way. Starting (at the) top with the

international issues, then national, then regional and then, and then community, local. And if you

think of the laws, the regulations, the strategies that are needed. They’re actually quite different at

each level. … So my (feeling) is, as [the director of SF] was talking about (examples) I think the

(farm), there is no (point) talking about a community example, without understanding what

happen(s at) international, national and regional level to enable that community initiative (to

work). So maybe that’s what we need to think about. … and look for the decisions that need to be

made at each level. And I actually think it’ll be quite useful to think that way rather than thinking

public private. Because public and private can be (…) at all of those levels.”104

In the way he frames the issue, the business representative recognises his own version of

framing the issue. With that he calls for fundamental thinking beyond the public-private

boundary in order to make some progress.

100

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IC1 NGO-3 1413-15 103

IC1 Business-3 1527-61 104



186

“Sorry to interrupt that. (You’re in fact) talking about the reverse process or the one I was trying to

talk about a little while ago, which is (just) the same, exactly the same mental model that I have in

mind [yeah]. And I think the other way, perhaps … is the concentric circle vision [previous

speaker: yeah/mmm]. Going out from the individual to the global. … I don’t know °if at the end of

the day° it matters too much. But I think at least you and I are very much on [somebody: yeah]

(making) the fundamental thinking. And personally, I feel that’s the way we will, if we’re going to

do this exercise, where we’ll make some progress.”105

The NGO representative suggests that the boundary conditions be studied over time.

Thereby he aims to find out why the consensus has changed regarding which sector is the

right one for providing water services.

“Well, I think it’s also about those boundary (conditions). I’m coming back to public, at one point

we thought the public, whether it did it well or didn’t do it well, but we thought the public was the

right place. For the delivery of that service. And, I mean I think, (no), the reason why country,

municipalities in Africa may have failed, is we exported that model to them. And invited them to do

it without the resources. So (you know) failure to implement, you know a deficient model. And I

think using words (failure) in that, in that context, posts a burden to others [somebody: sure] (…)

and to see how (…). But I think it’s the same why doing, no, what’s happened and what has

changed. You know, why was it thought to be right there and now thought to be moving differently.

It might also illuminate some of the things that we need to grapple with. [Facilitator: So you just

said it was why did it fail?] No, I (‘m just saying), why at one point did, was a consensus that water

should be in public sector and very largely was. And what has happened in the operating

environment of the political, economic, financial structures to say that that is no long-, no that

consensus has changed.”106

The business person strongly opposes this version for two reasons. Firstly he does not agree

with his storyline, that there has been only this one shift away from an original state.

Secondly he opposes this storyline as he suspects it engenders again the public-private

boundary which is to be overcome.

“[Name of the previous speaker], I actually contest the basic facts of your statement. Because I

think (that it’s) always been in the public sector (or) always been in the private sector varied over

time and has varied (according to) place and the culture, and it probably still will do. And there

will be swings back and forth from the two sectors and again, we get back into this (compressing

into) the sectors which I think is a bit of a red herring [“Yeah, that’s right.”] It’s an effect, it may

not be the cause (°that we’re looking at°)”107

The other local NGO representative suggests focussing on community-based organizations,

which would be of possibility of moving away from the public-private controversy.

“We’re talking about private sector, public sector. (But) what about community-based

organisations? Partnership between public sector and community-based organisations? That can

be (an) alternative.”108

105

IC1 Business-1 1567-78 106

IC1 NGO-1 1588-1612 107

IC1 Business-1 1615-28 108

IC1 NGO-7 1634-36


187

The facilitator suggests a break and that they proceed after that with the requirement

question. The question of whether there is a demand for a review like that was discussed.

The other visiting researcher points out the problem of using a “best practices review” as

methodology for addressing context variables that lead to failure.109

The director of the

convening organisation replies by substantiating why he favours a positive approach to

begin with.

“I was very aware of that, and the reason I chose that as my (intervention) is that I didn’t want to

get into a conversation that people protect their family, and that they started from (well the) best

examples, so that, that we will have a creative conversation first with people who are champions

about the public sector and what it can offer (and) champions about the private sector (and) what it

can offer or public private or communities, so that we would try and actually create some, some

more positive space between those groups before we started. And then look at some of the, or

having come out of that, we will come out with some very interesting guidelines which we(’d be)

then applying to looking at other examples and why they might not have worked.”110

After a participant’s question he goes on:

“I mean I’ve only made the suggestion. [NGO-5: yes] I (don’t want them fro-h-m this group [NGO-

5: h yes]. But my feeling was that the some of the problems we’re suffering from is people are, have

a history of viewpoints. And I thought if we were able to focus on a good example, for example of

rain water harvesting in (…) the real success of that, then you could (do one from) the public

sector, public private, private, private public, you would have an interesting set of information.

Which one could then, with a group which we had helped identify (who those) key players were,

have a real conversation about what are the key lessons from those and then maybe develop some

methodological approaches that could actually be then used to review, which would be then a

second stage, other examples. And that’s just a suggestion from what I’ve been hearing.”111

The next speaker refrains from that suggestion as he is “less keen on case studies”112

conducted without really knowing what issue they are supposed to illustrate. The director

adopts this view that it makes more sense to start by identifying the issue.

The NGO representative notes that so far the issue has not been identified.

“I’m just in this conversation I’m still trying to (then) work out what is the point, what’s the

problem that we’re trying to tackle. [(business representative): right] Within that scenario. I, you

know, is it governance or is it governance and finance or is it, I still think we’ve got to debate

that.”113

This is affirmed by the business representative who further adds the question of whom they

are addressing.

“I think so too, I’ll put it in a different analogy: if we, now if you are a doctor the first (thing) you

gotta do is, well, is that the patient or is it the patient’s husband (when) I put it (…). Which one am

I actually trying to treat, what’s the sickness before you can start (heading) to the cure. I’m not sure

109

IC1 visiting-researcher 1872-78 110



IC1 Business-3 1934 113

IC1 NGO-1 1985-89


188

we’ve got, not even sure we know which is the patient let alone which sickness we’re trying to

[(…)].”114

Regarding the question of whom to address or orient towards, different suggestions come

up. One speaker orients towards the governments and the urgency to hold them to

account.115

The professional association representative prefers to orient towards the

stakeholders in the context as he locates the problem in the lack of communication between

the different sectors. He thereby points out the public-private controversy which is to be

overcome by mutual learning.

“You’re talking about accountability as a (role). I saw this exercise much more as a learning

exercise. Trying to put together these silos. In [the SF director]’s (phrase) find the champions (and

what is a good practice). Then, one way forward might be to pick up your point [name of business

representative] and looking for what we have in common and what’s different. And trying to see,

learn from that. And I don’t think that’s being done particularly well at the moment because we’re

not talking to each other well enough.”116

The discussion goes on about how to relate towards the governments or political decision-

makers, swinging from holding them to account to giving them advice (see below, section

5.2). In between, the issue of strengthening the public sector arises as what the review can

serve for, for example in the following suggestion:

“What is it with this process that is going to change? … Give municipalities a toolkit and arrange

(them) options so that when they come to this decision or discussion, they have more easily

accessible information that they can use.”117

In searching for the issue the next speaker reinforces his former suggestion of starting by

identifying the biggest barriers to progress and with that comes back to the underlying

structures finance and governance.

“Maybe we need to decide amongst ourselves what is the biggest barrier to progress? … If I was

picking barriers I (’d say obviously) the biggest one is finance and, and the second one I’d put was,

was governance. [MSO-3: Which is what we’ve said earlier.] Which is what we’ve said earlier.”118

The director however focuses on the lack of communication between the sectors, like the

professional association representative before, proposing his good practice case study

approach.

“[well, part of the conversation] at the beginning was (…) (that there were) people in silos. Public,

private, blablabla, what (we’re going to create) some space that seems for me where we can offer

some examples of good practice, good examples of toolkits, of all of those areas. So it may very well

be that the private sector is a good example to be used at certain cases, not in others, maybe the

public sector is absolutely right to be used, (and) here are some examples of where it has worked,

114

IC1 Business-1 1992-98 115

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IC1 NGO-1 2710-17, see also NGO-6 2478-80 118



189

(and) why it has worked, and what the governance processes are, these are some things that we’ve

learnt.”119

The participant proposing the identification of the biggest barriers120

repeats his argument.

Another speaker points to the lack of skill, resources and political will, which could imply

an argument for strengthening the public sector. The private sector representative affirms

this view and takes it as a further example that the public-private debate is just a red

herring121

.

“I think it’s a very good one, and (then) the public-private debate becomes really irrelevant. (…) [I

think it’s a] [mmm] In many ways it’s a great danger being a red herring.”122

After some more discussion on how they legitimately relate towards the governments (see

below), the director sums up why he thinks the review is a legitimate undertaking. One of

his arguments for it is that by using the case study approach, the specific circumstances are

taken into account, instead of having one panacea as was the case with privatisation over the

last decade.

“it’s a different solution for the different communities. And, it goes back to my, the original point of

starting. (And we) want, I think to look at all the different options. Because it’s not the same all the

way around. (And) what happens or (has) happened for years is that we have a fad, and the fad the

last ten years has been privatisation of water. Whether or not that’s a good idea. And we need to,

you know, we need to look at what’s (proper) for the communities or (let) the communities (decide)

(…) or what’s (proper) for them. And that brings us to the governance issue and creating

participatory models and allow communities to make on what they would like to have.”123

The next day at the conference the discussion of the review’s issue or scope was to be

concluded in order to draw “some kind of boundary around a potential review”124

. All the

participants’ views on that issue were collected on post-its and then assembled, whereby

four “high level areas”125

for constructing the issue were identified:

The first one covered the underlying structures governance, finance, political processes and

roles and responsibilities.

The second one covered capacity-building of local government and community-based

organisations and enhancing the potential of all the different actors.

The third one covered best practice case studies, principles, initiatives and success stories

from the whole range of sectors (public, private, community, …).

119



The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) explains “red herring” as follows: “a fact or idea that is

not important but is introduced to take your attention away from the points that are important”. 122

IC1 Business-1 2890-92 123


IC2 Facilitator 0058 125

Final report “Review of the Scope”; see also www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/f_review.html#scope


190

The fourth one covered “a more defined private sector role” and “a change in the

institutional cultures in order to facilitate dialogue between stakeholders”.

An additional comment on scope was that “the review should not just be about collecting

data and or case studies but must include dialogue to create a shared understanding”.

This means that all the suggested constructions of the issue were included, more or less

explicitly. At least, none were excluded. The focus on efficiency was included implicitly,

for example in the best practices and success stories, and it was also taken for granted: as a

matter of course there is no aim to promote inefficient services with the review (as the

problem is located for example in ineffective governance and ineffective decision-

making126

). At this stage, the explicit focus on efficient service provision was not needed

anymore. It had served to counter the exclusive and critical focus on privatisation and to

justify the expanded version of the review. Still the suggested issue constructions leave

some room for critical considerations on private sector participation as the roles and

responsibilities of the different stakeholders should be defined. Here, the two opposing

stakes from the beginning of the process regarding the focus of the review come to the fore

again, with the “more defined private sector role”127

and the private sector representative

explanation of his post-it emphasizing a “clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of

all the stakeholders involved”128

. Interestingly, both suggestions came from private sector

representatives. The latter suggestion came from a representative of a large multinational

water company, while the former was made by a small-scale southern water company

representative who specified his suggestion with:

“wording here becomes important, so what I mean by that is specifically with regards to capacity

or lack thereof within local government structures in various developing countries, I believe that

the private sector can play a significant role in the short to medium term to bolster that

capacity.”129

While broadening the review was of significant importance to the latter speaker, the former

displayed an interest in examining specifically the role of the private sector to which he

belongs. Like some speakers the day before, he seems to suggest that (at least in the long

term) the responsibility for water services should be in public hands.

After the extensive discussions on the issue it could rather have been expected that, in order

to narrow the focus, there would have been some kind of selection of issues. However, to

conclude the question of the scope, every participant was to put forward their two major

126

Final report “Is there a Requirement for a Global Review Process?”; see also

www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/f_review.html#requirement 127

IC2 Small-Business-1 0108 128

IC2 Business-1 0122-23 129

IC2 Small-Business-1 0108-11


191

issue constructions (some put forward more than two), which were then all compiled. My

surprise that the scope of the review was still very broad and that that basically offered

space for most of the divergent constructions stood in contrast to the participant’s

assessment, though. The facilitator stated that “we actually were quite close last night” and

an NGO representative, the facilitator and the director were content that there is a “lot of

common ground, actually”130

, and that the suggestions for the scope are very similar131

.

The director of the convening organization, on this second day of the conference, brings up

again and again the importance of looking at all the sectors, starting from positive

examples, to draw some common lessons for mutual learning.

In the second half of the meeting, the business representative joined the action plan group

which, during the preparatory stage, had decisively promoted the broadening of the review

on the grounds that he could not otherwise bring his business people into the process. He

came back to the Bonn conference with the overarching and unifying aim “water for the

poor”. He recalled that

“at Bonn it sort of started out and sort of all the different groups and stakeholders were coming

from all the different (directions). Everybody trying to make points that were important to their

ideological institutional framework. And then basically, (back the way from there), we sort of began

talking more philosophically about focusing on the goal of water for the poor, we found that

everybody was in favour of delivering water for the poor and basic sanitation. And then we sort of

said OK now, why isn’t it happening, and what could be done to make it happen, and then we began

moving towards sort of the more controversial things. I just think, … at the end of the day,

everybody came to an awareness that no matter what kind of water service you have … local …

delivery truck, small entrepreneur, public-private partnership, somebody has got to pay for the …

system … You got to find a revenue source for your investment or you won’t bring water to the

poor. Then we found the areas of disagreement very quickly in that we now, we agreed that we got

to have a hundred percent full cost recovery. The question then came (down that) well how do we

get that full cost recovery and how do we convince the users that they should participate in that

process. But I think that was a sort of a discussion process which was creative rather than

destructive.”132

The way he described what was happening in Bonn engendered different ways of drawing

boundaries. Starting with the diversity of stakeholders, he goes on to describe how they

united around the overarching aim “water for the poor”. According to his description, the

session became more controversial when the discussion was around how to tackle the goal.

The unifying insight then was that some sort of full cost recovery is required (an insight

which is a matter of course to the business world). How this is to be met is then again an

issue of controversy. He therefore framed the issue differently by focusing on full cost

recovery.

130

IC2 NGO-1 0155 131

IC2 Facilitator, director notes from the break 132



192

The other private sector representative also plays on the distribution of costs and benefits

between the sectors when he cites a study, which, in his view, dealt adequately with the

objectivity problem by studying the different sectors, as it “really does show rewards on the

public side, and rewards on the private side”133

.

The group went on compiling and discussing the milestones and key actions which need to

be carried out to get such a review started. Soon, attention was drawn to the lack of clarity

that still remained on the issue definition. Clarifying the issue was presented as a

necessary condition for getting the constituent organisations on board and ensuring

the necessary level of engagement and commitment.

“I think what needs to happen within my organization … when I … take this back and decide to

what degree (we’ve got the) resources to commit. So I think this is an issue about where we take our

organisations in this process. And we certainly need to know what it might be before we say, we’ve

signed up.”134

The next speaker affirms this view.

“I believe we’ve got to have some initial scoping work done beyond where we’ve got to today, ‘cos

I couldn’t go to my boss today and say, look, I’m going to spend two months of my next year on this

thing, so what is it?!”135

The representative who presented the unifying goal “water for the poor” before now

invokes a potentially competing goal of protecting the ecosystem by referring to the

integrative-water-management repertoire and even to voices representing the ecological

paradigm (see chapter 2), which might divide the participants.

“We’re focusing on the millennium goal which is focus on water for the poor. It’s a single objective

function. ( ) That’s not universally accepted by many water experts, certainly not accepted by GWP.

There are a lot of people that say you can’t look at water just as drinking water or sanitation for

people, you gotta look at the ecosystem, you gotta look at, you know, integrated water resource

management, you gotta look at this thing from a holistic point of view. And I think there is in here

something that we need to be aware of. There is a potential conflict here between focusing

exclusively on water for the poor without regard (to what happens). And there are some people who

say, people come first, and there are other people who say, the environment comes first. And you

can’t take water out of certain (…) catchment base. But this water has to be … and preserved for

other values. Has the group focused on that?”136

This issue was solved very quickly with the comment “we just need to be explicit”137

.

Following on from the notion of explicitness and the question of how to engage the

constituent organisation, a participant concluded with the necessity of describing the

project in a clear and simple form:

133


IC2 NGO-1 0526-29 135

IC2 Business-1 0536-38 136

IC2 Business-2 0587-97; GWP (Global Water Partnership, a multistakeholder organisation) 137

IC2 Business-3 0605


193

“I think the work so far very quickly needs to be produced in a communicable form. Not just for us

who are involved and need to get buy-in from our organisations, but also from other people around

to understand and to increase … the process it is important to be clearly and simply described.”138

At a later stage, the business representative who had joined the group that day formulated

what he would envision as the outcome of the process:

“what I would like to see coming out of this process is the general agreement amongst most of the

people here with … other key people, is to start running a couple of pilot projects in major cities in

the African continent and one or two perhaps in Asia and Latin America. We could have three pilot

projects where we went into a city and organised groups (…) not just technical people but lots of

cash with us in to work with local people and start building regulatory capacity, start building all

sorts of capacity how to manage water at the local level.”139

With such a vision he goes further than exchanging and learning from good examples from

each of the sectors, but actually implementing new projects, which would mean most

probably (if his organisation participates) private sector participation. This would go far

beyond an extension of the original focus, indeed, from a critical point of view it could be

seen as reversing the original intent.

There was a discussion on what is needed to improve the situation with regard to water

infrastructure. The business representative comes to the conclusion that capacity-building

always needs to be combined with bringing “a bag of money which is overseas development

assistance”.140

He then comments on the question written on the flipchart the day before:

“I see up here the question that was raised, why can’t the public sector borrow money like the

private sector? That’s really the core, did anybody answer that question? That’s a wonderful

question! [Facilitator: That wasn’t answered. Can you help?] It’s a very simple answer. Anybody

can borrow from a bank, if there’s a revenue screen. If there isn’t a revenue (screen), don’t come!

The private sector cannot borrow from a bank any easier than the public sector can unless they

have a viable project with a revenue (screen). So that’s sort of the crux of this whole thing. And I’m

not reckoning about where the revenue comes from, I’m not saying how much has to come out of

the users, I’m not sure that has to come out of general revenue, I’m not sure it has to come out of

the overseas development assistance bag. But if it’s not sufficient to guarantee the repayment of the

loan, don’t even approach them, don’t go to the bank! But the minute you do the things we’re

talking about, a) and b) [capacity building and a bag of money], we get the general consensus at

the local level that there is gonna be a stream of money coming from (multiple) sources, and that

stream of money is sufficient to expand the water service, banks … themselves! It’s so simple in one

sense, and yet so complicated in hh ano-h-ther. But if you can’t get (past) that first level, you can’t

get down to the second one.”141

In one sense this reasoning dissolves the boundary between the sectors, as “anybody can

borrow from a bank”. In an indirect sense it draws the boundary sharply, as it illustrates

the different logics of the respective sectors.

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After some discussion on who the missing representatives are and how to include them, a

fairly short time frame was offered to discuss the risks connected to setting up the review,

which was again done by a post-it procedure to collect individual views and concerns. Two

concerns related to the issue definition, one on the lack of clarity, and this concern had

already been raised earlier: “I think the risk is that we don’t have clarity on what we want to

change and what the outcomes (of that should) be.”142

The business representative who

invoked the “religious dogma debate” the day before sees a risk in the review in “that it

gets hijacked by a dogma caucus from somewhere else”143

. No further comment is made on

this either by him or by others.

When the facilitator concludes the session that day, he expresses contentment while at the

same time indicating that he was doubtful about the project’s scope the day before. Like the

day before, he closes the session with the hope that participants will find the whole thing

useful enough that they will return the next day:

“We did a lot of good stuff yesterday, and when we left initially I was thinking, mmm, I’m not sure

where we’re going, and, you know, … the scope for me was the rubber band thing. And I think this

morning we did really well … So I would thank you for that and as I said to those who did come

back thank you for coming back, and that’s the preface for saying, I hope I’ll see you tomorrow.”144

On the third day of the conference, the facilitator introduces the session with the need to

refine the issue definition as it was brought up the day before:

We “spent some time yesterday asking each of you individually what you thought the scope of the

review would cover, which kind of did help to narrow it down a little bit, but I still think, and as you

already identified yesterday when we were doing the actions, that there needs to be some more

work on that in terms of creating a proper scope statement and really squaring it off so that it is

clearly understood.”145

The meeting started with some discussion of potential champions. When a newcomer asked

for the role of a champion for the review146

, the business representative recalled the history

of the project with its origin and the suggestion that it be extended:

“Which was that a review was called for during the plenary closing session at the Bonn. The review

started (by being a call) by the labour unions for a review of private sector participation which was

quickly … extended by the World Bank representative to review all options for strategies of service

delivery. That call so far (was not met) by anybody, and the stakeholder forum launched this

idea”147

.

142

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195

The participant who had been rather doubtful on the first day emphasised that the people

proposing the original review and their concerns need to be considered and involved.

“We were talking that this review came out of people who have serious questions about the way

things are going, and shouldn’t they be in the room making these decisions before it goes forwards.

‘Cos otherwise they might question the credibility of this exercise.”148

The discussion then centred around the difficulties of reintegrating the missing parties,

especially the labour unions. One suggestion for achieving inclusiveness was to identify a

high-level champion “with the ability to bring people along”, since “getting the right

person would open some of those doors. Because people will actually, if you get the right

person, they will not want to refuse the offer.”149

The same speaker later expresses the

worry that the issue has not yet been sufficiently defined to approach such a champion:

“and if we can approach at some time Klaus Töpfer, we need to be able to articulate very succinctly

what we, what we are wanting the group to do. And I think we haven’t done that [facilitator: no]

(…) you know, that (looks like a) nice collection of ideas, but we got to find a way of putting that

together which (…) And it wouldn’t be a bad idea if we spent the ten minutes or so sharpening that

[Business-1: That actually ties up with something else … a bit more close look at the scope, a

scoping statement today (…) keeping those ideas around (…)] I mean if we could get it down to

three bullet points. a, b and c. When we approach someone like Töpfer that he sees, that he knows

what he is letting himself in for. […] Might be useful.”150

The facilitator confirms and recalls what has been achieved with regard to squaring off the

scope so far. Even though he emphasises the importance of narrowing down the scope he

warns that a proper ‘wordsmithing’ would go beyond the three days conferencing time.

“I agree, if we get this right, that’s a big step forward. I also agree that if we kind of wordsmith a

scope statement it would be another couple of days. We said that it should cover the political

process and governance, that it should look at institutional structures, roles and responsibilities,

governance and finance, human resources and technology, legal systems, life cycle and (rupture)

points and look at the constraints of delivery of water and sanitation. We said … that we should

review (…) build capacity… and identifying how to enhance the potential of different actors. And

actors was the word that we use for public, private and those in between, and CBOs. We said it

should review a more defined private sector role and I think that was the one that came directly out

of the Bonn Conference. And … develop best practice principles …”151

The previous speaker groups what was compiled for the scope into four areas, and he seems

to suggest that it has been sufficiently narrowed down to approach potential champions

“the last one is an output, the best practices. … If you like, the other four, all represent what it is

we’re looking to do, and that would be the output. We almost come down to four areas, and an

output, which is reasonably succinct”152

.

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The original focus on private sector involvement has not been completely abandoned, but it

is one issue among others, and not the main focus as it had been suggested at the Bonn

conference. Remember, in the course of the preparations, engendered with broadening the

review the term “privatization” had to be deleted, because it was regarded as “divisive”.

Now, a representative from an African NGO who had joined the group just that day asks

why this key term is missing.

“my point is, we (have) covered by local government delivery service, but I do not see the word of

privatisation here. Why, it’s becoming a key word when you are talking about delivery service

capacity by local government side. And the, I don’t know, because I came late, but in the board, I

do not see this key word. While, in our region, in West Africa is beginning worried for us, because

the delivery model is excluding from the process the huge number of people that get ill and have

problems because not have enough water of this model of privatisation. I don’t know where it is

coming from …(responsibility things) but-”153

.

The facilitator asks if there is a response from the group, the business representative

answers.

“Yes, there is a response to that, I think the concern that you just expressed was in a way the

question that was raised at Bonn. And as I understand it where we got to now is, decision-makers

responsible for communities (be it) the smallest or the largest, need to be able to have a better view

of what options for ( ) setting up an institution for managing the water on the one hand and for

delivering the services or delivering the actions that go with that on the other hand, clearly, the

dogma, that only the private sector is the right answer is not correct, and clearly the dogma that

only the public sector is right is probably not correct, ‘correct’ is probably not the right word, but

not appropriate on the whole purpose, as I understand it this review is trying to look at the full

range, and review the full range in a, an objective way, so when people talk about one thing

compared with another, they are making proper comparisons on the same basis. And therefore

we’re removing if you like a lot of the pollution from the decision-making process due to all sorts of

issues that are getting more and more impassioned at the moment (in the expression) of the

problem.”154

He connects the previous speaker’s concern to the original impetus to conduct the review

and again he has to substantiate the decision to broaden the review. By referring to the two

opposing dogmas (this is the first time I recorded him talking about the two, previously

when he used the word ‘dogma’ he referred only to the anti-privatisation side), he presents

the decision as progress in terms of neutrality and objectivity, enabling improved decision-

making. He presents the neutrality, objectivity and progress as being jeopardised by

‘polluting’ terms like ‘privatisation’ engendering an impassioned style of conversation.

The facilitator checks back: “Does that answer your question?”155

The NGO representative

introduces his turn by stating that he is not in the position to decide which further terms

should be included, thereby enacting a less powerful position (unlike for example

153

IC3 NGO-14 0582-88 154

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197

participants who previously had a say in the words which should be excluded, or

participants making use of their ‘power of exit’).

“(not that I can say put more words in) I understand but all this, you know, people participating in

managing you know the water locally (…) taking again this word of privatisation, but this is a

monopoly. Because up to now, they have their own … people or process of delivering water. Which

is not in the national scheme, or the local scheme. I don’t know, if it is because this development …

(that is coming) to our countries in West Africa or not? But, you know, the issue is that, not people

are just being excluded from water or from getting water, but also having access to the market

simply, because, they have capacity to deliver water and they are not in the scheme, the national

scheme, they are right to be part of it.”156

He draws attention to the nature of water infrastructure with its monopolistic tendencies, in

the sense that as soon as a large supplier is contracted within the frame of national schemes,

the small-scale suppliers are excluded from the market.

The business representative posits that even though he is a private sector person, he does not

promote the privatisation dogma. Instead he, like everybody else around the table, is

interested in improving the conditions for best possible decision-making, including and

benefiting also the people who, the NGO representative said, are disadvantaged.

“But personally I hope that this review will (put) those people in the frame. I come from the private

sector, I’m a private sector company, but I’m a representative that doesn’t want to privatise the

world. And we do really want to help people, (I presume everybody here) at this table, to choose all

the different (options)”157

.

The NGO representative doubts the possibility of including the various actors, as he posits a

contradiction between privatisation and the monopolistic nature of water infrastructure. He

also ends his turn by assuring people that he does not represent a ‘dogmatic’ view, as his

concern is “not against private”:

“… you know, when we are using privatization, it seems that privatisation is very linked to, you

know, the liberalism, or, I think, the issue is that there is not really liberalism in the system, because

… the committee … quite completely entirely private, but the issue is, that because, you know, it is a

monopoly there, and you can have thousands of privates that could not get (on the process) and the

market, because there is one in Senegal, it’s the same in Paris, … [name of the MNC]158

, … the

right delivery of the water in our countries. The point is that! And it excludes all the capacities,

technologies that are here … and there are also, how to say, a managing … all these are off in

these schemes, the national and local (picture). The point that I’m raising is not against private.”159

Ironically the company contracting in his country, with the alleged consequence of having

excluded local actors, belongs to the one represented by his interlocutor who maintains that

local decision-makers should be able to choose between all the different options.

156

IC3 NGO-14 0612-20 157

IC3 Business-1 0623-26 158

A subsidiary of the transnational water company had just entered the Senegalese market that past spring. 159

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198

Due to the short time remaining in the meeting and the need to use that time to prepare the

presentation for the Issue Group Plenary, the facilitator ends the discussion with:

“Unfortunately you’ve not been with us for the last couple of days, we had a lot of this discussion,

[NGO-14: sorry] that’s OK.”160

I was somewhat surprised though by his substantiation, because the discussion had

previously not produced such an explicit contrast between ‘Southern’ local experiences on

the one hand and a ‘northern’ MNC view on the other.

Instead of further refining the scope, one participant suggests first concentrating on the

process within which the issue can then be defined.

“Isn’t the point in establishing first, setting up the process, and then looking at what the review

outcomes could be. It’s almost the scoping of the exercise from here on rather than of the review

…[facilitator: So how, to your suggestion with the scope would be in terms of how do we take that

review forward as opposed to what is the review to (cover)] Or we could put a broad scope within

one of the bullets which reflects the Bonn outcome and (…).”161

Then the discussions centre around how the results of the conference are best presented in

the issue group plenary. This presentation is considered to be a very delicate issue since the

strongest opponent of the widened review, the representative of the unions who had chosen

to champion a different action plan group162

, is among the audience as well, and it is still

hoped that the labour unions will be brought back on board.

The idea is then to present what has been discussed in the workshop as being at a very

preliminary stage, as the real process cannot start until all the stakeholders are included.

The fact that they are not all involved has to be recognised at first:

“I think the report should start with what we recognise (…). And that we have to start from the

start, which is, including all the stakeholders. So I think in your introductory (…) recognition of the

reality, and then, having said that, you could then (…) process, which is putting through the

scope.”163

The next speaker also emphasises the preliminary status of what has been achieved

regarding the focus of the review. Without fixing the scope as was previously discussed, it

should still be presented in order to achieve some intelligibility:

“I mean someone could give an idea of what the discussions had been. And say, you know, well

these were the issues that came up when we were talking about the scope but we don’t want to fence

off the thing now before we haven’t (…) (all) stakeholders. So you can put some of those issues in,

otherwise (nobody knows what we are) talking about.”164

160


IC3 Public-Water-2 0646-56 162

“Strengthening the public sector” 163


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Making the origins of the review transparent is considered important. The next speaker

also underlines the preliminary status of the results so far through the formulations he

suggests (‘attempting to taking it forward’, ‘anticipating’):

“I mean the point [Name of Business-1] has made two or three times about the origins of the review

coming out of the Bonn conference, I think that’s a good starting point. To say […] that we are

picking this recommendation up and attempting to take it forward. And then we could go on and

perhaps say we anticipate that it is going to cover, and maybe in a short sentence, those four

areas.”165

When it comes to deciding who is going to present the group’s results to the plenary, the

business representative states:

“I would be prepared, but I think it’s totally inappropriate if I should do it. So I think I’m

excluded.”166

Another private sector finds that nobody from the private sector is appropriate and therefore

suggests the representative of the professional organisation comprising both public and

private sector, and an NGO representative:

“I think the point that has been made, anyone who is involved in the private sector … we do have a

couple of non-private sector, [Name of Professional-Organisation-1] for instance, your

organisation, public and private sector, … it’s a professional association, and [Name of NGO-1]

(you could) ideally a position to volunteer hh, … as well.”167

The NGO representative declines as his organisation does not want to jeopardise the

relationship to the party most strongly opposing the broadening of the review with whom

they are working.

“No, I, because we’re working with [name of opposing organisation] on other issues, and I’m

specifically (nominated) not to volunteer to do this. So, I mean, it might be a way that [name his

own and of opposing organisation] will (be able) to come in (as this gets) launched. But I think at

this stage to launch it without having talked to [name of opposing organisation], or to be up-

fronting it in that way, [sure] will compromise that (future relationship).”168

The business representative declines a second time, underlining and deploring the very tense

relationship with the opponents of the widened review:

“It’s like waving a red flag, and it’s totally, totally inappropriate. Unfortunately, I mean, it’s

regretful.”169

The facilitator supports his decision from what he has heard about the development of this

controversy during the preparatory phase:

165

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200

“No, I understand the position. It’s not an easy one. Because, and I also understand some of the

backgrounds on that because of what we’ve experienced in the run up in the action plan to actually

get here.”170

The professional organisation representative with both public and private members then

volunteers to do the presentation.

The group is making provision for coming under fire in the plenary session.

Accordingly they prepare to formulate their results as preliminary, as suggestions or as

anticipations. This is what the facilitator then describes as a “safer approach”:

“this approach that was talked about there would be a good one to take, and probably a safer one

to take, and I use safer in terms of what people are potentially throwing at the group when we get

into the plenary. In terms of, well this we took as our start point, this is how we’re gonna take it

forward, the immediate next steps include these, and actually, we anticipate, I quite like, those are

nice words, we anticipate that it could cover.”171

In the presentation in the plenary of the issue group “freshwater”, where all the seven water

action plan groups meet to present the outcomes of the last three days of the Implementation

Conference, the action plan with its controversial topic is presented as was carefully

prepared. The origins, with the specific focus on PSPs, are made transparent, and the

broadening of the issue is substantiated. Notably, the extended version was substantiated

this time without mentioning the World Bank. The reference had served to invoke an

authority (see above) but might have triggered adversarial reactions as, for critics, the

institution symbolised a pro-privatisation stake (see chapter 2). However, the voices in

support of expanding the review also go back to the Bonn Conference. A simplified

example is used to illustrate the usefulness of broadening the review, serving the aim of

enabling good decision-making. The example of the necessity of cost recovery serves to

illustrate the commonalities across the sectors.

“What’s our topic. It is multi-stakeholder review of global sanitation and supply strategies. That’s

a bit of a mouthful. What I (‘m going) to do is to talk about where it started from. First. Where did

the impetus for this review come from. Bonn, in one short word. Many of you, I guess all of you are

aware of the Bonn freshwater conference … One of the key topics of debate which came up and up

again, was the merits of delivering water and sanitation services to traditional public

organisational models or through private sector participation. And one of the recommendations

which came out from that, particularly from the stakeholder dialogue, was that there should be a

review of the role of the private sector in delivering water and sanitation strategies. That’s our

starting point. During the run-up to this conference there were a number of people who took other

comments that were made during the Bonn conference and said (surely) this review should be

widened. Just to use an example. If you got to go on a journey from A to B, you’ve got a whole

range of options, walk, bicycle, car, perhaps train or plane, you don’t look at just one option, you

look at all the options, then you can make the best decision. And that’s really the position which we

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took within the advisory group and suggested that the review should be broadened to become a

multi-stakeholder review of all types of water and sanitation strategies, and therefore the purpose

becomes to provide better information and data to enable improved decision-making which uses

strategies for service delivery. Again, that’s a bit of a mouthful, let’s unpack that one a little bit, if

you are a community which (…) getting water in some way, you want a better service, you want to

improve it, you probably have a donor who comes along and say, you ought to do it this way, there

might be an NGO suggesting a community based approach. Lots of different approaches, what’s the

best one? And at the moment, we don’t think that (…) which enables people to rationally choose,

give them the tools, to rationally choose between the different options, it’s normally a (…)

competing (completely cacophony of) (…) voices, where people have to listen to. So we feel there is

a role for a review which looks across the whole spectrum, and really looks for the best practice,

what are the features of best practice within the different options so that when people are deciding

on these strategies to improve water services, they have some templates, questions they should be

asking themselves, and when I say they this is the (local) authorities, the community, everybody

involved in the process (…) process, could have some templates, so that they can make much better

informed decisions. … What we imagined was that we get examples of good practice across the

spectrum. Good community schemes, good small-scale service provider schemes, schemes where

the private sector’s involved which are working well. And try and look for the common points and

principles, which will inform these templates. … I give to you one example. Cost recovery (…)

across all these different models, and most community organisations have to recover their cost,

most small scale-service providers have to recover their cost or they don’t exist. …” [For the rest of

the presentation see below.]172

In the end, the action plan was not pursued beyond its tentative preparation stage at the IC

conference in Johannesburg. As the participant projected during the conflict in Bali, the

original proposal which “comes out of the Bonn conference … is not an IC project” but

“this is something that probably will happen, and should happen, but not necessarily under

the IC IAG”173

. This review was finally conducted by The Water Dialogues174

to explore

“the role of the private sector”175

.

“The Water Dialogues will examine whether and how the private sector can contribute to the

delivery of affordable and sustainable water supply and sanitation services, especially to poor

communities. The Water Dialogues aim to contribute to meeting the MDGs for water and

sanitation.”176

Three groups represented at the IC IAG were among the founding members of the Water

Dialogues. Of course those participants who had been opposing the focus on private sector

participation during the IC process did not participate in the Water Dialogues, just as the

strongest opponent of the broadened review made use of the power of exit with regard to the

IC action plan. The Water Dialogues connected to the Bonn conference and started after a

172

IC3 Issue Group “Freshwater” Plenary, Presentation of the Action Plan Group “Multistakeholder Review of Water

Supply and Sanitation Strategies”, Professional-Association-1 1087-1133 173

May 02 Unions-1 0627-32 174

www.waterdialogues.org 175

www.waterdialogues.org/nav-05.htm 176

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worldwide scoping study in 2004 with a series of multi-stakeholder dialogues, whereby the

emphasis of the review was on the national level.

The scoping study served to substantiate the requirement of such a review and to define the

focus and scope of such a review, which yielded a mixed picture. As suggested at the Bonn

conference, they started with the focus on private sector participation (PSP). More than two

thirds of the respondents found such a review desirable or useful, but more than one third of

those affirming the desirability suggested broadening it in the sense that “a review should

focus on effective delivery of service, whether public or private”.177

Interestingly, half of the

private sector respondents also found that a review with focus on PSPs was desirable and

useful. In their mission statement, the scope was finally defined as follows, diplomatically

combining both concerns regarding the scope:

“The scope of the review is the broad landscape of water supply and sanitation (WSS) for the poor,

which includes public, private and community providers. The landscape includes government

having responsibility for ensuring provision of WSS.

“The primary focus of the review is on whether and how the private sector, from small-scale

independent providers (SSIPs) through to large private companies, can contribute to the

achievement of the goals set out in the preamble. This includes looking at the roles, responsibilities,

risks, rewards and results of all players involved in the PSP process.”178

This primary focus is also reflected in how their multi-stakeholder collaborative project is

labelled: “The Water Dialogues – Multistakeholder Dialogues on Water and the Private

Sector”179

In the meantime, the political context had changed dramatically. The controversial issue of

privatisation was very strong around the Bonn Conference 2001 and the Johannesburg

Summit 2002. Against expectations, the profitability of the privatisation efforts left much to

be desired, and private sector engagement in the water and energy sector of the developing

countries had encountered strong political opposition (Hall, Lobina and de la Motte 2005).

In the heat of the criticism, the global donor policies abandoned the support for privatisation

177

“Analysis of the responses received from stakeholders indicates two main ideas for the overarching scope of the

multistakeholder review, both receiving significant support. The broad proposals are to either focus broadly on effective

delivery of services, whether through public, private or NGO provision or to focus on PSP, but in a broad sense,

including small-scale providers, local private operators and international companies. More support for a broad focus on

effective delivery of services was received from donors, NGOs, the public sector, the private sector, and politicians in

Europe, North America and Latin America, while stakeholders in Africa and Asia indicated more support for a focus on

the range of PSP regimes. A minority of stakeholders felt it would be optimal to focus more narrowly on PSP involving

large multinationals; or to focus on specific issues where there is either less agreement or critical need.” Scoping Report

2004, p. 55 (Full Version); “Expectations for a multi-stakeholder review – Scope of the review”

“Is a review of Private Sector Participation desired or useful?” No: 3; Yes: 60; Maybe: 18 (Total: 82 responses) Apart

from private sector: 73% yes; from private sector respondents: 60% (p. 98)

“A review should focus on effective delivery of service, whether public or private”: 35% (out of the 60 who responded

that it is desired or useful) (p. 99) 178

Report on the multistakeholder workshop held to discuss the findings of the global water scoping process, June

2004, p. 3 179

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following the World Bank changed policy position, and large international private sector

companies had withdrawn from developing countries.180

5.1.3.4 Issue constructions and their consequences on boundary setting

Over the course of the process, several issue constructions were put forward which had

specific implications on managing boundaries and stakes. The two opposing issue

constructions, reviewing private sector participation versus reviewing efficient service

provision across the sectors, were introduced at the beginning of this section. One is

drawing the boundary sharply, introducing a divide and enacting a critical stake towards

PSPs. The water-as-a-human-right repertoire, calling for public control, commonly

underlies this stake. While PSPs are examined critically, the public sector should be

strengthened. The second issue construction is dissolving the boundary, maintaining that

in order to make progress, in the sense of mutual learning and informed decision-making, a

mutually appreciative stance between the sectors needs to be enacted. Another way of

formulating this strategy is to maintain an objective stance instead of upholding a dogma on

either side of the controversy. From this perspective the sharp divide is framed as dogmatic

and as dissolvable through objectivity. At the same time, a new boundary is drawn sharply,

between those upholding a ‘dogmatic’ view and those who are positioned as being more

‘objective’ or moderate. The exploration of other ways the private sector can be involved

while maintaining public control is redrawing or blurring the boundary. This may also

engender a complementary positioning by emphasising the ‘relative merits’ or ‘key

advantages’ of the respective sectors or uncovering some fundamental differences between

the sectors, which are so far not properly defined. Also the call for a more defined private

sector role could be considered as a redrawing the boundary. By considering general,

underlying structures or issues, for example the issues of finance and governance, the

stakeholders move beyond the boundary. The focus on different scales which need to be

served (from the local family or community level to the international level), instead of a

focus on sectors, also enables moving beyond the boundary. Focusing on community

solutions (neither public nor private), like for example rainwater harvesting, serves to move

away from the divide.

The issue constructions were criticised by the contrary stake for sharpening the divide.

Tackling the conflictive issues is considered to be deepening the divide by the private sector

representatives. The same happened with the suggestion of exploring why the consensus

had changed regarding in which sector the provision of water services should be located.

180

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This issue formulation was contested as a red herring because it led to a “compressing into

sectors”, while, in contrary, this approach could also be considered as moving beyond the

boundaries. Starting from good example and from exchanging experiences to enable mutual

learning was considered by many as a possibility for redrawing the boundaries starting from

a positive base. Others were critical about this approach, especially as it was not clear what

exact issue was to be illustrated by this approach.

The formulation of the issue draws attention to specific things and away from others (Tracy

and Ashcraft 2001). Within both of the contrary issue constructions, holistic aspirations are

displayed. At the same time a specific focus is presented which is needed in order to

sensibly tackle the overarching task. Both issue constructions refer to the overarching aim of

delivering ‘water for the poor’. However, this is much more emphasised by the private

sector stake. Even though nobody disagrees, the end “water for the poor” is repeated over

and over again. This could work as a defence or an averment, because this is exactly what is

sometimes questioned by other stakeholders, as they might accuse the private sector of

concentrating on lucrative markets, leaving the poorest unserved.181

It also shifts the

emphasis to the common ground, uniting participants. Who could seriously be against water

for the poor? So then the question is about the means, and there can always be alternatives.

Despite the unifying ends, diversity can be manifested by suggesting an array of means.

Private sector engagement is one means among others, which makes it less daunting. The

privatisation critical stake does not emphasise this overarching aim so much, it seems to be

posited rather as self-evident. Instead, within this issue construction the range of criteria is

expanded to work more holistically. The aim is to tackle the problématique by concentrating

on the most controversial issue, with the focus on private sector engagement. The other

stance argues that the overarching aim can best be achieved throughout the whole range of

providers by concentrating on efficiency. The holistic view and at the same time the

necessary focus is also enacted here by the broad applicability of this specific criterion.

The proponents of the broadened scope and the focus on efficiency claim that their approach

is the forward-looking one, because it is about learning how to do things well and efficiently

(learning from good practice approach). They argue that their approach is much more

oriented towards implementation and change than pillorying a specific sector, particularly

with regard to the small percentage of water delivered by private companies. The

adversaries of the broadened review maintain that with the focus widened, the review will

be watered down. It will be far too broad to be properly handled and therefore can only be

181

See for example the discussion on “you’re not gonna find the poverty company”, April 02


205

superficial. Therefore they see broadening as best way of impeding change, also because it

does not tackle a major controversy.

5.1.3.5 Strategies of advancing the divergent and convergent stakes

The main adversaries did everything to draw the public-private boundary sharply or to

dissolve it. They put all their efforts into struggling over this boundary as they made their

participation contingent on this issue. The business stake enacted power as it succeeded in

changing the focus of the review, the public sector union stake made use of its power of

exit, thereby jeopardising the review’s legitimacy. Their refusal to participate posited a

problem for the rest of the group which they had to deal with over the whole span of the IC

process.

What does the dispute about drawing or blurring this boundary mean for collaboration? One

question of the study is how do the stakeholders jointly construct and negotiate their issue

and with that their collaborative identity? How do the diverse parties enact their mutual

identities and their collective identity through the ways they are constructing the issue (cf.

Bouwen and Taillieu 2004)? How do the different stakeholder groups position themselves,

each other and the group as a whole by the manner in which they construct the issue?

The stakeholders who are insisting on the boundary are isolating the stakes in order to

criticise the contrary stake and to strengthen their own stake. The stakeholders who are

eager to blur the conflict line are working towards making the stakes indistinct, which

can also serve to strengthen their own stake. Making the stake indistinct can also be a

strategy for defending it from criticism, since the focus on privatisation implies a problem

formulation which carries “blame pointers” attracting critical attention (Tracy and Ashcraft

2001: 316). This strategy could also be called a levelling strategy. When other stakeholders

call for a more defined private sector role, the suggestion is countered by the call to define

the roles of all the stakeholders, also to distribute the ‘blame pointers’ more evenly. Or the

call is to evenly consider the merits of the public and of the private sector. The levelling

strategy makes sense for constructing two opposing conflicting parties as different but equal

concerning the issue at stake. However, this strategy can also have intricate power

implications. If private sector engagement is conceived as being wrongfully advanced (from

the water-as-a-human-right viewpoint) and in large parts of the world already more

powerful than the public sector, this strategy could be taken as rather cynical.

Both strategies, defending and dissolving the public-private divide, can serve to protect and

advance either side. In this process, defending the divide was used mainly by the public

union stake and by some NGOs. The private sector used solely the dissolving strategy in

this process. Notably, this is the opposite strategy to what had happened so far in the


206

background to advance the stakes of the private sector while marginalising other stakes. In

the international arena the issue of which sector is delivering water services had been

shaped by the most influential donor and lending agencies, first and foremost the

international financial institutions (IFIs) World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In

their policies since the 1990s they had drawn the boundary sharply: only water

infrastructure projects with private sector participation were defined as fundable, support

was contingent on privatisation. The way they were enacting this boundary, they were

accused of enforcing access to new markets for (or even indirectly subsidising) the large

multinationals, since they were based in the northern countries overrepresented at the IFIs

(cf. Budds and McGranahan 2003).

The other strategy, dissolving the public-private boundary, can also be used to advance

either stake. It can serve to embed the private sector within the public sphere (embedded-

market-economy repertoire), capitalising on the advantages of the market mechanisms

(e.g. economic efficiency, fundraising capability) under the control and regulation of the

public according to the participatory-democracy repertoire. The strategy of dissolving

the boundaries could also serve to enable corporate sector mechanisms to creep into the

formerly public sphere, indirectly leading to a cooptation of the public sphere by corporate

interests. Sometimes it is emphasised that the control remains with the public and that it is

only 6% of water that is delivered by the private sector. This could be part of the embedded-

market-economy repertoire or it could be used in an appeasing function as part of such a

creeping-in strategy. Depending on the viewpoint, 6% might be quite a lot for the start of

what may be considered a trend. Also the discussion on the efficiency criterion (and

likewise on the issue of cost recovery) exemplifies some of these thoughts. The private

sector proponents use it to dissolve the boundary, whereby this could as well be conceived

as setting private sector standards which need to be followed by the whole range of

suppliers and as positing a seemingly neutral standard which is considered as a core

competency of the private sector (creeping-in strategy). The contrary stake pursues the

strategy of either enriching the notion of efficiency with more comprehensive sustainability

concerns (according to the embedded-market-economy repertoire) or as claiming the public

sector as equally capable of fulfilling efficiency standards (in order to strengthen the public

sector).

Both, the drawing the boundary sharply strategy and the dissolving the boundary strategy

can be played out against each other in a polarising manner if they are used to advance

vested interests on both sides, such as between the profit-seeking interest of the private

sector and the interest of the public sector employees protecting their jobs (cf. Budds and

McGranahan 2003). However, both strategies could also be used in a mutually appreciative


207

manner. Or, within a more intricate power play, the strategies could also be used in a

seemingly appreciative manner, especially when the actual policies pursued differ from

what is talked nicely within a multi-stakeholder dialogic setting.

A third strategy is enacted by blurring, or more precisely, by moving beyond the public-

private divide. This could be achieved by focusing on the community level, by focusing

on underlying structures, or by de-homogenising what is within the boundaries.

Blurring or moving beyond the boundary enriches the controversy with further perspectives

necessary to transcend the conflict. Calling for a greater diversity within the private sector

representatives can work to disperse perspectives and power within the process. Similarly, a

further de-homogenising move would be to include representatives from different

organisations representing a specific sector in the process, when the stakes are too hardened.

This was realised later in the Water Dialogues with other representatives from the private

sector. The blurring or moving-beyond-the-public-private-divide strategy seems to be the

most promising one for transcending gridlocked conflict. This strategy adds further aspects

and helps to enhance reflection by blurring and questioning taken-for-granted categories.

However, this is not to say that the other, more polarised strategies are unproductive in the

conflictive situation. At any rate, the polarised strategies protect the group from too much

convergence. They ‘fuel’ the debate and their clashing draws attention to important

concerns and power aspects involved in the conflictive situation.

The participating stakeholders built a preliminary foundation for a collective review in order

to advance their collective stake – jointly moving forward in delivering the water-related

international agreements and fostering dialogue between the stakeholders. Therefore, they

had to integrate the divergent issue constructions in a meaningful way, balancing

inclusiveness and focus. In this case, the necessary degree of convergence and the balance

of inclusiveness and focus for translating the tentative plans into action had not been

achieved. Possibly, the loss of inclusiveness by extending the scope might have contributed

to the petering out of the review within this multi-stakeholder collaboration.

5.2 Constructing the relations to the context

Constructing the relations to the context is deeply intertwined with constructing the issue or

purpose. The purpose of the IC process is to implement international water related

sustainability agreements and to promote the multi-stakeholder approach. With these aims

the participants orient towards their context, the intergovernmental UN Summit process.

Because constructing aims and positioning within the domain are heavily interrelated – they


208

are basically the same thing – they can only be separated analytically. In the previous

section (5.1, ‘Constructing the issue’), I have already examined the way the collaboration is

positioned towards the intergovernmental process for each of the (largely uncontroversial)

main aims of the IC process as a whole. In this section I describe the controversies that

arose in discussing how the main aims are best achieved and with the emergence of

additional aims as fields of tension. Within these fields of tensions very different ways of

positioning towards the intergovernmental process comprising the negotiating governments,

other key stakeholders and potential donors are competing. For each of the different ways of

positioning, a repertoire constructing the relation to the intergovernmental process in a

specific manner could be identified.

5.2.1 Fields of tension

The implementation gap is not only asserted by engaged stakeholders, it is also

acknowledged by the CSD which convened the WSSD. The WSSD was staged first and

foremost to review what had happened in the decade since Rio and to address the

implementation gap. The existing agreements are considered insufficient to deliver

sustainable development, either because certain topics are not covered at all or because the

agreements are too weak or not binding (see chapter 2). This called for enhanced lobbying

efforts by sustainability advocates. Especially in the first half of the IC process many voices

did not exclusively propose implementation of existing agreements, but also argued for

lobbying for stronger and additional agreements, which would still need to be agreed in the

intergovernmental process. The requirement was seen in the gridlocked negotiation process

that needed to be pushed forward. A further issue was the emergence of the controversial

new format, the type II outcomes (see chapter 2), which were announced after the launch of

the IC process. The question then arose of how far the IC process should feed into the

official type II outcomes, now that this format had been introduced. Hence, the lobbying

aim within the IC process was nurtured by a context in which it became clear that the

Summit would probably not produce any significant type I outcomes and in which the type

II became politically controversial as they were suspected to be a substitute for the really

important type I outcomes.

Both of those controversial questions – implementing existing agreements or pushing for

stronger agreements and feeding into the official process or not – reflect how the process

was positioned towards its context and how connectivity, distinctiveness and dependency

was being managed. What kind of change do the diverse stakeholders strive for with their

collaborative project? The basic aim of the participants is to diminish the ‘implementation

gap’. They are fighting to influence the negotiating governments within the official process


209

to also work on this aim. For the process as a whole, the main controversies crystallised

around the following questions:

• Should the governments be influenced directly or only indirectly?

Lobbying the governments to care for sound implementation and to produce stronger

agreements would be to influence them directly. There would be an additional option to

influence them indirectly by demonstrating exemplary implementation by stakeholders.

• How should the outcomes of the IC process be presented? Should the stakeholders

maintain some independence (and critical distance) or should they give up some

independence in order to be better connected to present their outcomes? Which is more

suitable to better influence the governments?

The stakeholders could ensure independence by ‘acting in their own right’. On the other

hand, by submitting to the official structures (the type II outcomes) they would connect

more smoothly to the intergovernmental process.

For the action plan ‘multi-stakeholder review of water and sanitation supply strategies’ the

relationship to the intergovernmental process was characterised by the controversial

questions of requirement and legitimacy:

• How is the requirement and legitimacy of a multi-stakeholder review substantiated?

5.2.1.1 Lobbying for stronger sustainable development agreements?

The participants engaged during the preparatory stage of the Implementation Conference

were present at the official conferences as part of their other functions, most of them for

lobbying work. The advantage was that they were there anyway, so it did not take up too

much of their limited time, nor did any extra costs arise. Apart from the fact that the

negotiation gridlock cried out for lobbying, this was another reason why it was not

surprising that the lobbying became part of the aims of the process. The lobbying could also

serve the aim of implementing the existing agreements in so far as stronger targets and

concrete commitments of reaching the already existing agreements became part of the type I

outcome documents. But it is not only about enhancing and implementing existing

agreements, new agreements are also being aimed at which are seen as vital to supplement

the existing ones, like supplementing the water supply targets with sanitation targets

(“WSSD should identify additional targets to effectively deal with water management

goals”182

).

182

Submission IGO-1, p. 7


210

Development over time

In the initial outline183

, the implementation repertoire was prevalent and a lobbying goal was

not visible. The joint production of position papers was planned, but without stating that

they would be fed into the official process. With the rolling Issue Paper lobbying emerged

as second, complementary aim:

“The IC process should also aim to influence the intergovernmental process towards the

Johannesburg Summit. For some focus areas, it seems most effective to take a two-pronged

approach, aiming to impact the type 1 and type 2 Summit outcome documents so that they become

mutually reinforcing. Hence, the group may choose to develop joint statements and lobbying

strategies as well as develop joint implementation action.”184

The lobbying aim was a much discussed topic in the first half of the process and seemed to

gain as much weight as the action-towards-implementation aim. Also in the agenda for the

telephone conference in March both aims were set up equally. Besides the joint action on

implementation, “Possible Joint Action towards Governments and Official Johannesburg

Process” was suggested as a topic and the question of what “should be included in the

intergovernmental agreements at the Johannesburg Summit” was asked and discussed.185

Both aims were also put forward during the conference.186

Neither aim was yet pursued as

concrete as planned in the agenda of the telephone conference, though. After all, the joint

action towards implementation seemed to have more weight. From the next meeting

onwards, the focus of the meetings was solely on the action plans. However, at the meeting

in March the question emerged: “Are we set up to only deal with type 2 actions? If this is

the case – how do we deal with actions that we have to go to Governments about?” and

followed by the suggestion “It seems that we are going for type 2 actions to get to type

1’s”187

. Despite the general focus on the action plans, in the papers (Issue Paper and action

plan proposals) the goal of lobbying the type I outcomes was still not completely

abandoned188

and some action plans contained specific lobbying activities or a joint

lobbying strategy. One action plan actually was a lobbying strategy, “Lobby for the

sanitation target … to be adopted at the Johannesburg Summit”189

(this action plan was not

ultimately pursued, though).

183

Outline Sep 01 184

IP V2 Feb 02, p. 1 185

Agenda TelConf Mar 02; The lobbying aim was on the way to being put into more concrete terms: “who should do

what to achieve such inclusions?” (Agenda TelConf Mar 02) 186

TelConf Mar 02, Women-1, p. 12: “Still need lobbying to review policies” and “not only develop ‘multi-stakeholder

statement / campaign’ but ACTION PLAN” 187


The template for the action plans provided for keeping track with the development of the type I outcomes

(“Background”: “Relevant components of the (draft) Johannesburg agreements”) and it included “(Inter)governmental

action” to be aimed for. 189

Action Plan Mar 02, p. 15


211

When the participants were asked to contribute some more detailed input regarding the

structure and the key themes and how this could be translated into action, some of the texts

which were handed in closely resembled the usual lobbying papers. Two participants

contributed a general lobbying paper (not specifically written for the IC process).190

Other

submissions contained lobbying recommendations: “be proactive to lobby for the sanitation

target … lobby in the political arena to promote debt relief of the poor governments”191

.

At the meeting in April the lobbying goal was discussed ambivalently. The questions of a

visitor “what’s the main aim?”192

, “As it was said, you want obviously to influence those,

the decision-makers, somehow. Or, are you doing something aside?”193

were answered by

the issue-coordinating convener (among other elaborations) with:

“We can devise lobbying strategies, and some of the proposals actually are on lobbying the

governments, on directly influencing the official process. But we’re also actors at our own rights,

we’re doing our own thing.”194

Later in the same meeting the main convener explicitly denied the lobbying aim as focus of

the group:

“Our thrust is really joint action. And we discussed in the beginning that we do not want to lobby

together and stuff like that. I really would not recommend that to make that the focus of this group.

We all have our agendas towards the governments … And I really wouldn’t want this to be the

focus of the group. This is not what we should be about to go out and try to have governments agree

particular things in Jo’burg. On that we should have started one or two years ago, to come with a

lobbying strategy.”195

Despite the decision in April not to focus on lobbying, in the following Issue Papers the

lobbying goal was kept.196

Finally, the IAG Water did not pursue any joint lobbying

strategies. In the Implementation Conference outcomes, lobbying the governments to

influence the official WSSD text (type I outcomes) played a role in only two (out of seven)

action plan groups.197

190

One big NGO organisation just sent a lobbying paper which was prepared for the official process (for the

Preparatory Committee for the World Summit on Sustainable Development), without specifically enlarging upon the

IAG task as it was decided. (Submission NGO-14)

Another NGO sent a lobbying text in addition to their two chosen focus areas. (Submission MSO-4) 191


Apr 02 Government-1 0251 193



Apr 02 Convener 0797-0806 196

The section “Framework for the IC process”, where the lobbying aim was stated, remained unaltered for all four

Issue Papers. In the fourth one, the heading in the table changed to “Desirable (Inter)Governmental Action”. (IP V3, 4

Mar, Apr 02, p. 1, 2) 197

“International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance”: Objectives: “The Partnership would aim: … To influence policy at

the international, national and local levels” (Freshwater draft full report, p. 27)

“Strengthening Public Water Systems”: “also focus on lobbying governments to legislate that proper provision be

made for effective participation by civil society and labour in the planning, provision and monitoring of water services;

All participants will lobby IFIs, bilateral donors and their own governments in support of water and sanitation services

being organised as a public service, accountable to the people through agreed democratic systems. Furthermore, IFIs


212

In the action plan group dealing with the MSR of water supply and sanitation, the question

was posed of what to do with the relevant water paragraphs being discussed in the formal

process at the summit198

but this question remained untreated. As a longer-term approach it

was suggested that the possibility of influencing the next big international water conference

be discussed:

“the conversation we should have … (about) some of the outcomes of this feeding in perhaps to the

Second World Water Forum.”199

The issue of how to influence the official process (through exemplary implementation or

through conventional lobbying) was not the only one discussed. The question of

dependency on the official process with its outcome formats was also a difficult issue. Do

the collaborators aim to feed into the official process outcomes and try to get their action

plans accepted as type II outcomes or do they want to act in their own right?

5.2.1.2 Feeding into the official process outcomes?

The implementation outcomes of the IC process should be made presentable at the summit.

“We want to use the opportunity of the summit itself and the NGO (...) 60 000 people with it, tell

them about it … we want to make it presentable there.”200

In the initial outline, the opportunity to feed the outcomes into the official stakeholder

dialogue session of the summit was sketched:

“Stakeholders can choose to present Implementation Conference outcomes as part of their

commitments for the future during the Stakeholder Dialogues at the Summit.”201

Soon the official stakeholder dialogues lost significance for the IC process.

In the meantime, the type II outcomes emerged from PrepCom II in January 2002202

. The

opportunity to feed into this new outcome format was presented to the participants by the

convener.203

It remained open whether that should be pursued, not least because this

outcome format was very controversial – the conveners left this to be decided by the group:

“we are open for what you want to use”204

. Accordingly the possibility of presenting their

outcomes as type II outcomes was left open. For example when, at the meeting in April, the

date of the conference was discussed, the convener strongly recommended that their

and bilateral donors must not impose a conditionality that requires the privatisation or commodification of water

services or the involvement of the private sector; Call upon governments and international agencies to eradicate

corruption …” (Freshwater draft full report, p. 41, 45, 46) 198

IC1 Director-SF 0563: “what will we do with that” 199




General Assembly resolution A/RES/56/76 203

TelConf Mar 02 Convener p. 4 204

Apr 02 Convener 0871-72


213

outcomes be finished before the type IIs and similar outcomes were to be celebrated at the

official summit.205

The field of tension, which arises in the discussion about using this form of presentation or

not, becomes obvious in both of the following citations from the conveners:

“Now, the idea of the type II outcomes came much later than that. We, I think, are quite keen to get

partnership initiatives off the ground. If they end up in the official document, that’s good. You

know, and depending on what is coming up in here, we’re gonna propose them as an outcome for

the type II. If they don’t, we’re gonna do them anyway. I don’t think we should have that as a

condition for the action, for the potential that we have in this group. We’re not doing them for them

to end up in the official UN documents.”206

“The question, you know, the earlier we have drafts, the earlier we’re going to sit (in with the)

secretary, now that the type IIs came along. We do not want to be slaved to the type IIs though, you

know, and we want to use the opportunity of the summit itself and the NGO (...) 60 000 people with

it, tell them about it with, that will depend on what kind of events are being planned during the first

week, what is available (...) So, that’s why we’re saying (...) we want to make it presentable there.

So the general (setup) we are open for what you want to use, but I can’t say during the first week

we’re going to do this and that, it depends what the secretariat turns out to decide and in what way

they are gonna to accommodate these activities.”207

Finally, the outcomes of the Implementation Conference as a whole were presented to the

summit in the classical form of a side-event and some of the action plans were submitted

and recognised as type II outcomes. During the preparation phase, the IC process as a

project was presented at side-events at the PrepComs.

5.2.1.3 Requirement and legitimacy in question

The question of requirement and legitimacy is studied for the IC process as a whole and for

the MSR action plan group, within which this question gained specific significance.

Requirement and legitimacy of the Implementation Conference process

The requirement of the IC multi-stakeholder process as such was not doubted. Still it was

often asked by participants ‘who is our audience?’, ‘what is the uniqueness?’208

, ‘where do

205

“Then I think another pragmatic argument is the question of type IIs and the question, how will that be, the

partnership initiatives being addressed during the first week of the summit. The last that I heard from the secretariat

was that they need to celebrate that somehow, including the ones that don’t end up as type IIs, which we don’t which

are the ones which are going to be. So they were thinking about having something like two days during the first week of

the summit at the Sandton Convention Centre to present and celebrate partnership initiatives, stakeholder contributions

and intergovernmental partnerships (...) in a supposedly lively, media-friendly manner. If we are during those days, still

working on them, then of course we can’t make that (...) contribution to the official process.” (Apr 02 Convener 0644-

56) 206



Apr 02 NGO-1 0481


214

we add value?’209

, ‘what are the gaps?’, ‘what is needed to fill those gaps?’,210

‘do we have

legitimacy?’ to reassure themselves about the necessity of the process.

What is not needed is just another conference, as one participant made clear: the IC should

specifically fill identified gaps and demonstrate what stakeholders are doing

implementation-wise, “otherwise another conference, don’t do that”.211

What the

participants identified as a gap is that there is currently no process or mechanism of how

the implementation of agreements can be achieved:

“Government principles should lead to practice – what we need is the implementation of policies

and principles that have been agreed … Mechanisms for implementation needed”212

.

“And if you ask me what I’d like to see out of this Implementation Conference it would be that we

are one very big step nearer towards getting water and sanitation to the poor. And no one as far as

I’m aware, except as an outcome perhaps of The Hague conference, has put together the kind of

process that needs to be followed to actually achieve that.”213

At the meeting in April the audience, the gaps and the added value were discussed regarding

the joint mission and vision of the group. The next meeting in April was about selecting the

projects for the final conference. Even though there was hardly any spare time for

discussion at that meeting, the selection criteria were questioned especially by one

participant who made several attempts to discuss what was to distinguish the projects to be

eligible for the conference. He wanted to know in what way some projects qualify for the IC

agenda. He asked about the uniqueness of a proposal and asked that it be ensured that the

condition of a multi-stakeholder approach had been fulfilled (see above section 5.1.2.2

‘Supporting and promoting stakeholder involvement in governance processes’). For another

proposal he questioned if and in what way it is “new and different”:

“Are you targeting particular new partners you want to bring in, are you underrepresented in

certain groups, I mean, there is the private sector an important target for you to encourage greater

understanding? Is it more of the same or is it new and different.”214

“It’s new and different [some: laughter]. But if we can get more of the same, if we can get more of

the same we’re always open to it. Because we want larger impact.”215

The newness and difference in his question refers to broadening the diversity. The

proponent of the questioned project can confirm that, but emphasises that even if it was not

“new and different” but merely “more of the same” she would support it, because it would

209

Apr 02 MSO-4 0378 210

Compare Apr 02 MSO-11678-87 211

Apr 02 MSO-11678-87 212

TelConf Mar 02, NGO-1 p. 5 213

Apr 02 Business-3 1631-34 214

May 02 NGO-1 0841-44 215

May 02 Women-1 0847-48


215

still serve her top priority of having a “larger impact”. For her the requirement is achieving

a bigger influence of the multi-stakeholder work.

Thus this was the requirement issue of the IC process as a whole. One of the action plan

projects was the multi-stakeholder review (the multi-stakeholder process set up within the

multi-stakeholder process). For this, the requirement was explicitly discussed, as it was not

taken for granted by the group, it was even insistently doubted by one participant.

Requirement and legitimacy of the Multi-Stakeholder Review

The action plan group “Multi-Stakeholder Review of Water and Sanitation Supply

Strategies” – which had been struggling with defining their focal issue – was the only group

that incorporated the question of requirement of their action plan explicitly into their

agenda. This question was planned to be resolved early in the session at the Implementation

Conference in Johannesburg, but it eventually took the whole first afternoon and in the end

was never explicitly confirmed. In a way it seemed obvious to affirm it because otherwise

people wouldn’t take part in this action plan group, so on the first glance it seemed

surprising that the group dealt with this question for so long without ever explicitly

answering or affirming it. With this question, the right of existence of this group, forming

the basis of their collaboration, was queried. Both requirement and legitimacy were openly

doubted.

5.2.2 Competing repertoires

Principle 27 of the Rio Declaration reads: “States and people shall cooperate in good faith

and in a spirit of partnership”. How is this relationship between governments and

stakeholders being shaped within the Implementation Conference process? Underlying the

controversies and contradictions depicted above, I identified five repertoires used to

describe how the stakeholders position themselves towards the governments in order to

induce change. These repertoires construct certain ways of how the achievement of the

collaborative aims has to do with the relations to their direct context, the governments. With

each of the different ways of positioning, the participants enact a certain collective identity

for their collaborative project. This does not mean that a sharp boundary can be drawn

between collaborating participants and the primary ‘context’, i.e. the governments, as some

government representatives are participating in the process. However, the process is mainly

oriented towards the governments and the UN summit process.

These constructions of the relation towards the governments describe the way in which they

should (or should not) be more or less directly influenced, and at the same time each

repertoire brings with it a certain way of positioning towards and distinguishing itself from


216

the governments. The aim of implementing international sustainability agreements can be

pursued independently from the intergovernmental process. Alternatively, the governments

could be influenced in different ways to assume their responsibilities regarding

implementation, or they could even be pushed to come to stronger agreements. Similarly,

promoting the multi-stakeholder approach has different meanings depending on how this

aim is positioned towards the governments: should they institutionalise processes like that,

should they benefit from the expertise such a process can produce, or is it instead a powerful

method to hold them to account? Each repertoire enacts a certain mode of relating and

defines certain ways of influencing the domain, somehow balancing connectivity and

distinctiveness in order to maintain legitimacy.

What the five repertoires have in common is:

• they all assume the need for implementation (and the need for a process, mechanism

to do that) and aim for change by decreasing the implementation gap;

• they all assume the negotiating governments’ responsibility to ensure

implementation;

• change should be achieved by demonstrating (making visible, presentable)

exemplary joint action of diverse stakeholders;

• in order to be convincing, stakeholders need to commit (according to the rights and

responsibilities documented in Agenda 21 and in the project outline’s “definition”

of stakeholders: “RESPONSIBILITIES: Stakeholders should play their part in

delivering sustainable development.”216

), consequently also their conference

outcomes should be monitored and reported back.

The repertoires differ in several dimensions:

• What is conceived as the underlying problem (accounts of the world as problematic

and requiring action constitute the requirement)?

• Who is the audience the stakeholders are orienting towards, who are the addressees

or beneficiaries?

• How are the decision-makers being influenced? Directly or indirectly? In what way?

• How are the responsibilities for implementation/change distributed and integrated?

(What does that mean for dependency and leadership?)

• How is distinction and connectivity achieved and balanced in order to maintain

legitimacy?

• How is diversity used to achieve change? (What is the meaning of promoting the

multi-stakeholder approach?)

216



217

How do the stakeholders position themselves within the domain while constructing the

relations to the issue and the context?

• What stakes are enacted by the use of each repertoire? (Privileging certain stakes at

the expense of others?)

• Which stakeholder group makes use of which repertoires predominantly?

• How well are the repertoires shared?

5.2.2.1 Holding-to-account repertoire

With this repertoire, the stakeholders exhort the governments to stick to the sustainability

agreements they have signed and hold them to account for their commitments regarding

sustainability and good governance.

They position themselves as the ones who need to monitor and review what the

governments are doing about implementation to ensure that the agreements get properly

implemented:

“Implementation of Millennium Development Goals and Supplemental Targets will need to be

monitored and evaluated”217

.

If they find that the governments do not fulfil their commitments, they need to push them to

do so (“push for action”218

), for example by lobbying. A direct influence is exerted,

according to what is stated as the right of the stakeholders in their definition:

“RIGHTS: Stakeholders should be able to participate meaningfully in decision making.”219

The underlying problem causing the stakeholders to intervene is lack of political will220

to

implement: “we have a very good document, but we haven’t implemented it”221

.

By using this repertoire the anchorage of their change efforts in the international

agreements plays a major role, because they provide the grounds (and the legitimacy) on

which the claims are made. They also provide the objective towards which the process is

oriented. Due to those agreements the integration of civil society is institutionalised and

ensures the connectivity.

According to what is written in the agreements, the responsibility for change is seen as

being first and foremost with the governments222

, but since they do not act upon that it is the

stakeholders’ responsibility to hold the governments responsible. Now that the governments

haven’t acted responsibly for more than ten years, the stakeholders’ responsibility to act

217


Submission Youth-1 219


IC1 visiting-researcher 2189-90, Business-1 2267 221

May 02 NGO-1 1238-40 222

In a submission this was suggested as a key theme to be worked at: “The Role of Government, and Government

taking a lead is important” (Submission Business-4, p. 3)


218

themselves and to urge the governments to act has increased even more. The stakeholders

take the lead to make governments take the lead. Furthermore the stakeholders take the

responsibility to strengthen civil society by training, capacity-building and enhancing

commitment. By this means they are mobilising public opinion and fostering civil society’s

capability to hold their governments to account. Hence, they also influence governments

indirectly as they become more influential, as the underlying problem of lack of political

will on the side of the governments is stabilised by the underlying problem of lack of

information and engagement on the side of civil society.

“It’s the lack of actually watching that [very good]223

document and doing something about it … So

I think that monitoring, and actually having stakeholders involved in that monitoring, and building

the capacity of small organisations to start engaging in that way, is one of the ways that we need to

move forward.”224

The stakeholders distinguish themselves as they have more political will and are more

strongly committed to what the governments have signed than the governments themselves.

This distinction also becomes evident in the formulation of understanding the sustainability

agreements as “marching orders”. Unlike governments who obviously do not commit to

what they have signed, the stakeholders are obeying these orders. There could be a certain

irony in using the phrase ‘marching orders’. It bestows an absolute importance the

agreements that demands unconditional obedience. The stakeholders then are positioned as

more obedient then those who produced the agreements, hence, they are taking the lead.

Within this repertoire, diversity is used to make the stakeholders more powerful vis-à-vis

governments as their influence is enhanced due to the congregated expertise and outreach.

For example, some government representatives interested in multi-stakeholder processes

were visiting the meeting in May. One of them based her interest in the group on the fact

that they also represent diversity and considerable outreach as a “collective force”:

“I’m also very curious about a debate, how you, not only as individual organisations but also as a

kind of collective force present in this room representing, well, millions of water users of different

kinds, how you see your role.”225

In a contribution answering this interest a participant also draws on the power resulting

from the group’s diversity and outreach:

“actually identify what is happening on the ground would be a very strong process to hold

government to account”226

.

Facing the problem of political will, the diverse group is seen as powerful in holding

governments to account:

223

See above: that very good document which has not been implemented 224

May 02 NGO-1 1240-44 225

May 02 Government-3 1173-84 226

May 02 NGO-1 1236-37


219

“The second thing is that political will thing: … If we were as a group… able to agree some things.

It’s a very powerful group. ‘Cos if you’ve got all the stakeholders … involved in it. … It’s a very

powerful group to be able to persuade politicians to do the right things! ‘Cos (very) often they don’t

necessarily do the right thing.”227

5.2.2.2 Inspiring-challenging repertoire

Originating in the underlying problem of the negotiation gridlock, the stakeholders

position themselves as the ones who inspire the governments by offering a new and

interesting mode. They invite the governments who are locked in their negotiation mode to

be more innovative instead of limiting their activities to negotiating:

“we all come together and say, look, we have fifty organisations that have come together behind

this initiative, twenty here, add them all up and suddenly we have a world of action that might even

shake governments to maybe be a little bit more courageous at the summit [another speaker: It’s a

bit more interesting than what they’re gonna say] Also, yeah, because they’re gonna be so locked

into this terrible (negotiation process).”228

A visiting government representative confirmed the ability to raise the governments’

interest:

“then you will I think will be able to attract quite a number of government representatives in a

sufficient way and then they can cast the word and say, here, the stakeholder community is doing

something in that area, in that area in such and such a way. That would help and they can pass it

on to their heads of state and say, look, this is an interesting topic etc.”229

They set up a positive example and give an encouraging signal full of positive energy. They

“give a positive sign … to say stakeholders are implementing, they are about action.”230

Within this repertoire, the anchorage in the existing international agreements is enacted

differently. Rather than talking about legitimacy, here it is more appropriate to construct the

connectivity by mutual recognition:

“we’re taking you [the governments] seriously as stakeholders and we use one methodology,

partnerships, stakeholder action, joint action to deliver a particular slice of the cake towards these

goals [from the relevant international agreements]. That’s the vision.”231

The stakeholders recognise the governments’ efforts and agreements, and the governments

then again recognise the stakeholders’ efforts that are built on the governments’ work. So

for example the stakeholders position themselves as the ones who

“breathe life into that new platform (...) created (in) Bonn. And I think that will make the German

government feel happy, that Bonn really did something, right, and provided a platform and another

step!”232

227


Apr 02 NGO-10 0986-0997 229




Apr 02 Business-2 1068-73


220

It is oriented towards new and evolving modes of working together, also experimentally,

and invites the governments to participate in new forms of partnerships with civil society.

The stakeholders involve governments in their implementation initiatives and thereby turn

the things around, because then the governments are either challenged233

because they are

under pressure to showcase their implementation efforts or because they can be proud and

happy to present what they can do for implementation:

“we should be clever to get them to come talk about these partnerships because it would give them

a great ego-boost on one hand, on the hh [directed at the government representative:] no, just

joking (...) but seriously [HHHHHHHH]” which gets confirmed by the government representative:

“As a representative of government saying something you are right, [HHH] (...) because that’s

what is expected of them. It’s expected to have partnerships with stakeholders. This is a new issue

and we all want to be modern and innovative and (...) (to say) I already have a partnership with x,

y, z [several: exactly].”234

The danger of getting stuck by government involvement (“Sometimes involving

governments causes gridlock”) can be countered with the inspiring repertoire:

“Once we get some action going things will start happening with governments.”235

Even if no real influence can be exerted on the negotiating governments it is assumed that at

least some positive energy is added by recognising and breathing life into what has been

achieved so far, thereby influencing them indirectly:

“I think really the impact on the type one, on the negotiations is going to be minimal. One thing that

we do add maybe is positive energy. And it’s giving them the feeling that spending the nights until

four a.m. talking about a comma [HHHH] is been taking seriously elsewhere. Because we do

something with those agreements. And if we now say this is realising the millennium goals they

gonna remember how long it took to negotiate that [exactly], oh yeah, sure, wow! [HHH] … And I

think that’s something that we add, the energy, the recognition of taking the lead from international

agreements.”236

The stakeholders distinguish themselves as innovative avant-garde, they are taking the lead.

They take responsibility for implementing their ‘slice of the cake’ and assume that this

would serve as an inspiring example for the governments.

Here, diversity is used to inspire through its liveliness: a ‘world of action’ is brought into

being by the ‘stakeholder community’ which ‘breathes life’ into the agreements. It is used to

offer inspiration in the locked-in process.

5.2.2.3 Supply-driven advisory repertoire

The basic assumption within this repertoire is that the underlying problem is a lack of

information and possibly also a lack of capability on the side of the governments and other

233

Cf. Apr 02 MSO-1 0395 234





221

key decision-makers. They are not necessarily aware of this lack and therefore the

stakeholders’ responsibility is to actively draw attention to what the decision-makers might

need. Hence, the stakeholders are the change agents. Accordingly, the stakeholders

approach them to provide consultation and advice. The aim is to develop processes and

mechanisms to achieve implementation:

“Action-oriented guidelines will be needed to support achievement of these goals”237

.

“So what you deliver at WSSD is actually a process for achieving the millennium goal, with respect

to water. And then, you know, that might be useful. This is how we as a group think you can deliver

the millennium goals. … No one as far as I’m aware has come to deliver at any stage a process for

meeting these goals. And until someone does, they won’t be met, they won’t be achieved.”238

The stakeholders, who with their implementation efforts develop sound implementation

strategies, give a signal to the governments in terms of demonstrating the feasibility of

implementation mechanisms.

The governments also need to be informed about priorities identified by civil society,

whereby the stakeholders help to achieve an appropriate agenda-setting, as they “enable

them to set the agenda for the future.”239

The stakeholders attempt to influence the decision-makers directly as they confront them

with the information and advice they gathered and promote their expertise as advisors and

the results of their studies. The attempt to influence them directly is substantiated and

legitimated with (anchored in) the international agreements, including the stakeholders’

right to participate meaningfully in decision-making.

5.2.2.4 Demand-driven advisory repertoire

The logic behind this repertoire is that the governments do have the responsibility to

implement, they have to take the lead, and the stakeholders commit to support them by

providing information and by advising them on priorities. They offer advice and

consultation, but it is an offer. There needs to be demand on the part of the governments, it

is not that they are pushed. Within this repertoire, the stakeholders’ right to “be able to

participate meaningfully in decision making”240

is not insisted on. The underlying problem

causing the stakeholders to help and advise would be a lack of information, capacity or

knowledge on how to close the implementation gap. The governments are in need of

processes, mechanisms and approaches for implementation (e.g. the stakeholders would

develop “processes” and “mechanisms for stakeholder involvement”241

).

237


Apr 02 Business-3 2756-76 239

Apr 02 MSO-1 0396 240


Submission Business-4, p. 3


222

The governments might find the advice and help offered “comforting”242

. The danger of

this comfort could be that, since at least the stakeholders do their share in implementing and

offer help to the governments, the governments might be relieved of their responsibility.

The demand on the part of the governments was obvious for example at the IAG meeting in

May. Several government representatives attended the meeting as visitors. One of them

talked about a multi-stakeholder forum organised by the EU, which

“is in a very, a very … immature stage, in a very initial stage” and which they aim to organise “in

a much broader way. That we get the right NGOs, the right stakeholders in there. It’s not easy to

get all of them involved. We have all our member states there, we have private sector there, and we

try to get now the right NGOs, if you could help us in setting that up, that would be extremely

helpful.”243

Within this repertoire, the stakeholders are dependent on the governments signalling a

demand or at least the readiness to listen. The stakeholders might contribute to that as they

would ‘draw’ the governments based on the governments’ interests, “they’ve got to see

where is the interest in it for them”244

, exerting indirect influence. If this is demand or

interest is being signalled, connectivity is ensured, facilitating direct influence. This

resembles a professional stance similar to consulting and therapeutic approaches, to make

the intervention contingent on an explicit demand.

Here diversity is used to provide a maximum of expertise, which also makes it distinct

from the governmental processes.

“The quality of the work is higher by the nature of bringing (our different) expertise to the

table.”245

5.2.2.5 Acting-in-our-own-right repertoire

With this repertoire the stakeholders emphasise that their process is self-contained, they

emphasise their independence: “we’re also actors at our own rights, we’re doing our own

thing”246

, ‘we should stick to our motivation’247

Only the stakeholders’ responsibility is

focused on, as the governments are instead blinded out in this repertoire. The stakeholders

implement their ‘slice of the cake’ and refrain from influencing (at least directly) the

governments by lobbying etc. They also abstain from being trapped248

in official formats

(like the type II outcome format: it was emphasised repeatedly that ‘this process is not

242

Apr 02 MSO-1 0395 243

May 02 Government-4 1422-28 244




Notes 26th

Mar 02 248

Notes 26th

Mar 02, WG: recommended not feeling trapped in type IIs


223

slaved to type II’249

) and they refrain from being too hung up in discussions about how to

present their outcomes:

“you know, a very good program could happen even if nobody knows about it. I mean, through the

media. And that would be good. It can happen.”250

What is ‘important’ is ‘that it is done’.251

The stakeholders do their implementation work independently, even if the governments

neither listen nor fund them. Even if nobody knew about it, they would do it anyway. This

could be either seen as a stance of pride or despair, if they do not succeed in exerting their

stakeholders’ right “to participate meaningfully in decision making.”252

They distinguish themselves by an extraordinary engagement even without recognition.

This stance might tend towards a kind of self-sacrifice. With this, they might embody a role

model, thereby hoping for indirect influence.

Diversity is used to enact implementation on the ground, independently or even

disconnected from the governmental processes. If the governments are so ignorant, it is

even more important that civil society joins together despite its diversity to work on

implementation independently.

This repertoire is used for three functions:

• To emphasise the stakeholders’ independence from their context regarding feeding

into the official outcome formats,

• To accept the limited endowment with resources253

• To protect against the potential risk that what the stakeholders are doing might not

be sufficiently recognised in the context.

With this repertoire, the participants emphasise that they are acting towards sustainability

independently of official process. Aside from that, there is also another aspect: we do not

know who is going to listen to us and who is going to support us, and even if nobody does,

we are going to do it anyway.

249

Notes 26th


Apr 02 Convener 1499-1503 251

Notes 26th

Mar 02, Convener, introduction 252


“But, we have limited resources, we have limited time, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do that. But from our, from

Stakeholder Forum’s perspective, you know, a very good program could happen even if nobody knows about it. I mean,

through the media. And that would be good. It can happen.” (Apr 02 Convener 1499-1503)

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226

5.2.3 Fields of tension – repertoires in use

The repertoires represent various ways of defining the collaborating stakeholders relation to

their context within their domain. Intertwined with that, they are defining their collective

identity. Both are being shaped in a continuous process not only through the rather

convergent issue constructions (see above), but also through the interplay of divergent

constructions within the more tensed fields of collective action.

5.2.3.1 Supplementing implementation with lobbying activities?

As the name suggests, the main aim of the Implementation Conference Process is

implementation. Yet, the whole process is interfused with lobbying suggestions. Those

lobbying suggestions were partly untroubled, sometimes they came about as specifically

supplementing and complementing the main aim of implementing, and sometimes they

were contested. Here I examine how the participants’ position themselves towards their

context by constructing the purpose of the collaboration as

• promoting implementation by stakeholders

• promoting lobbying activities

• contesting lobbying activities,

and how they substantiate their thrusts.

Promoting implementation

What governments have agreed so far is good (or good enough) to start with, what they lack

is the implementation of their agreements. So the stakeholders are good citizens (followers)

who put into practice what has been officially agreed.

They can do that in a self-contained manner (acting-in-our-own-right repertoire), just

focusing on their implementation responsibilities as stakeholders. This approach can also

make the governments aware indirectly of what they are neglecting.

By committing to their own role and responsibility the stakeholders are giving a signal to

inspire the governments to do the same (inspiring repertoire). The aim is to bring about

change to a gridlocked situation: “from ‘deadlock’ to ‘movement’, from static to

dynamic’”1. This standstill is presented as being produced by a reactive approach which

needs to be replaced by a pro-active one: “From ‘reactive way of working’ to ‘pro-active

way of working’”2. By promoting implementation with the inspiring repertoire, connectivity

and at the same time a difference is produced in the sense that the conveners position

1 Outline Sep 01, p. 10



227

themselves and the participants on the positive side, acting proactively for positive change,

instead for example using a strategy of criticising, blocking or pillorying. Connectivity is

produced in that people can identify with this positive positioning and because the lack of

action-orientation is generally acknowledged. They distinguish themselves from the talk-

shop-context around them and can even position themselves as ‘avant-garde’ in that they are

on the implementation track before the official process enhances its emphasis on

implementation with the introduction of the type II outcomes.

By promoting implementation, participants and donors can be attracted for being part of the

process which is thus positively distinct from their inert context. Also the decision on the

date of the IC conference contributes to their positioning of themselves as forerunners on

the progressive track, as the issue coordinator made clear:

“That’s the whole idea. We’re gonna give the sign before the conference starts.”3

“the idea started with having it a week before to sort of you know give a positive sign (...) at the

beginning of the meeting to say stakeholders are implementing, they are about action. And to give

that at the beginning of the conference with a lot of media attention and everything.”4

As the following participant talks about how he is envisaging their joint project, he uses the

inspiring repertoire. The speaker grounds his favoured approach (the inspiring repertoire) in

the negotiation gridlock:

“(how I) could envisage the Implementation Conference … is if you’re trying to profile basically

partnerships and the commitments that all sorts of stakeholders, particularly the non-governmental

community are putting forward to it, with business, with governments, whatever it may be. … and

we basically contribute that to the implementation networking, and others can, you know, say,

that’s really interesting, we want to be a part of. By the time, we come to Johannesburg, what we’re

doing is no longer negotiating, you’re profiling, you’re presenting it to the summit, because quite

frankly, I think, we will actually have far more outcomes coming out of the non-governmental-

slash-partnership dimension and dynamic than the governments, with all the respect I can (bring

up) at this moment, at least the way they are moving (towards) Johannesburg, and therefore, the

implementation conference is in a way an opportunity to profile the enormous amount of activity

that has been initiated with governments, with business, with NGOs, but in some ways emanating

from NGOs. The rest you will not influence with the Implementation Conference anyway, the kind of

negotiations, because by then, it’s locked in, so let’s use this conference to profile at Johannesburg

what has been built, and use the period before with … the Implementation Conference platform as

way of networking, communicating, brokering contacts, that people could make it, and then, when

we’re there, we all come together and say, look, we have fifty organisations that have come

together behind this initiative, twenty here, add them all up and suddenly we have a world of action

that might even shake governments to maybe be a little bit more courageous at the summit

[consent; “It’s a bit more interesting then, what they’re gonna say”; consent] Also, yeah, because

they’re gonna be so locked into this terrible (process) [hh].”5



5 Apr 02 NGO-10 0946-0997


228

Framing the function of implementation as “to give a signal to the political world … that

the water community in the broadest sense can demonstrate that things are going on”6 can

be used in connection with the inspiring repertoire or in connection with the holding-to-

account repertoire. In the latter instance it is rather an appeal to the governments to also do

what they need to do for implementation. They are signalling that governments should care

more about making their agreements happen, and that it is possible to make them happen.

With the advisory repertoires, the governments’ job is defined as making agreements and

the stakeholders’ job as helping to implement them. They are offered support by the

stakeholders in implementing their agreements. Then the responsibility for implementation

is allocated to both the governments and the stakeholders.

Using the holding-to-account repertoire and the inspiring repertoire entails a paradox.

Governments should be more or less directly induced to take the lead regarding

implementation. Governments need to be ‘pushed’ to take the lead, and the stakeholders are

taking the lead by initiating their project. The governments are given the leading function

for change in terms of implementation, but paradoxically they need to be constantly

reminded of their leading function by the stakeholder movement which positions itself as

the forerunners.

How is diversity used discursively? Stakeholder implementation is promoted on the grounds

that the involvement of diverse actors makes the implementation of sustainability

agreements more effective. This argumentation follows an outcome-oriented logic

(according to the functionalist repertoire) and emphasises the maximisation of quality by

bringing together diverse expertise and the enhanced outreach of the implementation efforts.

“And one of the things that [the convener] mentioned in her presentations is the strength that a

multi-stakeholder process has. The quality of the work is higher by the nature of bringing (our

different) expertise to the table. As she also mentioned that we are having a great outreach. And in

essence, if we’re working together, if we’re able to find that common ground, then the hope is that

(we would be able) to deliver these commitments that our governments have signed up to over the

last ten or twenty years.”7

“the conference … in particular, will focus on maximising involvement and participation to develop

ownership and commitment for the conference outcomes.”8


more effective.”9

6 Apr 02 Government-1 1566-68, citing MSO-4

7 IC1 Director-SF 0606-13


9 IC Executive Summary Sep 02, p. 2


229

Furthermore, the results from a multi-stakeholder process are seen as having an enhanced

legitimacy and credibility.10

This argument is used not only for the promotion of stakeholder implementation in this

project, but also for the promotion of MSPs in general, which is then instead a lobbying

strategy. Besides anchoring MSPs within the holding-to-account repertoire in normative

grounds “to ensure that decisions taken are based on a fair, open and equitable review of

all options”11

(according to the ethical normative repertoire), they can also be promoted

for reasons of effectiveness which are based in diversity:

“to enhance the sustainability of water projects”12

or

“to allow for broad based understanding and support”13

.

Promoting lobbying activities

The reasons which are given to substantiate why lobbying strategies should also be pursued

within the IC process are examined in the following.

The lobbying is promoted with the holding-to-account repertoire, as this is the one which

is oriented towards influencing the governments directly.14

In the issue paper it is recommended that the implementation activities be supplemented

with lobbying, because both strategies can serve to reinforce each other complementarily:

“The IC process should also aim to influence the intergovernmental process towards the

Johannesburg Summit. For some focus areas, it seems most effective to take a two-pronged

approach, aiming to impact the type 1 and type 2 Summit outcome documents so that they become

mutually reinforcing.”15

Lobbying is seen as necessary as the agreements in themselves are not considered sufficient.

So the negotiation gridlock (which served to give reason also to the inspiring-repertoire)

also justifies the lobbying activities. The existing agreements need to be improved (“Still

need lobbying to review policies”16

) and supplemented with further agreements to be

effective regarding implementation (“WSSD should identify additional targets to effectively

deal with water management goals”17

).

10

IC1 NGO-3 2033 11

“Improved watershed management requires new forms of governance and information sharing. … Management must

be based on the principles of good governance – openness, participation and accountability – to ensure that decisions

taken are based on a fair, open and equitable review of all options. By 2007 stakeholder participation and the right of

access to information should be implemented in all countries.” (Submission NGO-14, p. 1) 12

“Promote public information and participation at all levels in support of policy and decision-making related to water

resources management and project implementation, using the watershed and integrated river-basin approach, to

enhance the sustainability of water projects.” (Submission MSO-4) 13

“Public participation and disclosure of information are important processes to allow for broad based understanding

and support” (Submission IGO-1 full structure, p. 2) 14

See above, footnote 397 in section 5.2.1.1 ‘Lobbying for stronger sustainable development agreements’ 15

IP V2 Feb 02, p. 1 16

TelConf Mar 02, Women-1, p. 12 17

Submission IGO-1, p. 7


230

An attempt to influence the negotiation process as directly as possible is made in a

submission where a participant suggested that they

“get as well someone to be in the writing committee of the water declarations in the conferences or

do not wait for big improvements on pre-prepared texts.”18

Obviously for some participants, direct influence through lobbying is the main thing.

Despite the explicit name “implementation conference”, the question emerges: “Are we set

up to only deal with type 2 actions? If this is the case – how do we deal with actions that we

have to go to Governments about?”, followed by the explanation “It seems that we are

going for type 2 actions to get to type 1’s”19

. Within this logic, all the implementation

efforts of stakeholders serve exclusively to impact the negotiation process and to support the

lobbying effort. In some cases the lobbying was not explicitly promoted vis-à-vis the

implementation efforts: the lobbying strategies were submitted as a matter of course

(seemingly ignoring the title ‘implementation conference’).

By promoting lobbying activities the stakeholders position themselves as the ones who need

to tell the governments how to secure the foundation for implementing sustainability

through international agreements. What governments have agreed so far is not sufficient.

The governments need to be informed about the stakeholders’ stakes and can profit from the

stakeholders’ expertise. By fulfilling their part (reaching agreements), the governments

enable the stakeholders to fulfil their part too (collaborate on implementation). With their

lobbying activities stakeholders ascribe themselves, not the governments, the leading

function for change.

How is diversity used discursively? Diversity is used to exert influence. The Issue Advisory

Group capitalises on its diversity combined with its cohesiveness to be influential towards

the governments, because then the governments cannot reject their concerns by referring to

other stakes:

“I think one of the most powerful thing is about this group, potentially, is that we are sort of the

non-government types and I’m quite impressed at how we have been able to hang together, despite

some significant differences [HHHH]. My point is that this, the ability of this group to hang

together and represent a broad cross section of non-governmental groups in effect makes it, you

know, we can mobilise that and inform governments of that solidarity, I think it strengthens our

hands in influencing the group. I suspect too often (...), that governments in effect hear a cacophony

of different voices coming from different directions. And they use that as an excuse to do nothing, or

to do less than what we want. So our strength, I think, is in getting a common agenda and then

18

Submission NGO-2 19

Report 26th Mar 02, p. 2


231

lobbying that, lobbying our national governments, lobbying whatever groups we can reach to. And

it strengthens our hands.”20

Another speaker refers to the “strong group”21

and refers to influencing the official

outcome document by stating:

“this group is a fantastic group, you know we have a fantastic group and within this group we

could try to establish a certain common denomination”22

.

The outreach capacities are not only invoked for an outcome-oriented accounting

(functionalist repertoire) for the effective stakeholder implementation, but also for

strengthening their influence towards governments:

“Promote the outcomes towards governments and other stakeholders, in a joint effort, and use the

outreach capacities of the stakeholders involved”23

.

This applies not only to joint lobbying efforts but also to exchanging their individual

lobbying strategies:

“What I think we should do now is take a round of how we are ourselves planning different ways

and means to influence the activities. Either mainstream dialogue (or) otherwise.”24

The participants can profit from the exchange individually and the exchange might inspire

the group on its joint activities.

Contesting lobbying activities

When suggestions to lobby are contested, different reasons are invoked.

One is that it is not really adding something new, as most of the participants are engaged in

their own lobbying agendas (“We all have our agendas towards the governments”25

), and

the agenda should be distinct if they want to jointly create something.

The other is that it is too late anyway to devise a joint lobbying strategy (“On that we

should have started one or two years ago, to come with a lobbying strategy.”26

)

The third way of contesting the lobbying suggestions is by invoking the actors-in-our-own-

right repertoire:

“We can (devise) lobbying strategies, and some of the proposals actually are on lobbying the

governments, on directly influencing the official process. But we’re also actors at our own rights,

we’re doing our own thing.”27

20

Apr 02 NGO-11/Business-2 0216-43 21

Apr 02 0920 22

Apr 02 MSO-1 0774-76 23

Action Plan Mar 02, MSR 24

Apr 02 MSO-1 0747-50 25

Apr 02 Convener 0800-0801 26


Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0281-84


232

Strategies for dealing with the tension

In terms of the two aims, implementing and lobbying, a double-tracking strategy was

pursued until the meeting in April, and even longer in the documents (Issue Paper and

Action Plans). Both documents allowed for both aims, but with different weight: in the

Action Plans the lobbying strategies were of minor significance. By maintaining the “two-

pronged approach” it was planned “to impact the type 1 and type 2 Summit outcome

documents so that they become mutually reinforcing”28

. Furthermore, the opportunities to

react responsively to what happened in the official process were kept open. At the same

time the priority always tended towards the implementation aim, pointing to the main focus.

The possibility of maintaining this kind of openness and responsiveness was achieved at the

cost of some notable confusion.

In the end, the process resulted in influencing intergovernmental negotiation process

indirectly by showing them that “there’s a world of action out there” as it was suggested in

the April meeting29

. Furthermore, the possibility of influencing the negotiation processes in

the longer term was prospected.30

5.2.3.2 Submitting to the official process outcomes

In chapter 2 the controversy about the type II outcomes in the context was outlined, forming

the background to the discussion within the process whether the IC participants should

make use of this outcome format. The conveners presented it as a possibility but left the

decision to the participants. One the one hand it was clear that the IC process and its

outcomes should be presented to the summit (without specifying the type of influencing

along with the presentation, so the presenting itself is not coupled with the helping,

inspiring or holding-to-account-repertoire)31

. The aim of making it presentable at the

summit also included the media interest the summit was going to raise. Furthermore, some

considered it as vital to have a clear linkage to the official process and pointed to the danger

of remaining disconnected:

“Can you explain, how really you want to achieve the political connections within the main core

conference delegates? And also, as you know, there’s a number of type two initiatives coming up.

How are you going to link it, otherwise we’re having a meeting and discussions but completely

outside the mainstream UN discussions which is going on.”32

28

IP V2 Feb 02, p. 1 29

Report Apr 02, p. 2 30

E.g. World Water Forum IC1 Director-SF 0675-77 31

see above: “we want to use the opportunity of the summit itself and the NGO (...) 60 000 people with it, tell them

about it … we want to make it presentable there” 32

Apr 02 MSO-1 0205-10


233

The aim of presenting their outcomes to the summit was counter-balanced by the acting-

in-our-own-right repertoire.

On the question of how the outcomes should be presented to the media:

“we have two discussions going on at the same time, that’s the one about media and (...) raising

profile, there is secondly what is it we wanna do. And I prefer the latter conversation (...) what

we’re about is to try and broaden and involve more partners and existing work, or what we’re

interested in is action. And media profile: great. But, we have limited resources, we have limited

time, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do that. But from our, from Stakeholder Forum’s perspective, you

know, a very good program could happen even if nobody knows about it. I mean, through the

media. And that would be good. It can happen.”33

On the question of whether the outcomes should be submitted as type II outcomes, the

convener replied: “we’re gonna do them anyway. … We’re not doing them for them to end

up in the official UN documents.” 34

A participant recommended that the group should ‘not

feel captured in the type IIs’35

. Repeatedly it was emphasised that ‘this process is not slaved

to type II’.36

This concern was reinforced by also going beyond the type II format, but discussing the

presentation in general, e.g. to the media.37

The possibility of feeding the outcomes into the type II format was relativised. Feeding into

the type II outcomes was presented as a possibility, not as a must-have: it is ‘fine if type 2,

fine if it isn’t’38

; “If they end up in the official document, that’s good ... If they don’t, we’re

gonna do them anyway.” 39

It was also relativised by contrasting the question of

presentation with the really important things: What is ‘important’ is ‘that it is done’, and it

is a ‘piece of the SD cake that we’re after’40

. Another strategy to relativise the significance

of the new format was pursued by emphasising that the participants’ process outcomes had

been envisioned much earlier than this new format: “the idea of the type II outcomes came

much later than that” 41

, “we started before that and we should stick to our motivation.’42

Previously they had already been “quite keen to get partnership initiatives off the ground.”

Furthermore the groups’ capabilities were esteemed good enough to enable them to be

independent of the official structures:

33

Apr 02 Convener 1492-1503 34


Notes 26th

Mar 02, WG 36

Notes 26th

Mar 02, Convener 37

Apr 02 38

Notes 26th


Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 025 40

Notes 26th



Notes 26th

Mar 02, Convener


234

“I don’t think we should have that as a condition for the action, for the potential that we have in

this group.” 43

At the same time, provisions were made to keep the possibility of feeding in open:

“depending on what is coming up in here, we’re gonna propose them as an outcome for the type

II.” 44

, “the earlier we have drafts, the earlier we’re going to sit (in with the) secretary, now that

the type IIs came along. … that will depend on what kind of events are being planned during the

first week, what is available … I can’t say during the first week we’re going to do this and that, it

depends what the secretariat turns out to decide and in what way they are gonna to accommodate

these activities.”45

The use of the acting-in-our-own-right repertoire was then again countered by ensuring

connectivity to the secretariat organising the official process:

“I won’t say that we should have their blessings, but (...) (we should) contribute to the main stream.

… so how are you facilitating that interaction with the secretariat?”46

“Well, they’re aware of the Implementation Conference.”47

So far, I have described how the opportunity to feed into the type II outcomes was balanced

and/or countered by the acting-in-our-own-right repertoire. In addition, this opportunity in

the context also gave rise to the holding-to-account repertoire.

Due to the concern about the shift in the official process towards the non-binding type II

outcomes at the expense of binding agreements, monitoring was considered as all the more

necessary. The outcomes of the type II outcomes were to be monitored, since they had been

criticised for being a cheap substitute for not making progress with the binding type I

agreements. The governments were accused of sidestepping their original task and that their

focus on partnerships served “to avoid actually to make some really hard decisions”48

. In

addition to accusing the governments of making it too easy by distracting from their

negotiation task, they are also accused of taking the development of partnerships too much

for granted:

“the assumption that partnerships are free, neutral and available to be pulled off the shelf, is really

absolutely alarming!”49

Since this new format was so controversial it is seen as even more important to include the

diverse stakeholders in monitoring the type II outcomes. For this claim it is regarded as

important that the IC set a good example, both by monitoring their own outcomes and by

developing strategies suitable for monitoring the type II outcomes.

43

Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 026? 44

Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 026? 45


Apr 02 MSO-1 0325-31 47


May 02 NGO-1 1229 49

May 02 NGO-1 1221-22


235

“It appears that many of the agreements and commitments at Johannesburg in relation to targets

and funded programmes of work will be Type II agreements. Since these will not have the force of

international agreements, the accountability for meeting such commitments will be improved if

there is a stakeholder element in monitoring their implementation. The Implementation Conference

should establish a multi-stakeholder means to review and to comment (perhaps emphasising where

there is good practice) on how commitments agreed at the Summit are being implemented.”50

This participant used the holding-to-account repertoire and, with the insert ‘emphasising

good practice’, supplemented it with the advisory repertoire. A further participant

endorses the need for monitoring and suggests making the development of stakeholder

monitoring mechanisms the main focus, to ensure implementation. She proposes making the

differences between text outcomes and ‘real’ outcomes visible, to

“tell(s) it how it really is, what is supposed to be happening and what people are actually doing?

To put the focus areas and promises on one side, how they are going to get done on the other and

then what is actually being done! Perhaps this should be the focus of our groups, to take the type 2s

and lay out the hows, whos, and make sure that these are put through.”51

Strategies for dealing with the tension

To maintain connectivity, the stakeholders were dependent on what was happening in their

context, but they still managed to position themselves as independently as possible. The

possibility of responding to the structures given by the official process was left open. The

danger was that, by submitting their outcomes to the type II format, they are submitting in

both senses of the word: they present their outcomes to be listed in this format and they bow

to this structure.

The conveners were in continuous contact with the WSSD secretariat and so they were up-

to-date with what’s happening without committing themselves to submit to the type II

format. They were thereby able to maintain critical distance.

Diversity was used here to maintain independence (“I don’t think we should have that as a

condition for the action, for the potential that we have in this group” 52

), to achieve

accountability on the part of the governments (“the accountability for meeting such

commitments will be improved if there is a stakeholder element in monitoring their

implementation. The Implementation Conference should establish a multi-stakeholder

means to review and to comment”), to contribute their expertise (“perhaps emphasising

where there is good practice”) and to use the outreach capacities of the diverse group to

“tell it how it really is”.

50

Submission NGO-1 (participant’s insert) 51

Submission Youth-1, see also Submission MSO-4: one of the main themes suggested for the IC: “a multi-stakeholder

role in monitoring WSSD” 52



236

Using diversity to influence the context and to establish distinction – an exchange with a

government representative

An exchange with a government representative who is visiting a meeting is outlined in the

following. It is illustrated how diversity is used to exert influence and to establish

distinction (and therefore identity) vis-à-vis the context.

The visitor displays an interest in how the stakeholders would shape the type II initiatives or

comparable initiatives (as many of them have a critical stance53

).

She displays interest (“as a scout”) in “how these type II processes are going” in general,

and specifically, if they could be in some way linked to the initiatives her government is

pursuing. This would be attractive for both as it would enrich her government’s initiatives

and could mean good funding for the stakeholders. Furthermore she asks how the

participants see their role through monitoring and reviewing the governments’ initiatives.

She calls for a discussion on the differences between the initiatives launched by

stakeholders or governments.

“I’m here to listen to the different initiatives because I have been asked by (the) minister (as)

special envoy to Johannesburg process to look around at different initiatives as a teller for him,

he’s arriving on Sunday himself to see how these type II processes are going and where possibly

different initiatives can be linked together and how these things are going. And, so I’m very curious

also to hear (your) ideas, what your organisations are doing … if I understand it from this

document it’s a kind of clustering of possible activities from the different groups here. And I’m

specifically interested, I’m interested in all of these, but I was very interested about the kind of

water (board), a multi-stakeholder process to review and comment on implementation, I’m very

interested to hear how you as, as, well, as farmers organisations but also as NGO, how you see

yourself, your role in the follow-up of Johannesburg and also vis-à-vis the other, bigger water

initiatives that are being prepared. Both by the European group, but also by the US, there is a lot of

very hectic work going on, well, those initiatives also call themselves multi-stakeholder initiatives,

so I’m also very curious about a debate, how you, not only as individual organisations but also as a

kind of collective force present in this room representing, well, millions of water users of different

kinds, how you see your role.”54

The speaker plays on the diversity of the group when she subsumes what she encountered in

the meeting as “a kind of clustering of possible activities from the different groups here”

and when she emphasises the multi-stakeholder approach. What she says is most interesting

for her is the action plan ‘multi-stakeholder review on water and sanitation supply

strategies’, which is one of the few action plan groups which is not mainly projecting

implementation ‘in-their-own-right’, but which is more explicitly oriented towards what is

done or should be done, also by the governments. So she is interested how the stakeholders

position themselves with their initiatives towards the governments’ initiatives. She calls for

53

It can be assumed that she is pointing to this critical stance when she says about the governments' initiatives: "they

call themselves multi-stakeholder initiatives" as if it would be by no means uncontroversial. 54

May 02 Government-3 1173-84


237

discussion of whether the governments’ initiatives are ‘genuine’ multi-stakeholder

initiatives as she voices the doubts herself by saying they “call themselves” multi-

stakeholder initiatives and, moreover, are developed hectically. She ends by emphasising

the significance and influence of the group, drawing on their diversity and mandate as a

“collective force”.

In his answer, a participant uses the opportunity to establish their distinctness, which at

the same time is taken as the reason to act, to change something.

“I mean, the discussion at Johannesburg would be, how do you form those groups together rather

than actually saying, you know, we have got a package of partnerships that we’re going to work on

and I think as you were saying, the development of partnerships, and I think this is something that I

wouldn’t mind discussing at some point, you know, the assumption that partnerships are free,

neutral and available to be pulled off the shelf, is really absolutely alarming! [Convenor: yes.] We

have been working together as a team to develop this process for some months, no, a full year,

partnerships are slow, they’re laborious, they fail, they cost, organisations have to make

assessments as to whether they should go into partnership, they have to understand the difference

between being contracted and working in partnership, and all of these dimensions, and I would fear

that we’re actually just (blundering) word around the partnership … to avoid actually to make

some really hard decisions. So, you know, the IC can actually have a real discussion about what,

you know, what are the criteria that the stakeholders around this table are bringing to the concept

of partnership and what bit of activity they’re finding complementary or they share with the centre,

it would be really really very useful. … And I think that building real genuine partnerships which

are farmers and women’s groups and the like to (...) actually identify what is happening on the

ground would be a very strong process to hold government to account, ‘cos, you know, (...) them

on, Rio, Rio plus ten, we’re not even talking (...) one, we have a very good document, but we

haven’t implemented it. And it’s the lack of actually watching that document and doing something

about it and I guess (...) one of the reasons (...) So I think that monitoring, and actually having

stakeholders involved in that monitoring, and building the capacity of small organisations to start

engaging in that way, is one of the ways that we need to move forward. So I really welcome your

interest and commitment in that and hopefully not just the Dutch government, but the EU as well.

As, as part of the significant contributions that the political process can (...) ‘cos, you know, NGOs

aren’t political [hh, people start to say something, laughter] we’re not attached to that bit of

political process and I’ve been looking for the (...) from our governments to actually (...) [still

giggling].”55

The speaker is indignant about the ‘so-called’ hectically produced multi-stakeholder

partnerships. He brings into play what it means to build the slow and laborious “real

genuine partnerships” which he contrasts with the alleged assumption of partnerships being

“free, neutral and available to be pulled off the shelf”. From this he derives what he would

envision for the Implementation Conference: discussing among the diverse group the

criteria for partnerships is where he sees the added value, and he underpins that with the

holding-to-account repertoire.

55

May 02 NGO-1 1217-49


238

Here, diversity is on the one hand what makes partnerships slow and laborious, but on the

other it can be used to develop suitable criteria and to ensure accountability, especially by

their outreach to the ‘ground’.

5.2.3.3 Requirement and legitimacy in question

The question of whether the multi-stakeholder processes are considered as required and

legitimate was dealt with very differently for the IC process as a whole and for the multi-

stakeholder review (MSR).

Requirement and legitimacy of the IC process

The requirement of the process is grounded in accounts of “the world as problematic and

requiring action” (Lawrence et al. 1999: 489). The necessity of joining the stakeholders

together is seen in the lack of implementation and to a large part in the deadlock of the

governmental process: the “gridlock, that’s why Stakeholder Forum attracts us. (We need

a) multi-stakeholder forum for that reason.” 56

The governments are held responsible for the

gridlock, and it is emphasised with the holding-to-account-repertoire that the stakeholders

are not meant “to replace government action.’57

One participant explains the requirement mainly with the inspiring repertoire but also

making use of the helping repertoire:

“I’m very interested to make this work cause I believe Johannesburg needs this more than anything

at the moment in order not to be an implosion. And therefore, from [name of his organisation]’s

point of view, we’re very happy to work with you on this and try and help to make this actually an

example of self organising initiative, and I think also important (...) not to portray as non-

governmental rather to say this is outside the inter-governmental process, right? [Consent]

Because we want to work with governments, we want to work with private sector, we want to, but

it’s not part of the intergovernmental process absolutely (...) at the moment. And I don’t want to,

quite frankly (...) [name of Government-1] [addressing the government representative] I’m sure we

don’t disagree on that [government representative: “No, no, no, we don’t disagree”] we have a

dysfunctional situation [government representative: “Of course!”] and therefore this is actually an

inspiration to governments, to the inter-government process, to us, I mean, if we can make this

work.”58

The speaker constructs their undertaking as inspiring example and the inter-governmental

process as completely lacking in any inspiration. They are in need of inspiration, and that

need is so blatant that they actually need help. This version is confirmed by the visiting

government representative.

The requirement of the process is also substantiated with the holding-to-account

repertoire by emphasising the lack of monitoring:

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“building real genuine partnerships which are farmers and women’s groups and the like to (...)

actually identify what is happening on the ground would be a very strong process to hold

government to account, cause, … Rio plus ten, … we have a very good document, but we haven’t

implemented it. And it’s the lack of actually watching that document and doing something about it

… So I think that monitoring, and actually having stakeholders involved in that monitoring, and

building the capacity of small organisations to start engaging in that way, is one of the ways that

we need to move forward.”59

In this sense the speaker also argues for holding the governments to account regarding the

controversial type II outcomes, the partnerships. He views as a requirement of the process a

discussion of “what are the criteria that the stakeholders around this table are bringing to

the concept of partnership” in order to build “real genuine partnerships”60

. Having

developed such criteria as one outcome of the IC, they can hold governments to account by

checking if their type II partnerships are real partnerships.

Requirement and legitimacy of the multi-stakeholder review

The action plan group in the focus of this study is assembled around the purpose of setting

up a ‘multi-stakeholder review of global water supply and sanitation strategies’. This should

be an example of a multi-stakeholder process par excellence, which is designed by

stakeholders from scratch.

In the outline of the action plan, the added value and requirement is substantiated by

pointing to the effectiveness of a multi-stakeholder approach. According to the

functionalist repertoire, it is demonstrated how diversity is used for effective outcomes,

multi-stakeholder collaboration is presented as an efficient change approach:

“Review existing supply strategies with a multi-stakeholder approach for maximum quality and

credibility of the review and increased outreach for the promotion of its outcomes: Conduct a

thorough review of high credibility and develop recommendations which are supported by key

stakeholders”,

and the corresponding goal and objectives: “Improve access to safe and affordable water and

sanitation through the implementation of the best possible supply strategies”.

They aim to answer the “Key Question: Which situation is best matched by which supply

strategy?”61

They plan to “Identify opportunities for broadening the scope and impact of good

practices through stakeholder partnerships”.62

The requirement of the review is connected to the importance of examining specific issues

(see above) in the following. The construction of the issue is not really separable from the

discussion of the requirement question, as only those issues which are seen as required by

their advocates are brought to the table. This is why there are some overlaps in the

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description of the process. The process which is described in the sections ‘Constructing the

issue’ (5.1) and ‘Constructing the relations to the context’ (5.2) is of course the same, but it

is described and analysed orienting to different questions. The former follows the question

of how the issue and its boundaries are constructed. This section examines how the review

is legitimised within its context by establishing the review’s requirement and ‘added value’.

As was described earlier, the question of requirement was already posed before the

Implementation Conference “Let the group decide if there is space for a global review

process”63

and at the conference itself the group had severe difficulty in finding a joint

answer to this question. The discussion of this question became scattered – instead of

focusing on the requirement question, the participants talked about scope, goals and

discussed general opinions, which was partly experienced as unfocused, as it was set for a

later stage in the agenda. On second glance, the way the participants dealt with the

requirement question, and deeply intertwined with that the legitimacy question, makes a lot

of sense: they need to know better first what it is they are claiming requirement and

legitimacy for. In a way they were moving in a circle: in order to judge the question of

requirement they needed to jointly construct the review plan more clearly, but the

willingness to co-construct the review depends on the belief in the requirement and

legitimacy of such an undertaking. Throughout the conference the doubts remained, giving

an unreal atmosphere to the whole action plan meeting.

The question of requirement comes initially upon the facilitator’s introduction at the

beginning of the meeting:

“we’re also gonna do a review of the existing action plan … and then come to a conclusion around

the assessment for the actual …requirement for a global review process … providing, that we get to

a ‘yes’ to this point, we move to identifying the scope of the review”64

.

So the requirement is something which needs to be explicitly discussed and which

distinguishes this action plan group from others on the conference. The existential

importance of the question is then addressed by the director in his “opening context

presentation”65

in an ironic way:

“the group over the next three days … will be addressing a set of questions. The first one I guess

today is really to ask is there a requirement for a global review process. Of water and sanitation

supply strategies. ‘Cos if there isn’t then you-hh-’ll have tomo-h-rro-h-w off. [some: hh] But

[HHHH] HHHH It’s alright, I didn’t mean to say that” [“It was recorded” group: “HHHHHH”

“good point, good point”]. “So the first discussion we’ll have today is do people feel that that’s a

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useful thing to have. And obviously if it is useful to have then there’s a whole series of things that

we need to look at. …”66

With this ironic formulation, he poses the requirement question in such a way that there is

obviously only one possible answer: yes.

Already in the first turn after the director had finished his introduction, the legitimacy issue

was raised by a private sector representative as an important issue. This issue remained

topical during the whole IC conference.

“… something I’ve raised with the telephone conversation that we (…) conference we had some

time ago. ‘Cos I think (being an) important issue. And I think our presence today to me makes it

even more important (to) at least recall it as an issue that (we need) to look at some stage. We’re

not around this table here today to me a particularly representative group, and I think we’ll have

some difficulty in saying to the world at large that we carry a heavy degree of legitimacy for the

subject which is enormous. So I think it’s a bit of a mismatch, it might be a bit of a mismatch

between what we might be inclined to say and (almost) our rights to claim to be a stakeholder

(group) putting across (something) to a bigger world. And if we can’t anchor what we’re saying in

some kind of legitimacy, it might be rather hard for example to go to the (donors hh and) (request

and say) we want some money for it. We can’t change that. We are who we are around the table

today (…) I think it’s an issue that needs to be thought about.”67

This representative uses an interpretation of legitimacy as a representative group. This

group is not very balanced in representation in several aspects: it is dominated by northern

“white male”68

people, but what this speaker is referring to in particular is the absence of

the Unions as stakeholders in this process with the most critical stance towards privatisation

and therefore those who were against the expansion of the review’s focus.

The speaker emphasises the significance of the legitimacy problem “as an important issue”,

“even more important”, “for the subject which is enormous”: he lends some urgency to it,

also with “it is an issue that (we need) to look at some stage”, “that needs to be thought

about” mentioning also that the issue has been around for quite a while, and gives it the

status of a problem: “and I think we’ll have some difficulty”, “mismatch”, “it might be

rather hard”. With “We can’t change that. We are who we are around the table today” he

further reifies it as a relevant drawback.

The director takes the next turn in which he manages to diminish the ‘problem’.

“I think different groups (have) different action plans with different processes [yeah]. And I think

ours has a particular position. We don’t have a champion as such. That’s the essence of (it) being

very early (…). It may be, I’ve not mentioned to you the conversation we should have (…) (about)

some of the outcomes of this feeding in perhaps to the Second World Water Forum. That might be

something we should (…) (maybe then) work around (…). I think our job here is to in a sense (flesh)

out what we have here and then to see that others will join in and to have those conversations (that)

people think about some useful directions to go in, we’ll be happy to facilitate that, that next

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242

(phase) (if that’s what) seems to be useful. (But we haven’t yet) hh deci-h-ded whe-hh-ther (…)

[former speaker: “No, I just (…)].”69

His first sentence might be an indication to shift the question of legitimacy to the IC

conference with its 25 action plan groups at large, which has a more balanced distribution of

stakeholder groups overall. With the “particular position” he can justify a particular

situation in the composition of the group. By extending the time-scale up to the 2nd

World

Water Forum and by mentioning that they do not even have a champion yet, he emphasises

the provisional, preliminary status of the group and dissolves the reification by the previous

speaker: he holds out the prospect of others joining in and thereby solving the legitimacy

problem. In the next part of his speech he turns the problem into an advantage.

“But (I’ll take that / I’ll tell you). I think the other thing is, that, you know, we’re at a very unique

position. We’re having a few days before the conference starts. There’s gonna be an enormous

amount of, and it already has been, of criticism of companies. The conference will have that as a

backdrop. Here we have a number of companies or people who’ve worked in companies who are

trying to do something different here.”70

What the last speaker saw as a shortcoming – the absence of the most critical stance and the

stronger presence of the private sector – is turned into a benefit by the director. Instead of

enlarging on the missing stake here he turns the strong presence of the private sector into an

advantage. The stakeholder group which is most criticised in the larger context is “trying to

do something different here.” Like the previous speaker, he demonstrates the importance of

the issue. He does that by tying it to the large conference where he prospects “an enormous

amount” of criticism and the group’s possibilities, being “at a very unique position.”

Despite the emphasis on balanced representation in the outline of the project, the director

normalises the absence of some groups with what he says next.

“The groups that will come into the tent may not be everybody (anyway). We have to accept that

some people will not join such a process. But I believe that the multi-stakeholder movement that

we’re part of, is a movement for good and can have an impact on the process. And groups that are

sitting here will at different points be sitting outside the tent (…) as well.”71

He normalises by using “anyway” and “we have to accept”. Then he counters the fear that

the MSP might be deprived of its rationale/foundation – inclusion of all relevant

stakeholders – by the ‘problem’ resulting from the group composition which jeopardises its

legitimacy: He states that despite this ‘flaw’ the multi-stakeholder movement is a movement

for good and therefore has not lost its sense as it “can have an impact on the process”. By

invoking the larger context of the multi-stakeholder “movement” and the use of “I believe”

he extends the time horizon and emphasises the fluidity and the probability of (or hope for)

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change for the better and in a way invites others to “believe” the same and be part of this

“movement”. The fluidity is again emphasised in his concluding sentence where he points

out the varying group compositions.

Subsequently, the facilitator moves to the agenda item “Assessment of the requirement for a

Global Review Process”72

. He seems to make discussion of the question optional as he

offers to skip it and jump directly to the next agenda item ‘which kind of data’, even though

it belongs to the agenda: he lets people choose how to proceed – with the next point on the

agenda “Which kind of data”, “Or do we want to have a general discussion first about do

we think there is a requirement for a global review process.” The decision is made for the

general discussion: “I think that the latter is the better (to move forward / than the

former).”73

The way the facilitator presents it, it would have been possible to skip this item on the

agenda, but there was a request to discuss it. The participant who requested the discussion

(he was not the only one though, others were nodding) anchors the requirement or necessity

of the review in the recommendation of the previous international water conference for the

original project of a multi-stakeholder review: “Is everyone aware of the Bonn freshwater

conference? And (the) recommendation there, there should be a review of private sector

participation in water. Which I see as a starting point for what we’re talking about now.”74

For this version, as “review of the private sector participation in water”, the question of

requirement seemed to have been answered with ‘yes’ at the Bonn conference, since it was

officially recommended there. Now we have a different version at the table, the expanded

one, where the requirement question is open. Since the expansion was controversial (see

above), the issue of requirement (and with that the issues of legitimacy/acceptance) needs to

be solved anew and the expansion is in need of justification. The director then backs up the

historic recapitulation and strengthens the preference for an enlarged review. The discussion

around the question of why the review was expanded was depicted above. The decision for

the enlarged review in the preparatory process was taken by the public unions as a reason to

refuse their participation, which in turn led to the legitimacy troubles now, as a stakeholder

group regarded as relevant and as a group with an opposing view was seen as missing in the

picture.

The private sector representative connects the requirement question to what he suggests as

the review’s issue. He puts forward the need of the review to understand the complex

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interlinkages on different levels – ranging from the international level to the household

level:

“we have to I think, really going to do this kind of review [yeah] understand (it at) all those

different levels, and understand, what is the continuum from one to another. And what kinds of

responsibilities, authorities, risks, all these sorts of (…) (issues) are related to all those steps.”75

He also identifies a requirement of the review as needing to make clearer the relative merits

of the public and the private sector (see above) which leads to the conclusion that the

potential scope of the review is huge.76

This triggers the other visiting researcher to ask for

the purpose and audience of the review, thereby connecting the question of issue to the

question of how the review is oriented towards the context.

“Just a minor (point). Maybe one way to get around this issue of scope is, to step back a little bit

and think about what is, what would be the purpose of such a review and who would be the

audience. … What you are actually studying …”77

“What’s the problem that is to be solved, the fundamental problem to be solved. And-”78

“Who is gonna solve that (…) who is this review for. Right?”79

The convener sees the main contribution as reducing the tension around the public-private

divide: “Can I (dial into) that. I mean, that (it) may also (apply) to the scope. The review

isn’t an (intention) to do a review of everything. I think … (the goal) is to take some

examples” which “might reduce the tension”80

between public and private.

The professional association representative suggests that the review should therefore look at

other options to reform the water sector, beyond the public-private divide. With that he also

identifies the audience for such a review, which is “anxious” and in need of advice due to

lack of knowledge and lack of independence:

“What we’re trying to look at is the other options (of reform of the water) sector. So that those are

the audience (now). Those who have to make the decision about how do they reform as

organisations … So those who have to make those decisions have better guidance on what the

(outcomes) are [the facilitator is writing that up]. And a lot of those decision makers are very

anxious at the moment. Partly because they don’t know [yeah] enough about what’s (involved).

Partly because (they feel they’re) enforced … And they want to have a chance to feel they make a

proper decision themselves, not one (they) made for them by the people owning the money.”81

A southern government representative is annoyed about the discussions and demands that

the condition for a useful review be that its outcomes need to be practically applicable. She

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complains that there are “too many academic debates” and makes clear her expectations:

that she “came here to learn solutions”.82

After more discussion on the public-private issue the director again states the usefulness of

studying good practice examples covering the whole range of sectors, including the

community level, as this would ensure newness compared with what has happened so far:

“we need to look at the whole governance relationship of local stakeholders to the water use in a

much more creative way than (we have in the past).”83

Other participants also prefer to look at governance issues on the whole range of sectors and

on all levels instead of focusing on the public-private divide84

, as “that’s the way we will, if

we’re going to do this exercise, where we’ll make some progress.”85

After a break the group moves on with the original requirement question from half an hour

ago. The way the facilitator reflects on the discussion so far he suggests that the requirement

is not doubted:

“and when you come back I think we can ask that question. … we’ll think again about addressing

the initial question, which way back on this flip-(flap) and I haven’t heard anything yet that says no,

it’s just about scale and whatever. Is there a requirement for global review process.”86

He recapitulates the discussion which was sparked by the requirement question but which

moved away from this original question, still he sees that “a lot that came out” of this

discussion in terms of bringing people on the same level regarding background knowledge,

exploring the potential huge scope and the critical issues.

“(we began) to talk a bit about scope, in terms of who is the audience. What is the problem we’re

trying to solve and what is the overall purpose. And that came back to the purpose of the review to

provide better and increased information and data to enable improved decision-making for

reforming the strategies of supply. And then we got into this whole piece around, well, how might

we do a potential review. Now out of all of that, whatever, however long it took. At never any point

(…) here anyone or anyone even slightly raised the issue of, well I don’t think we should do a

review. Am I, (was I) right …?”87

In the beginning the facilitator posed the alternative of starting either with the scope or the

question of requirement. One participant suggested starting with the requirement question,

but soon the discussion was about scope, beginning from the history of the group. There

was a need to discuss the questions of purpose and audience. The facilitator then frames the

discussion up to this point as the “whole piece about the requirement”. It becomes clear

that it is necessary to discuss the history, scope and purpose of the review project before it

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makes sense for the participants to answer the question of requirement. Previously the

question of requirement had been treated as obvious, since otherwise people would not be

there. However, the next speaker doubts the requirement, causing laughter: “I never heard

anyone say that we need a review.”88

As before, the laughter may result from the tension

between the prominent stance on the agenda and the urgent need to discuss this question (is

a review really required?) and the obviousness of a requirement, being the reason why

people attend the meeting. This tension is also imparted by the form of negation the

previous speakers and the next one are using. They do not say ‘there is no review needed’ or

‘a review is needed’, instead they leave it open by negating a contrary stance:

“No one said, there wasn’t a review needed. Whether we should do the review [“mmm”] OK?

[some: “mmm”] But whether a review is needed, I think is the second question, is this the body to

do that.”89

The speaker does not take up the previous speaker’s doubts (as doubting the review in

general) but plays on the obviousness of the need for the review and turns the doubts into a

different question, the question of who is going to undertake such a review. Thereby he

preventively counters a supposed lack of legitimacy. The facilitator keeps the two questions

separate and asks explicitly for the requirement:

Facilitator: “Sure. OK, which comes back right back into that issue that I think [Name of Business-

1] rose (rather in the beginning about) is it representative group bla bla bla. OK, so let’s ask the

first question and then we’ll ask the second question. … is there a requirement in this group’s

perception is there a requirement for a review of this kind?”90

Participant: “I think there’s a requirement for a review, but I think, it needs to go just a bit (more

than a) review. It’s gotta be a review that comes out with some recommendations. If it doesn’t make

recommendations then it’s just maybe it will be a nice academic document but it won’t necessarily

move things forward.”91

Facilitator: “OK. And if you remember all of (what was said in the) opening this morning and what

we said here as well was about concrete actions. So the aim is to provide concrete action and

recommendations.”92

The participant advocates the requirement, but, like the southern government representative

before, attaches a condition: the review needs to be “just a bit (more than a) review”, it

needs to include recommendations. The facilitator moves this argument from being a

condition to being a central goal, reminding the group that this is the goal of the

Implementation Conference as a whole.

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The doubting participant takes his turn again and offers a comparative case as being heavily

criticised. Moreover, he refers to an abundance of reviews already happening, which is why

he questions the need for an additional review:

“in terms of a need for a global review, I was gonna talk a little bit about the global development

gateway which, I don’t know if anyone knows about that. It’s … decided that need to be one internet

portal, whereby anyone who’s interested in anything to do with development could go there and

find the information. And so they set up a big new structure to basically ( ) collate all the

information and access (port) (for) everyone. And that seemed, and they came into a lot of criticism,

because there were a lot of independent initiatives. If you want to know about water and sanitation,

you can go (to) Water Aid (if you want to) so my concern is, that there’s a lot of reviews happening.

There’s a lot of people looking at water and governance, there’s people looking at community

management, there’s people looking at small town supply (of) water. Do we need a global review

process. Or are we looking for something to collate lessons (from those?)”93

The fact that there is already an abundance of reviews would make an additional one

redundant. Alternatively, he inserts a question for a specified variation of a review, a kind of

meta-review (“collate lessons from those”), which would benefit from just such an

abundance. Still he doubts that there really is a demand outside this room, from stakeholders

in the context.

Doubting participant: “And who is pushing (that), you know, is it the group in this room saying that

needs to be or is it those individual silos if you like looking at these different things. Which

recognise there’s a need to collate information.”

Participant: “(…) Demand driven”

Doubting participant: “Demand driven or, or supply driven?”

Director: “I was very interested in baby steps. To move forward. And I think that’s why I was quite

keen on the idea of case studies. I’m looking at asking the public sector to come up with what they

see as one of their best examples, coming up, asking the private sector, taking a community based

one, taking some examples there, which we can actually have a proper conversation around. Which

I don’t think we’re necessarily having °(at the moment)°.”

The director reduces the “global review” to “baby steps”. Thereby he can reduce the

weight of the heavy requirement question. Even if they are only “baby steps”, they are there

“to move forward”. He points at the necessity of the review in the sense that there is a need

to move forward as there is a lack of proper conversation between the different sectors. He

again relieves the requirement question of the issue of legitimacy by clarifying the role of

the group at the table as a preliminary one.

Director: “I think, the second thing with it is that … this group was never meant to be the group, it

was also meant to help identify the group that could do this or who would those key players be? So

in essence that is something for us to discuss tomorrow. But there is a place to birth an idea, and

now I mean, that’s what happens, … people get together just like a dams commission came out of

an IUCN meeting94

. This group can birth something which contrives altogether those key people to

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248

be able to in a sense facilitate a review of some good examples. And I think that, maybe, you know,

it is taking one step at a time. So it’s not a global review. It’s looking at some case studies which we

can then, (we can) try and actually build on.”

The director plays with the tension of small steps versus big significant issues. He speaks of

“baby steps”, “some good examples”, “it’s not a global review. It’s looking at some case

studies”. This is in considerable contrast to the title of the review. The issue itself is a global

one, “key players” need to come together, and the comparison with the World Commission

on Dams also suggests a project on a larger scale. Those two poles are convincingly

combined with the birth metaphor “there is a place to birth an idea”, to take something

small to start with and “try and actually build on.”

Doubting participant: “so effectively the purpose of this meeting is to come up with the terms of

reference. For such a thing. And then see if people are interested in having one. So, talking about

scope and things like that.”95

While the director places the requirement as given, at least grounded in the necessity of

moving forward, the participant recapitulates and specifies the purpose with “to come up

with the terms of reference” and keeps the requirement question open. Like before, he

points to the “demand” outside this group, which has yet to be addressed: “And then see if

people are interested in having one.”

The director of the convening organisation substantiates why he suggests starting with good

practice examples as a positive approach (see above). A participant is

“sort of less keen on case studies. I have to say. … It’s probably enough out there for us just to

collect them up and find those examples. I think case studies are fine if they’re used to illustrate a

specific point. But my thought would be, we have to decide what, first of all very clearly what the

points are we want to make [mmm]. Then, when we’ve got that structure, framework in mind,

maybe we can look for case studies that illustrate the point we’re making or that the conclusion

we’re drawing is valid. But if we start thinking about the case studies too early (on), (we) inevitably

constrain ourselves to what has already been done. [Facilitator: OK] What has already been hasn’t

worked. You know, it hasn’t been successful, we knew (…).”96

Two logics are now on the table concerning the approach. The facilitator clarifies them. One

is to start with case studies and derive the issue from them, the other is to identify the issue

first and derive appropriate case studies from this issue. The director is then convinced of

the latter approach.

Facilitator: “I’m hearing kind of two sides here. What I’m hearing is: we could go and find some

best practice examples out there from each of these (whichever are the) ones we decided we wanna

go to for you decide should, should be (reviewed). And out of that. We define or identify the points

we wanna make. And then (more about just) what you said: let’s identify the points we wanna make

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and then find the case studies that (retrofit) that. So, those are two very different ways of

[approaching it].”97

“I kind of prefer [Name of Business-4]’s (to mine) because I think that if you have a conversation

about what those (are that you can) go and say to [name of opposing organisation] (or to), I say to

you, what would be a good example looking at (…)”98

After some more discussion about the methodology and the problem to be solved by the

review, the participant who doubted the requirement of the review takes his turn again. He

mentions the abundance again and then queries the initiation of a multi-stakeholder

approach as such99

. Furthermore, he also picks up the issue of legitimacy, whereby he

defines it as a general and enduring problem and not just a temporary one or specific to this

group, implying that it is not solvable:

“my (query) is going back to the fundamental: is there a (requirement) for a global review process.

I mean we know that there is all the different people looking at water governance. Looking at water

and financing. You know, coming up and maybe there’re then small groups, there’re not only

unions and the private sector in the same room. In some cases. But there is all these different things

going on. Are they going to come together naturally or does there mean to be this sort of multi

stakeholder dialogue around (this). You know, do we need this sort of review process or not. As (…)

the general feeling is, we do need that. And, I’m going back to what [Name of Business-1] said

earlier. The legitimacy of that process. You can’t get them all together [Business-1: mmm]. And

then come out with (nothing) in the end. Everyone just disagrees or says that well actually your

research was invalid because I wasn’t involved in it and vice versa. So we haven’t got to the

fundamental question (here).”100

The next speaker answers clearly in favour of the requirement question.

“Yeah, to start with the question of the requirement of having a global review process I think first

of all it’s obvious (for otherwise) we wouldn’t be here [“mmm”]. (Like [name of director-SF]

mentioned) if we say no to that we (should) take the day off tomorrow. But on the same (note) that

it’s obvious we need to realise why.”101

He goes on with the purpose of the review and with civil society’s role facing the

governments and their international agreements, invoking the holding-to-account

repertoire to do something about the huge implementation gap:

“And the whole reason of why it plays in to what has been happening before the world, UN world

conferences of the nineties for the past three conferences and the millennium conference for

example, and it’s what [name of convener] was explaining today in the plenary. This is the

objectives, the purpose and the goal of these sessions is credibility, quality and to create a form of

accountability. These governments went to the millennium summit, these governments went to Bonn,

they made decisions on our behalf and we’re the people, and we need to keep a sense of

accountability to let our governments (know) they’re making decisions on our behalf they’re elected

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Interestingly, he represents an organisation specialised on convening multi-stakeholder processes. Possibly he shares

Huxham and Vangen’s (2005: 13, 37) view regarding collaboration “don’t do it unless you have to”, since it is

“inherently difficult and resource consuming”. 100

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officials in a, in this democratic world and we will review the outcomes. And as you know now the

draft implementation plan documentation for the Johannesburg Summit, the-h entire section on

means of implementation is unagreed upon. And at least 50 percent of it says, that we want there to

be a follow-up on the Monterrey consensus. The United States and European Union commit more

aid towards financing development: When is it going to start!? And that’s our role to keep a sense

of accountability here. And when we mentioned, identifying the patient and the problem I think

that’s very important. And one thing I would personally like to focus on, and I hope we all do, is

sanitation, … (the industrialised) countries don’t want to touch sanitation before they are able to

successfully implement by 2015 halving the amount of people that have access to safe drinking

water. … So where is our role. What role do we play as civil society.”102

He sees the requirement of such a review in the urgent need to create accountability of the

international conferences and of the negotiating governments.

The next speaker is not oriented towards the negotiating governments, but towards the

relationship between the different sectors.

“You’re talking about accountability as a (role). I saw this exercise much more as a learning

exercise. Trying to put together these silos. In [director-SF]’s (phrase) find the champions (and

what is a good practice). Then, one way forward might be to pick up your point [Name of Business-

1] and looking for what we have in common and what’s different. And trying to see, learn from that.

And I don’t think that’s being done particularly well at the moment because we’re not talking to

each other well enough.”103

The next speaker orients towards the political decision-makers and invokes the (supply-

driven) advisory repertoire to substantiate the requirement of the review. He posits that

the decision-makers need help to fulfil their extraordinarily difficult job and that the review

therefore should feed into the political decision-making process.

“the real patient that needs curing today, is the political decision-maker and we need to think about

how to provide something that will help his job. Cause he’s got a job, he’s got a damn difficult job,

which we’re criticising but he’s got a damn difficult job. So, for me I think he’s the patient. And I

think the illness we’re trying to cure in my vision anyway, is those things that have been set as the

millennium objectives. And I would add very much that sanitation is indivisible in I think most

professionals’ perception from water (…). So I would say that there’s the humane aspect of the

millennium development goals which is water and sanitation (for) people and there’s the

environmental (considerations) also to be taken into account, and there is (a) real tension between

people in this world facing which one of those should be priority. Maybe part of a review should be

to try to look at the relative roles of those things which again have to feed back into this (poor)

politician’s decision-making process.”104

The director also makes use of the supply-driven advisory repertoire to substantiate the

requirement. He emphasises the need to provide information to the governments.

“the governments weren’t serious about the target. … halving people without water by 2015. …

they got no plans on how to do it. (If you go and) talk to them the corridors, the Europeans, they’re

not gonna do it! … I think one of our roles is to try out, find ways to make that happen. And there

are massive implementation gaps. … finding examples … which can be replicated. … I don’t see the

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German plan of implementing water …They haven’t got an idea! (You ask) USA, how many people

are they bringing on to water each day, they haven’t got a clue! I mean that information is not out

there. So I think it’s not just that the patient is the, is the political decision maker, they made the

decision is not, is not being active (as) a problem in the system, and that’s something which I think

we can have an impact on, and we can make we can have a role in ensuring …”105

He infuses the advisory repertoire with the holding-to-account repertoire, as he accuses

the governments of not being serious about their own targets and emphasises the

stakeholders’ influence (“make that happen”, “have an impact on”, “ensuring”). He wants

to make use of the case-study approach to offer replicable examples.

The next speaker also makes use of the holding-to-account repertoire, but he orients

indirectly towards the governments, via capacity-building of civil society. He orients

towards civil society to enable it to hold its governments to account.

“do we set up some multi-stakeholder monitoring process. … If you look at Rio, and look to where

we are now (…) push on. … So I think the issue certainly from a civil society perspective, I don’t

quite know how private sector would fit within that. (I don’t) intellectually understand it through

the interrelationship of that, but I certainly think we should be trying to develop a capacity of civil

society in the countries where we work, you know, we are funding and developing their capacity to

hold their governments to account. ‘Cos if politicians do sign up to things, there should be some

you know, there should be something that makes politicians want to try and implement that.”106

The director notes that it is important to include parliamentarians in the process. (This

would mitigate the supply-demand controversy.)

The other visiting researcher is separating and clarifying issues by drawing a clearer

distinction between the advisory repertoire and the holding-to-account repertoire:

“I think this conversation is going in a really interesting direction, because the assumption behind

a kind of review process that we’ve been talking about now is that there is a sort of an information

problem. That needs to be overcome, and especially given what [name of director-SF] just said a

few minutes ago about government intention of implementing things. I’m not sure whether it’s an

information problem it might be more a problem of political will. In which case the monitoring

function for civil society becomes more important than the kind of information-gathering role. And

so, that shifts this exercise completely.”107

One participant reports that the water goal will be achieved anyway, but the real problem is

the sanitation goal, which would involve governments in “spending some real money”.

With this description he also implies the problem of political will.

“I’ve read some stuff recently. Which, I’m trying to remember the source, it was pointing out, that if

we continue to make the same progress we have been making on a provision of drinking water. The

millennium goal will be achieved (anyway). … The real problem that was being put forward was

the sanitation issue. Which was much more important for health. (And a problem on which) there is

virtually no progress (at the moment). And this was the thrust that … this would involve … spending

some real money [mmm]. So, the (slightly) cynical (view) of this article was that the millennium

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goal is actually a goal which we have (a fairly good chance) in (achieving) it anyway. Without

doing a lot more (on it) than we are doing [mmm]. Maybe a little bit more aid.”108

The private sector representative brings up his favoured metaphor of the patient and the

sickness again. Last time he used it to illustrate the supply-driven advisory repertoire. This

time he embeds the holding-to-account repertoire in this metaphor, as here cynicism and

lack of anchorage in “real world” problems are also part of the symptoms.

“I think that the political will with that patient is important. And [Name of NGO-3]’s (gone) at the

moment, but we shouldn’t be letting our politicians get away with the kind of statements that have

been made politically. That they don’t intend to try and meet them. There are probably politicians

(who would be) very cynical … the cynicism is pretty, pretty, pretty deep. But many of the rest of us

stakeholders are actually looking our vocation, our life is oriented to try to solve some of these,

these problems. … If the difficulty is political will … which could be perhaps helped by a review or

(irritated) to the political will to solve what is … a real world problem.”109

He then makes the holding-to-account repertoire conditional on the provision of reliable

information. He posits a

“total lack of reliable information. … Nobody actually knows (at) the global level how many people

are with or without services … nobody knows how much money is being spent in the sector, really,

or how much money is needed in the sector or on what bases. One of the things our company has

been saying is that (getting) where the millennium declaration objectives need actually to be

quantified on a country by country [basis] [several: yes]. And then starting to monitor ( ) makes

some sense. (Without any) starting point monitoring makes little, little sense.”110

The next speaker uses the holding-to-account repertoire to ensure a pro-poor

implementation policy. Assuming the lack of political will, he doubts that efforts will be

made to really pursue a pro-poor policy. With the holding-to-account repertoire he orients to

the governments directly and again indirectly via civil society.

“I think it’s great news if we’re going to achieve halving the proportion of people without access to

water by 2015. I think the challenge (probably) is which half. And it might be the easier half to

serve [h]. Yes h … So, what happens that harder half … we should be conscious of the cherry

picking issues if we’re wanting to have a (pro-poor) (…)… we should be thinking about things at

that national level. That’s the level of accountability. And we should be thinking about how do we

strengthen processes to establish national accountability. One of them is to have national plans that

implement millennium development goals. … We’ve got to unpick these figures and make them

work. Realistically within the national individual context. And work from that. And work on I think

building civil society particularly, maybe other mechanisms as well. To actually monitor and review

which fifty percent are gaining access to these (additional) resources.”111

The director then again emphasises the information gathering role with the supply-driven

advisory repertoire and adds to it the holding-to-account repertoire. He points to the

power of the group as a multi-stakeholder group and strengthens what he said earlier when

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he countered the supposed lack of balance in the group composition, that specifically the

inclusion of industry representatives is an advantage.

“How we would be able to assess if or not we hit the target would be interesting [some: hh] in the

first place, so, I think there is a basic gap which has to be addressed. … The governments that

committed to this, they haven’t got a clue how (they) get there, so, if we get there is not by intent it’s

by accident. The second thing is that political will thing. … If we were as a group, or (if not) this

group, (let’s say the) group that has grown out of this group, be able to agree some things. It’s a

very powerful group. ‘Cos if you’ve got all the stakeholders of (in) this case including industry

involved in it. … It’s a very powerful group to be able to persuade politicians to do the right things!

‘Cos (very) often they don’t necessarily do the right thing.”112

The facilitator reminds the participants that a clear answer to the requirement question is

still lacking:

“I’m still not convinced with the answer of your question though that was the one about is there a

need for a separate review or (…) collating (process). Is that essentially what you were saying?”113

Doubting participant: “More or less, yeah.”114

Instead of answering the question the discussion goes on about how financial aid can be

used most efficiently and what countries could be selected for a review and the usefulness

of the case-study approach.

Then the doubting participant voices concerns about redundancy yet again.

“Just quickly, … there’s been a review of water supply strategies to small towns. Urban areas

which is (…) very similar to what you’re talking about. And what you’ve been talking about of the

scale of going through. … it did look at exactly those issues there. We’re not (…) silos, a lot of this

stuff is already out there in one sense. So is it these people working in (say) that silo are asking for

a review of what they’re doing compared to what someone else is doing. And therefore they will

listen much more when you come back to them with the answers. Or, or what is driving this process

otherwise. Because in everything that someone has discussed today, I’m sure we can find a group

that’s been working on it closely, or fairly closely, for a couple of years [Professional-Association-

1 is nodding].”115

He displays his preference for a ‘demand-driven’ approach, also because then the target

group “will listen much more”116

.

In his answer to the “question about what’s driving it”117

, the director turns the causality

around. While the previous speaker constructed the causality as ‘the audience will only

listen if it has asked for a review’, the director constructs it as ‘we need a joined review for

the audience to listen to us’. He puts the wish to impact on them in the foreground, whereas

the previous speaker prefers to react to a demand.

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“I think what’s driving it is the feeling that we’re not having that information coming in a way that

will impact on the patient. So part of that was joining across the silos. So that you were able to

come forward with some type of suggestion or a (set of) some suggestions on strategies (to) which

the political decision-makers are going to listen to. Because at the moment (there is) a feeling (I

assume) (…) that that’s not happening.”118

The next speaker suggests thinking about what the group wants to change with the review in

order to be more focused. This would also imply more clarity regarding who the audience

is, who the review is oriented towards, influencing the donor policy (influencing decision-

makers directly), strengthening civil society (influencing decision-makers indirectly), using

the holding-to-account repertoire, or strengthening local public sector, using the advisory

repertoire.

“What is it with this process is going to change. You know, do we want to change World Bank

lending policy? I mean (can we) be more specific and (concrete). Change World Bank lending

(policy), donor policy. Give ammunition to civil society so that they can hold government pledges to

account. Give municipalities a toolkit and arrange (them) options so that when they come to this

decision, discussion they got more easily accessible information that they can use. And I think if we

try to pin that down that would help (us/just) to give some focus.”119

The next speaker suggests deriving the focus and requirement of the review from the

identification of the biggest barrier to progress and conducting a meta-review.

“Maybe we need to decide amongst ourselves what is the biggest barrier to progress? … And then

maybe, I quite like the idea of collating what’s already been done and then (pulling) from that. The

meaningful information with respect to what we see as being the main barrier or the main two

barriers to progress. If I was picking barriers I (’d say obviously) the biggest one is finance and,

and the second one I’d put was, was governance. [MSO-3: Which is what we’ve said earlier.]

Which is what we’ve said earlier. And then maybe, I must admit, when we talked about review, I’ve

always (rather) seeing that as an exercise of looking at what exists. And pulling in from what

(exists).”120

The doubting participant reinforces his preference for the audience to express its need for a

review in order for them to listen to the results.

“But what we’ve lost is the idea of audience. Because if you take what [Name of NGO-1] said you

know there’s one of three things you can do, we can try and focus on that, and if it is the patient as

the political decision-maker, then it should be them saying [hits the table] excuse me, there is all

these silos out there and I’ve no real idea what’s going on. And I need someone to review this and

collate it and give it to me. Because if they’re doing that, then they’re going to listen to it when you

come and give them the information. Now, if we sit here without them, you know. And then just to

present them (with it), they might not hear it.”121

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He calls attention to the fact that the audience is not integrated into the development of the

review in the actual group composition. Pointing to the different approaches suggested so

far he adds that

“concentrating on to change their minds as opposed to say what [Name of NGO-1] talked about

another option which was training on civil society to push them to change their minds are two fairly

different things!”122

The director again counters with the opposite logic, starting with the review to collect the

information and then using it to influence the decision-makers.

“But the first thing is to collect the information. And then people will use it anyway in a different

way. So civil society maybe is using our (…) It doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a group going to

political decision-makers and say that we, business, trade unions, local government, NGO …

believe that the World Bank’s lending policy shouldn’t be there as (…).”123

The doubting participant brings up the redundancy argument again:

“But [name of director-SF] do you think that those groups think that the information is not out

there and they’re not accessing these silos for a reason is because it’s not been collated by a group

like us, or there’s another reason that they’re not using that information that’s already generated.

Or [(are we proposing to generate new) (…)].”124

“Well, part of the conversation at the beginning was (…) (that there were) people in silos. Public,

private, blablabla, what (we’re going to create is) some space that seems for me where we can offer

some examples of good practice, good examples, of toolkits, of all of those areas. So it may very

well be that the private sector is a good example to be used at certain cases, not in others, maybe

the public sector is absolutely right to be used, (and) here are some examples of where it has

worked, (and) why it has worked, and what the governance processes are, these are some things

that we’ve learnt, that are not at the moment accessible because if they were accessible then I don’t

think we’d be having this workshop in the first place. And people … (felt that) this was an

interesting space to come to.”125

The director invokes his former argument of the lack of proper conversations between the

sectors. He counters the redundancy argument with the fact that this workshop is happening,

like before it is used to illustrate the obviousness of the requirement.

The facilitator then picks up on the “two main barriers to progress”, finance and

governance. The private sector representative locates the problem somewhere else. With his

contribution, he frames the supply-demand issue somewhat differently. He starts with the

holding-to-account repertoire, by suggesting pushing the decision-makers.

“I’m not absolutely sure that they are. I think a reflection of a more serious problem, and I think the

patient is sick [h] the political patient is sick and I think it’s a particular problem for our industry

how does he get away all the time with being cynical or with not solving the problem. How has he

managed to get away with it for so long. My analysis of the (…) is that it is politically unattractive

to get mixed up in water and even more politically unattractive to get mixed up in sanitation.

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256

Because the time frame is required for solving these problems are astronomically beyond the

political vision. Now, this is a private thesis. If we’re going to change that, we need push and pull

on the patient. We need to kind of push you were talking about holding these guys to accountability.

But we also need to push, to pull (sorry), they’ve got to see, where is the interest in it for them. Then

they will start looking at the illness seriously, because they’ll see, ah, there is something in this for

me politically, and then they’ll start prescribing the medicine. And this is a theory, I mean, I’m not

a political expert.”126

It differs from the doubting participant’s version of a supply-demand-issue to the extent to

which he speaks about ‘pulling’ which would be comparable with ‘creating demand’,

instead of reacting to an existing demand. The agency is clearly with the group. They are

there to change something, not just to offer a service to people who express a need on their

part.

The next speaker takes up and affirms the located problem of lacking political

responsiveness. He maintains his suggestion of deriving the review’s focus from the two

main barriers and to use the results within the supply-driven advisory mode.

“There’s a saying in the UK, there’s no votes in sewage, and there isn’t, [(Business-1): no] you

know, and it will always be neglected for that reason. But if we can identify the two main barriers

whichever they are. And then do a sort of collation exercise to bring together the relevant up-to-

date information in those areas. With a view to providing some medicine for the patient.”127

Another participant suggests a different way of locating the problem:

“just to add another dimension. I think it is also (…) the lack of political will, the lack of skills, and

the lack of resources. … And of course, if those three are in place any mechanism can work [some:

h] if they’re not in place, nothing will work (…) [several: mmm, yeah].”128

The private sector representative takes this problem identification as an opportunity to

reinforce his view on the public-private debate, that it is nothing more than a red herring

(see above). This is in accordance with his orientation towards the political decision-makers

as patient and the preference for focusing on the politicians instead of focusing on the

public-private controversy.

The next speaker is making fun of the medical metaphor.

“Along the lines of Doctor [Name of Business-1]. [HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH] [Business-1

((addressing me)): Can you remove that expression from the tape] [HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH]

Some (of the) ideas we’re talking about lacking information. For capacity-building. …

(particularly) in the developing world those that lack access to water and sanitation there the

governments aren’t really accountable to those people [somebody: true]. … Water … is a big issue,

but there’s a lack of capacity now and a lack of information that this is a problem. We know,

because we’re all [(Business-1): yeah] travelling the circles of the people that live and breathe the

stuff. But there’s a significant amount of people that do not live and breathe this … It’s a lack of

capacity … The past president … when he makes certain comments that are (all) intelligent (but he

can’t relate) to the people living in (el campo) on the rural parts who are very poor … the people

126

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257

living there that have these water problems don’t understand what he says. But they can relate to

the current president who just screams in the (.) and says things that is at their level! [Somebody:

sure]. That’s the problem.”129

He also invokes the problem of lack of political responsiveness, here in terms of lack of

understanding of the issue. With that he substantiates his call to build civil society’s

capacity, according to the holding-to-account repertoire.

The southern government representative locates the problem in lack of capacity and

technology and furthermore in resistance from communities as well as politicians.

The NGO representative puts forward the information-gathering role, in accordance with the

advisory repertoire. He seriously questions the legitimacy for any attempts to influence

other countries.

“I think the main point is the governance issue to me is around capacity to make choices [several:

mm]. And options, you know, realistic knowledge of what those choices are about and those

options. And that’s, you know, that’s an area that we could be working on is, identifying those

different options. But I do get nervous about us talking about what some other countries’ politicians

should be doing. I mean we don’t have legitimacy. (…) legitimacy except (…) my politicians in

Britain. (…) (where I vote) and pay the taxes [excited atmosphere].”130

This implies that he sees the applicability of the holding-to-account repertoire as limited

to one’s own government. With that he is questioning the legitimacy of a global review, if it

is conducted within a holding-to-account perspective, creating an excited atmosphere.

The director counters that by drawing the legitimacy from the international agreements,

which establish the foundation on which all the signing governments can be hold to account.

“[excited atmosphere] Two things. One is: the basis is international agreements. … Our starting

point was the international agreements that governments have set up and in the context (…)

monitor whether they (…) or not. So I think that’s a legitimate thing for anyone to do. The second

thing is to quote … who said embrace complexity [somebody: h]. And the point with it is that it

comes back to the point made a few minutes ago. Which is that it’s a different solution for the

different communities. And, it goes back to my, the original point of starting. (And we) want, I think

to look at all the different options. Because it’s not the same all the way around. (And) what

happens or (has) happened for years is that we have a fad, and the fad the last ten years has been

privatisation of water. Whether or not that’s a good idea. And we need to, you know, we need to

look at what’s (proper) for the communities or (let) the communities (decide) (…) or what’s

(proper) for them. And that brings us to the governance issue and creating participatory models to

allow communities to make on what they would like to have. (I think that should (be part of the)

discussion tomorrow and something maybe we could talk about on the bus [HHHHH].”131

The other thing is that he argues is to meet the needs of the different communities or

countries with his favoured approach. This is precisely his thrust, that there are different

options which need to be taken into account, rather than prescribing one panacea as

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258

happened with privatisation over the previous decade. He gives weight to his argument by

presenting it as a conclusion and outlook for the next day as he is mentioning the joint bus

ride to the hotel, causing laughter. Yet despite the particular case approach doing justice to

the specific circumstances, both repertoires are given a voice here: the supply-driven

advisory repertoire (that the reviewing group looks at what is proper for communities) and

something like a demand-driven repertoire (that the communities decide what they would

like to have). This ambiguous advisory repertoire reflects the basic paradox of promoting

participatory approaches from outside.

One participant expresses herself in favour of conducting the review, but this rather gets lost

in the whirl of departure. “I have this feeling that it is this particular group here that should

come up with (…) water. What is the impact of water (…).”132

The facilitator is still not convinced133

that the group has clearly affirmed the question of

requirement and causes laughter when he appeals to come back tomorrow “So come back

tomorrow, please! [Director and some others: HHH].”134

On the second day the facilitator explains how to proceed:

“I think what we need to do is to crack on and see if we find at least some common ground of what

we think a review should cover or should look at, working under the assumption that we all think

there should be a review … We were fairly close to it last night. Just that we kind of ran out of

time.”135

With the framing of the requirement as an assumption from which to proceed, the

controversial discussion on the issue of requirement is settled and the conference goes on

working along the agenda. On that day, the participants continue to discuss the scope, they

are also working on milestones which need to be tackled in order to move the process

forward, and they are discussing potential champions, identifying missing representatives

and briefly compiling potential risks.

While working on the scope, the participants discussed how to make a difference

regarding the problem to address, like for example governance and political processes,

and how to make a difference regarding how they intend to achieve change, for example

through action-orientation (“I think political will is there. (…) What doesn’t appear to be

there is the process which will enable that will to be translating that into action”136

), best

practice and mutual learning137

or capacity-building.138

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259

The next task was to identify the milestones needed to move the review forward. Here also

the issues of legitimacy and making a difference came up. Assembling a “representative

group of people”139

was identified as an important first milestone.

One participant connected to the MDGs and tried to identify the biggest gap relating to

them:

“delivering something useful in relationship to the millennium goals, maybe we should try to (limit)

ourselves, in the first instance, in the area where they need to be met most urgently. … most people

I think would agree that Africa is (the continent) where the goals-, is the biggest gap between the

wish and reality. Perhaps we could cut down the review initially to do it in the African

framework.”140

The director also emphasises the connectivity to the MDGs through taking them as a

“marching order” and proposes adding value through sharing knowledge and

understanding:

“We all benefit of knowing why certain things work in certain cases (…) clearer understanding of

each other’s positions. And from that shared understanding I think we can all move forward.”141

The issue of the abundance of similar reviews was discussed briefly: the NGO

representative brought up some government-led initiatives142

. The director countered this

argument by establishing the project’s distinctiveness based on the multi-stakeholder

design:

“the uniqueness is that it’s coming from the stakeholders, not from a government, UK or Germany

or whatever.”143

As not everybody was convinced about the redundancy problem, in the outcome report this

distinguishing feature was framed as a question:

“Is the uniqueness of such a review the fact that it is coming from a set of stakeholders?”144

It should be noted here that the participant who insistently doubted the requirement also on

grounds of redundancy was absent that day. Other participants mentioned “a lot of other

different processes which are around” or talked about an existing “cacophony” and making

“a lot of noise and not much clarity”145

and that “we shouldn’t try to reinvent”146

other

programs.

This is acknowledged by the director as being

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IC2 NGO-1 0248-53 143


Final report “Review of the Scope”; www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/f_review.html#scope 145

IC2 NGO-1 0270-71, Business-1 0274-76 146



260

“a very very important point … we have a real problem with these disjointed processes and we

shouldn’t be adding to that … we should be trying to make sure that we’re supporting other

processes”147

.

Hence, it is not simply distinctiveness, but also connectivity which is ensured.

Consequently, the group starts compiling what kind of reviews are already happening in

order to identify gaps or to connect to others:

“we do first a review of what’s happening out there and make sure we’re not duplicating work (…)

so therefore we assume that there is a gap.”148

The director is promoting the approach of learning from good examples, starting with

positive experiences and sharing the expertise in the form of road shows several times. He

banks on the power of the group composition and hopes to attract potential donors:

“if that becomes a success, because of the weight of the group. The hope is that then the donors

would come in to fund and help those (in) that country to deliver some of the phenomena, well, that

needs to happen.”149

The next speaker reflects on the “objectivity problem that we’re going to have” and

emphasises that a good study needs to take into account both the public and the private

side150

in order to be generally recognised.

Having concluded the compilation of reviews already happening, later in the meeting the

participants also repeatedly point to the issue of redundancy. Sometimes they emphasise

the problem of annoying others who are working in this domain already …

“the most dangerous thing always is … things are going on … and people say, hey, we’re already

doing that.”151

“We have to be very careful that we’re don’t (end) up reinventing the wheel, just pissing people off,

because we’re stepping on something that they’re already doing or ignoring them”152

,

… or the problem of engagement of potential participants

“I’m not sure that I want to join four more other initiatives than that I’m working on.”153

While working further on the milestones, the several possible audiences came to the fore

again: “to deliver information to politicians” and to “mobilise public opinion and public

support”154

. A suggested milestone was also to look not only at the water sector but also at

“other sectors that look at public-private civil society from which we could learn” for

147




IC2 Business-1 0454-55 151

IC2 Business-2 1053-55 152

IC2 Business-2 1068-69 153

IC2 NGO-1 1062-63 154



261

“learning from other experiences”155

. A somewhat surprising suggestion in the discussion

on milestones was “showing that something useful has been done”. Not rarely during the

process does it happen that the added value of the project is doubted, not only by explicitly

doubtful or critical participants.

The participants emphasised the importance of and ensuring connectivity through defining

the audience, the way they relate to them and through defining the issue:

“getting the communication at this stage to the right people about the right things”156

,

“I think we made the point very early on that we need to decide who we are focusing on (…)

Yesterday we were talking about the politicians. At least we need to decide who the audience is.”157

One participant thereupon asks the fundamental question regarding a legitimate identity:

“There is always the question you should ask yourselves: Can this group make a difference? And if

the answer is, no, we can’t make a difference, then let’s not waste time doing it. Let’s make sure

that we think we can make a difference and make a contribution. Then we sort of get people

energised and mobilised.”158

The facilitator poses this question to the group, which, instead of answering affirmatively,

brings up grave doubts again about legitimacy, due to the group not being representative.

“I think that’s one of the key risks, that this group needs to consider, around legitimacy, around

representation in this room, we’re talking about tackling problems in the developing world, yet, the

representation [exactly] is not a representative one, we’re talking of champions for these problems,

we don’t have the correct stakeholder group discussing these issues, how legitimate is this process?

And that’s the biggest risk we run. [Absolutely].”159

“We could be laughed at.”160

“Or ignored. … Well, There are too many first world people here trying to tell third world people

how to run their lives, we’ve got to get the third world people involved in the process!”161

What is striking about such a remark from a ‘first world’ person is that there are some ‘third

world people’, as they were called, at the table, but the so-called ‘first world people’

obviously take up much more of the speaking time. There are some ‘Southern’ NGO and

local government representatives around. The latter do actually represent what was

identified earlier as the addressees of such a review, the local decision-makers, but they

were not involved explicitly in order to bring forward their needs and ideas.

155

IC2 NGO-1 0858-59 156

IC2 Business-1 0943-44 157

IC2 Business-3 0947-51 158

IC2 Business-2 0957-60 159

IC2 Small-Business-1 0966-71 160




262

The next speaker counters those misgivings by pointing to the preliminary stage: “I mean

one of the early stages is to get the right stakeholders”162

. However, another participant

raises the problem of achieving balanced representation “Can I ask us to think of how do

you do that? … So, as well as listing, can we think of how we might do it in a realistic

way.”163

He points especially to the tendency to always take representatives from the same

international institutions, which is confirmed by the facilitator with his use of the term “the

usual suspects”164

.

The previous speaker again expresses concerns regarding a top-down process.

“Just to supplement that. I’m increasingly concerned that we are dealing with what is essentially a

quintessential local issue and we’re dealing with it at an international level. We represent the worst

example of top down. And what we’re really looking for, is bottom up and what I think we have to

do is decide what can you do to set the framework conditions and the general conditions and an

education process, but at the same time start work at the bottom level (…) to see if they salute the

ideas. ‘Cos if the people who really need the water aren’t prepared to salute the ideas it is just

waste of our time.”165

This statement is implying contradictions: should the people at the “bottom” simply salute

ideas from the “top”? Instead of developing ideas themselves? Is it just a waste of time on

the part of the elite or might it be a lost opportunity to include the people they hope to

benefit?

With regard to the legitimacy and credibility of the project, the issue of bottom-up versus

top-down process comes up that day repeatedly.

“Thinking about the credibility of the (review). We need very early on stakeholder consultation

amongst the people who we think might benefit. Fairly early on we need to have a stakeholder

consultation amongst the people who we hope we’re gonna benefit. To see whether they want …

Maybe the first thing to do go to them, tell them what we plan, see if they say that sounds like a

good idea … That needs to be an early action of the process.”166

In this statement, a fairly early, consultative involvement is regarded as important. But it is

not formulated in a sense that involves the beneficiaries in the process from scratch. Rather,

the participant suggests telling “them” what “we” plan, and “if they say that sounds like a

good idea”, instead of asking what they would suggest in the first place.

The top-down advisory mode is expressed in a much more explicit manner in this turn by a

business representative:

“One of the things that worries me about the whole process is that if I am a local person in the

water business, either public sector or private sector and I’m in there struggling right now to

survive (with the) business, and suddenly a bunch of outsiders come in and start saying, oh you

gotta change your water law, you got to change your enabling framework, you gotta start doing

162


IC2 NGO-1 1009-15 164


IC2 Business-2 1018-24 166



263

this, you gotta start doing this, even if you know all of that is right, in effect what we’re saying,

what you’ve been doing up to now is not necessarily stupid but it’s been insufficient. And so you’ve

got to find a way to address those people and sort of say, the purpose of this exercise is to see how

we can improve your process. Not that we’re going to tell you that you’ve been stupid not to have

been doing the right things. You’ve got to get them buy into the process or otherwise you’re going

to have resistance on the local level. Resistance to change is number one priority where (human

nature is).”167

The scenario he presents is that basically they can know what is “right” and that it is a

matter of how to approach the beneficiaries to avoid resistance. In a purely functional sense

he suggests that in order to “get them buying into the process” it would be prudent to avoid

saying “you that you’ve been stupid not to have been doing the right things” even if this

judgement were “right”. Furthermore, the expression “You’ve got to get them buying into

the process” is a somewhat surprising construction of active and passive agents to describe

a bottom-up stakeholder driven process.

An NGO representative offers a much more bottom-up oriented version when he explains

the perspective of his organisation: “we’re trying to make sure that civil society has greater

access to those processes” and to offer advice which “actually empowers and enhances

them and develops the skill” instead of merely saying “we’ve got the answers to your

problems”.168

The business representative goes on to explain how to get a local government “to do all of

the things you’re saying”:

“if we build the right group. And have the right technical expertise and information. We in effect

provide the technical advice, information, education training all that, but that’s not sufficient. I

think you have to bring a bag of money. And the bag of money is going to be to help the local

government in place to actually educate, train, operate, change, do whatever is necessary at the end

of the process. There’s got to be some ODA money there to do all of the things you’re saying. And if

that’s not there, we’re gonna be laughed out”169

Later, when a list of lacking representatives is compiled, suggested organisations are

scrutinised for their outreach to primary stakeholders and for their north-south balance:

“ICLEI, … it’s a very good organisation, but they, like most of us around here, are more north than

south.”170

“These are the channels to the primary stakeholders, ICLEI are the channels”.171

Also concerning the potential risks the project is facing, the north-south balance comes up

as an issue:

“That we become, or remain, too much dominated by a vision from the north”172

.

167

IC2 Business-2 1104-14 168

IC2 NGO-1 1121-29 169

IC2 Business-2 1134-40 170

IC2 Business-1 1237-38 171

IC2 Professional-Association-1 1251


264

The group also discusses suggestions for potential champions, as this is the only action plan

group at the conference without a champion who is “the overall owner of the whole

plan”173

. The criteria that come up should obviously ensure a high degree of legitimacy and

reputation as the champion should be a “public persona”, “somebody who has a name,

recognition and people would pay attention to”, “high enough”, with “profile” and a

“certain degree of legitimacy”, a “sort of an ex statesman, a retired statesman, we’re

looking for a Nelson Mandela type”.174

The suggested names included for example “Klaus

Töpfer (UNEP)”, “Gro Harlem Brundtland (WHO)”, “Nelson Mandela”, “Bill Clinton”,

“Desmond Tutu” and the “Prince of Orange (Netherlands)”175

.

Suggesting champions at such a high level is in stark contrast to (or compensation for) the

recurring doubts of requirement and obviously some lack of ownership within the group.

The third day of the Implementation Conference began with a continuation of the search

for a champion. One participant states that his organisation, an international organisation of

water professionals, is prepared to take the review forward and points to its legitimacy

through having “members around the world” and having “both public and private

members”176

. In order to be more inclusive, he suggests applying a broad definition of the

concept of water professional:

“And in this particular case we would be taking a very, very broad view of what a water

professional is. Everything from somebody running a community water supply to a … with the

bucket on the street delivering water, small town suppliers, as well as the traditional public or

private professional.”177

When the suggestions from the day before were taken up again, it became clear that not all

participants were aiming for such high levels with their suggestions. The professional

organisation representative suggested considering one level below:

“My reaction would be to be less aspirational” and looking not at the “senior level, but one

below”178

.

In addition to suggesting his organisation for the role of the champion, he also suggests an

organisation specialised in bringing together the various stakeholders on water issues179

,

also for practical reasons:

“I don’t think that any of those aspirational champions will have the time …”180

172



IC2 Business-2, Public-Water-2 0695-0721 175

IC2 0886-0903; see also Outcome Report. 176




BPD (Building Partnerships for Development)


265

“Obviously these kind of people don’t do this nitty-gritty hands-on stuff anyway.”181

Later in his presentation to the plenary he chooses to describe the discussions and

suggestions concerning potential champions in an ironical style, causing laughter:

“we were really quite ambitious with the names that we thought of for champions, starting off with

Mandela, so if you know of any presidents who are looking for a job, any (…) or princes who want

to (…) grateful for your suggestions [hhhh].”182

The discussion about a champion moved to discussing the necessity and role of a core group

or a management committee. The ‘doubting’ participant from the first day warns for reasons

of legitimacy against proceeding and determining such a core team without involving the

absent party, the labour unions, who originally brought up the suggestion of conducting a

multi-stakeholder review:

“the thing we talked about the first day was the legitimacy of this group sitting around here and the

credibility of this group to conduct such a review. And what we were saying, the core for this

review came originally from some of the unions asking for a review of PSP in Bonn, they’re not at

this table, and the (nature) of the group (that leads) this group taking forward, will include whether

they would even come to the table, so that’s one of the key questions. We were talking that this

review came out of people who have serious questions about the way things are going, and should

they be in the room making these decisions before goes forwards. ‘Cos otherwise they might

question the credibility of this exercise.”183

The next speaker expresses concerns about the acceptance of the professional association as

interim secretariat from the labour unions, which is captured in the outcome report: “If IWA

takes the process forward as interim secretariat would the trade unions take exception?”184

.

For legitimacy reasons it is considered as necessary to have the labour union’s acceptance:

“that’s the bridge that somehow has to be bridged.”185

When the IWA representative emphasises the preliminary status as an interim secretariat186

,

he points to the danger of already setting a direction with such an interim suggestion,

risking further polarisation.

“The point about the way where this first approach is going [MSO-3: is important] is extremely

important, (they are in the next room sort of thing and) if we can’t get a dialogue going that’s

meaningful, it would be a pity if instead of closing the gap this initiative widens the gap for this (is)

getting back into dogma which (we) (…) risk.”187

180



IC3, presentation in the plenary, Professional-Association-1 1139-41 183

IC3 MSO-3 0247-55 184

Outcome Report; www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/f_review.html#risks 185

IC3 Business-1 0271-72 186

IC3 Professional-Association-1 0281, “it would be an interim secretariat to take it forward” 187



266

He goes on by asking the NGO representative, whom he presumes has a better connection to

the unions (and who had actually told the group about projects his organisation already has

with the unions), for his opinion:

“[Name of NGO-1], you probably got a better sensibility to a lack of bridge or the potential for

building a bridge?”188

The addressee rejected assumptions regarding special knowledge due to good connections:

“(I don’t know nothing)”. He underlines the importance

“that we recognise the origins there. I think unless (with active) dialogue before announcement

with the unions, then the unions would actively disrupt this [Business-1: that’s my concern]. I think

we need, I think in a sense before we say, this is what we are proposing, we ought to be talking with

them [Business-1: the question will be how].”189

With that it becomes apparent once more how vital the acceptance of the unions is regarded

for the overall legitimate existence of the project.

Another participant counters the prevalent focus on the unions when the legitimacy of the

project is at stake:

“I want to just raise again that the union isn’t the only stakeholder that is not involved in this

process. But every stakeholder that we listed there needs to be consulted somehow.”190

The suggestion is then again to start with a preliminary step, to

“form an interim core management team in order to create that first stakeholder group that [Name

of Business-3] has described, that body of stakeholder from which the formal management steering

body is formed. I think bringing on one or two politically sensitive members into that interim core

would be valuable. But not detracting your point that that stakeholder group has to be formed to

(ensure that wider) representation [sure].”191

This leads to the decision that, for such a preliminary stage with an interim management

team, they would do better without the professional organisation as champion, as long as it

is not confirmed by an inclusive group.

“So that could actually take place without any involvement of IWA. And then IWA doesn’t become

appointed in any sense until that stakeholder group as a whole has decided that IWA … to manage

it [MSO-3: pretty wise].”192

Also in the following citation the speaker warns against deciding on the champion before

securing the involvement and buy-in of all the relevant stakeholder groups, as otherwise the

legitimacy is jeopardised, producing a negative reaction.

“How we got this far, it just seemed to me that (if we were running) a little bit too fast … And it

would be better, I think somebody … facilitate at that stage … relationships. It seems to me ... to

188

IC3 Business-1 0286-87 189

IC3 NGO-1 0292-97 190

IC3 Small-Business-1 0309-10 191

IC3 NGO-1 0314-18 192



267

make progress without perhaps going so far as to produce a negative reaction. (…) (not against)

IWA (…) I think we need the buy-in to that, and that buy-in …”193

The idea then is to use the “global credibility”194

of a champion to bring together the

stakeholders. Such a champion would need to be neutral, at least not in any way related to

the business sector but rather civil society oriented:

“the neutrality of that chair from you know equally disliked [hhh] or equally liked or whatever and,

(saying) that very much falls into a civil society public sector, public role, as opposed to someone

associated with companies in whatever form. So actually I think [((a suggested champion))] would

actually be disruled because of the non-exact relationship. … not just the intellectual capabilities

and profile, but I think the amount of support. And I think we are talking about more civil society

oriented (kind of person).”195

Taking the project to the next stage is considered to be a very fragile and highly explosive

transition phase:

“(It’s a) terribly delicate moment, this delivery hh into the bigger forum of this process with, let’s

face it, potentially loads of (cases) of dynamite (all around) the place if (it is) even half of you stuck

in the cake called Stakeholder Forum, be careful about any sparks … hh [hhh].”196

And a little later this speaker reinforces the precariousness of the situation, in the face of

presenting the outcomes of the action plan group in the plenary with union representation in

the audience:

“This whole thing could end up in a clash and could be stillborn later on today [facilitator:

Yes!].”197

This danger and consequently the need to proceed carefully is confirmed by the facilitator:

“you do have people from [the labour union] in the group, so I think we need to talk about that

when we get to the point before we’re going to the plenary, which isn’t actually that long. So I think

that is an important thing. As you said, it could be otherwise stillborn … I think we need to think

quite carefully about how it is presented. And coming back to the point raised by you, who presents

it. So I kind of hear that there is consensus in terms of taking it forward but it is just that there are

some things that we need to be very careful of moving forward.”198

On the question of “how we get some of the people on board”199

, two different logics

concerning the relationship between inclusiveness and the choice of the champion arise, one

proposing that the choice of the right champion will solve the problem of representation,

and the other proposing that the issue of representation needs to be solved first before

approaching a potential champion:

193

IC3 Business-4 0353-57 194

IC3 UM 0363, see also Business-1 , Business-4 195

IC3 NGO-1 0387-94 196

IC3 Business-1 0376-78 197

IC3 Business-1 0406-07 198




268

“If we got Klaus Töpfer, somebody of that eminence on board. I think they would be able (to bring

with them) the leadership dimension, the ability to bring people along … and that’s why getting the

right person would open some of those doors. Because people actually, if you get the right person,

they will not want to refuse the offer. (…) And that’s why it’s an important decision to get the right

person.”200

“If I was Klaus Töpfer, and I was asked to do this, I would feel much more comfortable about it if

the two various sides came to me together and ask me to do it. Rather than one side comes to me …

help us (building trust to) the other side. So I think maybe we need to crack the other (side) before

we’re even asking that. I would be hesitating, so where is that coming from!”201

It was then decided that Töpfer’s name must not be mentioned in the presentation202

and

that they need to “start from the start, including all the stakeholders”203

and set up the

process the outcome of which would be the defined scope and an agreement on the

champion.204

For the presentation it was considered as useful to underline the connectivity to Bonn by

quoting something from the official Bonn documents, as “that would reinforce the

legitimacy further if we could actually quote the paragraph”.205

Another participant also

suggests connecting to major future processes within the water community.206

The

facilitator warns against expanding too much as the group has only twenty minutes of time

left to prepare the presentation and because this action plan is, compared to the other action

plans, at a preliminary stage, focusing primarily on the requirement and on what is

needed to kick it off, preferably formulated in terms of suggestions:

“this action plan is very different to many of the others. And some of the others are very, fairly

concrete action plans … this one was always seen to be different, because it was acknowledged that

it wasn’t at that point. And that very much what this session would do is the requirement for a

review and how to put it into place. And I think we’ve done a very good job in doing that, we’ve

identified a lot of the stuff that needs to happen in order to kick it off. So what I think, this approach

that was talked about there would be a good one to take, and probably a safer one to take, and I use

safer in terms of what people are potentially throwing at the group when we get into the plenary. In

terms of, well this we took as our start point, this is how we’re gonna take it forward, the immediate

next steps include these, and actually, we anticipate, those are nice words, we anticipate that it

could cover. … My only concern there is, if somebody raised actually capacity building and

governance comes up, you know, has been said for ten years, whatever it was, we might just think

how we (feel about) that kind of question.”207

One thing the facilitator mentioned as a potential problem referred to the question of

newness regarding the topics capacity-building and governance.

200

IC3 Business-4 0443-49 201

IC3 MSO-3 0456-60 202

IC3 Business-1 , Facilitator, later also Professional-Association-1 203

IC3 Public-Water-2 0691 204

IC3 Public-Water-2 and Professional-Association-1 205

IC3 Business-1 0740-41 206

IC3 NGO-4, Kyoto process 207



269

In his next turn, the facilitator also recommends instead putting forward the value added

but not becoming too specific and therefore reinforces the preliminary stance of the

project:

“the purpose of the review is to provide better and increasing information and data to enable

improved decision-making, is that something, you don’t have to say who the decision-makers are,

do you?”208

One participant finds it important to be more specific: “decision-making in what?”209

. The

next speaker suggests explicating the decision-making in terms of “choice of strategies for

water service delivery”210

(which is actually not any more specific than before the three

days conference).

Connectivity is not just ensured in respect of the origins, international agreements and

ongoing major processes within the water community, but also in respect of the existing

decision-making processes the participants aim to improve, in an appreciative manner:

“I’d like to see the word, some word expressing continue from there to [building on]. And building

on what we already know and also recognising what decisions have been made today, need to be

reviewed, and maybe modified in the future. We tend to have lots of static thinking that we’ll make

the decision and that’s the end of the world and it is like that.”211

The NGO participant ensures that the idea of inclusiveness and participatory processes, so

vital for the legitimacy of the project, is mentioned in the presentation:

“recognition that the decision-making is an inclusive and participatory process.”212

The participant who had been the most doubtful about the requirement of the review, also in

terms of redundancy, raises these doubts now in the context of the potential reaction of the

audience:

“I think one question to be ready for is to ask you how all this ongoing initiatives, review, learning

processes and the like relate to this. I think that will probably be asked by someone”213

.

These misgivings are countered by the value added that this review should deliver, “the

silo thing, crossing over the silos (…) cross silos”214

, which obviously has not yet been

achieved.

In the presentation, as discussed, the value added is outlined without becoming too specific

and without having to “fence off the thing”215

. With the picture of the kangaroo being born

into the pouch before it starts to jump the preliminary stage is emphasised. The

208




IC3 Business-1 0877-80 212

IC3 NGO-1 0886-87 213

IC3 MSO-3 0931-32 214


IC3 MSO-3 0703


270

“aspirational” search for the champion is presented in an ironical way, as the presenter was

also someone who distanced himself from such a high level search. The speaker also

emphasises that support from stakeholder groups attending the plenary session is needed in

order to run the project. The unions as strongest critics are addressed pretty directly with the

need to get their support “some are actually here, (and were working) in other rooms, so we

would like to be talking to you”. (See above for the first part of the presentation, which is

more related to the issue definition.)

“the purpose becomes to provide better information and data to enable improved decision-making

which uses strategies for service delivery. … we don’t think that (…) which enables people to

rationally choose, give them the tools, to rationally choose between the different options, it’s

normally a (…) competing (complete cacophony of) (…) voices, where people have to listen to. So

we feel there is a role for a review which looks across the whole spectrum, and really looks for the

best practice … If we’re going to the next page, [Name of IAG-coordinator] talked about lots of

babies getting born here, I think we have to use the Australian model of birth here, think of a

kangaroo, where the mother gives birth to a very, very small baby which then crawls in the pouch,

and then (…) some time before it (exhibits itself) to the world. I think we’re at that stage, where the

baby has been born, it has to go in the poach or incubation for a (very long) time yet, before it is

ready to stand (…) in the world. And, as [name of facilitator] said, we don’t have a champion, we

were really quite ambitious with the names that we thought of for champions, starting of with

Mandela, so if you know of any presidents who are looking for a job, any (…) or princes who want

to (…) grateful for your suggestions [hhhh], that’s one of the things we have to do, we’re also very

much aware, that we’re a very narrow group. And one of the really important things we have to do

is to build a much wider set of stakeholders, so that we become a truly inclusive process. And I

think this is a really critical thing. We need to get support from a lot of other organisations, some

are actually here, (and were working) in other rooms, so we would like to be talking to you about

the ways in which we might build up a much wider participation, and many other people will be

coming here during the next week (and we will be) talking to them. And then of course the obvious

next step of building a core team and taking the review forward. And [name of director-SF] very

kindly volunteered that Stakeholder Forum as an interim secretariat to help that happen. So I think

that would take us forward to a stage where we would get much a broader and more inclusive

meeting (…) stakeholders so that we can then decide whether this little kangaroo is going to jump

out of the poach and jump forward, perhaps this (…) OK? Thanks very much.”216

The feared “clash”217

and reactions in terms of “what people are potentially throwing at the

group when we get into the plenary”218

did not materialise. Only two questions came up.

Firstly why the presenter’s organisation219

doesn’t take the role of the champion, offering

the opportunity to emphasise the preliminary stage again: “that’s a decision that needs to be

made by the whole group of stakeholders when they come together.”220

Secondly, a listener

critically noted that “the notion of best practice has been hotly debated”. The more

216

IC3 Issue Group “Freshwater” Plenary, Presentation of the Action Plan Group “Multistakeholder Review of Water

Supply and Sanitation Strategies”, Professional-Association-1 1054-1102 217

IC3 Business-1 0407 (see above) 218

IC3 Facilitator 0841-42(see above) 219

IWA, the water professionals organisation 220

IC3 Issue Group “Freshwater” Plenary, Professional-Association-1 0110-11


271

politically correct formulation would be ‘good practice’ as being less prescriptive and more

attentive to the circumstances and different ways of valuing things. The presenter

acknowledges this comment as “a very good point” and gives the excuse that he had been

“voluntold” to speak.221

There were no comments concerning redundancy or lack of

newness as feared in advance. The most critical party, the union representatives, did not

comment on this presentation. If any apprehension was justified it was this one, being

“ignored”222

.

Beyond the Implementation Conference, the project was not pursued. Maintaining the

metaphor of birth as used by the participants, it turned out to be stillborn. Throughout the

conference the requirement was never indubitably established, and obviously there was not

enough engagement and support from either those already involved or the stakeholder

groups not yet involved, or both, to move it forward.

Strategies for ensuring legitimacy

Several strategies for dealing with the problem of potentially lacking legitimacy were used

to ensure connectivity and legitimacy. They served to counter actual doubts or critics but

also to preventively counter potential reproaches.

Due to the unbalanced participation, the stakeholder group had to account for the

alteration of the issue and therefore had to go back to the origins again and again,

knowing that not recognising the origins would completely nullify their legitimacy. So there

seemed to be a continuous need to account for the decision to alter or extend the review, the

origins were cited for this decision also, as it was anchored in a World Bank

recommendation. Before the potential confrontation with the critics in the plenary, it was

suggested that the relevant paragraphs of the Bonn outcomes be quoted verbatim, possibly

in order to emphasise the recognition of the original concern.

Strategy of emphasising the preliminary stage. One strategy was to frame the stage of the

project as preliminary, that the representative group had yet to be formed. Various birth and

baby metaphors were used to underline this:

“this group was never meant to be the group … there is a place to birth an idea … This group can

birth something which contrives altogether those key people … taking one step at a time”

or proceeding in “baby steps”223

. The birth metaphor emphasises the preliminary character

even more with the picture of the kangaroo being born into the pouch before it starts to

jump.224

221

IC3 Issue Group “Freshwater” Plenary, Professional-Association-1 1133 222

IC3, Business-2 (see above) 223



272

Strategy of assuming the requirement as given. Rather than finally affirming the

requirement question, it remains open. Sometimes the requirement is taken as obvious, but

this has to be explicitly stated in several instances, when the requirement is seriously

doubted. Despite the doubts, the strategy is to move on and work on the assumption that the

questioned has been answered affirmatively. Connected to the preliminary stage strategy,

the requirement question cannot yet be finally decided upon.

Strategy of normalising incomplete representation. It is presented as a matter of course

that not all the parties always participate, some will be absent this time, others at other

times. Therefore, realistically, a full representation should not be expected.

“The groups that will come into the tent may not be everybody (anyway). We have to accept that

some people will not join such a process. ... And groups that are sitting here will at different points

be sitting outside the tent (…) as well.”225

Strategy of reversal. This strategy is turning the problem of strong private sector presence

(while their strongest opponents are missing) into an advantage. Precisely because

companies are heavily criticised in the context, within the IC process they can present a

contrasting picture within which the private sector can prove their good intentions.

“There’s gonna be an enormous amount of, and it already has been, of criticism of companies. The

conference will have that as a backdrop. Here we have a number of companies or people who’ve

worked in companies who are trying to do something different here.”226

Strategy of searching for a high level champion to solve legitimacy problems. A strategy

for solving the problems of inclusive representation and lacking legitimacy is to search for a

champion at a very high level who would, if available, ‘open doors’227

to stakeholder groups

who have so far refused to participate and lend the project distinctiveness and high

recognition.

Strategy of de-legitimising the original focus. Within this strategy, the original focus and

the whole public private debate is de-legitimised as being a “red herring”228

, serving to

deflect attention from the real issues.

224

IC3 Issue Plenary, presentation Professional-Association-1 1084-85 225




IC1 Business-1 2892


273

5.3 Positioning within the context – ensuring distinction and

connectivity

In order create and maintain a legitimate identity, the multi-stakeholder project needs

to be positioned adequately within its context. For the collaborative identity to be legitimate,

distinctiveness as well as connectivity to the context needs to be ensured. During the whole

course of the process this was constantly worked on, participants reassured the legitimacy

and requirement as given, doubted or contested it or countered those doubts and

contestations. Many action plan projects born within the Implementation Conference

process were able to establish the legitimacy required to launch and pursue the projects

fruitfully. For the action plan project in the focus of this study, this could not have been

achieved as an inclusive assemblage of stakeholders around a sufficiently defined focus was

not accomplished and the doubts concerning the requirement and legitimacy remained

during the whole process.

Different ways of connecting to and distinguishing from the context (mainly the

political decision-makers, but also other influential players) were identified. With the

holding-to-account repertoire, the stakeholders make use of a classical political

pressurising, fitting into the negotiating and bargaining environment of the official summit

process. They focus on the power they have as a diverse group with great outreach, and use

that for lobbying for stronger sustainability agreements and for demanding the

implementation of existing agreements. In contrast, the inspiring-challenging repertoire is

a much more playful way of loosely connecting to the decision-makers. The stakeholders

distinguish themselves by presenting alternatives. The advisory repertoires emphasise the

stakeholders’ position as experts. Within the supply-driven mode, the expertise tends to be

of rather authoritative character, while the demand-driven mode displays the expertise as an

offer, the offer of a friendly, knowledgeable helper or a professional advisor who acts upon

a mandate. For both, constant learning is an essential prerequisite. The acting-in-our-own-

right repertoire is the least connected way of relating to the decision-makers. Again, it is a

political mode, this time a political mode of resisting by creating a strong alternative.

Temporarily, the stakeholders disconnect themselves from the official processes after

finding themselves unheard and without support.

In the following, I sum up the constructions and strategies used to create, maintain and

contest the legitimate collaborative identity by establishing or questioning the

distinctiveness and connectivity of the IC process as a whole and of the multi-stakeholder

review (MSR) action plan process in particular.


274

5.3.1 Creating distinctiveness

“Can this group make a difference?”229

is a question which needs to be affirmed in

order to mobilise potential participants and establish legitimacy. To be able to induce

change and to add value, the project needs to ensure distinctiveness, including a sufficient

degree of independence, from its context. The stakeholders need to identify and demonstrate

the requirement of their project by showing that they are fulfilling an urgent need, that they

are addressing a significant problem and that they, by the way they are addressing their

issue, are filling a gap. Therefore they need to make sure that their undertaking is not made

redundant by other projects taking place in the domain and that they can in some way offer

something new compared to what is already in place. With regard to their issue or to the

problem to be tackled, they have to attempt to achieve change or exert influence in a certain

direction. And they have to create “clarity on what we want to change and what the

outcomes of that should be.”230

Furthermore, they need to have clarity about where they

want to impact on, for example

“we should really trying to influence the real decision-makers who are allocating seventy, eighty

percent of their national resources to providing water (...).”231

The requirement of the collaborative venture is grounded on accounts of the world as

problematic and requiring action. The stakeholders were unanimous about the existence of

an urgent need. They were sure about the implementation gap with regard to international

agreements, the millennium development goals and the Bonn recommendations. It was

regarded as obvious that governments alone won’t be able to close this gap. Specifying the

problem to be tackled, for example in terms of “the fundamental issues”232

or “the biggest

barriers to progress”233

was less straightforward. Consensus was limited to the appreciation

that the issues are complex. Otherwise, concerning the problem identification and the

methods to be adopted to deal with the problem, divergent constructions dominated the

arena. Some concentrated on the lack of political will and on the ability of civil society to

hold their politicians to account, others concentrated on the lack of conversation across

sectors234

, on community capabilities, on underlying issues such as governance and finance,

or on a lack of ‘objective’ data.

The newness or uniqueness of the undertaking was constructed by some as being

given through being a project driven by stakeholders, through their proposed action-

229


IC2 NGO-1 1467-68, see also IC1 NGO-1 2710 231

Apr 02 Public-Water-1 1983-85, MSO-4 1988-90 232



IC1 e.g. Director-SF, Professional-Association-1 2063


275

orientation and through the taking of a positive learning approach with the exchange of

good practice. Others questioned the supposed newness and uniqueness by pointing to a

supposed abundance of similar initiatives and therefore by assuming redundancy. These

doubts were countered by putting the spotlight on the process as a stakeholder-driven,

global initiative and furthermore that this initiative should not be adding to the vast amount

of other initiatives but should complement them or even link up with and go beyond them in

terms of a meta-review. One person seemed to have left the meeting earlier after finding her

expectations regarding action orientation not being met, since there are “too many academic

debates”.235

Also in terms of content the planned review was questioned regarding the

newness: shortly before the presentation the facilitator asked how the group would answer

when the proposed issues “capacity-building” and “good governance” are taken by the

audience to be known as issues for ten years. The views differed a lot also regarding the

ability and methods of how to achieve change or exert influence in order to make a

difference. While the group was characterised by some as powerful, the legitimacy and

therefore the influence of the group was questioned by others. Regarding the methods to be

pursued, two opposing approaches were competing. Some wanted to start with the major

problems and the major controversy, otherwise they did not see a chance for remedy, others

saw the only possible approach in starting from agreement and from positive examples to

enter a conversation. Connected with that was the question of whether it is more promising

to study a narrow, controversial focus or to extend the focus to the whole range. On a less

specific level it was much easier to find agreement on how to make a difference: to

contribute to improved decision-making in order to implement international water-related

sustainability agreements.

For the process as a whole, the diverse repertoires enacted specific ways of making a

difference. With the holding-to-account repertoire the stakeholders are positioned

distinctively as they are constructed to take the international sustainability agreements more

seriously than the governments who have agreed them. With the inspiring/challenging

repertoire the stakeholders position themselves as avant-garde, creating a world of action

and thereby breathing life into what governments have decided. Both of the advisory

repertoires rely on the expertise of the diversity among the stakeholders. With the acting-in-

our-own-right repertoire the stakeholders distinguish themselves by their extraordinary

engagement for implementation, even without recognition from the context. However, the

ability to achieve change and exert influence was relativised in the short term: “we’re not

235

IC1 1258-59


276

gonna radically transform Johannesburg, what you got to do is transform the next

events.”236

With regard to the questions of how to influence the (political) decision-makers and

how much independency the stakeholders should maintain, diverse views emerged over the

course of the process. Those diverse constructions sometimes competed as oppositional,

while sometimes they were used as being complementary. At the beginning of the process,

both ways of influencing the negotiating governments, directly through lobbying and

indirectly through implementing, were planned. At a later stage the two approaches

competed in an either-or-manner, whereby the majority of the stakeholders favoured an

implementation strategy. Against expectations resulting from this either-or contrast, the

lobbying strategy was not completely abandoned. Instead, a mixed strategy with clearly

more weight on implementation was pursued. Also, with regard to the controversial type II

format, a mixed strategy was pursued. While the emphasis was on not being “slaved to the

type IIs”, the possibility of feeding into the new format was kept open. The strategy was to

make the outcomes presentable, if they end up as type II, that’s good, if they don’t, the

stakeholders are going to do them anyway. They are not doing them to end up in the official

outcomes.237

The way the stakeholders dealt with this question, they maintained their

independence. They did not take this outcome format as a condition, instead they did not

take it too seriously: it was described as “artificial creation” which they should not “feel

captured in” but rather in which they could “be creative”238

, emphasising that ‘nobody in

the ‘real world’ knows what type II is, we started before that and we should stick to our

motivation.’239

Rather, they used it as a nice-to-have opportunity to present the outcomes

they are going to achieve anyway, thereby maintaining a critical distance from the

controversial concept of type IIs. Moreover, they were able to construct themselves as

avant-garde (‘we started before that’).

5.3.2 Creating connectivity

To establish a legitimate collaborative identity, the continuous creation of

distinctiveness and connectivity are intertwined in a paradoxical, reciprocal way. The

distinctiveness of the group has to be recognised and appreciated in the domain in order to

be conceived as contribution. This recognition and appreciation of difference

simultaneously constitutes connectivity. Reciprocally, the way the group is able to maintain

236

Apr 02 IGO-1 3927-28 237


Mar 02 WG 239

Notes 26th

Mar 02


277

connectivity, for example by successfully contributing to the implementation of agreements

or by securing legitimacy, simultaneously works to distinguish the collaborative project.

The collaborating stakeholders unanimously connected to their context by anchoring

their project in the international agreements, by taking them as their “marching order”240

.

Even though some complexities regarding competing aims inherent in the millennium

development goals were identified, e.g. competing environmental goals241

, they were used

as a straightforward aim “water for the poor”. This anchorage was much more clear-cut

than the definition of their addressees: their “audience” or their “beneficiaries”. Some

were addressing specifically the politicians, others were more oriented to the water

community comprising the different stakeholders as a whole, whereas others oriented

towards civil society or public opinion. Some were eager to define the audience more

clearly242

, while others purposefully kept it vague243

by speaking of “decision-makers”

without becoming more specific. The question of how to relate to their potential audience

also led to a fundamental discordance within the MSR action plan group in terms of

preferring a demand-driven or a supply-driven approach, reflected in the demand-driven

and supply-driven advisory repertoires. The proponents of the demand-driven approach

did not see any use in, or any chance of having an impact with the project by, starting

without a clear demand, as otherwise the audience would simply not listen, especially given

the abundance of comparable initiatives. The proponents of a supply-driven approach

stressed that most importantly the data needs to be generated and it can then be used for

various purposes, and moreover, since they are a powerful group, they can and should make

their audience listen to them by generating the data. The holding-to-account repertoire is

also based on that premise that the decision-makers should be made to listen in order to hold

them to account for the implementation of international agreements. These three repertoires

played a major role in the MSR action plan group, unlike the inspiring-challenging

repertoire and the acting-in-our-own-right repertoire. They were of importance for the

IC process as a whole, the former relying on mutual recognition and the latter on a

pronounced independence. Both of the latter repertoires were less specific regarding their

addressees and made much more sense for those action plan groups which were able to

deliver a specific contribution to the implementation of water agreements. These repertoires

make sense if a group of stakeholders can “deliver a slice of the cake”244

rather

independently, for example by assembling stakeholders to implement rainwater harvesting.

240

IC1 Director-SF 0551 (see above) 241

IC2 Business-2, see also April 02 NGO-1 242

e.g. IC2 Business-3 1002, IC1 visiting-researcher 1100 243

IC3 Facilitator 244

April 02 Convener 2563 (see above)


278

Their independent stakeholder action could then be inspiring for others or they would have a

sense at least of having contributed to implementation in the form of stakeholder action in

its own right.

In sum, the participants tried to ensure connectivity regarding their audience, the

decision-makers, by anchoring their undertaking in the international sustainability

agreements and by explicitly “recognising what decisions have been made” and regarding

what has been reviewed and studied so far.245

The legitimacy of the IC process as a whole, and of the action plan groups, depended

primarily on its quality as multi-stakeholder process. Joint and inclusive stakeholder

action was established as the main aim, long before the four issue strands, let alone the

specific action plans, had been specified. The multi-stakeholder approach with a balanced

and inclusive participation was at times accounted for rather ethically-normatively by

emphasising the right to participate in decisions by which somebody is affected as

stakeholder. The ethical-normative accounting occurred in connection with the holding-to-

account repertoire and the acting-in-our-own-right repertoire. At other times, the

stakeholder approach was accounted for rather functionally by underlining the effective

outcomes for decision-making due to the integration of diverse expertise and the

development of broad ownership and outreach. This way of accounting for the multi-

stakeholder approach with its emphasis on expertise was especially eligible for the advisory

repertoires.

The aim of establishing a balanced and inclusive process was highly significant,

however it turned out to be very difficult to put it into practice. Some participants

emphasised the fundamental difficulties in actually achieving legitimate representation246

. In

the action plan group at focus, the ‘North’ was strongly overrepresented compared to the

‘South’. Furthermore, the ‘Southern’ representatives took up an even lower proportion of

the speaking time. Very few female representatives were present on the first day of the

conference (and none on the two following days of the conference). This was especially true

when a controversial issue was at stake, as the most critical parties did not participate,

leaving the others with a severe legitimacy problem. The action plan group was also said to

be lacking legitimacy due to a top-down rather than bottom-up tendency as the majority of

participants represented the (white male) elite of the stakeholders rather than ‘people from

the ground’. Partly, the voices bemoaning the top-down tendency were actually reinforcing

it through enacting their powerful position.

245


IC1 MSO-3 2004, IC2 NGO-1

Chapter 6 - Organising the multi-stakeholder process

279

6 Organising the multi-stakeholder process

Organising togetherness among the participants is at the heart of the multi-stakeholder

process and serves to characterise the process as a multi-stakeholder process and to

distinguish it from its context. To create the collaborative identity, not only the generalised

ties (assembling the participants around the issue and positioning the collaboration within

its context) are of importance. Equally important are the particularised ties, providing a

processual and structural basis for how the participants organise their relationships among

each other in order to jointly address their common issue in a particular forum. These ties or

relations are discursively produced and at the same time they serve as discursive resources

for participants to connect themselves among each other in specific, identifiable ways

(Hardy et al. 2005: 65). Organising the relations within the multi-stakeholder process is

studied in two strands, firstly (6.1) regarding the relating of the stakeholders among each

other (organising togetherness among the diverse stakeholders) and secondly (6.2) regarding

the relating among participants and conveners (driving the process by enacting leadership

and ownership).

6.1 Organising togetherness

The challenge within organising the collaboration among diverse stakeholders is to

integrate (and benefit from) diversity while achieving sufficient focus enabling the

development of joint, concrete action. In the IC process, this resulted in the tension of

covering the breadth of suggested issues versus focusing on concrete action plans. Within

the breadth of issues, the key issues had to be identified. Hence, the main paradoxical

tension that needs to be handled by organising their togetherness is integrating diversity

while narrowing complexity down to achieve concrete action plans, which means keeping a

balance between divergence and convergence. This dilemmatic tension emerged through

two concurrent concerns. On the one hand, participants should be able to set up concrete,

specific, focused and realisable action plans. On the other, the breadth of issues with all the

relevant points should be integrated: the group is scoping possible focus areas and strives to

look for missing possible focus areas. At the same time, this is criticised as too broad, too

diffuse, lacking action-orientation, and as hampering the manageability of integrating

diversity as the issue paper is growing and growing (since “people want to put all the …


280

important points, in there. So it’s just been swelling even though we didn’t want that.”1), or

as one participant suggests:

“at the moment the plan seems to be, we might be an awful lot wiser, if we pursue all these things,

but we won’t actually be any closer to doing anything.”2

Different approaches of how to organise the relationships among the collaborating

stakeholders while balancing divergence and convergence were enacted over the course of

the process. They intermingled, were pursued in parallel, and were subject of discussion.

Some were more prevalent in different phases of the collaboration than in others. Five

approaches enacted with different repertoires are identified: the issue-driven repertoire, the

partnership repertoire, the learning-sharing repertoire, the normative-holistic repertoire and

the passionate-transformative repertoire. The former three relate to the concrete method

used, the latter two relate to a larger frame of reference of how diversity unfolds. These

discursive repertoires provide the processual basis for organising togetherness (the

particularised ties) in order to jointly address their common issue. They shape their

collaborative space and hence their collective identity. The ties among the participants are

enacted in discursively produced patterns of interdependence concerning the way divergent

stakes are dealt with.

In the following, the paradoxical tension is described as it unfolds over the course of

the process. This description brings to the fore the importance of the question how much

common ground is needed, and what the significance of common ground is. Hence, the

different approaches and logics of answering this question are examined. According to the

paradoxical tension, not only convergence, but also divergence is of critical importance.

Thus, also the different approaches and logics of dealing with controversies are studied,

taking into account also the controversies in constructing the issue. The different ways of

relating among each other in order to deal with the paradoxical tension are distilled. Those

different repertoires are examined for how they deal with divergence and convergence,

respectively how diversity is integrated to enable joint action. The repertoires differ on how

much common ground they require and how controversies and divergent stakes are dealt

with.


2 Apr 02 Business-3 1648-50


281

6.1.1 Paradoxical tension: integrating diversity while focusing on action

According to the design and description of the process in the outline, specific

approaches to assembling the diverse stakes were suggested by the convener. In the

beginning of the process the task was to explore the breadth of issues, then the priority areas

and key issues were to be identified, which eventually should be translated into concrete

action plans. Therefore, a process for integrating diversity and narrowing it down through

focusing was needed. Different approaches on how to achieve this while managing the

tension were then discussed and tried out. During the transition stage, when it was time to

translate identified priority areas into concrete action plans, which approach to follow was

the subject of intense discussion.

6.1.1.1 Initial outline

In the initial outline a position paper process was suggested and within this, possible joint

projects and partnerships were to be identified:

“Preparatory steps will include:

… Stakeholder groups producing position papers, covering: problems identified; possible

solutions; possible partnerships. … analysing and synthesising position papers, identifying common

ground and differences, and developing suggestions of possible multi-stakeholder agreements on

joint projects and partnerships. …

So that at the beginning of the implementation conference:

Conference material is available which includes: background papers; overviews of international

and regional agreements; analyses and syntheses of stakeholders’ position papers; potential

conference outcomes.

Stakeholders arrive with a mandate to develop the potential outcomes further and to agree action

plans.”3

No significant distinction was drawn between joint projects, partnerships and action plans.

Partnerships were of importance as a principle4 of stakeholder collaboration as well as part

of the “desired outcomes”: “partnerships between various stakeholder groups, as well as

between stakeholders, governments, and intergovernmental bodies”.5

A normative imprint is notable in the outline, for example in the “principles of

stakeholder collaboration”. The normative tone is combined with a passionate-

transformative one, by inviting stakeholders

“(t)o plant seeds for cultural change – from words to action, from static to dynamic, from

competition to collaboration: stakeholders collaborating – spinning into action – towards new

horizons”6 and to create a “shift towards the desired stakeholder culture”

7.



5 Outline Sep 01, p. 3, 8

6 Outline Sep 01, p. 3, 10


282

6.1.1.2 Rolling issue-paper process

The position paper process as proposed in the outline was very soon modified into an issue

paper process, a so-called rolling paper. It contained a relatively short preamble and

framework for the process, sketched the history and the planned activities, and the main part

consisted of a table outlining “possible focus areas and possible joint stakeholder action”.

The issue paper process allowed for both the position paper, or issue-driven, approach and

the partnership approach. The former with its “analysing and synthesising” process was

kept as the coordinator later described one of her tasks as analysis to ‘identify common

ground and differences’ in order to develop the next version of the issue paper8. What

speaks for the latter version is that it developed in a kind of adding-mode: differences and

divergent views were juxtaposed rather than negotiated. Furthermore, to distinguish it from

other consensus-based statement paper processes happening in the context, it is often called

‘non-paper’ or ‘rolling paper’ to emphasise its fluent, transient character in contrast to

negotiated and fixed agreements. In this way it could serve as a tool to let diverse

perspectives stand next to each other.

Especially in the beginning of the process, the approaches were not seen as mutually

exclusive. Instead, the partnerships were embedded in the issue-driven approach.

A second kind of document was later added to the rolling Issue Paper, the Action Plans.

What was outlined as possible stakeholder action in the Issue Paper was put into more

concrete terms in the Action Plans. The Issue Paper was conceived more as a transient tool

serving as orientation for the development of action plans:

“This freshwater issue paper is just really sort of scoping exercise, for us as a group to find out

what are the focus areas that we think are really relevant to think about when we want to go

forward towards action.”9

Towards the end of the process the groups worked solely on the action plans and so the

Issue Paper lost significance in the last third of the process. It was planned to identify the

focus areas firstly and then start heading for action and develop both documents in parallel.

The fifth version of the Issue Paper10

was eventually dropped, meaning that after the April

meeting, where the controversial issue of joint vision and common framework was settled,

participants worked exclusively on developing the action plans for the Implementation

Conference.


8 Mail and Report 26

th Mar 02


10 announced in IP V2-4, p. 2


283

6.1.1.3 Trouble point – transition to the developing-action-plans phase

In the first half of the process, as long as the stakeholders worked with the rolling issue

paper and identified their priority areas, the issue-driven style was dominant.

The transition then from the Issue Paper to the Action Plans turned out to be difficult. What

was set on the agenda for the telephone conference in March were possible focus areas and

possible joint action.11

What was eventually discussed were mainly the focus areas (in the

issue-driven style), only a few people12

contributed specific suggestions for action plans or

partnerships. Having spent a large amount of time on the focus areas at the teleconference,

the conveners suggested moving to to the next phase and proceeding from priority areas

towards concrete action plans. This was unanimously approved by the group.13

Accordingly,

the conference of the 26th

March was staged by the conveners with the action plans at the

centre, as the purpose was “To review and develop the IAG Collaborative Stakeholder

Action Plan”14

and ‘NOT to revise the rolling paper’15

, which had symbolised an issue-

driven process so far. Space was still provided for the “introduction of other possible focus

areas”16

, so the issue-driven mode has not come to an end completely. The suggested

action-plan approach was heavily criticised17

, despite the approval at the preceding

conference. This could partly be due to the fact that most of the people attending the

conference had not attended the previous one. But also in addition to that, the switch from

the issue-driven mode to the developing-action-plans mode turned out to cause a

problematic rupture.

The criticism of the action plans as suggested consisted of several arguments:

The action plans cover neither the breadth of issues nor the key issues. The convener

summarised in her mail after the meeting: “we were leaping ahead too quickly without

covering the breadth of issues we had been talking about during recent conversations”18

.

The first contribution in the meeting was made by a participant submitting that the action

plans do ‘not reflect all issues’19

. The meeting report noted:

“The Action Plans we have received do not seem to cover the breadth of the issues we spoke about

during our talks and recent telephone conversations” and that “The Action Plan did not appear to

address key issues”.20

11


TelConf Mar 02 Women-1, p. 6, 7, 9, 12; to a less extent: NGO-13, p. 8; NO: 12 13

“Develop draft action plans for stakeholders … Who does what, with whom, when, with what kind of governance;

Present them to the group for further work” (TelConf Mar 02, p. 8) 14

Handout 26th

Mar 02 15

Convener, notes 26th

Mar 02 16

Invite 26th

Mar 02 17

Mail and Report 26th Mar 02, p. 2 18

Mail 26th Mar 02 19

Notes 26th

Mar 02, IGO-1 20



284

According to the criticism, what was previously developed in the issue-driven mode was not

sufficiently integrated into the action plans. In her reply to the criticism of not covering the

breadth of issues, the convener explains that this had not been the aim:

“the Action Plans weren’t meant to cover the breadth of the issues but were what we felt at the

telephone conference would be the most concrete action-oriented way of reformulating the ideas

that had come up.”21

By refraining from an aspiration to cover the breadth, the convener dissolves the dilemma’s

opposition (focusing on action versus covering the breadth of issues).

She reframes the criticism as the need of the group for a shared vision, which would fit

better into the issue-driven approach: “It seems we have become too detailed too quickly but

what we really want to achieve is a shared vision first!”22

In the submissions following the meeting, some opposing voices were also heard: “your

action plan seems to me reflecting the discussions held”23

.

With both of the following arguments the participants express a desire to ensure that the

action-plans are really action oriented.

The Action Plans are too broad or not specific enough. Despite the criticism of not

covering the breadth of issues, there was also criticism that the ‘Agenda [is] too broad’ and

it should be ‘preferably less but specific’ instead.24

Accordingly, the recommendation was:

“Shouldn’t we have 6-10 that represent what we spoke about and that we can really work

on – this sort of number often works better than lots of actions.”25

The Action Plans lack substantive action. Similar to the criticism of not being specific

enough, some participants note that they are not action-oriented enough:

“The Action plan seems to be a lot about process – where is the substantive action?”,

“If the Action Plan stays as it is I do not see it getting past any politician if ‘action’ is missing”.26

As a result of the criticism, the discussion of the Action Plans was interrupted in the short

term and the focus of the discussion was shifted to the issue paper:

“This means that for now we won’t continue the discussion of the Action Plans but will look at the

amended freshwater issue paper that now includes your recent comments”.

The task of identifying the key issues and at the same time orienting them towards action

was given to the IAG, showing the embeddedness of the action plans in the issue-driven

process with its focus areas:

21

Mail 26th Mar 02 22

Mail 26th Mar 02 23

Submission NGO-2, she did not attend the teleconference, though. She concluded it from the report. 24

Notes 26th

Mar 02, IGO-1 25




285

“Identify 5-10 themes and key points, structure these themes and advise what could be done to deal

with them (think of actions! Future Action Plans should be integrated into broader themes. Action

Plans should encompass these main themes)”27

The submissions that were handed in by the participants according to this ‘homework’ then

referred to the action plans28

or to the issue paper or to both. So the search for ideas for

action plans did not stop, but it was considered important to anchor those ideas in some kind

of clearer framework. Despite the request, some did not suggest any actions.29

One reason

could be that since the action initiatives are embedded in the issue-driven process, reaching

some clarity about the issues is seen as priority: “I do not think that we need to go to details

before reaching consensus on issues.”30

Another participant did not elaborate on issues, but

only made suggestions for action plans.31

The last Issue Paper (V4), which had been adapted according to the submissions, was

prepared for the meeting in April. By an oversight, the coordinator did not have the paper

with her at the meeting. The coordinator describes the dilemma of proceeding and

commented that not having the new version with her

“might be quite a good sign, because the paper … has been swelling and swelling, which isn’t

really what we’re trying to do. But still, you know, people want to put all the relevant points, the

important points, in there. So it’s just been swelling even though we didn’t want that.”32

Instead of a discussion of the new version of the issue paper, she prefers “the discussion of

the stakeholder action plans, which is really our priority at the moment.”33

This was her

agenda for the meeting, but the participants came up with other concerns. In the end, the

meeting produced a joint vision and a common framework, individual action plans had not

been discussed.

A big issue at the meeting in April on the participants’ way to their jointly developed

framework was the discussion of their approach: the existing structure was reworked

thoroughly. The virtue and distinctiveness of the partnership approach was elaborated in

contrast to an issue-driven approach. Intertwined with that was a discussion of the

significance of their common ground.

One participant, a strong opponent of the issue-driven approach, proposed partnerships as

the way forward now that sufficient consensus had been achieved since the Bonn

27

Mail 26th Mar 02 28

Partnerships were suggested e.g. by Submission NGO-14, p. 2; Submission Women-1, p. 2 29

Women-1, NO, Local-Authorities-1 were just outlining their priority areas 30

Submission NGO-2 31





286

Conference. He distinguishes the partnership approach which entails innovating and

evolving from the negotiating approach. He connects the shift from negotiation to

innovating/evolving to how the relations among the water actors had changed: from being

oppositional to partners sharing an emerging consensus with some agreed differences.

“if we talk about what do we do with partnerships and how do we network and then how do we

basically utilise the building consensus, I was at OECD yesterday, the water panel there very much

the Bonn consensus moving forward. … the question is how do we keep stepping up the staircase

from what is an emerging consensus, where we’ve gone from being oppositional to partners with

agreed differences on a few issues [consent]. And I think that this issue of getting the partnerships

is easier because we’ve got a lot, we’ve got the one on gender, we’ve got the global water

partnership, we’ve got a number of things going on, and then, making these richer, making them

cross-fertilize, and then also letting people see models so that they’re inspired [consent, exactly] to

do other things, then this becomes something that is more manageable, more doable and there is a

lot more value added and a lot more interest. Because you’re not focusing on negotiating, you’re

focusing on innovating and evolving [consent]. And that’s a very different perspective!”34

The way he introduced his turn, he emphasised that this partnership approach would not be

as risky for the governments, obviously locating the suggestion of establishing an

international water authority (which is mentioned in the Issue Paper) in a more issue-driven,

negotiation-based process:

“But what I think is important in this proposal, is actually to create a structure where we actually

work within and then it doesn’t become essentially risky to the governments. I mean this issue like

the international water authority, people will go crazy! [HHHH]”35

A previous speaker had already seen this as incompatible with the partnership approach, as

such a suggestion would impede any discussion.36

A further speaker takes up the

controversial issue of establishing an international water authority. He seems not to be a

proponent of such an institution37

, but unlike the former speakers he can also see it placed

within the partnership approach, as this approach can do without consent on every issue.

After checking if the IC process can offer the appropriate infrastructure for

“communication, platform, networking” he states

“I have no problem with one of the things being discussed in Johannesburg being (...) international

water authority (if) five organizations want to bring that there, let’s put it on the table, I mean we

are not endorsing a collective program [consent], you know, if there are five organizations (...)

want to go and work together to try and see if they can establish an international water authority …

these are partnerships, right, we’re not (passing) a new doctrine.”38

Another speaker praises the partnership approach as the most suitable approach for dealing

with implementation gaps and contrasts it with conventional conferences. He suggests an

34

Apr 02 IGO-1 1125-49 35

Apr 02 IGO-1 1116-22 36

Having praised the partnership approach: “But if you bring the issues of creating a separate monitoring mechanism,

international (…), you can’t have a discussion” (Apr 02 MSO-1 1027-29) 37

Because in his wording it does not belong to the „more sophisticated initiatives“ (Apr 02 NGO-10 1238-39) 38

Apr 02 NGO-10 1219-36


287

approach fitting to how they distinguish themselves from their context: action-orientation

versus talk-shops in the conventional issue-driven style:

“wonderful situations came out, that this is becoming (a) partnership of partnerships. You are

providing a space, a neutral space, where all the partnerships are coming in, we’re discussing what

… we have to do with the present situation, (what are) the gaps (...) going forward, and (what are)

those actions needed to fill those gaps. And if you’re doing that way, I think that’s much more

specific, otherwise another conference, don’t do that!”39

This is endorsed by the convener, who then also takes up the issue of whether they are

distinct enough, even though they call their final event a ‘conference’: “I don’t know if the

word conference is particularly helpful, but that is the idea.”40

This results in some joking

about how to express their distinctness in the name of their event.41

After some confusion about what the whole process is about (the group unfortunately

negated the conveners’ question “is there clarity amongst you, what we’re doing here, what

the

Implementation Conference is about?”42

), the convener explained the approach according to

the partnership style:

“So, is this the space, where you gonna start to provide (...) information about what you are doing,

what you want to put forward into this space … I use a different example, you know, partnership

initiatives that are going on, they approach us and say we would like to use your space to broaden

this, we want a platform, but we’re also interested in negotiating with other partners, we want a

(...) initiative. And then you would need to provide us with information and a mandate to start

brokering with organisations that people feel should be involved, or could be interested to be

involved. Secondly, to look at gaps, (...) yesterday, and that would be new initiatives.”43

She goes on by describing the process so far with the tension between elaborating their

common ground and coming to terms with the action plans. She appreciates the group’s

efforts to develop a common framework but pleads for a reduction in those efforts in favour

of developing the action plans so that both can be pursued in parallel.

“Now, so far, we’ve (been thrown) a bit back and forth over the last few months, made a step

saying to us asking us to start with some action plans, and then you said, no no, we want to develop

our joint vision, I’ve heard a lot of discussion again about let’s structure this together, agree a

structure, which is of course reflecting the underlying vision that you’re struggling with. We’ve

been very pleased that you’re trying to do that. But that’s a parallel process. Hm? [NGO-11: Is

there a vision statement?] What happened at the last meeting was that we drafted some (...) specific

action plan, and people said, and people said, hhhm, we want our joint picture first. We want to use

the group, we want to do more work within this group to structure a vision amongst ourselves, and

39

Apr 02 MSO-11678-87 40


MSO-4 “water partners meeting” Convener: “Water party meeting? Sounds a bit like single party” :D Public-

Water-1: “Water partners meeting?” MSO-4/MSO-1: “Water conspiracy conference” Public-Water-1: “Water

partners action meeting?” (Apr 02 1703-22) 42




288

that’s why we listed comments and inputs into this issue paper, which is now swollen a bit. But you

see this is parallel, because we’re running out of time!”44

The participant who has been strongly promoting the partnership approach nods

continuously while the convener is speaking. He proposes that the tension as described by

the convener can be resolved by abandoning the issue-driven approach. Whereas the

convener framed the partnership approach as compatible with the Issue Paper process, this

participant equates the Issue Paper process with an issue-driven approach and sees a clear

difference between this and the partnership approach. He constructs the issue-driven

approach versus partnership initiative approach as an oppositional pair. He urges

abandoning the issue paper process as such which he obviously views as still too consensus-

prone.

“Yeah, I mean, in terms of the discussion this evening, what we’ve discussed, and we’ve come up

with this idea the water partners meeting, that’s very distinctly different than an issue paper driven

process. And I think we’ve got to make a decision as to whether we’re going ahead: issues or

partnerships. ‘Cos these are very, very, very different things! And I think what [NGO-10] put

forward, was a probably more workable framework by shifting from issues to partnerships, then,

you got a completely different spin on it, it’s much more comprehensible to people, it’s much less

confrontational, and you are to get magnets on the table to draw people together. So if we could

agree what we’re gonna do is having water partnership meeting, you know, as broadly defined with

a (meta) workshop, a wonderful term, but the issue is, we’re not focusing on developing issues,

we’re interested in identifying partnerships and gaps, creating consortiums, cross-fertilizing, ‘cos

one of the issues is transfer experience, even if your partnership is different! You know, how did you

set up GWP [Global Water Partnership – a multi-stakeholder organisation] … how are these

things, ‘cos also we’ve different levels of maturity, so there is good practices and lessons learnt

kind of forum you can do, which really could be helpful generically. … But if we have the freedom

then to recast, I think we’ve got something that people are enthusiastic about rather than puzzled, I

mean that’s my sense.”45

His approach is endorsed by the group:

“I think [IGO-1] very articulately outlined this approach. And I think if we can stick to it,

everybody would feel more comfortable, joining in this process”46

.

Even though there are different views on the significance and requirement of the issue-paper

and whether it is compatible with the partnership approach or not, at least there is consensus

about the importance of the partnership approach, at least nobody is against it.

As described so far, the convener had suggested developing action plans instead of further

developing the common framework, which was then picked up by the next speaker in

favour of abandoning the issue paper completely. Now, a participant asks again for a

44


Apr 02 IGO-1 1784-1821 46

Apr 02 MSO-4 1824-26


289

mission statement for the group47

(independently of the issue paper). The next speaker

interrupts because he views their common ground in terms of a mission as already obvious:

“Sorry, well, there is a common thread, water is our common thread, you know, with every

organization, and it seems to me to draw from that in the mission statement [consent], and it’s all

around water (...), right? I mean, everybody is doing something with water”48

,

so this is not the problem. He goes on with what he views as a problem which still needs to

be solved: how to connect/track their projects among each other

“(the different) problem, this problem everybody is doing the same thing in the same place. So how

do you draw all that to the track (...)”49

.

Now the coordinator hopes that with that they can finally start with working on the action

plans:

“So do you think that this is a process that we can actually start after the dinner? Because we

actually have many, many concrete ideas, and you all know what you’re doing.”50

The partnership proponent also enlarges upon that:

“We have people represent partnerships at the table! [Group, convener: Yes, exactly!]”51

“Exactly!

So put them forward and then hear what people around the table can add to that!”52

The convener assumes that this will solve the problem of the common framework:

“Well, I think, everything that’s been here is what people are doing (...). So I think once we start

actually just putting all these existing initiatives on the table, the structure will fall into place,

anyway.”53

Nevertheless there is a reluctance to put their initiatives on the table. For many participants

the common framework is still missing. The next speaker starts by briefly mentioning an

initiative54

but then praises the advantages of a clear mission statement which could be used

to map out how each of the participants contribute to the whole picture and how to identify

and fill the remaining gaps:

“I mean my understanding, it’s excellent (if) we have a clear mission statement, water, sanitation,

… as group on the table we’re having some partnerships or we have partnership programs that are

delivering or will deliver (water services to the poor) whatever. If I look at this paper, … in a sense

that is a kind of roadmap for water for the poor, sanitation for the poor, there’s a way to get there,

and I guess each of us contributes or is a part of that jigsaw (...) is having the roadmap stretched

out who sits on what parts and (...) question filling the gaps (...) to build partnerships, maybe

between us or maybe bringing in other people from outside in (...).”55

47

Apr 02 MSO-1 1829-35 48

Apr 02 NGO-11 1838-42 49

Apr 02 NGO-11 1843-44 50


Apr 02 IGO-1 1852-55 52



Apr 02 Business-5 1903-05 55



290

Obviously the participants are still striving for an expression of how they construct their

togetherness. One participant has drawn a sketch on the whiteboard as a metaphor, a fish

filled with arrows, and explains:

“You’ve seen that advert, this international advert, it’s basically getting all the arrows, be they big

or small, to be going in the same direction, and it’s about setting the same direction for everybody

getting … It’s like everyone is singing from the same (sing) sheet, even if you got a high voice or

low voice or whatever.”56

One participant suggests that the reason why people are holding back their initiatives lies in

the absence of a mission statement. Using his initiatives as an example, he explains that

only a mission statement enables the participants to decide which of their existing initiatives

would fit in the IC process:

“It seems to me that you really need to think about first what you’re trying to do, this is the mission

statement, what are you really trying to do, I mean, who are you really trying to attract? I mean,

everybody, or just some people, or people working in your area, or your government, or some (...)

this is important. If you say partnership, you know, we have partnerships in Bangladesh that you

don’t want to hear about [some laughing]. We have partnerships in Nepal, in Vietnam, in

Cambodia, all, and is that attractive to people we’re trying to attract? If it is, then how do you

structure, I mean this will be key.”57

The restructuring suggestion which was submitted by a participant beforehand was taken

up. The convener reminds the group of the existing structure inherent in the Issue Paper,

trying to avoid redundant work (or questioning the necessity of reworking the structure?).

The coordinator suggests reviewing the restructuring suggestions quickly as she still hopes

to get the existing initiatives discussed:

“Maybe we quickly go through these things to see if that is a structure that can be accepted by the

group and then move forward.”58

“Shall we keep a few minutes to take a look at it and just see, if

we feel comfortable and if that’s a workable way of going ahead. And within these trying to identify

your existing initiatives.”59

Instead the group starts elaborating thoroughly their common framework, taking the

restructuring suggestion as a base. What they work out is that their structure enables them to

map out the partnership initiatives. This would result in their group becoming a consultative

council.

“if we look at those headers, what we are in a position to do is map out the partnerships that

address, you could turn them from issues into questions. Or areas of concern and concentration.

And that might lead us into a way where we could quickly map out who’s working where in these,

and if, we do not say that they are issues, but they are targets. [Yeah] And say who is dealing with

these. And in almost all of them somebody is dealing with. … we’ve got a process, by which we’re

gonna try to get (...) fit, now for example, when you look at this issue integrated approaches to

water management, global water partnership has a role there. … then we’ve got, then we’ve got a

56

Apr 02 Public-Water-1 1930-43 57

Apr 02 NGO-11 1946-56 58




291

consultative council! […do you want a set of guidelines for partnerships?60

] No, no, we just want to

figure out who is dealing with what.”61

The speaker obtains consent from the group and explains further how the possibility of

mapping out serves to identify gaps.62

The group came to the agreement that they will take partnerships as their approach and

methodology:

“to achieve the goal this methodology, the partnership of partnerships or partnership approach, is

the approach that we are trying to go ahead. … it becomes a cross-cutting tool for all the things

[consent].”63

The next speaker added taking ‘integrated water resource management’ as an overarching

principle which should be operationalised by the partnership approach.64

Now the participant who came up with the restructuring suggestion proposes a pragmatic

approach to keep the mission statement short to avoid “getting hung up” in “diplomatic

blabla”:

“I think what we should do is to use the Bonn stuff and amplify. And put this as a chapeau. We’ve

got this broad agreement that this is what poverty reduction is about and how water in a very broad

context is positioned. [yeah] Then you could add (...) stuff in, as one might choose, but the issue is,

that, if we get hung up in those, then we’re not gonna do anything interesting. All we do is talk

about you know diplomatic blabla. Which, you know, (which is all) written in or negotiated and

that’s not gonna get us forward. Basically we need that as a point of departure to keep certain

people happy.”65

After the framework as it is about to emerge is further refined by another participant66

, the

coordinator pushes for a coming to terms with the action plans:

“Maybe we should have sort of a last round on this subject. And then I suggest, we will try together,

we will try to redraft that, and fit that into the action plans that we also (need) to talk about.”67

The participant who proposed the structure and urged the abandonment of the issue-driven

process objects strongly, as he for some reason also sees the action plans as belonging to

this issue-driven approach, which he thinks is causing the fundamental problems with which

the group is struggling:

“But I think the issue was, we’re trying to move from action plans to partnerships. And this is a

really important issue. ‘Cos what happens is, is that we say, o.k., we got to use partnerships, (...)

60

Apr 02 Public-Water-1 2394 61

Apr 02 IGO-1 2362-90 62

Apr 02 IGO-1 2406-13 63

Apr 02 MSO-1 2533-40 64

“I think that partnerships is an approach. To implement and operationalise what we want to do. I still think that the

overarching principle that we must follow in order to achieve our (...) integrated water resource management. And then

how to operationalise integrated water management … (we would take the) partnership approach [consent]. That’s

how we’re gonna do it. So, you have an organizing principle … and then, you have an approach to take.”(Apr 02 MSO-

4 2573-84) 65

Apr 02 IGO-1 2715-24 66

Apr 02 Business-3 2727-77 67



292

action plans, like this, this is, (...) we had a fundamental problem. The, the action plan framework is

what seems to be where we’re not going and the partnership thing seems to give us a way forward!

And, and so getting into the action plan proposals is not critical if we say we want to deal with

partnerships and we want to get the partnerships structured. I mean, I don’t quite know, but these

aren’t the same things!”68

The convener however equates the partnerships with the action plans:

“You know, stakeholder partnerships, you know, that’s what you’re doing. You’re proposing the

things you’re working on to the group, to get the partnerships on board.”69

The participant insists urgently on this difference which he introduced:

“there’s a very fundamental difference! One is, assembling an action plan which implies

agreement. The other is assembling partnerships which is a marketplace of ideas. These are really

really different things, they’re not the same at all! (...) in the marketplace of ideas things, you could

do (...) real fast, the other one is a nightmare to do. And they’re very different. That’s why I’m, I’m

being difficult at the moment [very short laugh].”70

The participants who had previously proposed ‘integrated water resource management’ as

an overarching principle invoke it again and offer it as solution to the problem.71

I am not

really sure how this very long explanation – given in a strong Indian accent – worked to

solve the issue exactly, but at least some people were nodding and it was answered by a

longer silence. The conveners asked if “we had a nodding”, as

“it would be great if we come out of this meeting with a sense of (how to) proceed. Because we

want to proceed. So are there voices-”72

She is interrupted by a loud laughter: the tension discharges as somebody prepares to speak

who has, unusually, kept silent during the whole meeting so far and who is apparently

known as an opponent of the participant who proposed the partnership approach so ardently.

“I hate to say that … all I can say is once I agree with [IGO-1] [loud laughter, clapping “What

happened, what happened! And this is on tape!!!”73

] I agree with [IGO-1] because he is not talking

policy he’s talking [sense] [loud laughter] an idea probably [even louder laughter] that the ability

to bring such a diverse group together without (...), without (...) focusing on fundamental

differences … we can’t have a master plan to solve (...) water. I mean that’s just (too) ambitious.

But this concept of providing an arena where we can each bring our own strengths to bear

[several: mmm]. And then maybe if we could put them under a framework that is sort of (...)

68

Apr 02 IGO-1 2786-96 69


Apr 02 IGO-1 2810-24 71

“… integrated water management can really help us to reach that goal. … [IGO-1 mmm]. And if you can sell that

package properly, I think we can do both in one stroke… if you accept the overriding principle (...) at the outset it

facilitates many things. … Because unless you do that you cannot [yeah] adjust all of the problems that you’re talking

about. (...) lip service (...) partly there, partly there, partly there. That’s why it’s not going. I’m saying that putting

upfront (...) that is the approach we are taking. And if you take that approach, then thing fall into place (...) because the

principle that we are saying allows for it. It facilitates it. And partnership is a means [yes]” (Apr 02 2827-98) 72

Apr 02 IAG-coordinator, Convener 2902-16 73



293

commonly agreed that would be fine to various panels (...) But I think it’s really important that we

allow to bring our own strengths and to bear. And to recognise the differences.”74

After even this participant expresses full agreement, the group is ready to put the framework

together.

Figure 4 – Framework developed by the group

Proudly they summarize their framework:

“the approach we are taking to solve this problem is the partnership. And the way we are gonna do,

the process and the principle is the integrated water management approach. And then you have

several issues which you want to touch via partnership.”75

“How partnerships deal with these issues.”76

“But what (we/you) are looking at is how you want to strengthen these partnerships. … So, you may

come up with your own suggestions and then we share it together, that’s when we do the matching

exercise.”77

74

Apr 02 Unions-1 2923-51 75



Apr 02 Women-1 3488-93


294

Surprisingly, even though they had expended so much time and energy to push for a

common framework, the IC outcome report did not comprise a joint vision and mission for

the Issue Strand Freshwater78

. Just a brief anchorage in the relevant international

agreements was prepended:

“The process built on the networks and agreed priorities that have come out of the Second World

Water Forum (The Hague, 2000) and the International Conference on Freshwater (Bonn,

December 2001).”

So the jointly developed framework served as a transient basis, it enabled the participants to

select and suggest the initiatives that they consider as eligible for the process. Later on they

did not refer to the framework anymore.

6.1.1.4 Action Plan “Multi-Stakeholder Review”

The overall purpose of the conference was the implementation of international agreements

through stakeholder action. This action plan group “multi-stakeholder review of global

water and sanitation supply strategies” was a little different as its aim was not directly to

implement but to review and examine strategies of implementation. How can water and

sanitation services be expanded and improved to serve the unserved? The question of how

to integrate diversity while narrowing complexity down or the task of dealing with the

dilemma of convergence and divergence was an issue with which the participants had to

deal during the whole conference. It came into play mainly around the issues of how

concretely the issue needs to be defined and how the case studies are assembled. The

process has been described in detail in chapter 5.

6.1.2 Significance of common ground

This section examines how the common ground in the sense of a joint vision, mission and

framework or structure is used to achieve the narrowing-down from diversity to specific

action plans. The set-up as it was planned provided for reflecting diversity by a broad

scoping exercise, striving to include missing potential focus areas or gaps. This breadth

should be covered and reflected in the issue paper and in the compilation of the action plans.

This did not come about smoothly: when the process should have entered the developing-

action-plans phase, participants complained that the conveners were leaping ahead and

becoming too detailed too quickly and that their common ground had not been sufficiently

developed. The importance of an elaborated common ground was the subject of long

discussions. Different views competed about whether there is a need for a broad common

78

The other issue strands did not have one either.


295

ground in the sense of an elaborate common vision, mission and structure or whether this

can be limited to a minimum.

Generally the significance of a common ground was said to be higher for an issue-driven

approach than for a partnership approach. However, for the partnership approach a

minimum of common ground in form of a brief but clear mission statement and structure

was also seen as necessary. This also applied to the methodology:

“I mean we don’t have to go for consensus on everything. But on what needs to happen between

now and then and what should happen there (...) we need to have consensus.”79

Some participants advocating the partnership approach still urged a more elaborate common

framework where the partnerships can be embedded, hence, the partnership approach was

not necessarily connected to an utmost minimalist approach.

Different logics can be identified regarding the sequential relationship and the priority of

common ground and the different action plans.

• The first logic is that the group should develop its shared vision, joint picture or

common framework first and then start developing the action plans. Without

having clarity about their mission and a basic structure (what are you trying to do,

who are you trying to attract, how do you structure), many participants hold back

suggestions as they do not know which of their initiatives would fit with the

process.

• The contrasting logic is that the development of action plans has priority from a

certain stage in the process and that the structure will fall into place anyway as

soon as people put their initiatives on the table.

• The compromise course of action is that both activities (developing a common

framework and action plans) should at least be pursued in parallel.

Furthermore, different logics could be identified for how the common ground is used to

develop the concrete action plans.

• The common ground as reflected in the issue paper process is used as a “scoping

exercise” to find out the focus areas and key themes. The action plans should then

(in their sum) encompass or reflect these main themes.

• The common framework serves as a set of criteria which should be fulfilled by

every action plan at the IC:

“So we came up with these which are four, water, energy, food security and health, and

people said but hhmm, any partnership initiative, any action plan that you’re looking at

79



296

should be analysed vis-à-vis, does it contribute to poverty eradication, does it contribute

to good governance, does it contribute to gender equity.”80

• The common framework serves as a process or mechanism to map out existing

partnerships and to identify gaps where partnerships would be needed. The

participants are selecting themes that structure their ideas, and within these themes

they try to identify the partnership initiatives and to figure out who is dealing with

what. It helps them also to identify thematic gaps within an initiative which can

then be complemented with another initiative. The jigsaw metaphor and the

roadmap metaphor serve to map out “who sits on what parts” and to identify

missing parts:

“in a sense that is a kind of roadmap for water for the poor, sanitation for the poor,

there’s a way to get there, and I guess each of us contributes or is a part of that jigsaw

(...) is having the roadmap stretched out who sits on what parts and (...) question filling

the gaps (...) to build partnerships, maybe between us or maybe bringing in other people

from outside in (...).”81

“it maybe, in what you’re doing you might find that the gap is really at the governance

level. So, you may come up with your own suggestions and then we share it together,

that’s when we do the matching exercise.”

Here they do not strive for complete fulfilment (unlike the use of a framework as set of

criteria).

• The common framework has a more or less transient function. The framework

developed by the group had a transient function, as it was not mentioned in the

outcome document. Only the cross-cutting issues from the initial outline were

mentioned in the outcome document.

The next citation illustrates how the need for a joint and clear structure is substantiated. The

citation comes from the participant who made the biggest restructuring effort, showing the

tensions within the task of narrowing down the diversity and complexity inherent in the

multi-stakeholder discussions in this process and previous processes.

“we’ve got to have some themes that structure things hh, because what we’re seeing is it was

getting very diffuse. I tried to get it down to five themes (...) really in quite work, it was just getting

too forced. So basically thinking of what you know we said in The Hague, what we said in Bonn,

actually was said yesterday at hh the OECD, and what we discussed, I put in into ten themes,

basically to complement each other.”82

He substantiates his suggestion by finding the balance between too many themes which

made it very diffuse and too few themes which would make it too forced.

80


Apr 02 Business-5 1912-21 82

Apr 02 IGO-1 2101-08


297

His structure should serve not only to map out partnerships but also to ensure continuity

despite the uneven attendance of participants which enhances diversity even more.

“this was just basically to have a structured record of what we’re talking about as a background

document to facilitate the discussion because in this group we’ve had some continuity, some of us

have been to most meetings, and then there are other people that very constructively come in and

out. So it’s just to have a structured snapshot of discussions.”83

Even though it took a large amount of time to elaborate on the joint framework, it is to serve

as a common ground which is as minimalist as possible to be marked off from the issue-

driven approach. This is also expressed in the way it is used in the further process. The

participants are to explain what their partnerships are about according to the framework,

“but not in a lengthy way, just highlight”84

, they are to “fill in this framework in bullet

points as briefly as possible”85

. Looked at retrospectively, the framework was only of

significance in its transient function, as it didn’t find its way into the action plan agendas or

the final report.

For the multi-stakeholder review, two pairs of countervailing logics regarding

convergence and divergence could be identified. The first one related to the question of how

vaguely or specifically the issue needs to be defined:

• The definition of the common issue (which should define the common ground)

needs to be defined more specifically and clearly before further efforts (like

appointing an integrative champion) are made to draw the diverse stakeholders

together.

“I think the work so far very quickly needs to be produced in a communicable form. Not

just for us who are involved and need to get buy-in from our organizations, but also for

other people around to understand and to increase (…) the process, it is important to be

clearly and simply described.”86

“But the one area that I still feel that’s slightly (…) and if we can approach at some time

Klaus Töpfer, we need to be able to articulate very succinctly what we are wanting the

group to do. And I think we haven’t done that [facilitator: no] (…) that (looks like a) nice

collection of ideas, but we got to find a way of putting that together (…) And it wouldn’t

be a bad idea if we spend the ten minutes or so sharpening that.”87

“I mean if we could get it down to three bullet points. Initially a, b and c. When we

approach someone like Töpfer that he sees, that he knows what he is letting himself in

for.”88

83

Apr 02 IGO-1 2152-57 84



IC2 Business-1 0698-0701 87




298

“So this is what we’ve gone through yesterday, when we asked … write on a post-it what

you thought should be in the scope of the review. And I agree, if we get this right, that’s a

big step forward. I also agree that we kind of wordsmith a scope statement would be

another couple of days.”89

• The common issue needs to be kept vague until all the diverse stakeholders come

together to jointly define it in more specific terms. This means that first, a process

needs to be set up for involving the whole range of stakeholders before defining the

issue and the champion.

“Isn’t the point in establishing first, setting up the process, and then looking at what the

review outcomes could be? It’s almost the scoping of the exercise from here on rather then

of the review.”90

“So your suggestion with the scope would be in terms of how do we take that review

forward as opposed to what is the review to (cover)?”91

The previous speaker suggests a kind of compromise:

“Or we could put a broad scope within one of the bullets which reflects the Bonn outcome.”92

“Another point, you mean, the first part of the process would be a full stakeholder (meeting) … (to

ensure) legitimacy”93

…

“Another step would be getting agreement on who that champion should be. … before

(approaching) Töpfer.”94

The facilitator fears that the lack of a more specific issue definition will cause irritation in

the plenary:

“my sense of where that might that go in a plenary session is that they will ask that question, well,

what’s the review (now covering).”95

Furthermore, how participants assessed the degree of vagueness or specificity varied a lot

among the participants and across the time.

“I think what we need to do is to crack on and see if we find at least some common ground of what

we think a review should cover or should look at, working (under) the assumption that we all think

there should be a review of some kind … We were fairly close to it last night. Just that we kind of

ran out of time.”96

“seems to be quite a lot of common ground, actually.”97

89

IC3 Facilitator (subsequent turn) 0527-30 90


IC3 Facilitator 0650-51 (subsequent turn) 92

IC3 Public-Water-2 0654 (subsequent turn) 93

IC3 Professional-Association-1 0657 (subsequent turn) 94

IC3 Public-Water-2 0664 95



IC2 NGO-1 0155


299

“We actually were quite close last night. … I’m not suggesting at this stage that we try and

wordsmith a scope statement in terms of what should be included and excluded, because that would

just take so long. (If we would say these are) general guiding principles would we be able to move

forward in saying, well, if that’s the kind of scope we’ve got. And you know, it’s fairly big still I

think. Would we then be able to identify milestones to move a review of this kind forward?”98

“spend some time yesterday asking each of you individually what you thought the scope of the

review would cover, which kind of did help to narrow it down a little bit, but I still think, and as you

already identified yesterday when we were doing the actions, that there needs to be some more

work on that in terms of creating a proper scope statement and really squaring it off so that it is

clearly understood.”99

The second pair of countervailing logics relates to the question of how the issue definition

and the assemblage of the case studies are connected:

• The diverse stakeholders are to present their examples and case studies that they

regard as positive examples, and from which then the common issues or lessons are

to be drawn.

“we ask each of the different areas, sectors (public, private what are) their best examples

how they … water and sanitation strategies. We try and draw some common lessons out of

these good examples.”100

• The common issue is to be defined first in order to find the suitable examples and

case studies.

6.1.3 Dealing with controversies

Given that the multi-stakeholder process is initiated to put some movement into a context

situation gridlocked in conflict and to bring together participants from very diverse sectors,

it is surprising that, in the outline for the process, controversies (or tackling controversies)

seem hardly to exist. The outline touches only lightly on controversies and divergence by

“outlining the problem area” or “identifying differences”101

, or inexplicitly in the “from …

to …” list, like “from fighting each other to seeking solutions together”, or “from argument

to consensus”102

. The from-to-style suggests leaving controversies behind as to be made

history. Apart from that, controversies are absent in the initial outline.

At the teleconference in March it seemed that the conveners were trying to make provision

against too harmonious a process in which conflicts would be hidden. In the introduction

round, the convener asked participants not to hold back potentially conflictive concerns: She

98

IC2 Facilitator (subsequent to NGO-1) 0158-65 99






300

explained that within the IC process they are “not aiming for consensus” and that

“participants should voice their priorities & comments”.103

Despite this call of the

convener, the teleconference was very harmonious. If some controversial issues emerged,

participants tended to shift the focus or express priorities, rather than openly contest

something. Two exceptions arose where participants explicitly asked that suggestions made

by other participants to be abandoned.104

Again, at the next meeting the conveners asked the participants to tackle differences. When

the issue of the power gap emerged, she asked the group: ‘somebody else concerned about

the power gap, resource gap? Deal with it, put it on the table! Every voice counts the same

around this table. Make your voices heard.’105

Later in the meeting, a participant remarked

that discussions get entrenched by focusing on conflicts in the past, whereupon the convener

asked more generally if there is an “idea of what we do with differences?” Several

strategies were suggested. A union member recommended resolving them. The convener

evoked that the group should be “keeping in mind we don’t need to resolve all the

differences.” Another participant suggested looking “at the emerging issues” and “not

looking mainly at the past” and explained that this is where creativity is most likely to

unfold.106

As in the approach suggested in the initial outline (“identifying common ground and

differences”), the facilitator asked the group ‘what’s the common ground, what are the

differences?’107

Since the differences scarcely arise, it is also difficult to identify common

ground. The convener reinforces what she said previously: ‘just to clarify: the IAG needs

not to achieve consensus on everything’.108

Instead of focusing on the differences, instead the participants put to the fore how well they

get along with each other despite their diverse stakes:

“I think one of the most powerful things about this group, potentially, is that we are sort of the non-

government types and I’m quite impressed at how we have been able to hang together, despite some

significant differences!”109

As described above in the section ‘Constructing the issue’ (5.1), the definition of the focus

of the review was very controversial. To substantiate the alternative foci, two contrary

approaches, the tackling-controversy approach and the starting-from-agreement approach,

103

Minutes TelConf Mar 02, IAG-coordinator p. 4 104

divisive term needs to be dropped; capacity-building and governance should (not) be merged, TelConf Mar 02 p. 11,

13 105

Notes 26th

Mar 02 106

Notes 26th

Mar 02; as ‘emerging issue’ ‘corruption’ is given as an example. 107

Notes 26th

Mar 02 108

Notes 26th

Mar 02 109

Apr 02 Business-2 or NGO-11 0216-19


301

were used respectively. Two approaches were suggested: scrutinising the most controversial

supply strategy so far (private sector participation in water services) or identifying good

practices across the sectors. The call to “carve out a smaller area where the group could

have a dialogue”110

stood in opposition to the call to specifically raise privatisation

“because it is so controversial, because there are opposite (camps) that we need to

clear”111

.

6.1.3.1 Technical approach

With the technical approach a neutral stance is taken towards controversy and agreement.

“analysing and synthesising position papers, identifying common ground and differences”112

“Stakeholder groups producing position papers, covering: problems identified; possible solutions;

possible partnerships. These will be based on consultations within stakeholders’ constituencies. …

Consultations about analyses and syntheses as well as suggested outcomes within stakeholder

groups.”113

Controversies are managed in a rather technical sense by analysing and identifying and

synthesising areas of agreement and difference, based on meeting notes, position papers or

more informal submissions. The results of this exercise are being referred back to and

refined with the participants. Part of the conference material for the final IC was planned to

be the “synthesis of stakeholder positions, identifying differences and common ground”114

.

This was the plan in the outline. The actual process was less formalised and more action-

oriented. There were no formal position papers fed into the process by the participants.

Having been criticised for leaping ahead too quickly and not as the participants wished it,

the conveners asked for input from the participants. This technical mode was then applied:

the participants were asked to systematically search for “Alternative/additional Activities to

achieve the existing Action Plans, Alternative/additional Organisations,

Alternative/additional Sources of funding”115

, and the coordinator’s task was then to review

all the submissions of IAG members, to identify common ground, differences and any

emerging themes and to then circulate the results.116

Within this approach, diversity is conceived as ‘technically’ manageable. Change is

achieved by discovering and emphasising previously unnoticed commonalities, not through

a real alteration of positions.

110


May 02 Unions-1 0765-66 112



Outline Sep 01, conference material p. 4 115


Mail 26th Mar 02


302

When the areas of agreement and differences are identified, stakeholders can also choose to

proceed with one of the following two approaches.

6.1.3.2 Starting-from-agreement approach

This approach emphasises the importance of agreement and convergence between the

diverse stakeholders. It is considered most useful to set up a collaborative project by taking

agreement as a base, starting from consensus.

Participants are proud to emphasise how cohesive and strong they are as a group: “it was

remarkable how much a consensus we were able to achieve” 117

. This is what distinguishes

the process from how it was in the past and from a blocked intergovernmental process,

where consensus seems to be out of reach.

In the documents, an emphasis on agreement is obvious. With regard to the outline, it is

surprising how harmoniously such a process is depicted: controversies are scarcely an issue.

This is a tendency within the documents during the whole process. Just a small example:

“yesterday’s Freshwater IAG meeting in NY was very exciting in many aspects. The group agreed

to change the planned course of action.”118

This is formulated in very reassuring terms – one could have also said: the group disagreed

with the planned course of action.

The idea is that some agreement is useful to get diverse actors and interests to the same

table, since it is a positive approach and people can join in without compromising their

stake from the start. For highly controversial issues, this approach is considered by some as

especially important: the private sector made its participation in the MSR action plan

contingent on the use of this approach (see above). The condition was to get rid of the

“divisive” term “privatisation” and instead “carve out a smaller area where the group

could have a dialogue”119

. This was reinforced at the IC with reference to the Bonn

conference:

“In the dialogue process one of the most important elements is finding the one two three or x areas

of general agreement. Sort of searching for the core of general agreement amongst the stakeholders

from which we can then build. … And to me I think that was one of the strong points that took place

at the Bonn Conference. … We did reach some general level of agreement. We found that there

were several things that we couldn’t agree on. And it’s extremely helpful to cut out areas where

there is general agreement. And then focus on areas where there is still outstanding disagreement.

And this sharpens the whole debate and dialogue.”120

A little later the speaker describes how much he appreciated this approach of starting from

agreement and, from that base of agreement, moving to the more controversial aspects:

117

Apr 02 Business-2 1038-1039 118

Mail 26th Mar 02 119




303

“at Bonn it sort of started out and sort of all the different groups and stakeholders were coming

from all the different (directions). … And then basically, we sort of began talking more

philosophically about focusing on the goal of water for the poor, we found that everybody was in

favour of delivering water for the poor and basic sanitation. And then we sort of said OK now, why

isn’t it happening, and what could be done to make it happen, and then we began moving towards

sort of the more controversial things. … But I think that was a sort of a discussion process which

was creative rather than destructive.”121

The method considered appropriate within this approach is to conduct case studies with a

focus on good examples. This is seen as bringing about positive energy:

“that’s why I always wanted to start the conversation on the positive side … start with positive

things, of bringing some of the best examples we’ve got from each of the public private community

based, so that we can learn from that together, have a learning exercise, and then we draw some

lessons out of it”122

.

In accordance with this approach, diversity, as long as it is conflictive, is seen as a problem

which is manageable only by focusing on agreement, at least to start with. In order to allow

for change, collaborators need to concentrate on areas of agreement, otherwise the

controversies will block change.

With regard to the connectivity to the official process, the hope is that the areas of

agreement between the diverse stakeholders will be larger than assumed at the first sight,

and that this will enable the stakeholders to implement the international agreements:

“And in essence, if we’re working together, if we’re able to find that common ground, then the hope

is that we would be able to deliver these commitments that our governments have signed up to over

the last ten or twenty years.”123

Furthermore, it enables them to motivate and influence governments to overcome the

gridlocked situation and to reach progress regarding sustainability agreements. At least the

governments cannot use the differences between the stakeholders as an excuse to be

inactive:

“the ability of this group to hang together and represent a broad cross section of non-governmental

groups in effect makes it, you know, we can mobilize that and inform governments of that solidarity,

I think it strengthens our hands in influencing the group. I suspect too often (...), that governments

in effect hear a cacophony of different voices coming from different directions. And they use that as

an excuse to do nothing, or to do less than what we want. So our strength, I think, is in getting a

common agenda and then lobbying that, lobbying our national governments, lobbying whatever

groups we can reach to. And it strengthens our hands.”124

121

IC2 Business-2 0401-26 122



Apr 02 NGO-11 or Business-2 0228-43


304

Furthermore, a consensus-oriented or agreement-based approach can also be used simply for

pragmatic reasons in a process within such a short timeframe, as tackling fundamental

controversies is immensely time-consuming.

From a critical point of view, however, concentrating on areas of agreement without any

interest in tackling controversies and problems can be seen as lacking interest in change.

6.1.3.3 Tackling-controversies approach

On the other hand, there are misgivings that there might be ‘too much’ consensus, and that

the differences and controversies will be kept hidden. On that score the conveners

emphasise several times that within this multi-stakeholder process they are “not aiming for

consensus” (see above). Within this approach controversies are tackled actively with the

aim of jointly illuminating and overcoming or resolving them. For the MSR, this approach

was advocated strongly by the public sector unions. They also made their participation

contingent on its use.

“the issue on the review of privatisation was specifically raising privatisation because it is so

controversial, because there are opposite (camps) that we need to clear.”125

“especially the privatisation is very controversial (...) if we can have a multi-stakeholder process to

review what’s going on then maybe we can get over some (conflicts) and find agreed upon data.”126

“understanding a policy that arguably was most controversial during the conference.”127

Parallel to how the stakeholders relate among each other, a similar approach was also used

by some to define the issues in the sense of identifying and focusing on major barriers and

blockages.128

This also includes a historical and contextual approach to illuminate different

perspectives:

“what has happened in the operating environment of the political, economic, financial structures to

say that that consensus has changed”129

.

Within this approach, diversity is seen as a starting point from which a fruitful process can

emerge. Controversies that are unworked are viewed as blocking change, therefore they

need to be tackled and possibly solved to allow for change.

125

May 02 Unions-1 0764-66 126

May 02 Unions-1 0775-80 127


e.g. TelConf Mar 02, p. 7; IC Business-3 in several instances 129

IC1 NGO-1 1609-1612


305

6.1.3.4 Excluding-sharpened-positions approach

With this approach, one’s own position is presented as moderate, objective, rational,

whereas the contrary position is presented as dogmatic and ideological. One’s own position

is therefore categorized as within a norm of what counts as socially acceptable while the

contrary position is excluded. The advocates of the contrary stance are positioned as

religious dogma devotees or ideologists. This approach was used in the controversy about

the MSR’s focus to discount and degrade the original focus of the review: “the original idea

of private sector involvement exercise was I think flagged up as part of the religious dogma

debate”130

. Accordingly, this was identified as risk jeopardizing the review: “that it gets

hijacked by a dogma caucus from somewhere else”131

.

In a softened version, the other stance is not strongly depreciated by labelling it as

dogmatic. Instead, the other stance is identified as not being at issue, as being merely a “red

herring”, therefore not worthy of discussion.

A refined version of that approach is not only to point to the dogmatism of the contrary

stance, but to inoculate against possible reproaches of dogmatism regarding one’s own

stance. This can be done by referring to dogmatic positions on either side of the controversy

while at the same time distancing one’s own position from its dogmatic extreme. The

refined version was also used in the MSR to answer a critical request, when, at a later point,

a new participant asked why the key term “privatization” is missing132

:

“clearly, the dogma, that only the private sector is the right answer is not correct, and clearly the

dogma that only the public sector is right is probably not correct; ‘correct’ is probably not the right

word, but not appropriate on the whole purpose, as I understand it this review is trying to look at

the full range, and review the full range in an objective way, so when people talk about one thing

compared with another, they are making proper comparisons on the same basis. And therefore

we’re removing if you like a lot of the pollution from the decision-making process due to all sorts of

issues that are getting more and more impassioned at the moment (in the expression) of the

problem.”133

By referring to the two opposing dogmas, he positions his stance as non-dogmatic and

presents the choice of broadening the review’s focus as progress in terms of neutrality and

objectivity, enabling improved decision-making. He presents neutrality, objectivity and

progress as being jeopardized by ‘polluting’ terms like ‘privatization’. This is why this sort

of ‘pollution’, as well as an impassioned style of conversation, needs to be excluded from

the process. Then he discloses his background to the newcomer, distancing himself from the

130

IC1 Business-1 0795-96 131


“I do not see the word of privatization here. Why, it’s becoming a keyword when you are talking about delivery

service capacity by local government side. … I do not see this keyword.” (IC3 NGO-14) 133



306

dogmatic position: “I come from the private sector, I’m a private sector company, but I’m a

representative that doesn’t want to privatize the world.”134

The NGO representative who

brought up the critical request in turn assures him that he does not represent a ‘dogmatic’

view, as “the point that I’m raising is not against private”.135

The excluding-sharpened-positions approach was also used with regard to another action

plan. In commenting on the Action Plan “Water Pricing”136

, which was, like the other IC

action plans, explicitly promoting participatory stakeholder processes, a business

representative made use of this approach in the way he criticised the outline.

The outline of the Action Plan read:

“In order to achieve adequate pricing, the setting of rates should be done through transparent

mechanisms, i.e. participatory processes in communities. … pooling expertise from various

stakeholders; Improve information exchange, networking and knowledge building among

stakeholders and governments working on water pricing.”137

The participant commented in his submission:

“Pricing: How do you get the right price system?

Process needs to be de-politicised

Create a group of technical/academic experts in resource-pricing and management

Turn the pricing question into a technical and bureaucratical decision

Come up with a compromised solution”138

.

The business representative holds out the prospect of an objectively “right” price system

which can be achieved when the process is “de-politicised” (unlike a participatory process).

The people who are eligible to bring about the “right” decision are technical or academic

experts who use a “technical and bureaucratical” approach. He adds a pragmatic touch to

his statement by suggesting a “compromised solution”. He positions himself as somebody

who knows what is right (or wrong), this also becomes apparent in the introductory sentence

of his submission: “We’re moving into the right direction” (with which he probably refers

to issues other than the pricing issue). For somebody who knows what’s right (or who

knows who are the eligible persons to decide what’s right), multi-stakeholder processes

might be unnecessary. Demanding a de-politicisation of the process in effect deprives the

multi-stakeholder approach of its base. The ‘substantive process aim’ of promoting the

multi-stakeholder approach has so far been presented as unanimous, however, this is an

example where it is being jeopardised.

134

IC3 Business-1 0623-0625 135

IC3 NGO-14 0637 136

which was dropped later and therefore did not come onto the IC Agenda 137

Action Plan Mar 02, p. 17 138

Submission Business-2


307

Presumably, stakeholders participating in a multi-stakeholder process are willing to

cooperate with and include each other in the joint process, otherwise they would not

participate in the first place. Hence, the use of the excluding-sharpened-positions approach

should be expected to be low. However, this approach can be used to decide upon inclusion

and exclusion of positions and stakeholders. As it has been described, it can also be used to

account for exclusion when it happens through the use of the ‘power of exit’.

Outside of a multi-stakeholder process, the excluding-sharpened-positions approach is used

much more readily, as there seems to be no need to display mutual appreciation. Within this

multi-stakeholder process, or at least within the data at hand, the approach was only used by

private sector representatives. Outside of the Implementation Conference process, there are

of course also numerous examples of privatisation critics using this approach:

The labour unions, for example, ask provocatively: “Is ideology blocking the pipes?”139

“We help our member unions deal with the ideologically-motivated privatisation and deregulation

agendas that are devastating the world's utilities.”140

“Unlike the World Bank, the European Commission has never admitted that reliance on the private

sector to provide public water services may be unrealistic, unjustifiable and even harmful. This

cannot be due only to the use of advisers with positions in private companies. The European

Commission, it seems, prefers to cling to its ideological belief in markets and the private sector,

rather than acknowledge the evidence that it urgently needs to support public sector development of

water services. Those without clean water find it less easy to escape reality.”141

The last citation reinforces the ideology accusation still further through the comparison with

an actor which is largely regarded as epitomising the privatisation ‘ideology’, the World

Bank, which meanwhile found the way back to ‘reality’.

A review by WaterAid and Tearfund identified that one key reason why the EU Water Fund

initiatives had failed (as “not a single extra person has received safe water or sanitation”)

was “because of an ‘ideological bias to private finance’ seeing the main function of aid as

‘leveraging’ private finance.”142

The excluding-sharpened-positions approach sharply defines the scope of ‘acceptable’

diversity, excluding inconvenient positions. One’s own stake is hierarchically superior to

the other stake. The “right” approach to change (or to block change) is claimed to belong to

one’s own stake.

139

www.world-psi.org/TemplateEn.cfm?Section=Water&Template=/TaggedPag

TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=32&ContentID=2516; accessed 15th

July 2007 140

www.world-psi.org/TemplateEn.cfm?Section=Utilities&Template=/TaggedPage/

TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=30&ContentID=2355, accessed 15th

June 2007 141

http://euobserver.com/875/23785 (www.world-psi.org) 142

“An empty glass: The EU Water Initiative’s contribution to the water and sanitation millennium targets” Discussion

Paper; A WaterAid and Tearfund Report, December 2006, p. 3 www.wateraid.org/documents/euwi.pdf, accessed 15th

June 2007


308

Table 4 – Approaches for dealing with controversies

Approach Diversity Change

Technical approach

Analysing, synthesising

commonalities and

differences

Diversity as technically

manageable

No real altering of

positions, but discovering

and emphasising unnoticed

commonalities

Starting-from-agreement

approach

Taking agreement as a

base

Diversity as problem, only

manageable by focusing on

agreement

Controversies as blocking

change, therefore

concentrate on areas of

agreement to allow for

change

Tackling-controversies

approach

Illuminating the

fundamental controversy

Diversity as productive,

possibly also as a problem

to be solved

Unresolved controversies

as blocking change, which

therefore need to be solved

to allow for change

Excluding-sharpened-

positions approach

Presenting oneself as

objective, rational while

presenting others as

religious dogma devotees

or ideologists

Downplaying one’s own

stake while pointing to the

other’s stake

Putting diverse stakes in a

hierarchy …

… in order to hinder

change or to push for

change

The main alternative approaches used were the starting-from-agreement approach and

the tackling-controversies approach. To sum up, the consequences of both on integrating

diversity in order to achieve change are briefly outlined.

Integrating diversity

With their choice of focus, the starting-from-agreement approach and the tackling-

controversies approach both have difficulties in assembling the whole range of stakeholders.

For both, the alternative would be to try with a different individual representative or a

different organisation from the same sector. This was suggested during the IC for the

broadened version, that maybe other union representatives could be engaged to participate

in the review. Later, the water dialogues, which realised the original version of the multi-

stakeholder review as proposed at the Bonn conference, were able to engage other

representatives of the private sector: an association of southern smaller-scale local water

providers143

and a large northern operator144

.

143

Association of Private Water Operators of Uganda, see www.waterdialogues.org 144

Thames Water, belonging to RWE, see www.waterdialogues.org


309

The readiness to participate forms the first step of agreement and integration. The agreement

to examine a controversial issue comprises a higher degree of diversity since they represent

different aspects of the controversy (although probably lacking the hardest adversaries). The

willingness to jointly tackle a controversy speaks for a more open process in terms of

diversity as it takes the diverse and controversial voices as its base. The other approach,

focusing on an area of agreement, lacks adversarial positioned participants. However, it may

include a more diverse range of objects of discussion. The former provides a platform where

private sector activities are subjected to criticism but can also be profiled in a way that

justifies or legitimates them, be it in a more defensive or more offensive manner.

Aiming for change

The controversy-tackling approach aims to examine and hopefully overcome the

controversy in the long run and is change-oriented. They are led by the assumption that the

major dispute in the water sector needs to be settled to make change possible. From this

perspective, parties who oppose the tackling-controversies approach can be accused of not

being interested in change. With the other approach, change can happen by exchanging

examples and experiences and learning from each other. It is more about inspiring than

about critically examining. The proponents of the broadened scope with the focus on

efficiency claim that their approach is the forward-going one, because it is about learning

how to do things well and efficiently. They argue that their approach is much more oriented

towards implementation and change than pillorying a specific sector which is conceived as

counterproductive.

6.1.4 Competing repertoires

Five repertoires were used to deal with the tension of developing focused action plans while

integrating diversity. Each represented a specific way of organising togetherness while

balancing divergence and convergence. Two of them were directly competing and were

heatedly discussed during the transition stage, when the identified priority areas should be

translated into concrete action: the issue-driven and the partnership approach. More

precisely, the process started with a strong tendency towards an issue-driven approach,

however also allowing for a partnership approach. In the beginning there was not such a

clear distinction along the range from position-paper-, issue-driven-, issue-paper-, action-

plan- to a partnership approach. The discussion at the meeting in April then served firstly to

introduce the sharp difference between the two main approaches and secondly to get rid of

the issue-driven approach. The partnership repertoire was then often combined with the

learning-sharing repertoire. The normative-holistic and the passionate-transformative


310

repertoires are intermingled with the repertoires constituting the controversy. However, they

were of greater significance in the beginning and the end of the process (in the outline and

at the final conference). In the following they are distilled and contrastingly described in

detail.

6.1.4.1 Issue-driven repertoire

Within the issue-driven repertoire, diversity is integrated by the method of synthesising and

focusing on common ground while analysing, clarifying and negotiating differences. A

detailed ascertainment of differences and changes over the course of the process is

important. Often the focus is on fundamental differences as these processes often start from

oppositional, confrontational positions. However, with regard to controversies, both

approaches can be used, either they are managed technically or they are tackled actively

(see above).

Significance of common ground. Within the issue-driven approach, the question of how

much common ground is needed for the collaborative process is answered in favour of a

base of agreement which is as broad and solid as possible for identifying focus areas and

formulating a joint vision and mission. The method for building this base is to start from the

different stakeholder positions, and to produce a “synthesis of stakeholder positions” by

“identifying differences and common ground”145

.

How is change achieved? Change can happen through the negotiating positions,

illuminating differences and with that through discovery of unexpected areas of agreement

within the analysing-synthesising exercise and by implementing a collectively developed

program. However, critics doubt that change can be achieved with this approach, as it is

unrealistic and too ambitious and will therefore be limited to diplomatic blabla. The

opponents of this approach do not expect anything interesting or any added value.

Connectivity. In order to carefully anchor the collaboration in the international negotiation

processes, detailed frameworks are derived from the water-related international

agreements146

, which was also suggested for the multi-stakeholder review:

“Why couldn’t a review use the Millennium goals as a framework or reference point along with the

Bonn commitment on sanitation, these would be the goals of a review and help delivery of both”147

.

The issue-driven approach resembles the widely used position paper process in the context,

it is nothing new. The lack of newness is criticised as just another conference or just another

talk-shop. The comparison with the official process also serves to illustrate the efforts

behind a decision made so far and thus reinforce the decision as it was made:

145


Submission NGO-1, full structure 147

Final report “Review of the Scope”; www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/freshwater/f_review.html#scope


311

“this was nearly like a UN negotiation on text [HHHHHH], to come out with a formula where

everybody would feel kind of alright”148

.

6.1.4.2 Partnership repertoire

The partnership repertoire suggests that diversity can be assembled in a neutral

space/platform, where different initiatives can be networked and brokered. The suggestion

is, as the convener sums up the discussion, to bring into this platform “things that you’re

doing anyway and you say … we’re looking for partners … something that’s already out

there … that you would like to see extended”149

. The metaphor of a marketplace is invoked:

“So it becomes the marketplace where we all come with our little baskets. … Putting all

together. And then we go shopping”150

. Another metaphor used is the jigsaw puzzle:

“That’s a kind of a jigsaw puzzle picture”151

as it’s not the same for all of us”152

and they

are “not gonna fill it all”. So there is no claim of completeness.

Differences are recognised and can be juxtaposed, the diverse partners can each bring their

strengths to bear. As a group they would form a consultative council, consortium, clearing

house or simply a water partners meeting. The conveners’ role then is to broker the various

initiatives:

“it’s gonna be up to us to do a lot of brokering on the basis of the information, being you know, this

organisation might be interested in this, contact them and bring them in touch and so on.”153

“then we’re going to be a broker facilitating team.”154

They offer their brokering activities to the group:

“so, if you say, well, we’re doing this and this and that, and I would actually mind to be able to

broaden the impact of what my organization is involved in, because I can ask you guys to try and

bring these and these and these organizations to that same meeting and get me in touch beforehand

so that a partnership that encompasses three organizations at this point will encompass ten. And

then we would feel we would have added value.”155

The togetherness of diversity as a network was also praised in detail in connection with the

WaterDome, a venue where all the major water actors will be during the conference and

with which the group considered linking up:

“this dome really provided a tremendous catalyzing opportunity. Because I think it gives everybody

a chance who engages in water, to come and present themselves in whatever way they like. And

then we started talking to one another, look, here is a tremendous opportunity, that we should, first

of all, capitalize on and demonstrate that the water community has at last put its (act) together.

148

May 02 Convener 0751-0752 149

Apr 02 Convener 3453-3461 150

Apr 02 Women-1 3259-66 151

Apr 02 Convener 3476-77, and others, see above 152

Apr 02 Women-1 3473 and Convener 3476 153





312

They are together, and they, in one week, even though we are individually doing things, but they are

showing it and reflected it in a way, that shows all the linkages. … to bring all these people

together and project water in the future.”156

This venue symbolizes the togetherness of the many different water actors and their

initiatives. The initiatives are all presented standing close to each other, where a

marketplace-like exchange of ideas is made possible. They all have their individual booth

where people can pop in and additionally there are also larger events in plenaries or in the

joint space.

Significance of common ground. A minimum of common ground is required, the emerging

consensus is used to build partnerships not around issues, but around themes, questions,

areas of concern and concentration. Instead of concentrating on finding agreement, they

would rather use subgroups:

“building subgroups. If there are three, four organisations that want to go ahead and do something

then, you know, then this is what they should do. We don’t need 50 people involved in everything,

you know, they will have their own networks, and they should pursue these initiatives. … build

subgroups, and let then develop (...) their ideas.”157

How is change achieved? “We say that the outcomes of the Implementation Conference

Process … are going to be partnerships, extended ones and new ones”158

. Existing and

evolving partnerships are strengthened, enriched, broadened159

and replicated.160

The

networking as such is seen as strengthening, as one participant puts forward when he

proposes his action plan:

“Our concern in, interest in going to Joburg is to create a much broader space for managers of

public water systems to outline and present how they do what they do, what they need from the

(international) community, how they can be strengthened by networking among each other”161

.

There is an exchange within partnerships and between different partnerships to transfer

experience and cross-fertilise ideas in order to inspire and innovate. Good practices and

lessons learnt are shared and gaps can be identified and filled.

“And this can be a wonderful platform of brilliant goals, initiatives, (...) lessons learnt (...) this can

be a platform for a broader network for the future. And then it has a value. Because it brings

everyone together on specific issues.”162

156

Apr 02 MSO-4 1515-33 157



“think how we can broaden them, how we can use the Implementation Conference as a platform to involve more

stakeholders” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 1203-04); “what we’re about is to try and broaden and involve more partners

in existing work” (Apr 02 Convener 1497-98) 160

“the outcomes of the whole exercise by the end of August, would be that we have assembled organizations to commit

to support or strengthen existing partnerships, who are interested in joining in, that means extending in addition, you

know, adding (...) to existing partnerships, that we maybe find some new ones, and that we replicate partnerships.”

(Apr 02 Convener 3609-16) 161

May 02 Unions-1 0207-10 162

Apr 02 MSO-1 1021-27


313

This approach is able to attract possible participants, as it is much more interesting and

people are enthusiastic about it. Thus, also those who are not necessarily part of the circle

can be included.

“what you could do in the run up to Johannesburg is to get (...) all the developing partnerships and

joined initiatives and ideas for implementation is to broker the networking, that you have a virtual

platform (between) now and Johannesburg, many of those (that) are not necessary part of (the)

circle, can find out that X, W and Z have this idea, they’re committed to doing it, and we basically

contribute that to the implementation networking, and others can, you know, say, that’s really

interesting, we want to be a part with.”163

In short, proposing partnerships is as such depicted as new and progressive:

“So, the task would be to propose partnerships which would have been unthinkable in Bonn! This is

progress. [HHHHH]”164

An extended form of networking could also be used to avoid competition between different

actors for the limited resources as they can join together165

:

“So we won’t be (crimping) over each other, we might actually be helping sort of at least as a

clearing house for all these different initiatives. [This is a totally new concept!] … (instead of) all

competing for almost the same bit of space”166

.

When the participants were finishing their joint framework at the meeting in April, they

were discussing how the partnerships deal with the selected content issues. The participants

agreed that “case studies” are used to “depict partnerships” and yield “lessons learnt from

case studies”167

through an “analysis of what (succeeded) or failed in the issues.”168

It was

suggested that “successful activities”169

, “experiences”170

and “what works”171

be looked

at, or that different cases be presented “to get either a case of failure or a case of

success”172

. The case study approach with its assumed learning opportunities was firmly

connected to the partnership repertoire.

In the Implementation Conference executive summary after the conference, the newness of

the partnership approach itself was relativised, however, its generativeness for achieving

“real change” was all the more emphasised:


more effective. Partnerships are not new, but the Earth Summit 2002 process has brought them to

163

Apr 02 NGO-10 0951-60 164

Apr 02 Convener 4081-4082 165

Apr 02 Business-2, NGO-1 talking about how to use partnerships to make joint use of the limited ODA money 166

Apr 02 NGO-1 1385-91, insert: IGO-1 167

Apr 02 Women-1, IGO-1, MSO-4, MSO-1, IAG-coordinator; Report Apr 02, p. 4 168

Apr 02 Women-1 3225-27 169

Apr 02 Unions-1 3184 170

Apr 02 MSO-4/MSO-1 3187 171

Apr 02 IGO-1 3203 172

Apr 02 MSO-4/MSO-1 3198-99


314

the fore. The IC was aiming to contribute to harnessing their energy, creativity and courage, and

thus delivering real change on the ground.”173

Connectivity. A common mission is not only seen as necessary for their joint action, but

also to connect to the official process to ensure legitimacy. The groups decide that for that

purpose a minimalist version is sufficient:

“use the Bonn stuff and amplify. And put this as a chapeau. … Basically we need that as a point of

departure to keep certain people happy.”174

The partnership approach was of special significance facing the deadlocked process in their

context (see above). It was considered as important to use partnerships in order to present

the enormous amount of activity of the stakeholders to the Summit and to form a contrast to

the negotiation approach.

“(how I) could envisage the Implementation Conference, … is if you’re trying to profile basically

partnerships and the commitments that all sorts of stakeholders, particularly the non-governmental

community are putting forward to it, with business, with governments, whatever it may be. … By the

time, we come to Johannesburg, what we’re doing is no longer negotiating, you’re profiling, you’re

presenting it to the summit, because quite frankly, I think, we will actually have far more outcomes

coming out of the non-governmental-slash-partnership dimension and dynamic than the

governments … and therefore, the Implementation Conference is in a way an opportunity to profile

the enormous amount of activity that has been initiated with governments, with business, with

NGOs, but in some ways emanating from NGOs. … the Implementation Conference platform as

way of networking, communicating, brokering contacts, … and then, when we’re there, we all come

together and say, look, we have fifty organizations that have come together behind this initiative,

twenty here, add them all up and suddenly we have a world of action that might even shake

governments to maybe be a little bit more courageous at the summit [consent] Also, yeah, because

they’re gonna be so locked into this terrible (...) [some laughing].”175

It is not only stakeholder partnerships that are presented to governments, governments can

also be included, which turns the pressure of presenting around: the governments are seen as

being pressured to showcase their activities, making their approach even more effective:

“I think one of the advantages of this format we’re looking at is, by looking at partnerships, the

governments are included. Because the existing partnerships, a whole range of existing

partnerships already include governments. And so, so you already have (…) turned the things

around, you put pressure to showcase and (proselytise) about what they’re doing as well, so I think

this is a quick way to bring them inside of the process because they in fact have to authorize an

awful lot of this stuff … And it also would allow us to get the municipal governments and local

governments more involved.”176

For governments this is not just a pressure but also a pleasure:

“So I would think we should be clever to get them to come talk about these partnerships because it

would give them a great ego-boost on one hand, on the hh [directed at the government

representative:] no, just joking (...), but seriously [HHHHHHH]” which is confirmed by the

173

IC Executive Summary, Sep 02, p. 2 174

Apr 02 IGO-1 2715-2724 175

Apr 02 NGO-10 0946-97 176

Apr 02 IGO-1 1997-2010


315

government representative: “As a representative of government saying something you are right,

because [HHH] they are (...) because that’s what is expected of them. It’s expected to have

partnerships with stakeholders. This is a new issue and we all want to be modern and innovative

and (...) I already have a partnership with x, y, z [several: exactly].”177

6.1.4.3 Normative-holistic repertoire

With this repertoire, multi-stakeholder collaboration is conceived as acknowledging each

other’s roles and values within a holistic frame, and as empowering those whose roles and

values are not yet acknowledged. It refers in a normative way to what is expected from

participants, to criteria for the outcomes as well as to principles of the stakeholder

collaboration.

This repertoire is used mainly in the initial outline for the process and during the final

conference. Ownership178

, commitment179

, accountability and responsibility are expected

features of the participating stakeholders, and this is also what should be fostered by the

process outcomes180

:

“Increased commitment of stakeholders towards taking their role in implementing international

and regional sustainable development agreements;”181

“Responsibilities: Stakeholders should play their part in delivering sustainable development.”182

“To facilitate this process, the conference will encourage building trust, networking across sectors

and, in particular, will focus on maximising involvement and participation to develop ownership

and commitment for the conference outcomes. In this spirit the participants will be expected to

arrive with a mandate to collaborate and commit to the potential conference results.”183

The process is based on several “principles of stakeholder collaboration”, like

accountability, equity, good governance, inclusiveness, legitimacy, ownership, participation

and engagement, societal gains, strengthening of institutions, transparency, voices, not

votes.184

According to the holistic vision with values like inclusiveness and participation,

the process is aimed at moving “from Fragmentation to Integration”185

.

Later on during the process, this repertoire was mainly used with respect to the engagement

of the participants, displaying the necessity of commitment.

177


as criterion for the MSR Action Plan Mar, Jul 02, MSR 179


Action Plan Jul 02, MSR: “equal responsibilities and benefits distribution” 181







316

“the outcomes of the whole exercise by the end of August, would be that we have assembled

organizations to commit to support or strengthen existing partnerships… this means that we have to

identify organizations that are ready to enter that and commit to it.”186

Togetherness / integrating diversity. Stakeholders should play their roles and meet their

responsibilities in sustainable development. These roles and responsibilities seem to be

rather fixed. With this repertoire the respective roles and the meaning of sustainable

development seem to be given. That they might be the subject of negotiation is not included

in the repertoire.

Diversity is enacted through the specific roles and responsibilities for each stakeholder

group and integrated in the holistic world view. Diversity is seen as given, as compulsory.

Stakes are acknowledged but combined with responsibility to allow for other stakes, too.

Due to the holistic view the full range of diversity should be integrated.

To take account of the diversity, balanced participation in terms of region, gender and

stakeholder group is sought. Outcomes of the project are in need of “adequate

consideration of cultural context”187

According to the important values of equality and empowerment, the outcomes of the

process should serve to empower people188

, and within the process there is an attempt to

bridge the existing power gaps. The Stakeholder Forum took charge of enabling less well-

resourced organisations to take part in the meetings by recovering the costs with the help

from better-off organisations.189

But the power gap is not bridged by this kind of

redistribution alone. The convener approaches the problem offensively in the meeting in

March: ‘Is somebody else concerned about the power gap or resource gap? Deal with it,

put it on the table! Every voice counts the same around this table. Make your voices

heard.’190

This offer is not taken up by the participants. Instead, in their responses they talk

about absent groups and about the problem of having mainly the ‘elites’ of the stakeholder

groups around the table. They do not talk about the power gaps which might exist among

the people actually sitting there at this meeting.

How is change achieved? The repertoire conceptualises change towards those specific

distribution of roles and responsibilities, as they are not yet taken up and realised. People

should commit to contribute to change towards the roles and responsibilities given in the

picture of sustainable development.

186


As criterion for the MSR; Action Plan Mar, Jul 02, MSR 188

E.g.: equal responsibilities and benefits distribution, Action Plan Jul 02 189

“the aim of achieving equitable representation at the IC will be handled by Stakeholder Forum (SF) – the event is by

invitation; SF is aiming to raise funds for a – limited – budget for getting people to the IC and encourages those you

can afford to contribute to this” (Report Apr 02, p. 3) 190

Notes 26th

Mar 02: Convener


317

Connectivity. Connectivity is enabled by anchoring their undertaking in significant issues of

huge scope which, in a holistic world-view, basically concern everybody. The normative-

holistic repertoire resonates with the tone of the sustainability agreements:

“Critical to the effective implementation of the objectives, policies and mechanisms agreed to by

Governments in … Agenda 21 will be the commitment and genuine involvement of all social

groups.”191

“The primary responsibility for ensuring equitable and sustainable water resources management

rests with governments. It requires the participation of all stakeholders who use or protect water

resources and their ecosystems. … The responsibility to act is ours … we need new coalitions”192

.

The repertoire not only resonates well with what the participants take from the official

process, also with the way in which they could feed back into the official negotiation

process would fit to the normative logic:

“Stakeholders can choose to present Implementation Conference outcomes as part of their

commitments for the future during the Stakeholder Dialogues at the Summit.”193

This repertoire for organising togetherness reflects the holding-to-account-repertoire for

organising the relationship to the context.

6.1.4.4 Passionate-transformative repertoire

This repertoire excels in portraying a strong, energetic, passionate and inspiring move

“towards new horizons”. The vision of the project is formulated in this from-to-style:

“To plant seeds for cultural change – from words to action, from static to dynamic, from

competition to collaboration: stakeholders collaborating – spinning into action – towards new

horizons.”194

Previous negative conditions are transformed into desirable ones almost magically: the

collaboration effort is expected to produce a …

“shift towards the desired stakeholder culture”195

, illustrated as “from negotiation over blockages

to facilitation through challenges, from ‘fighting each other’ to ‘seeking solutions together’, from

‘reactive way of working’ to ‘pro-active way of working’, from ‘stifling creativity’ to ‘encouraging

creativity’; from hierarchy to initiative; from fragmentation to integration; from ‘transactional

clutter’ to ‘strategic clarity’; from ‘deadlock’ to ‘movement’, from competition to collaboration,

from ‘argument’ to ‘consensus’, from words to action, from static to dynamic”196

.

In addition to the shift or movement, this repertoire emphasises inspiration and enthusiasm:

The purpose of the Implementation Conference is

191

Agenda 21 Chapter 23.1 “Strengthening the role of major groups – Preamble” 192

from the outcome documents of the Bonn Freshwater Conference, used as Preamble in the Issue Paper 193


Outline Sep 01, p. 3, 10 195

Outline Sep 01, p.3 196



318

“to inspire stakeholders to create collectively, clear, measurable on-going action to deliver the

Sustainable Development Agreements”197

.

A criterion for choosing the issues is

“a broad-based leadership among stakeholders with an active, enthusiastic ‘core’”198

.

The togetherness of the diverse actors from around the globe is celebrated around the

meetings: the “social function” is considered as vital, and therefore enough “space for

gathering socially” is provided, one of the highlights being a “conference dinner”.199

With

the final conference of more than 400 stakeholders, “we can create a lot of hype …”200

.

As outcomes of the collaboration, “societal gains” in general are expected.201

After the

conference, the event is summed up as follows:

“The IC was aiming to contribute to harnessing their energy, creativity and courage, and thus

delivering real change on the ground.”202

During the process, this repertoire is used to substantiate the selection of participants:

“And we’ve approached THIS group because we knew you might not shoot each other anymore. So

there is a dynamic here, there is positive (...) action-oriented.”203

and the selection of topics:

‘looking at emerging issues, where we have most creativity instead of looking mainly on the

past.’204

And it is used to reframe situations of crisis in order to turn them into something exciting,

celebrating their togetherness:

“yesterday’s Freshwater IAG meeting in NY was very exciting in many aspects. The group agreed

to change the planned course of action.”205

“It seems we have become too detailed too quickly but

what we really want to achieve is a shared vision first!” 206

It is also used to characterise the multi-stakeholder approach as such as enabling

unconventional, freed thinking outside the usual, formal structures: “the ability to think

“outside the box” which is what multi-stakeholder processes should really be about.”207

and to enthuse about what can be made of their multi-stakeholder process: “this can be a

wonderful platform of brilliant goals, initiatives, …”208

or what can be made of connecting

197





“Principles of stakeholder collaboration”, Outline Sep 01, p. 2 202

IC Executive Summary, Sep 02, p. 2 203


Notes 26th Mar 02 205




Apr 02 MSO-1 1021-22


319

with the larger stakeholder community, which renders a “tremendous catalyzing

opportunity”209

.

This repertoire is also used a lot to praise what makes the group so special:

“(Essentially in) the Bonn conference process, when this group (...) got together and we focused on

the issue of water for the poor, it was remarkable how much a consensus we were able to achieve.

We still (niggle) each other [some laughing], we still have slightly higher priorities here and there

[points towards another participant] [HHHHHH, clapping] (...) But you know in fact I think that

has given us a platform, in effect, we’re not really shooting each other like we used to shoot each

other [consent]. … create lots of little partnership initiatives and we all have this common objective

which is water for the poor and begin with to deliver mechanisms, and therefore we have a common

goal, and now we can have a whole raft of initiatives! And new examples of partnerships and we

agree that we are not going to, you know, laugh at each other, you know hh [HHHHHH “so

loud”], so the idea is basically (what you see around this table, is a group of people and group of

organizations that are committed to trying to make some new initiatives that will breathe life into

that new platform (...) created (in) Bonn. And I think that will make the German government feel

happy, that Bonn really did something, right, and provided a platform and another step!”210

“We

all (...) for Bonn and I must say it is not to please [the government representative] [HHHHH] This

was the first conference when as (rightly) said all stakeholders [consent] (...) really came out,

nothing is perfect in the world, but it is a fantastic progress!”211

Describing the group in such gushy words also helps to propitiate with a rather small

common ground:

“this group is a fantastic group, you know we have a fantastic group and within this group we

could try to establish a certain common denomination.”212

The IC event then culminated in a 44 minute drumming session for all the participants, led

by a South African drum group, developing into a magical, timeless moment of

togetherness.

Five years later, when the IC and drumming memories were shared on the net, the

coordinator wrote to the organising team and the numerous voluntary helpers:

“I am still unsure where and when exactly to say NO to a project that is half-funded but double-

fun... but I still do know that all ideas and ideals and strategies and tools are worthless if they are

not coming from the warmth of people and their love for each other and the planet.... I also learned

that from and with you.”213

Togetherness / integrating diversity. Within the passionate-transformative repertoire,

diversity is beauty – diversity is celebrated, enjoyed and melded within a holistic vision.

Contrary to the normative-holistic repertoire, distinct and fixed roles are not of importance.

How is change achieved? Change cannot be achieved through purely technical means and

tools, it is mainly a matter of changing the ‘culture’ of togetherness by inspiration. Negative

209

Apr 02 MSO-4 1518-19 210

Apr 02 Business-2 1036-73 211

Apr 02 Business-2 1076-83 212

Apr 02 MSO-1 0774-77 213

30st Aug 07 mail Convener


320

conditions are almost magically metamorphosed into positive and desirable ones.

Sometimes this is described in the from-to-style, whereby the conditions that should be

achieved are specified, and sometimes they are left open, like reaching ‘new horizons’. This

open understanding goes together with a comprehension of the process as fluent, unfolding.

Connectivity/distinction. This repertoire serves very well to distinguish the group and the

process from the official negotiation context rated as dry and inert. With their approach

passion is opposed to inertia and disconnection in the context. What counts here in contrast

to the UN are “voices, not votes”214

.

6.1.4.5 Learning-sharing repertoire

One of the desired outcomes as depicted in the outline is “shared experience and

expertise”.215

Within this repertoire, collaboration is conceived as sharing experiences and

learning from each other’s expertise, and the process as such is seen as a great learning

experience. Participants prefer to say for example that they would like to “learn

priorities”216

instead of selecting priorities. The togetherness is conceptualised as a mutual

learning opportunity, this is for example a suitable argument for chipping in issues: “All

groups represented within the IC have both something to contribute to this issue as well as

something to take from it.”217

Bringing in case studies is an opportunity for participating

organisations to contribute to the process.218

Regarding the action plans, the suitable

approach is the case study approach: collecting and reviewing good or even best practices to

derive lessons learnt, or to substantiate or replicate them. This concept encompasses as an

aim for example to “promote best solutions / processes”.219

Profiling good practices is

considered an important task for the IC process.220

Togetherness / integrating diversity. The togetherness of the diverse stakeholders is

conceptualised as “learning hub” 221

. The case study approach is also used for narrowing

down the complexity, as it does not bring with it a requirement of completeness but has an

exemplary function.222

214




Submission Youth-1 on the issue of education 218

E.g.: “IAG should give examples of positive case studies in particular action area in order to replicate these. [His

organisation] can provide case studies of LA21 processes from 6.000 communities worldwide.” (Submission Local-

Authorities-1) 219

Action Plan Mar 02, p. 18 220

E.g.: “The Implementation Conference should establish a multi-stakeholder means to review and to comment

[perhaps emphasising where there is good practice] on how commitments agreed at the Summit are being

implemented.” (Submission NGO-1) 221


See for example Apr 02 Public-Water-1 1313-45


321

The developed framework is seen as valuable not just for the IC action plan partnerships,

but also for the participating organisations as they can transfer it to other projects they are

pursuing. The value added is seen in the exchange of best practices:

“you see this becomes a very valuable tool for me to take back to my organization and to various

partnerships, ‘cos (...) it’s always coming up with best practice for us, how do we maximize these

issues [mmm] in the work that we’re doing. So, in other words (...) this becomes a progress tool

[yeah], something very tangible… This would be very valuable to take to the ground.”223

When there was space, the participants already tried to profit from the exchange of

experiences during the preparations:

“you were saying you have some experience in these partnerships can you talk a little bit about

some of your experience on that? Some strengths and weaknesses?”224

Participants are mutually respected and acknowledged for their expertise and experience.

The collaboration process is capitalising on diversity in terms of bringing in the whole range

of expertise and in terms of distributing tasks: each participant is supposed “to choose

specialist area”225

. Diversity is conceived as opportunity and is used for cross-fertilisation.

How is change achieved? By fostering good practices, added value can be generated, by

profiling the process towards its context and also benefiting the participating

organisations.226

Change is promoted towards the identification and application of the “best

possible” strategies.

The collaborators define themselves as moving “from lead by rules to lead by example”227

.

There is the need to deal with issues “in a much more creative way than we have in the

past”228

, and this approach is considered to make that possible.

Connectivity. Connectivity is achieved through the added value the participants can offer by

presenting an array of good or best practices which are replicable and are therefore of use

for the larger stakeholder community and the political decision-makers.

The learning-sharing repertoire is often used in connection with the partnership repertoire.

An important way of exchange is the concept of shared expertise and learning, which is

invoked again and again. There is an exchange within partnerships and between different

partnerships to transfer experience and cross-fertilise ideas in order to inspire and innovate.

Good practices and lessons learnt are shared and gaps can be identified and filled.

223


May 02 Unions-1 0364 225


The latter for example is expressed in the need expressed by an NGO participant: “NGO section: good experiences

and best practices need substantiating” (TelConf Mar 02, minutes, p. 8, NGO-9) 227



Ta

ble

5 –

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ess

rep

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m

inte

rnat

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al a

gre

emen

ts

Desc

rip

tio

n f

ro

m c

ou

nte

r

po

siti

on

:

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ky

fo

r g

ov

ern

men

ts

Pro

fili

ng

par

tner

ship

s (t

he

eno

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us

amo

un

t o

f

acti

vit

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pre

sen

tin

g t

hem

to

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sum

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ver

nm

ents

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incl

ud

ed,

giv

e th

em a

n e

go

-

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ost

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ress

ure

to

sh

ow

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at t

hey

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Ch

apea

u:

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nn

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ff t

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ever

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od

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app

y

(min

imal

ist)

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ve

as

mo

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ex

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also

fo

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e

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tak

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lder

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mu

nit

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ver

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irat

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ects

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spir

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g

the

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to t

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ion

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abil

ity

agre

emen

ts a

re o

f m

ajo

r

sig

nif

ican

ce

Ho

ldin

g-g

ov

ern

men

ts-t

o-

acco

un

t re

per

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e is

imp

ort

ant

to r

emin

d

go

ver

nm

ents

of

thei

r ro

les

and

res

po

nsi

bil

itie

s


324

The action plan “Multi-stakeholder review of water and sanitation supply strategies” in

particular builds on this approach. In order to convene a “thorough review” it is planned to

“assess experience / lessons learnt, based on views of stakeholder groups and different regions,

develop strategies for improvement, recommendations” and “identify opportunities for broadening

the scope and impact of good practices through stakeholder partnerships”.1

This is combined with the recommendation to “identify commonalities and differences”2

Here again, it is the target audience that should learn from the outcomes they are planning to

present as well as the participants of the action plan group:

“Because I think that the collection of this kind of information will enable us … to share between

the different approaches that are undertaken so that others may learn from (them). Many of you

said … (that you) come to learn. You all want to try and find a better way of doing things than we

have in the past.”3

“start with positive things, of bringing some of the best examples we’ve got from each of the public

private community based, so that we can learn from that together, have a learning exercise, and

then we draw some lessons out of it … then going into countries and (exhibit) a road show with

people from those examples.”4

The repertoire was promoted in particular by the director of the convening organisation and

by the professional organisations’ representative.

1 Action Plan Mar 02, p. 13, MSR

2 Action Plan Mar 02, p. 13, MSR




325

6.1.5 Integrating diversity while focusing on action

The challenge is to organise the togetherness of the diverse stakeholders in such a way that

the process is inclusive and remains open while at the same time enabling focused collective

action in a reasonable timeframe. Different ways of organising their collective space came

into play, some were more prevalent during specific stages of the process, partly they were

pursued in parallel, and partly they were competing. It was mainly through countering

specific ways of organising their togetherness that the different approaches were sharpened.

The outline for the project offered the space for several ways of relating among each other.

Albeit with an emphasis on the issue-driven mode, it also envisioned the partnership mode,

both were combined in a rather complementary sense. Through the discussions in a later

stage of the process, they were constructed as oppositional and mutually exclusive. In this

oppositional version, the partnership approach turned out to be much more inclusive as it

assembled diverse positions and initiatives in an and-and-logic, while the issue-driven

approach, by identifying and possibly negotiating and resolving differences, was more

prone to an either-or-logic. Furthermore, the partnership approach can be handled more

flexibly over the course of the process, as new participants can enter at any time without

having missed fundamental either-or-decisions. The partnership mode was also constructed

as being far more action-oriented and concrete.

6.2 Driving the process – organising the convener participants

relationship

The idea of this multi-stakeholder process is that it is a process “driven by stakeholders”1,

which distinguishes it from other processes that are going on in the UN sphere. The process

is initiated by an organisation specialised in multi-stakeholder involvement. They designed

the process to put their previous experience in MSPs into practice, so the question of how

such a project is convened is a big issue. Furthermore, many participants and external

facilitators who were engaged had gained their experiences and expertise in multi-

stakeholder processes, resulting from a participant role or a convener role in similar

processes, and therefore could come up with critical views. The question emerges who is

really driving the process, how leadership becomes enacted: is it a stakeholder driven

process or is it rather the convening organisation’s project? Who is taking the lead? It is

studied how the participants take and give agency for driving the project.

1 Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0040


326

The conveners compare the situation with an alternation of ‘push and pull’ or with being

thrown “back and forth” in the sense that sometimes the participants want a strong lead,

and then again they don’t.2 At times, participants want the convening organisation to take a

strong lead, at others they want to take over the steering role themselves again. The

conveners have a strong lead insofar as they developed the set-up of the whole project, as

they are experts in the field of MSP design, and as they form the communication hub of the

stakeholder network with all the updating activities. For the conveners, it is their main

project; they are working for it virtually day and night. For the participants, it is one project

among others, often not the one with the highest priority.

In addition to what happens during the meetings, the way that the stakeholder-driven

process is accomplished is also reflected in the issue paper and the action plans which form

the core documents of the process. They are emphasised to be written by the stakeholder

group, but the templates and the editing is done by the conveners3. Both kinds of documents

are subject to discussion and criticism by the group.

Several key tensions could be identified which are subject to leadership activities. Within

the process the task of integrating diversity had to be managed while focusing on concrete

outcomes in order to make a difference for implementation, which means that divergence

and convergence need to be balanced. For that, a bottom-up process is strived for, in the

sense that it is a process driven by the participating stakeholders rather than the conveners,

and in the sense that it is a process which is co-created by stakeholders “from the ground”

or “grassroots”, instead of being dominated by the more powerful stakeholders. This means

that an inclusive and balanced participation needs to be ensured. This topic has already

been investigated in the section ‘Promoting multi-stakeholder processes’ (5.1.2).

Furthermore, flexibility and continuity need to be balanced in order to cope with the ever-

changing composition of participants and the turbulences in the context. In more general

terms, a balance between openness and closure needs to be maintained. Openness and

closure may relate to divergence and convergence, to inclusiveness and concreteness, to

breadth and focus, to flexibility and continuity, as well as to ambiguity and clarity.

Within this section, the emphasis is on the relations between participants and conveners, or

more precisely on the distribution of leadership and ownership among participants and

conveners while they are dealing with the tensions just mentioned. From a convening

perspective, a supportive leadership mode and a restrictive leadership mode are

distinguished.

2 in our talk after the 26

th Mar 02 meeting, see also Apr 02 Convener 1761

3 In the following, sometimes I refer to the conveners and sometimes the coordinator. Convener is the more

comprehensive term, I use it for everybody from the convening organisation, including the coordinator. The

coordinator’s responsibility is limited to the water group. Mostly, convener refers to the main convener.


327

6.2.1 Participant-driven mode / supportive-leadership repertoire

Within this mode and repertoire, the process is depicted as driven mainly by the

participating stakeholders. They are the real experts, and to unfold their expertise they are

being offered a space and support to come together.

Typical tasks/activities of the stakeholders within the participant driven repertoire

The stakeholders collaborate on the design and development of the process. They determine

the content by for example producing and discussing position papers and developing

conference outcomes, hence, they take up a ‘content lead’.4 They identify priority areas,

they develop partnerships and make suggestions for possible joint action.5 The participants

review, revise (or reject) the process and the documents produced so far6, make suggestions

concerning the process7 and decide upon the future course of the process

8. They offer a

venue for the final conference and offer to give financial support.9 The participants establish

links to existing multi-stakeholder processes, suggest further participants10

and construct the

links to the official process.

Typical tasks/activities of the conveners within the participant-driven repertoire

The conveners facilitate the process in a service mode. They enable the participants to come

together by networking, providing meeting space and infrastructure, and support the

formation of stakeholder partnerships and action plans through brokering activities11

(“it’s

gonna be up to us to do a lot of brokering on the basis of the information, being you know,

this organisation might be interested in this, contact them and bring them in touch and so

on”12

). The conveners collect suggestions, summarise and report what has been going in the

meetings, incorporate the results of the meeting discussions and participants’ input in the

documents, and produce analyses and synthesis of inputs by order of the guiding

stakeholder group. They provide the necessary supporting material13

, give updates and


5 TelConf Mar 02, minutes p. 8

6 E.g. Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 2057-63

7 Internal Agenda 26

th Mar 02

8 “If any [focus areas] identified – Decide upon future course – Ask group what we should do to take these additional

Focus Areas forward” (Internal Agenda Mar 02) 9 Apr 02 Public-Water-1 0420-21; NGO-10 0433-50

10 “you are the ones suggesting me [possible] the participants for the conference” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0141-43)

11 E.g. Minutes 15

th Mar 02, p. 7; see also 8, 13

12 Apr 02 Convener 0840-43

13 Conference package providing the necessary supporting material, including synthesis of stakeholder positions and

“possible partnerships and … action plans, identified by stakeholder groups” (Outline Sep 01, p. 4)


328

information about the process so far and about what is going on in the official process and

remind the group of what had been previously decided and of the next steps.14

The conveners are constantly checking back with the stakeholders about the process and ask

for example “will the existing process enable us to achieve our aim?” 15

Expertise

This repertoire emphasises the expertise of the stakeholders. The aim of bringing together

the diversity of stakeholders is to pool and exchange their expertise and experience. Often

the conveners would say “those are the experts”16

.

“I mean that’s why we invited you, because (...) that you’ve got an overview over the area that

you’re working in. So that’s why this is an advisory group.”17

“this group is advising which caucus areas to develop further to action plans that stake-holders

might want to agree to and to advise on who that might be, so that we can start … with

approaching that organisations that you advise us to approach.”18

“So I mean that’s, that’s exactly your expertise, that we need, and contacts, and, you know, advise,

who to contact to involve. If there’s a program idea that you’ve been pursuing.”19

The expertise of the organisation is used to position the participants as professionals

regarding the service they offer for bringing together the stakeholders in infrastructure and

process matters:

“The conference will benefit from a team of professional facilitators for all sessions. Support

systems such as translation, meeting spaces for smaller and larger groups, office space,

IT/communications support, etc. will be available.”20

The quality of service is appreciated by a participant in her submission:

“I would like to thank you … for the quality of the documentation you assembled together after

meetings and phone calls on water issues.”21

Facilitation

Within this mode, facilitation is oriented towards support and towards providing and

opening a space. The facilitation infrastructure provided at the IC is seen as a resource.

14

See for example Mail 26th Mar 02, or: “Putting that together and remind us of our task, a summary of this” (Apr 02

IAG-coordinator, Women-1) 15

Internal Agenda 26th

Mar 02 16

E.g. Notes 26th

Mar 02 17





Submission NGO-2


329

Responsiveness

By regularly checking back, the conveners can adjust the process to participants’ concerns

and to what they are developing.

The Issue Paper and the Action plans are regularly adjusted according to participants’

comments and suggestions.22

It is not only responsive, the document as a whole is depicted

as being produced by the participants:

“the issue paper is basically been written by you, through the input given me throughout the

process through the telephone conference, through the meetings and individual conversations we’ve

had.”23

There is a readiness on the part of the conveners to adapt the process flexibly: “as the

facilitator of this process I have put flexibility at the top of my list of principles under which

I want to act”24

. Process and documentation is amended, recent comments are added to the

issue paper. As the group decides not to follow what was suggested by the conveners, the

process is changed accordingly.25

The coordinator offers flexibility concerning the approach

and the conveners’ role. This is how they understand their facilitation task:

“First of all, we’re facilitating this. So if you decide you want to do this then this is what we’re

going to do. This is how we’ve been I think trying to facilitate this process so far. So we’re happy to

redirect.”26

Adhering to the agenda. Within the participant driven mode the conveners are responsive

to participants’ amendments and concerns. On the other hand, refocusing the participants on

the agenda can also be conceived as a kind of support and service towards the participants,

as long as the agenda is owned up by the participants.

Sometimes the stakeholders do not adhere to the agenda and, if requested to come back to

the agenda, insist on their divergent priorities (e.g. the issue on the date and venue of the

final conference27

).

The conveners ask more or less insistently that the agenda be followed. “just trying to get

back to what we actually want to do here. Talk about structure.”28

The other convener pushes for coming to terms with the group’s primary aim of developing

action plans:

“Maybe we should have sort of last round on this subject. And then I suggest, we will try together,


22

E.g. “Solicit individual comments on the Issue Paper” (IP V2, p. 1) 23


Mail 26th Mar 02 25

Meeting March, see Mail 26th

Mar 02 26


Apr 02 IGO-1 0585-97 28



330

The following citations are an example of a rather bland or cautious invitation to come back

to the agenda:

“Should we start doing this now, should we start thinking about initiatives of partnerships that

individual organizations are doing at the moment and think how we can broaden them, how we can

use the Implementation Conference as a platform to involve more stakeholders? Yes?”30

Or for a central item set on the agenda she asks cautiously: “can we start that after the

dinner. Is that a good idea?” Or a participant takes over the agenda setting (deviating from

the agenda as it had been planned) as “the first thing I think we should do now is taking a

round on how we ourselves are planning different ways and means to influence the

activities.”31

Opening the space – allowing function

The conveners provide an open, safe space where the participants’ ideas and initiatives can

unfold. When they come with suggestions about the content, this constitutes an offer to get

the ball rolling. At the first IAG meeting the conveners set as the meeting purpose “to

present the draft issue non-paper and agree the process towards the IC”, whereby they

“suggest a process of communication and collaboration and seek your input.”32

Later they

provide a first outline of the action plans, which they then describe as a “pretty arbitrary

choice, not definite, draft”33

having more of a psychological function34

to trigger the further

development of the action plans by the group.

The conveners also provide a service to the stakeholders in that they also ensure that they do

not get too broad in focus.35

To achieve this, the task of narrowing down the focus is given

to participants.36

The metaphor of space is used a lot. The convening organisation sees one of its main tasks

as providing space for stakeholders. Surprisingly, they have to remind the participants to use

the space offered:

“what the Implementation Conference is trying to do is to create a space for people who are doing

a lot of work … on water. … But, this is a space for you to use … then we would feel we would have

added value. … this is a space to be used by those who are involved and interested.”37

29



Apr 02 MSO-1 0747-49 32

Invite Jan 02 33

Notes 26th

Mar 02, IAG-coordinator’s introduction 34

Notes 26th

Mar 02, Convener 35

Notes 26th

Mar 02, IAG-coordinator 36

E.g. in their ‚homework’ they had to do after the criticism of participants on the convener’s suggestions on how to

achieve focus. 37



331

Substantiation

In order to substantiate their actions (especially when they are being criticised by the

group), the conveners refer to former group decisions. Interestingly, the conveners use the

words “decision” or “deciding” only for stakeholders’ decisions. They do that even when

the group’s “decision” was anticipated or planned by the conveners beforehand. When it

was said that “the IAG decided that priorities should be formulated in form of draft

stakeholder action plans”38

, this was in accordance with the set-up as it was planned by the

conveners and it was actually suggested by the conveners at that conference.39

With this

strategy, the conveners emphasise the agency of the participants and integrate them more

strongly into the process.

Conveners’ strategies within the participant-driven mode

• Positioning the stakeholders as experts, granting an expert consultative status to

participants

• Inviting participants to co-construct the process (to make suggestions, comments,

amendments)

• Handing decisions to the group

“[Name of Media-1] just asked me if we would want listening, and he asked me, but as

with everything else I’m putting it back to the group.”40

• Conveners’ contributions are framed as mere suggestions, drafts

• Readiness to react responsively to amendments and to adjust the process

• Returning the lead to the participants (after having been criticised for what they

prepared for the participants) and obtaining their consent for the ‘homework’41

or encouraging the participants to give themselves some ‘homework’42

(“you’ve given

yourselves some work, yeah, you’ve given yourselves some work!”43

“let’s commit, let’s

talk about committing (...) you’ve given yourselves work”44

, or ironically: “huhu, you

don’t know what you’re agreeing to [That’s a conspiracy]”45

).

With these formulations, the task as well as the input is authorised by participants.

38

Invite 26th Mar 02 39

TelConf 15th

Mar 02, and the group’s response to that suggestion was “YES”, compare also Mail May 02 40


“The agreed steps you will have to take are as follows” (Mail 26th Mar 02, see also Report 26th Mar 02, p. 3)

An example of the ‘homework’:

“All IAG Members tasks: ‘Review all circulated documentation and:

Identify 5-10 themes and key points

Structure these themes and advise what could be done to deal with them (think of actions! Future Action Plans should

be integrated into broader themes. Action Plans should encompass these main themes)

Suggest people who should be at the IC to deal with these suggestions should these suggestions get there.’” (Report 26th

Mar 02, p.3; IP V3 Mar 02, p. 2) 42

Meeting Apr 02 43





332

• Asking for feedback: for example when the project was presented to the

participants in the beginning, they were asked “What do you like?” and were

engaged actively in a “Feedback and Discussion” agenda item: “What issues does

it raise? Next Step?”

• Intensified checking-back, for example by asking the participants: “Does this

framework meet your needs?”46

or by prompting participants to revise and agree on

how to go on: “A proposal was then put forward – revised and agreed as follows:

‘We would like to review the whole list of actions and give our views on them’”47

,

or to ensure a proper meeting report48

. Thereby the conveners obtain a clear

decision and mandate to which they can refer later if necessary.

Participants’ strategies within the participant-driven mode

• Rejecting what has been developed for them by the conveners because it has not

been reflecting what had been discussed:

“We don’t want to spent a lot of time going through the paper”49

• Rejecting what has been developed on content grounds:

“The Action Plan seems to be a lot about process –where is the substantive action?”50

“I don’t think it matters so much, you know, which one you put first now.”51

“No, I think

it’s absolutely vital!”52

• Proposing a fundamental change concerning the approach:

“The action plan framework is what seems to be where we’re not going and the

partnership thing seems to give us a way forward! … these aren’t the same things!”53

“There’s a very fundamental difference. … These are really really different things, they’re

not the same at all! … they’re very different.”54

• Suggesting a more direct form of communication among the participants:

“can we take an action to circulate our views to everyone?”55

• Requesting a more thorough / transparent documentation: the conveners are asked

to circulate the minutes of the conference and suggestions for action plans to the

participants, including those who could not attend the meeting.56

• Participants can take the lead by not adhering to the agenda. This became obvious

in the April meeting.

46

Notes 26th

Mar 02 47

Report 26th

Mar 02, p. 2 48

Apr 02 Convener 3424-28, Convener 3606-16 49




Apr 02 Business-3 2483-98 53

Apr 02 IGO-1 2786-96 54

Apr 02 IGO-1 2810-23 55


Mail 26th Mar 02; Report 26th

Mar 02, p. 3


333

• Checking the conveners’ capabilities.

Sometimes the impression can emerge that by questioning thoroughly for example

how the links to the official process are organised, the participants are checking on

the conveners’ capabilities and what they can really offer.

The participants also check how the infrastructure is being organised, like the issue

of the date and venue of the final conference.57

With “just a small question to you as facilitators”58

one participant checks if the

conveners are capable of fulfilling their offer:

“What has just been discussed, are you willing, interested and able to actually (...) this

requires actually a lot (...) in communication, platform, networking (...) So that’s what you

can offer?”59

“This is actually an inspiration to governments, to the inter-government

process, to us, I mean, if we can make this work. And so I think you guys [(addressing the

conveners)] have got a tremendous role to play in making this happen in a relatively short

period of time.”60

• Making the conveners’ role contingent on how they establish the links to the

context:

“And I think so you have (...) a really important role, provided, you integrate with the

dome, where all your major water actors are going to be, and build on their work. And

they’ll see it. And they will be really happy to provide you all the information, where they

are going, and I think a very interesting story can emerge.”61

Positioning of conveners

The convening organisation provides space and support for the stakeholders to come

together. They are professional facilitators and managers who provide the supporting

infrastructure for those who are driving the process – the stakeholders.

The convener ensures support for what the group decides:

“we’ll give these different … initiatives (...) support”62

, “we’re here to support you.”63

The conveners make suggestions on how to proceed, but more to trigger the participants’

lead. The conveners produce the documents, which are based on what has being discussed

in the meetings, for the stakeholders and “present them to the group for further work”.64

This offer is appreciated by the group. They are serving the participants who are granted the

driving role in that they respond flexibly to their suggestions and concerns.

57

Apr 02 IGO-1 0585-97 58

Apr 02 NGO-10 1208 59

Apr 02 NGO-10 1219-20 60

Apr 02 NGO-10 1289-93 61

Apr 02 MSO-4 1529-41 62



TelConf Mar 02, Convener, p. 8


334

With their enormous engagement for the project, the conveners went to their physical limits

with this project. They already mention these limits during the preparations: “And you

know, we’re happy to work overnight, but there’s only so much you can do.”65

In the end,

they probably worked far more than they could have imagined themselves, and without

being able to raise enough money to pay their salaries, due to the hugely difficult

fundraising situation.

Positioning of participants

Within this repertoire, the participating stakeholders have the main agency. Accordingly, the

participants are expected to represent leadership and enthusiasm. One selection criterion for

the chosen issues for example is that “there is a broad-based leadership among

stakeholders with an active, enthusiastic ‘core’”66

. This is also a criterion for selecting the

advisory group: “And we’ve approached this group because we knew you might not shoot

each other anymore. So there is a dynamic here, (which) is positive (...) action-oriented.”67

The stakeholders at the conference are also expected to be empowered by their

constituencies and are therefore enabled to contribute actively to the process:

“Stakeholders arrive with a mandate to develop the potential outcomes further and to agree

action plans.”68

Based on their expertise, the stakeholders are granted a consultative status regarding the set-

up of the process, which is developed in “consultation with stakeholder groups”69

.

Moreover, they bring in amendments, changes and restructuring suggestions70

. Comments,

suggestions and amendments or changes are anticipated by the conveners.71

The

stakeholders expect what has been discussed to be documented and circulated and to flow

fully into the rolling documents. They would complain if this were not the case: when a

document prepared by the conveners does “not reflect all issues”: “The Action Plans we

have received do not seem to cover the breadth of the issues we spoke about during our

talks and recent telephone conversations.”72

Or when the “notes from telephone

conference” were not sent around73

.

Having redirected the process, the conveners position the participants as change agents in a

positive fashion: “yesterday’s Freshwater IAG meeting in NY was very exciting in many

65



Apr 02 Convener 1097-1113 68


Outline Sep 01, p. 2, 3, 6, 8 70

e.g. TelConf Mar 02 Professional-Association-1, p. 4, 7 71

Internal Agenda Mar 02 72


Notes 26th

Mar 02


335

aspects. The group agreed to change the planned course of action.”74

The conveners

appreciate the participants taking the lead: “the IAG would like to make a bigger

contribution to the process” and “I’m happy for the IAG to take more of a steering role

again.”75

The participants need to commit (“let’s commit, let’s talk about committing (...) you’ve

given yourselves work”76

, “Create sub-groups that are committed to further develop

specific joint Action Plans”77

). Commitment and leadership are also important criteria for

selecting the action plans, as the projects require a committed, fully responsible leader.

Strength of the group. The group’s cohesiveness and distinctiveness78

is praised:

“This group is a strong group, I do (not) think how we could (realize) it (...) activity, and I will not

(...) you, it depends on the group to decide do we have a watershed at Johannesburg and then we

start fresh, no (...) how are we going on? And you should really present that picture that here we’re

already doing it, there are initiatives, there are activities (...) and already we are working to

influence Johannesburg”79

.

Having worked out the framework, the people are very pleased with what they have

achieved.80

Within this repertoire, diversity is allowed and fostered and change is allowed to unfold.

The stakeholder-driven repertoire serves for distinction vis-à-vis what happens in the

context.

The meeting in April took place at an international conference on sustainable water

management in Switzerland81

. The convener led over from the conference to this particular

meeting by emphasising its distinctness: “let’s step out from the conference in our different

process, a process driven by stakeholders”82

The distinctive feature is to have a process

“driven by stakeholders”. The same is said in comparison to the official summit process:

“So they [the people from the WSSD secretariat] are very much looking towards this process, I feel,

as one of the very few actually stakeholder driven initiatives for the summit. A process that is

equitable and is driven by the stakeholder groups. Which you don’t see very much, you know, from

all the hype that is happening at the moment regarding the type IIs (...) very much from the top.”83

74

Mail 26th Mar 02 75

Mail 26th Mar 02 76


Invite May 02 78

Apr 02 1036-1092 79

Apr 02 MSO-1 0919-28 80

E.g. Apr 02 Public-Water-1 3603 “very good” 81

A stakeholder dialogue on Sustainable Water Management organised by the Swiss government (IDA Rio: Inter-

Departementaler Ausschuss Rio) and the Swiss Re

www.ruschlikon.net/INTERNET/rschwebp.nsf/vwPagesIDKeyWebLu/SRZS-6V7KWX?OpenDocument 82




336

6.2.2 Convener-driven mode / restrictive-leadership repertoire

Within this mode or repertoire, the process is constructed as driven mainly by the

conveners. As experts on multi-stakeholder processes they have designed and convened the

project, and the stakeholders have a consultative status for the design and the preparation

process.

This repertoire prevails in the outline, where the process and the IC event are presented as

rather fixed.

Typical tasks/activities of the conveners within the convener-driven mode

The Stakeholder Forum designs and convenes the process, sets the overarching aims, invites

the participating stakeholders, produces the documents84

and meeting reports, and sets up

the meeting agendas.

The communication flow resembles a node: the Stakeholder Forum forms a centre among

the stakeholders, in addition to the meetings the participants communicate bilaterally with

the Stakeholder Forum. The conveners inform, report and clarify about the process.

Some participants need to be reminded to submit their ‘homework’ when the deadline has

elapsed.85

Typical tasks/activities of the participants within the convener-driven mode

The participants give input and advice as requested according to a structure and framework

developed by the conveners.

Expertise

For the convener-driven mode, the conveners’ expertise is emphasised. On the Stakeholder

Forum’s website they describe themselves as “the lead organisation in the development and

facilitating of multi-stakeholder processes for sustainable development.”86

The organisation also gives consultation to the UN CSD Secretariat for their processes and

other international processes87

: “The organisation played a key role in the preparations for

and follow-up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development.”88

The main convener is the author of a book on multi-stakeholder processes89

published

around the beginning of the IC process. This book is highly significant in its field, as it

84

“SF to produce Issue Paper” (IP V2 Feb 02, p. 1) 85

Mail May 02 86


See for example the paper “The Future of the Small-Business-1 commission on Sustainable Development”

www.stakeholderforum.org/policy/governance/csda.pdf 88

www.stakeholderforum.org/about/about.php


337

provides a “practical guide”, explaining extensively and with detailed examples how MSPs

can be organized and implemented.90

This book and the experiences in convening multi-

stakeholder processes highlight the process management expertise on the side of the

conveners. The “principles of stakeholder collaboration” which are set up in the outline

come from this book. Generally speaking, the experience collected for this book flows into

the IC process. Their expertise on multi-stakeholder processes allows the conveners to

constitute and maintain authority.

Facilitation

The core conference team comprises a lead facilitator, and each issue strand has its issue

facilitator. For the IC conference, each action plan group is professionally facilitated. The

“facilitators shall be professional moderators with a strong commitment to sustainable

development and experience with multi-stakeholder meetings.”91

The engagement of that

many facilitators elevates the professionalism and expert status of the convening

organisation.

Not all the participants are actively engaged in the meetings. Sometimes the conveners or

facilitators encourage people who haven’t previously spoken to participate.92

Creating continuity

Contrary to the support and service mode, responsiveness is reduced within this mode. For

example, some alterations decided in the group do not find their way into the rolling

documents.93

This reduced responsiveness can serve to maintain continuity.

The conveners are not endlessly responsive to suggested amendments by the participants.

First they substantiate94

why something has been planned the way it is.

When the restructuring suggestions are discussed, the convener also asks the group to keep

in mind the original structure:

“Maybe we shouldn’t forget the structure or the headings that are in the issue paper? Because

that’s putting much base on what came out of Bonn, that are the areas that are addressed in the

Bonn recommendation. So you will see that the suggestions are overlapping in area.”95

89

“Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability. Beyond Deadlock and Conflict.” Hemmati, M. et

al. 2002 90

review of the publisher: www.earthscan.co.uk/review/reviewproduct/mps/RPN/989/prod/-Multi-stakeholder-

Processes-for-Governance-and-Sustainability/RCN/0/rgn/0/v/1/sp/332744698260332737302 91

Outline Sep 01 p. 8 92

e.g. “there are quite a few people now in the round that haven’t actually said anything (...) is that because you agree

with everything that has been said, or can I just encourage you to participate.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 1584-87), see

also IC1 93

Submission Business-4: suggestion to elaborate the preamble of the Issue Paper 94

E.g. “That’s the whole idea. We’re gonna give the sign before the conference starts.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0195-

96); see also 0408, 0610 95



338

When the group is striving for a joint mission and vision the convener mentions that there is

already a mission and an approach written in the issue paper.96

The conveners are also responsible for maintaining continuity for the future process.

Therefore they also need to take into account the possible needs of participants which come

into the process later and to possibly protect them against current suggestions of the

participants. The decision on the date of the final conference is an example: the date should

suit not only the needs of the participants in the advisory group, but also the participants

“from the ground”. 97

Or when the group had decided something which is contested later the convener explains

the grounds from the former decision:

“I want to recall the discussions we’ve had.”98

“That’s why it is phrased the way it is phrased, that’s important to know.”99

Creating closure – restricting function

The restrictive-leadership repertoire serves to limit the multitude of possibilities for the

process and to reach a certain closure.

In the outline of the process a lot already seems to have been predefined (like the principles

of stakeholder collaboration and the structure). The brochure is not written as a call or an

invitation to make contributions, suggestions and comments, which could also be

conceivable for such a process.

Part of the meeting agendas at the beginning of the process is to inform participants about

what is going on, resembling more of a one-way flow of communication. Space is provided

for “questions for clarity” which could be then answered and explained by the conveners.

To structure the development of action plans, the conveners created a template which they

applied to the existing suggestions for action plans and which they presented to the group as

the basis of discussion. This template then was heavily criticised as being restrictive and

forcing the action plans into a framework:

“Also, the template for the Action Plans we provided seemed to restrict the ability to think “outside

the box” which is what multi-stakeholder processes should really be about.”100

“The actions also seem highly prescriptive”101

.

“It seems that the way we have developed these actions that we are trying to fit them into a

framework just for the sake of it – decide what you want to do and get on with it - don’t waste time

trying to force-fit them into a conceptual framework.”102

96






Report 26th Mar 02 p. 2


339

Agenda-setting. By setting the agenda the conveners also decide on what is not included in

the agenda. For example, for the meeting in April, one item suggested by the participants is

dismissed103

and the discussion of the restructuring suggestions submitted by the

participants is postponed (but within the same meeting)104

. They define the purpose or

priorities of the meetings.

The conveners also define the order in which the work is done. While the participants prefer

to start thinking from how the outcomes will be presented and to whom, the conveners put

them back on the ‘right’ track, as the only possible way of proceeding:

“We can’t start that until we know the topics. So I think, you know, this is our priority, rather than

talking about, you know, we can’t talk about visual stuff at the moment because we don’t have any

action yet. So, you know, I encourage your enthusiasm, but we have actually to do some work

before that.”105

Another effort to focus the discussion is made so that the convening organisation knows

how to proceed after the meeting:

“what we’re discussing at the moment is what do we want to make of it. And I think the only

discussion we should have tonight. It would be great if we reach a workable consensus here and

move on to become more concrete so that we know what we’re doing for you.”106

Substantiation

Feasibility constraints are invoked to justify or substantiate restricting actions. During the

preparatory process this is mainly the time scarcity, the scarcity of funding and the focus

on substantive outcomes.

In order to create continuity, the conveners substantiate what might be contested in former

group decisions. This strategy was also described within the participant driven repertoire,

where it served to emphasise the participants’ lead. Here it serves to create continuity.

102

Report 26th Mar 02 p. 2 103

“Discussion of linkage between Swiss Conference and the Implementation Conference” (Invite Apr 02; Apr 02 IAG-

coordinator 0146) 104

“which we’re not gonna do right now.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0135) 105




340

Participants’ strategies

• ‘Limiting-ownership’ strategy: Preference for the pronoun “you” instead of “we”

when they talk about tasks within the process, thereby placing ownership and

leadership with the conveners.107

Instead of co-creating the process, participants

reduce their role to consulting, advising, or helping.

“please organise these logistics and these linkages and intervention, then we can all help

you to raise this profile.”108

• ‘Wait-and-see’ strategy: instead of co-creating the process, instead they take an

observant stance until things are put in more concrete terms, in order to then decide

if they want to contribute or not.

Conveners’ strategies

• Positioning themselves as experts

• Defining, identifying and inviting participants

• Granting a ‘mere’ consultative status to participants

• Using a one-way communication like informing people about what is going to

happen instead of co-constructing it

• Positioning themselves as neutral, but (their) objections should be considered:

“I’m not saying I have assumptions either way but that’s the things we need to think about

to make that decision. … So – just a few things to think about. I mean we’re not force

one.”109

“And media profile: great. But, we have limited resources, we have limited time, I’m not

saying we shouldn’t do that. But from our, from Stakeholder Forum’s perspective, you

know, a very good program could happen even if nobody knows about it. I mean, through

the media. And that would be good. It can happen.”110

“I want to recall the discussions we’ve had. I don’t oppose to things being taken off or, or

put on at all. But I want to recall the conversations we’ve had that led to the thing being

on the list in the interest in transparency and a good decision-making.”111

107

Certain qualifications have to be made with regard to this observation. Obviously in English the linguistic usage of

“you”, which can also mean “we”, is more common than for example in German. For example the following statement

which refers to them as a group (‘us’ and ‘we’) the wording ‘how do you do that’ still fits in: “Can I ask us to think of

how do you do that? … So, as well as listing, can we think of how we might do it in a realistic way.” (IC2 NGO-1) 108

Apr 02 MSO-1 1453-55 109


Apr 02 Convener 1492-1503 111

May 02 Convener 0730-33


341

Positioning

This repertoire constructs the conveners as driving the process, as having the main agency

while the participants are granted a reduced agency.

Diversity needs to be managed and controlled, and achieving change means achieving

previously defined outcomes.

6.2.3 Interplay participant-driven mode – convener driven mode

In this section, the enactment of leadership and ownership is studied over the course of the

process. How the conveners are positioned towards the participants is enacted differently

according to the use of the restrictive-leadership repertoire (convener-driven mode) and

supportive-leadership repertoire (participant-driven mode). The distribution of agency,

leadership and ownership between conveners and participants is investigated, as well as

how the balance between flexibility and continuity and between closure and openness is

maintained and dealt with in order to integrate diversity while focusing on concrete

outcomes.

6.2.3.1 Outline September 01

The process is designed by the convening organisation, drawing on its expertise and

experience with multi-stakeholder processes and advised by the Stakeholder Forum’s Issue

Advisory Board (IAB), a multi-stakeholder board backing the convening organisation.

In the outline, the convener-driven mode prevails. This is not surprising as, apart from some

consultations with the IAB, the outline is written by the convener in the design phase, when

the participating stakeholders are not yet involved. Presumably the outline is not only aimed

at potential participants but also largely at potential donors of the process. Still it would be

conceivable to have the outline written in a less convener-driven style.

The outline brochure tends to display the expert status of the conveners rather than the

expert status of participants. The conveners are represented as facilitators, process

designers112

, managers113

and experts114

. According to how expert texts are usually expected

to begin, the brochure starts with a definition of stakeholders.

Stakeholders are defined as “those who have an interest in a particular decision”, be it in

an agent position (“people who influence a decision, or can influence it”) or in a patient

position (“those affected by it115

”). This is a rather vague definition, especially because,

unlike in other multi-stakeholder processes, this one is not assembled around a specific

112

Outline Sep 01 p. 7, 8 113

Outline Sep 01 p. 11 114

Outline Sep 01 p. 2, 11 115

[the decision]


342

decision as stated here but around broad issues. The rights as well as the responsibilities are

also defined vaguely. The stakeholders’ responsibility is defined as “Stakeholders should

play their part in delivering sustainable development”. The stakeholders’ right is proposed

as that they “should be able to participate meaningfully in decision making”.116

Obviously,

not all of the stakeholders have previously had the possibility of participating meaningfully,

this is why the process was initiated in the first place. The stakeholders in the patient

position are granted more agency. It is interesting though to have the modal “should”

under the heading “rights” and “responsibilities”. An alternative formulation would be

conceivable, for example ‘we believe in the right of stakeholders to participate meaningfully

and therefore strive to enhance stakeholder participation’. However, the definition is vague

enough to leave space to define themselves, for example what “their part” is that they

should play in delivering sustainable development and what it means to “participate

meaningfully”.

The invitation to participate in the process is made by the conveners.

“Stakeholder groups will be identified … through careful analysis of the issue area, reflecting

experience with previous multi-stakeholder processes, and consultation with stakeholder

groups.”117

For the identification of the participating stakeholders, the expert status of the convening

organisation plays a role, but stakeholder groups are granted a consultative status. To attain

the consultative status, they need to be rated as “acknowledged stakeholder group

organisations and associations”118

.

The basis for stakeholder collaboration is set up with the “principles of stakeholder

collaboration” reflecting the expertise and experience of the conveners in former

stakeholder processes.

It was planned that the conference participants “will receive a comprehensive conference

package providing the necessary supporting material”, including for example “background

briefing papers outlining the problem area, … existing good practices, possible solutions,

roles of stakeholders, possible partnerships”.119

On the one hand, this was an offer for

support to bring everybody to a similar level, since the background knowledge of

participants varies. On the other hand, this positioned the conveners as experts instead of the

participants.120

116





At least some of the briefing papers should have been written by a “Lead Author”, identified and guided by the Issue

Advisory Group (Outline Sep 01, p. 8). A Lead Author was never appointed, though. Some briefing papers were

produced by Stakeholder Forum beforehand.


343

In the outline brochure the agency of participants seems instead to be absent. The readers of

the brochure are stakeholders of some kind (as well as the authors), especially in the context

of the WSSD preparation context. Still, they are not addressed directly. For example, there

is no invitation to make comments or suggestions which might change the setup by

participants. Readers are not invited to apply or to show interest in participating. There is no

“we” or “you”, instead, the brochure is full of passive constructions121

. In comparison, later

in the process, in the issue strand “health”, potential participants were addressed directly:

“One key requirement is the engagement of further participants in most of the programmes – please

let us know of your interest!”122

6.2.3.2 Meetings December 01, Bonn and January 02, New York

In contrast to how potential participants are addressed in the outline, they are addressed

directly in the invitation for the ‘engagement’ meeting, emphasising active engagement,

granting more agency:

“you are invited to participate in a meeting intended to enrol and engage you in the multi-

stakeholder implementation conference ‘Stakeholder Action For Our Common future’”123

.

In the agenda for the meetings in December and January the active engagement is however

less visible: the communication tends to have a one-way character again, positioning the

conveners as drivers and experts of the process. At the engagement meeting, the conveners

“presented the concept and process of the Implementation Conference and invited you to consider

becoming members of the Issue Advisory Group (IAG) on freshwater.”124

“People are fully informed about the IC and agree to let [the convener] know … whether they want

to participate in the Water IAG.”125

With this formulation, the IC process is presented as already fixed. People need to be

informed about it instead of actively co-creating the event. In order to have “fully informed”

participants, an item of the agenda is “Questions for clarity” (instead of for example

inviting comments and suggestions). Accordingly, the invitations close with

“Please contact us if you have any questions about this invitation, or would like us to send you

further information about the IC process.”126

With the emergence of the Issue Paper, the expertise was shifted more to the participants. It

was still the conveners who produced the first draft, but after consulting participants

through interviews, feedback and pre-meetings. The background briefings lost significance:

121

“Stakeholder groups will be identified … participation will be by invitation; participants will be identified …”

Outline Sep 01 p. 2 “participants identified through consultations within stakeholder groups” p. 3 122

www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/health.htm 123

Invite Dec 01 124

Invite Jan 02 125

Invite Dec 01 126

Invite Jan 02, see also Invite Dec 01


344

“at the moment, we’re tending to rely on people’s expertise, having moved away from providing

somewhat ‘authoritative’ expert background briefings (apart from the ones UNED already

produced) and producing ‘rolling non papers’ instead.”127

6.2.3.3 Telephone Conference March 02

Since the “Desired Outcome” was to develop “concrete, agreed and owned collaborative

action plans aimed at implementing the Sustainable Development Agreements”128

, and the

time frame for the process was pretty short, the conveners tried to start by putting things in

concrete terms as soon as possible. It was planned to identify the focus areas first of all and

then start heading for action.

At the telephone conference the participants engaged actively with numerous contributions

regarding possible priority areas for the process, links to existing programmes and

experiences and suggestions of further participants.129

With their contributions, the

participants adhered to the suggested structure for the meeting, based on the Issue Paper.

The agenda was followed smoothly130

and participants could contribute to the meeting’s aim

with their expert knowledge: “The aim of the meeting is to get a clearer idea of focus areas

for future stakeholder action and to broaden, deepen and prioritise ideas. Missing items

need to be included.”131

Participants were asked to “voice their priorities & comments” and

it was suggested that each participant should choose a “specialist area”.132

The conveners also engage in the content lead. The Stakeholder Forum’s part is not strictly

confined to convening in the sense of organising and facilitating. The conveners are also

actively bringing in ideas.133

In terms of the development of concrete suggestions for partnerships and possible joint

action134

, they did not come very far, but the conveners offered to proceed from priority

areas towards concrete action plans and suggested that they “develop draft action plans for

stakeholders” and “present them to the group for further work”, whereupon the “group

response” was written in capitals: “YES”.135

So the conveners got a unanimous mandate to

prepare some draft action plans as a next step, based on what has been discussed.136

127

Mail 8th Jan 02 from Convener to another researcher 128



Compared to other issue strands, according to what the convener told me in a mail (March 02): the water group has a

longer common history, the themes are better defined, the positions are better known, it is less politicised, all in all the

participants were more active. 131

TelConf Mar 02, minutes p. 1 132


e.g. TelConf Mar 02 134

TelConf Mar 02, minutes p. 8 135

TelConf Mar 02, p. 8 136

TelConf Mar 02, minutes p. 8


345

With this decision the switch from the issue-driven mode to the partnership mode was

induced, which has been described above in the section ‘Organising togetherness’ (6.1).

Facilitation. The experience with the facilitated telephone conferences for two issue strands

in March reflected both extremes: according to the convener, one was completely over-

facilitated by the facilitator who talked far too much and dominated, whereas at the other

conference the facilitator said nothing at all, leaving the facilitation to the conveners. As this

was embarrassing for the conveners, neither of the two facilitators was engaged again. The

conveners had their doubts after this experience as to whether facilitators are really

needed.137

However, they adhered to the facilitation concept.

6.2.3.4 Meeting March 02, New York

From this meeting an ‘internal agenda’ is available which shows the careful preparation of

the conveners (the main convener and the issue coordinator) and the facilitator. This internal

agenda clearly defined their roles. The IAG freshwater coordinating convener was given the

leading role, the main convener was given the responsibility for explaining the whole IC

process and its links to the official Earth Summit Process, and the facilitator explained his

role as “neutral facilitator” whose task it is to “keep group focused on the Agenda – on

time – and record”.138

The way the IAG’s input or reactions was anticipated and

categorised in advance in this agenda prepared for more openness or more closure

regarding the process.

Regarding the “Purpose/Outcomes/Agenda”, amendments, additions and changes were

anticipated, therefore quite a bit of openness was enabled.

The informing style – which serves the closure mode – is used for the set-up of the IC and

its connection to the official context. The convener “checks understanding of IC & its link

to the Earth Summit Process; Response to questions/queries – gives brief explanation if

necessary139

. Regarding the main set-up and the links, it is the convening organisation

which informs about the IC process and answers questions about it instead of inviting the

participants to make suggestions about the process or to co-create the meanings. The

expected reactions were confined to questions or queries asking for explanations. Here we

have a closure in that no space for discussing or redefining the IC and its links is provided.

Issues and comments are anticipated, however.

Regarding the future course of the process, the conveners enabled openness as it was

planned to ask “will the existing process enable us to achieve our aim?” and suggestions

for a “revised process” were anticipated.

137

Mail March Convener 138

Internal Agenda 26th

Mar 02, p. 1 139

Internal Agenda 26th Mar 02


346

The planned course of the meeting, discussing the action plans, did not come about as

expected by the conveners.

According to the decision at the telephone conference, the conference of the 26th

March was

staged by the conveners with the action plans in the centre, as the purpose was “to review

and develop the IAG Collaborative Stakeholder Action Plan”140

and ‘NOT to revise the

rolling paper’141

. This formed a threshold to a new phase, from identifying priority areas to

developing concrete action plans.

In their invitation, the conveners grounded this step in the group decision at the preceding

conference:

“At the last Freshwater IAG telephone conference … we discussed the freshwater issue ‘non-

paper’, based on recent international agreements and the discussions at the Stakeholder Dialogues

in Bonn. The IAG decided that priorities should be formulated in the form of draft stakeholder

action plans. These draft action plans will be the basis of discussion at the dinner meeting.”142

The process was still open as the convener emphasised in her introduction that the suggested

action plans are a “pretty arbitrary choice, not definite, draft”143

, and participants were

asked to make alternative or additional contributions to the suggested action plans144

. And

the door to the previous phase (identifying focus areas) was also not closed yet as there was

space provided in the meeting for an “Introduction of other possible focus areas”145

. The

process was also open regarding the “Action plans covering the existing Focus Areas”.

Still, the suggested action plan approach was heavily criticised146

. This stands in sharp

contrast to the unanimous approval at the telephone conference. Here it might be worth

considering the fact that only two participants of the meeting also attended the telephone

conference and that the minutes of this preceding conference were not sent out beforehand

(it was then agreed to send out the minutes subsequently147

). The fact that the uneven

attendance of participants might have been considered as a problem becomes evident in the

last section of the convener’s mail after the meeting where the concern is expressed of how

participants not present at a meeting can be integrated:

“I hope this reflects the discussion we had yesterday and the IAG members that couldn’t be present

can understand and support the decisions that were made. Please contact me if things haven’t

become entirely clear.”148

The criticism consisted of several arguments.

140

Handout 26th

Mar 02 141

Convener, notes 26th

Mar 02 142

Invite 26th

Mar 02 143

Notes 26th

Mar 02 144

Handout 26th

Mar 02 145

Invite 26th

Mar 02 146

Mail and Report 26th Mar 02, p. 2 147

Report 26th

Mar 02, p. 3 148

Mail 26th Mar 02


347

The Action plans cover neither the breadth of issues nor the key issues

Firstly, as the convener summarised in her mail after the meeting, “we were leaping ahead

too quickly without covering the breadth of issues we had been talking about during recent

conversations”149

. The first contribution in the meeting was made by a participant who

started with some ‘general comments’ and submitted that the action plans do ‘not reflect all

issues’ and recommended heeding the ‘notes from telephone conference’150

. The meeting

report noted “The Action Plans we have received do not seem to cover the breadth of the

issues we spoke about during our talks and recent telephone conversations” and that “The

Action Plan did not appear to address key issues”151

.

The criticism of not covering the breadth of issues was rebutted or explained with the

statement that this had not been the aim. The convener also anchors what was criticised in

the former group decision:



that had come up. The choice was based on the input I had received from IAG members.”152

Positioning. With their criticism the participants express the concern that what they

discussed earlier should actually flow into the further process. They reclaim a leading

function regarding the priority areas which they might have considered as lost.

The conveners express their content with the group taking a stronger lead. By anchoring the

proposed action plans in a former group decision, they put themselves in a position of

having served the group.

The Action Plans are too broad, not specific enough

Despite the criticism of not covering the breadth of issues, there was also criticism that the

agenda was ‘too broad’ and it should be ‘preferably less but specific’ instead.153

Accordingly, the recommendation was to reduce it to a manageable number:

“Shouldn’t we have 6-10 that represent what we spoke about and that we can really work on – this

sort of number often works better than lots of actions.”154

During the meeting, the convener explains the sense of the Action Plan drafts as ‘rather

psychologically’: even though they are not yet specific enough they could represent a point

149


Notes 26th

Mar 02, IGO-1, he was taking part in the telephone conference 151



Notes 26th

Mar 02, IGO-1 154



348

of departure and emphasised that it is the task of the IAG to decide ‘what broadly should

happen’ and ‘who should be involved’.155

Positioning. Again the participants claim that earlier discussions should be represented in

the documents. The conveners give the content lead to the IAG and position themselves as

the ones whose task it is to trigger the IAG’s work with their suggested draft.

The Action Plans are prescriptive and forced into a framework

At the same time, the criticism was that “The actions also seem highly prescriptive”156

,

which was not considered as appropriate for a multi-stakeholder process, which should be

about thinking “outside the box”157

. In response to this criticism the conveners encourage

the participants to deal with the action plan frameworks more freely:

“It seems that the way we have developed these actions that we are trying to fit them into a

framework just for the sake of it – decide what you want to do and get on with it - don’t waste time

trying to force-fit them into a conceptual framework.”158

Positioning. The participants protest against a prescribed framework that they consider as

restrictive.

As a result of these points of criticism, the participants in the meeting decided not to go

through the individual action plans as was planned by the conveners. “We don’t want to

spend a lot of time going through the paper”159

. Instead of pursuing the planned approach,

the course of the process was changed according to what the group had been discussing:

“the IAG would like to make a bigger contribution to the process. This means that for now we

won’t continue the discussion of the Action Plans but will look at the amended freshwater issue

paper that now includes your recent comments, plus take a look at the minutes from the last

telephone conference.”160

Furthermore, a different mode of group communication was suggested, not exclusively the

bilateral communication via the conveners (the node in the process) but also to address the

whole IAG directly. This was welcomed by the convener, and the minutes from the

conferences as well as the individual submissions following the meeting were sent around to

the group. The conveners also appreciate the participants taking over the driving role:

“Anyway, as the facilitator of this process I have put flexibility at the top of my list of principles

under which I want to act and I’m happy for the IAG to take more of a steering role again.”161

155

Notes 26th

Mar 02 156



Report 26th Mar 02 p. 2 159



Mail 26th Mar 02


349

After the action plans were criticised, the object of the group’s criticism is anchored in a

group decision at the former conference:



that had come up. The choice was based on the input I had received from IAG members.”162

The task of identifying the key issues and at the same time orienting those towards action

was given to the IAG as a kind of homework: “The agreed steps you will have to take are

as follows”163

: “identify 5-10 main themes and key points” out of “all circulated

documentation”, “advise what could be done to deal with them (think of actions!)”164

How the opportunity was used to influence the process differed. Some sent rather short

submissions (or none at all) and did not give input on all assignments. Some abstained from

either suggesting action initiatives165

or focus areas166

, thereby displaying their priorities and

what they found unnecessary at this point in the process. The submissions differed in how

elaborate and or comprehensive they were. Some participants made restructuring

suggestions.167

Some participants submitted apparently a lobbying paper of their

organisation instead of elaborating on the actual question of the ‘homework’. Such cases

suggest that there is difficulty in effectively engaging the participants for this specific

process. The participants are all engaged in several other activities at those conferences

(some of which are more central to their organisations), and so there seems to be a tendency

to submit the same papers and arguments everywhere.

The challenge is to integrate diversity and at the same time to “find focus in order to

achieve forgeable outcomes”168

which allow for change.

This rupture in the process showed the difficulties in integrating diversity (the action plans

do not cover the key issues / the breadth of issues) and the difficulties in achieving change

(the action plans are not concrete/specific enough and are lacking substantive action).

By forcing the action plans into the template, from the participants’ viewpoint diversity is

not properly acknowledged and, forced like that, the action plans are unsuitable for

achieving change.

162


Mail 26th Mar 02, see also Report 26th Mar 02, p. 3 164


Submissions Women-1, NO; see also Submission NGO-2: “I do not think that we need to go to details before

reaching consensus on issues.” 166


E.g. Submissions Youth-1, Public-Water-1, Business-4 168

TelConf Mar 02, minutes p. 4, IAG-coordinator


350

6.2.3.5 Meeting April 02, Switzerland

It did not become entirely clear what the change of the “planned course of action”169

, as it

was agreed at the meeting in March, meant for the next meeting in April. The purpose of

this meeting was “to review and develop freshwater issue paper (version 4)” (which had

been adapted according to the submissions170

) and “to further develop joint stakeholder

action plans”.171

Even if there had not been a decision to change the planned course of

action, these agenda items would presumably have been the same, since this double strategy

(developing issue paper and action plans) complies with the original plan. The rupture at the

last meeting might have yielded more thorough submissions though, since the participants

put themselves on the tight spot by criticising the lead that the conveners had taken. Since

the last meeting it must have become obvious that the participants needed to take more of

the lead again. So even if there was no direct influence on the agenda, the dynamics and the

engagement of the group had changed.

The agenda item of reviewing and developing the issue paper served the concern of

developing a common framework and a common vision in which the action initiatives can

be embedded. By introducing this agenda item the convener took the opportunity to

emphasise the content lead of the group:

“the issue paper has basically been written by you, through the input given me throughout the

process through the telephone conference, through the meetings and individual conversations we’ve

had.”172

This meeting turned out to be extremely tough to analyse and to make sense of. Several

trouble points emerged. The conveners, faced with a limited time frame, emphasised the

urgency of putting the action plans into concrete terms, this was their utmost priority for the

meeting. The participants were not yet disposed to work on the action initiatives. They had

their concerns, urgent issues and a lot of questions about “what this is about”173

, like the

main purpose, the links to the official process and the approach used, all of which they

wanted to discuss before working on the action plans. The trouble points were the

discussion about the date and venue of the conference and connected to that about the links

to the official process and the water community, about the significance of media

presentation, and about the question of lobbying. The most prevalent trouble point was on

169


IP V4; “I’ve had inputs from quite a few of you on the structure of an issue paper on fresh water that we’ve been

working on for the last couple of months.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0116-18) 171

Invite Apr 02 172


Apr 02 Convener 1729, see also Government-1 0820


351

the approach used, including the significance of a joint mission and vision. As those trouble

points needed to be dealt with, adhering to the agenda turned out to be a struggle.

The confusion started at the beginning of the meeting. The convener introduces the agenda

as it was sent out beforehand174

and modifies it at the same time by withdrawing or

postponing some items.175

The remaining agenda items were to be treated with priority, in

the light of the short time frame to the final conference: to discuss the action plans and

possible IC participants.176

By an oversight, the convener did not have the new version of the issue paper with her at the

meeting. Announcing that the version is not to hand right now, the coordinator remarked

that this “might be quite a good sign, because the paper … has been swelling and swelling,

which isn’t really what we’re trying to do.”177

Instead of discussing the new version of the

issue paper, she prefers “the discussion of the stakeholder action plans, which is really our

priority at the moment.”178

So, despite the change of the planned course since the last

meeting, she puts the action plans in the foreground. At least this was her agenda for the

meeting. In the end however the meeting produced a joint vision and a common framework;

individual action plans had not been discussed.

Trouble point – date and venue of the Implementation Conference

Right at the beginning, the discussion starts with an objection to the date of the conference

as it was scheduled by the conveners179

, put forward by several participants.

The pressing concern shared by many participants is that any additional days will exceed

their limited time resources.180

The discussion of the conference date and also of the venue

implies a rethinking of some interwoven subjects: the links of the Implementation

Conference Process to the official process and the ‘water community’, the goal/purpose of

the IC Process, including its added value / distinctiveness, targeting the audience and

media, and the links to the other IC issue strands.181

174

Invite Apr 02 175

One item is dismissed (“Discussion of linkage between Swiss Conference and the Implementation Conference”;

Invite Apr 02; Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0146) and the purpose mentioned first in the invitation letter is postponed: The

“discussion and review of Freshwater Issue Paper” including the submitted restructuring suggestions from

participants. (“The first point is the discussion and the review of the fresh water issue paper version 4. Which we’re not

gonna do right now.” Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0134-36) 176

“the discussion of the stakeholder action plans, which is really our priority at the moment. We’ve got four more

months until Johannesburg.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0136-38) 177



The date has been set to “take place just a week before the Summit in Johannesburg.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator

0108-09) 180

Apr 02 0163-0203 181

Apr 02 0195-0573


352

The convener acknowledges what is being put forward182

, sharing the concern about the

venue183

, and at the same time explains184

why it has been planned the way it has,

concluding with “but I do get your points and I think we should definitely pursue that.”185

The participants come back to the date issue, insisting on their concerns and the urgency of

organising the venue in time, also because of the difficult and costly booking situation in

Johannesburg.186

After joking about the cost argument from an organization which is expected to have

‘deeper pockets’ (“apparently the World Bank isn’t budgeted for the Summit yet”187

), the

other convener puts forward some reasons for the date decision as it has been made so far.

She invites the participants to rethink who should be at the Implementation Conference

beyond their circle:

“we need to be very clear who we want there and where these people are going to be during which

week. And if these are people who might not plan to come to Jo’burg anyway because they’re small

organisations doing the work on the ground and not (...) the groups that a lot of the ones that you

represent.”188

She holds out the prospect of a compromise on the date issue189

and emphasises:

“I’m not saying I have assumptions either way but that’s the things we need to think about

to make that decision. … So – just a few things to think about. I mean we’re not force

one.”190

Subsequent to the meeting, three options were suggested191

, the compromise option was

then realised. Regarding the venue, participants came up with offers192

, one of which was

then adopted for the IC.

A suggestion which came up again and again was to use the Water Dome as a venue, a huge

platform for water-related issues during the Summit.193

182

“So are you also suggesting to have it parallel?” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0303); “So I feel that is something that is

the idea of the water dome as a venue is coming from the whole group? Yeah? [consent]” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator

0399-0400) 183

“But the situation of booking in Johannesburg has been very challenging. [causing laughter]” (Apr 02 IAG-

coordinator 0411-12) 184

“That’s the whole idea. We’re gonna give the sign before the conference starts.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 0195-

96); see also 0408 185


Apr 02 IGO-1 0585-97 187





Report Apr 02, p. 5 192

Apr 02 Public-Water-1 0420-21; NGO-10 0433-50 193

Apr 02 IGO-1 0347-54, 0368-0400, IGO-1 0569, MSO-1 1432-50, MSO-4 1514-43, Government-1 1580-81, IGO-1

1805, Women-1 3247, 3808-3937


353

When a speaker comes back to the dates and how to present the outcomes, he speaks as if he

does not own the process, instead he will “help” when everything else is fixed by the

conveners:

“please organise these logistics and these linkages and intervention, then we can all help you to

raise this profile, because we are all working separately also, the linkages with the press, the

publicity hang-outs, the, we’re all working on those issues.”194

A participant urges linking up with the water community at the Dome and makes the

significance of the IC water process contingent on this integration:

“And I think so you have (...) a really important role, provided, you integrate with the Dome, where

all your major water actors are going to be, and build on their work. And they’ll see it. And they

will be really happy to provide you all the information, where they are going, and I think a very

interesting story can emerge.”195

Trouble point – presentation to the media

The question of when and how to address the media was triggered by the discussion about

the date, links and audience, whereupon the convener intervenes in an effort to come back

to the agenda and reminds the participants of the meeting’s main purpose: to discuss the

concrete action plans before thinking about media involvement:

“I mean the idea is very much to involve the media before, you know, very soon, once we know

what our actions are. We can’t start that until we know the topics. So I think, you know, this is our

priority, rather than talking about, you know, we can’t talk about visual stuff at the moment

because we don’t have any action yet. So, you know, I encourage your enthusiasm, but we have

actually to do some work before that.”196

Both of the subsequent times when the discussion drifts to elaborations on media

presentation (media-friendly structure197

and media contacts198

), the conveners intervene to

more or less resolutely come back to the agenda:

“One remark, we have two discussions are going on at the same time, that’s the one about media

and (...) raising profile, there is secondly what is it we wanna do. And I prefer the latter

conversation (...) what we’re about is to try and broaden and involve more partners and existing

work, or what we’re interested in is action. And media profile: great. But, we have limited

resources, we have limited time, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do that. But from our, from

Stakeholder Forum’s perspective, you know, a very good program could happen even if nobody

knows about it. I mean, through the media. And that would be good. It can happen.”199

She argues within the convener-driven mode as she takes some content lead and

substantiates her thrust with the time- and resource-scarcity.

194

Apr 02 MSO-1 1453-57 195

Apr 02 MSO-4 1529-41 196


Apr 02 JR 1152-94 198

Apr 02 1461-85 199



354

Trouble point – lobbying as joint objective

After some clarifications of the links to the official process by the convener, a participant

takes over setting the course and suggests that

“the first thing I think we should do now is taking a round on how we ourselves are planning

different ways and means to influence the activities.”200

He elaborates on how to influence the official negotiation process. The convener steers back

to the agenda and backs her strong objection with what has been decided by the group

earlier:

“Just one reaction to this, you know, what is reflected in these papers now is what the group put

forward. Our thrust is really joint action. And we discussed in the beginning that we not want to

lobby together and stuff like that. I really would not recommend to make that the focus of this

group. … And I really wouldn’t want this to be the focus of the group. This is not what we should be

about to go out and try to have governments agree particular things in Jo’burg. On that we should

have started one or two years ago, to come with a lobbying strategy.”201

Trouble point – finding a joint approach, mission and vision

For the conveners, the joint approach was already reflected in the Issue Paper, including the

mission and vision. They anticipated for this meeting that the Issue Paper would be

reworked according to the restructuring suggestions submitted by the participants since the

last meeting. In addition to this restructuring, the conveners scheduled enough time for the

meeting to work on the action plans, which was their priority. This turned out to be difficult

though, as the participants urged a comprehensive elaboration of the approach, the mission

and the vision.

As was described in the section ‘Organising togetherness’ (6.1), views differed strongly on

the following questions:

• how important it is to have a common ground

• how important it is to have an elaborated common ground

• if the partnership approach is completely different to or consistent with the action

plans approach as it had been named so far.

For the conveners, the mission, vision and approach inherent in the issue would have been

sufficient for starting with working on the action plans.

For the participants it was important to rework their approach and reach more clarity about

it before they were ready to bring in their suggestions for action initiatives.

200

Apr 02 MSO-1 0747-49 201



355

Some participants suggest as an approach the presentation and profiling of a network of

partnerships,202

inducing praise of the group’s cohesiveness and distinctiveness,203

which

would make the group predestined for this approach.

The convener takes that as an opportunity to remind the participants to use the space

offered. Instead of only talking about their approach she invites them to put it into practice:

“what the Implementation Conference is trying to do is to create a space for people who are doing

a lot of work … on water. … And we’ve approached this group because we knew you might not

shoot each other anymore. So there is a dynamic here, there is positive (...) action-oriented. But,

this is a space for you to use, so, if you say, well, we’re doing this and this and that, and I would

actually mind to be able to broaden the impact of what my organization is involved in, because I

can ask you guys to try and bring these and these and these organizations to that same meeting and

get me in touch beforehand so that a partnership that encompasses three organizations at this point

will encompass ten. And then we would feel we would have added value. But it’s not about

reinventing the wheel, this is a space to be used by those who are involved and interested. That’s

it.”204

The next speaker strongly promotes the partnership approach. The convener asks the group

if they want to come back to the agenda (after again facing “a new structure for the whole

process hh”205

) to become more specific and …

“start thinking about initiatives of partnerships that individual organisations are doing at the

moment and think how we can broaden them”.206

With “just a small question to you as facilitators”207

one participant checks whether the

conveners are capable of fulfilling their important task:

“What has just been discussed, are you willing, interested and able to actually (...) this requires

actually a lot (...) in communication, platform, networking (...) So that’s what you can offer?”208

“This is actually an inspiration to governments, to the inter-government process, to us, I mean, if

we can make this work. And so I think you guys [(addressing the conveners)] have got a

tremendous role to play in making this happen in a relatively short period of time.”209

In her answer, the convener offers flexibility concerning the approach and the conveners’

role and ensures support for what the group is deciding. She positions the conveners as very

responsive to changes suggested by the group:

“First of all, we’re facilitating this. So if you decide you want to do this, then this is what we’re

going to do. This is how we’ve been I think trying to facilitate this process so far. So we’re happy to

redirect. And if you’re saying, you know, if you agree on doing that then we’re going to be a broker

facilitating team. And I mean, I’m very happy to (redirect). And also the other suggestion …

building subgroups. If there are three, four organisations that want to go ahead and do something

202

Apr 02 0938-1092 203

Apr 02 1036-1092 204

Apr 02 Convener 1097-1113 205

IAG-coordinator 1197-1198 206

IAG-coordinator 1197-1205 207

Apr 02 NGO-10 1208 208

Apr 02 NGO-10 1219-20 209

Apr 02 NGO-10 1289-93


356

then, you know, then this is what they should do. … we’ll give these different, you know, it can be

smaller or larger initiatives (...) support.”210

With both of the points she mentioned – brokering and building subgroups – the newness as

it is constructed in this citation is surprising. The other convener was already speaking about

their brokering activities in the beginning211

and the idea of building subgroups was inherent

in the action plans.

What made this meeting so difficult to analyse or to comprehend, is that, similar to the

“change of the planned course of action” decided in March, discussion was often about how

the approach should change without the significance and consequences of the change

becoming entirely clear. Above all, it was not clear what it actually was that was changed.

My impression was often that the participants talked about having changed their approach,

but, in the end, what they did was consistent with what was planned or said previously.

The discussion goes on about how to categorize and select partnerships212

and about a new

approach to network partnerships213

. Having drifted to the discussion about links again, one

of the conveners makes another effort to focus the discussion so that the convening

organisation knows how to proceed after the meeting:

“what we’re discussing at the moment is what do we want to make of it. And I think the only

discussion we should have tonight. It would be great if we reach a workable consensus here and

move on to become more concrete so that we know what we’re doing for you.”214

Some comments and confusion on the structure follow215

, then the issue-coordinating

convener despairs:

“I’m just lost at the moment. We had an agenda in the beginning, which we haven’t followed. Yeah,

we haven’t followed at all.”216

The main convener takes it easier, but then becomes disabused:

“We have to change and we recreated clarity about what this is about. Is there clarity amongst you,

what we’re doing here, what the Implementation Conference is about? [No] Why are you shaking

your head?! I mean we don’t have to go for consensus on everything. But what needs to happen

between now and then and what should happen there (...) we need to have consensus. So, is this the

space, where you gonna start to provide (...) information about what you are doing, what you want

to put forward into this space, just like [Name of Women-1] (...) right in the beginning … I use a

different example, you know, partnership initiatives that are going on, they approach us and say we

would like to use your space to broaden this, we want a platform, but we’re also interested in

negotiating with other partners, we want a (...) initiative. And then you would need to provide us

with information and a mandate to start brokering with organisations that people feel should be

210




Apr 02 1361-91 214


Convener: “But, just to say, this is actually not the structure.” (Apr 02 IAG-coordinator 1666) Participant: “This is

not a structure at all” (Apr 02 1672) 216



357

involved, or could be interested to be involved. Secondly, to look at gaps, (...) yesterday, and that

would be new initiatives. Now, so far, we’ve (...) a bit back and forth over the last few months, made

a step saying to us asking us to start with some action plans, and then you said, no no, we want to

develop our joint vision, I’ve heard a lot of discussion again about let’s structure this together,

agree a structure, which is of course reflecting the underlying vision that you’re struggling with.

We’ve been very pleased that you’re trying to do that. But that’s a parallel process. Hm? [NGO-11:

Is there a vision statement?] What happened at the last meeting was that we drafted some (...)

specific action plan, and people said, and people said, hhhm, we want our joint picture first. We

want to use the group, we want to do more work within this group to structure a vision amongst

ourselves, and that’s why we listed comments and inputs into this issue paper, which is now swollen

a bit. But you see this is parallel, because we’re running out of time, we need the practical

information and mandate as well.”217

One participant nods constantly while the convener is speaking. He sees the difficulties in

the issue-driven process and suggests abandoning it in favour of the partnership approach

and concludes: “But if we have the freedom then to recast, I think we’ve got something that

people are enthusiastic about rather than puzzled, I mean that’s my sense.”218

Later he emphasises “We have people represent partnerships at the table”219

which is

welcomed by the conveners: “Yes, exactly”220

, “Exactly! So put them forward and then

hear what people around the table can add to that …, can we start that after the dinner. Is

that a good idea?” After a further suggestion of how to structure the partnerships the

convener finds the structure will develop automatically:

“Well, I think, everything that’s been here, is what people are doing (...). So I think once we start

actually just putting all these existing initiatives on the table, the structure will fall into place,

anyway.”221

The necessary sensemaking is not yet finished in order to be ready to assemble the

partnerships. A participant starts by putting a partnership on the table but then clarifies how

the approach is to be understood. Another participant pictures the approach metaphorically

on the whiteboard. The next speaker again finds it necessary to have a mission statement

and a target audience first before it is possible to choose what kind of partnerships are

suitable for contributing to the process.

After dinner the convener clarifies the role of the participants as experts, that they are the

ones who identify the gaps which can be filled by partnership initiatives:

“I mean that’s why we invited you, because (...) that you’ve got an overview over the area that

you’re working in. So that’s why this is an advisory group.”222

217


Apr 02 IGO-1 1819-21 219

Apr 02 IGO-1 1852 220

Apr 02 Convener and others: 1855 221




358

The group then deals with the restructuring submissions (the ‘homework’ since the last

meeting.

“So, there is a structure proposed by [name of IGO-1] … And also some of the priority areas from

other people that have commented … to sort of restructure it. Maybe we quickly go through these

things see if that is a structure that can be accepted by the group and than move forward.”223

The other convener asks the group to keep in mind the original structure:

“Maybe we shouldn’t forget the structure or the headings that are in the issue paper? Because

that’s putting much base on what came out of Bonn, that are the areas that are addressed in the

Bonn recommendation. So you will see that the suggestions are overlapping in area”224

The person who developed the structure on which the discussion is based is invited to “say

a few points to it”225

. His restructuring suggestion is approved by the group and the

conveners as “very good”.226

The convener then engages in a content discussion as she explains the idea behind the

original structure with the four issue strands and the cross-cutting issues. What had been

decided by the group as an overarching aim (water for the poor) used to be a cross-cutting

issue in the original structure. It is not clear if she is questioning that as an overarching aim.

She backs up the original structure (which this time cannot be grounded in a former group

decision) by revealing that the Stakeholder Forum’s international advisory board (a multi-

stakeholder body) had been consulted.227

She elaborates on the advantage of having poverty

eradication as cross-cutting issue instead of having “a broad discussion about poverty”.228

A participant insists on the significance of ‘water for the poor’ for the group.229

She argues

that by avoiding the poverty discussion it would be easier to engage the private sector.230

This version is rejected by a participant: “I want to slightly correct that … There is a

general interest from some private sector to reach out to the poor.”231

His view is endorsed

223




Apr 02 2162-65 227


“So we came up with these which are four, water, energy, food security and health, and people said but hhmm, any

partnership initiative, any action plan that you’re looking at should be analysed vis-à-vis, does it contribute to poverty

eradication, does it contribute to good governance, does it contribute to gender equity. And that’s, you know, that’s the

way we conceptualized it in the beginning to deal with the prospecting issue, and not to have a broad discussion about

poverty.” (Apr 02 Convener 2211-19) 229

“It’s a broad (...) thing, but it’s the, it’s (our/your) issue” Apr 02 NGO-11 2225 230

“Yeah, sure, but, if you look at which players do you need for partnerships going for action, particularly in the

business community for example it is, it is more conducive to have sectoral issues, then you have a water company

there. You’re not gonna find the poverty company [Government-1 :) poverty company]. So, and then say, o.k. any

action that we want to be involved in should be contributing to that” (Apr 02 Convener 2229-40) 231

“I want to slightly correct that, you know because also [business-2] is not here [he just went out], I want to (...) brief

on behalf of the private sector on that issue. There is a general interest from some private sector to reach out to the

poor. … So certainly private sector as presented, is the (saviour) for extinction of (...) is not true. But private sector is a

great Facilitator and vehicle for a better efficient (water supply). And I think we should completely not eliminate the

private sector in (addressing) to poverty.” (MSO-1 2243-63)


359

by further participants who propose the involvement of the (local) private sector as a

necessity.232

The convener reacts to this criticism by welcoming what the participants can

contribute as experts and by taking up the examples they bring up:

“So I mean that’s, that’s exactly your expertise, that we need, and contacts, and, you know, advise,

who to contact to involve. If there’s a program idea that you’ve been pursuing.”233

After this excursion to the role of the private sector the conveners make another attempt to

come back to the agenda: “just trying to get back to what we actually want to do here. Talk

about structure.”234

Some questions emerge on how this structure is used, then it is clarified that it serves “to

figure out who is dealing with what”235

, to map the partnerships out236

. The structure is

refined by other participants. The convener then tries to prevent the discussion from going

into too much detail:

“I mean we’ve sort of agreed that, you know, our goal is water for the poor? [IGO-1: Yeah.;

Business-3: Yes.] I don’t think it matters so much, you know, which one you put first now.”237

With this suggestion she evokes indignation:

“No, I think it’s absolutely vital! [somebody consents] Because unless we know what we’re aiming

for, we don’t have any structure to our thinking [some: Exactly] So I think we have to decide, is

that our mission. If that’s our mission, then we have to start organizing our thinking and our

activities towards what needs to happen to achieve that.”238

The convener states that there is already a mission and an approach written in the issue

paper:

“I mean, that’s why we call it an Implementation Conference, implementing initial agreements

pertaining to these issues (...) maybe the most prominent … the millennium goals. If you look at the

initial issue paper, we tried to do we put the relevant international agreements on the left hand side

because the message that we’re trying to get out of this is, we’re taking you seriously as

stakeholders and we use one methodology, partnerships, stakeholder action, joint action to deliver

a particular slice of the cake towards these goals. That’s the vision.”239

The discussion goes on and a holistic framework anchored at the millennium development

goals with ‘partnerships’ as approach is developed. A participant expresses his (or the

group’s) satisfaction: “This is how we as a group think you can deliver the millennium

goals.”240

232

Apr 02 2266-2305; “You will not have a sustainable program in a developing country unless you involve the local

private sector. (...) Once you stop the activity [snaps his finger], your program stops.” (NGO-11 2303-05) 233



Apr 02 IGO-1 2397 236

Apr 02 IGO-1 2416 237


Apr 02 Business-3 2483-98 239




360

The other convener pushes for coming to terms with the action plans now that an agreement

on the structure has been reached:

“Maybe we should have sort of last round on this subject. And then I suggest, we will try together,


A further rupture comes about. The participant who proposed the structure and urged the

abandonment of the issue-driven process and the use of the partnership approach instead

objects strongly. He also views the action plans as belonging to this issue-driven approach,

which he thinks is causing the fundamental problems the group is struggling with:

“But I think the issue was, we’re trying to move from action plans to partnerships. And this is a

really important issue. ‘Cos what happens is, is that we say, o.k., we got to use partnerships, (...)

action plans, like this, this is, (...) we had a fundamental problem. The, the action plan framework is

what seems to be where we’re not going and the partnership thing seems to give us a way forward!

And, and so getting into the action plan proposals is not critical if we say we want to deal with

partnerships and we want to get the partnerships structured. I mean, I don’t quite know, but these

aren’t the same things!”242

The convener equates the partnerships with the action plans:

“You know, stakeholder partnerships [yeah], you know, that’s what you’re doing. You’re proposing

the things you’re working on to the group, to get the partnerships on board.”243

The participant insists urgently on this difference which he had introduced:

“there’s a very fundamental difference! (.) One is, assembling an action plan which implies

agreement. The other is assembling partnerships which is a marketplace of ideas. These are really

really different things, they’re not the same at all! (...) in the marketplace of ideas things, you could

do (...) real fast, the other one is a nightmare to do. And they’re very different. That’s why I’m, I’m

being difficult at the moment [very short laugh].”244

Other participants suggest as a solution to this problem the use of IWRM (integrated water

resource management) as an approach or overriding principle, and the group gives its

consent.245

Surprisingly, this suggestions calms down the excitement about the fundamental

difference between the approaches.

A participant puts the framework as it is developed now on the whiteboard, the group

refines it and is satisfied with what has been achieved. “Excellent!”246

“Labour is booking

that house”247

, the convener is also satisfied “mmm. That’s good”248

, “It’s a blueprint!”,

241


Apr 02 IGO-1 2786-96 243


Apr 02 IGO-1 2810-24 245

Apr 02 2827-98 246


Apr 02 3121 248



361

“An elegant way to achieve that goal” and finally “the other thing is you could show this to

somebody, they can understand it what we’re trying to do!”249

In her mail after the meeting, the convener reaffirmed the participants’ lead and creates

continuity by integrating the IAG’s work so far, while at the same time emphasising the

progress which had been made:

“The meeting turned out to be very dynamic and energising and I felt we made a lot of progress.

We agreed on a common framework that will guide us to take our work forward to the

Implementation Conference and beyond. … The framework reflects the work the IAG has done so

far on the Freshwater Issue Paper but reflects an overarching, more logical structure under which

partnership initiatives and gaps can be identified.”250

Thinking about it retrospectively, I’m surprised about this great relief which was felt in

having accomplished the new framework. My impression is that it was constructed as being

something very new even though most of it had already been incorporated in what they had

before (for example the suggestion of putting the Bonn Conference outcomes into the

mission statement was already in the Preamble of the Issue Paper). Moreover, the

framework played a role in the subsequent ‘homework’, proposing the action plans, but it

was not visible anymore in any of the further documents. The framework was not actually

used for the development of the individual action plans later. But obviously it was needed

for the participants to be ready to bring in their suggestions. Was it a transient though very

important issue, this highly valued framework for which they struggled so hard? At least it

seemed to enable the participants’ switch from their wait-and-see posture to owning the

process.

Balancing and integrating a single contribution

The common framework which was produced at that meeting was based to a large extent on

a structure from a participant’s submission which was then handed out at the meeting and

which was very much appreciated. The group as well as the conveners approve this

restructuring suggestion as “very good”.251

The group then decided to adopt this structure

after slight rearrangements252

and to build on that the common framework developed at this

meeting. After the meeting, the structure was sent out by the coordinator together with the

meeting report and their newly developed common framework as it “might serve as a useful

249

Apr 02 3284-99 250

Mail Apr 02 251

Apr 02 2162-65 252

The order of the themes was changed, the key points on each individual theme were kept unaltered.


362

background document”253

. This shows that there was the possibility for participants to

influence the process even individually quite considerably if they actively pursue it. This

possibility was not seized by all the participants to the same extent.

There seems to be a peculiar tension resulting from the aim of a joint undertaking and the

expectation of single contributions. People are asked to bring in their contribution. When

this participant came up with his well-prepared contribution, he emphasised repeatedly that

with his new structure he is integrating what was discussed previously and that he does not

want to be determinative:

“this was just basically to have a structured record of what we’re talking about as a background

document to facilitate the discussion because in this group we’ve had some continuity, some of us

have been to most meetings, and then there are other people that very constructively come in and

out. So it’s just to have a structured snapshot of discussions. Not, you know, not to determinative,

just sort of a structured way to look what had been said. That’s all.”254

At the end he is happy with how the structure is modified by the group.255

Content lead by conveners. In the meeting some differences between the participants and

the conveners emerged on the questions of lobbying, presentation of the outcomes and on

the importance of an elaborated common framework. The convener declares her strong

objection to lobbying as a goal of the process (“I really wouldn’t want this to be the focus of

the group”256

, see above). She substantiates this intervention with the short preparation

time of the process and backs it up with what was decided by the group earlier. The

convener also intervenes on the proliferating discussion on the presentation of the

outcomes:

“One remark, we have two discussions going on at the same time, that’s the one about media and

(...) raising profile, there is secondly what is it we wanna do. And I prefer the latter

conversation.”257

When the order of the new structure is discussed by the participants for a while, the

coordinator attempts to shorten the discussion, which is firmly rejected by a participant:

“I don’t think it matters so much, you know, which one you put first now.”258

“No, I think it’s absolutely vital!”259

The limited time frame does not seem to allow for too many elaborations and changes in the

approach used. This is taken as a reason why the conveners try hard to stick to their agenda

253

Mail Apr 02 254

Apr 02 IGO-1 2152-59 255

“Your consolidation works well to, because, if you take what [name of Government-1] and you said (...) allows you

to blend them down so that they’re all more digestible.” (Apr 02 IGO-1 3020-22) 256






363

at the meeting in April, focusing on developing the action plans even though so many other

urgent concerns are put forward by the participants.

Facilitation by participants. Due to the lack of resources, the meeting in April was not

facilitated by a dedicated facilitator. Facilitation tasks were sometimes taken over by the

conveners and, especially towards the end, by some participants who did that job with

considerable engagement.

Starting with the beginning of the meeting, a participant suggested as a variation to the

usual introduction round that mutual introductions should be carried out, now that people

probably knew each other.260

Some participants recommend how to structure the next steps

for conveners and participants within the meeting261

or beyond the meeting262

. Or

participants take charge of the timescale of the meeting.263

The participants are the ones

who make use of the whiteboard,264

one of them energetically takes over the facilitation

towards the end of the meeting to put wood behind the arrow. Having silently put down the

framework on the white board as it was developed, she starts with “let me just try to agree

on this and then move on.”265

She evokes the remarks “You like us to initial?

Everybody?”266

and seeks approval from conveners and participants.267

She checks back268

and asks that things be put into concrete terms: “and how do you do it? And what do you

do? How do we want to bring this all together?”269

She energetically holds the group

together just when the meeting is about to finish: “On more step before we can go back!

One more, one more!”270

and reminds people of their responsibilities: “And don’t forget

that we will be the ones that will have to provide that information so let’s agree on it!”271

The group is enthusiastic about what they have achieved now she has put the framework on

the whiteboard (“Excellent”, “It’s a blueprint!”, “An elegant way to achieve that goal” and

finally “the other thing is you could show this to somebody, they can understand it what

we’re trying to do”).272

The ‘facilitating’ participant partly attributes that enthusiasm to her

merits: “I’ll take that as a compliment” which she is heartily granted: “Yeah, you did a

260

Apr 02 Women-1 0045-46 261

E.g. Apr 02 NGO-11 1946-47 262

E.g. Apr 02 NGO-10 1246-51 263

E.g. Apr 02 Government-1 1593, IGO-1 1602 264

Apr 02 Public-Water-1 1928-43 and Women-1 2986 until the end 265

Apr 02 Women-1 3032, see also Women-1 3222-30 266

Apr 02 Unions-1 3036 267

Apr 02 Business-3 3045, IGO-1 3063 268

“I missed out anything?” (Apr 02 Women-1 3054) “And I think we’ve covered it” (Apr 02 Women-1 3069) 269

Apr 02 Women-1 3093, 3099, 3138-40, see also 3246-48 and IGO-1 3150 270

Apr 02 Women-1 3130 271

Apr 02 Women-1 3146-47 272

Apr 02 3284-99


364

great job, (let’s take) photographs”.273

She is “still not satisfied” though and insists again

and again (as discipline diminishes) for a decision on the time frame for the next steps.274

The conveners are using the participants’ drive and are calling on the participants,

emphasising their ownership: “before we’re all falling apart, erm, now, you’ve given

yourselves some work, yeah, you’ve given yourselves some work!”275

The ‘facilitating’ participant not only ensures the time frame, she also suggests the tasks

which should be done by the participants after the meeting:

“Mmmay I suggest a strategy?” The conveners and others welcome her thrust: “Yeah,

please”276

. The conveners are emphasising the participant’s lead: “So and shall we agree

that within two weeks time you’re all gonna do what [Name of Women-1] said”277

Whereupon the participant abates it: “I’m suggesting it [some laughing]”278

but the

conveners stick to their version: “Yeah. And do what [name of Women-1] said”279

, “Do

what [name of Women-1] says is always a good strategy.”280

During the general commotion towards the end of the meeting the ‘stricter’ facilitating tasks

are shared by participants (“Come on discipline!”, “can everybody listen!”281

) and

conveners (“Stop chatting!”, “Shut up!”282

).

The conveners check back about the framework and then check back about the concrete

tasks and the time frame.283

Process flexibility. Despite being criticised, some things remain unchanged in the

documents (Issue Paper). The way the documents develop is not always responsive to the

group’s inputs. This can partly be seen as a strategy to maintain continuity despite back-

and-forth decisions of the IAG.

On the other hand, the group is not always responsive to the agenda (even though they co-

developed it). At this meeting (and also at others) it seems to be very hard to stick to the

agenda.

273

Apr 02 Women-1 3302, IGO-1 3305 274

Apr 02 Women-1 3310, 3316, 3322, 2236, 3343, 3679 275


“That maybe each of us go back now and maybe within two weeks identify then which are the issues we’re gonna

talk about. So, for example, I could easily tell you in two weeks that I will write about mainstreaming gender. And …

what I’ll do is maybe outline a few case studies [IAG-coordinator: yeah] I won’t start writing the case studies [IAG-

coordinator: yeah] but give you a very short description of it. The lessons learnt, how to (spread) and how to diversify

it. And I think that should be the first round that we should share with one another. And then by Bali maybe … or

maybe before Bali [IAG-coordinator: before] we should have another round … Maybe after, maybe after that first

exchange we might see where the gaps are. [Convener: yeah]” (Women-1 3379-3406) 277


Apr 02 Women-1 3416 279



Apr 02 Unions-1, Women-1 4075, 4078 282

Apr 02 Convener 283

Apr 02 Convener 3424fff


365

As this process is meant to be an equitable process, people seem to hesitate to put too much

drive behind their contribution (like the issue of the single contribution with the structure).

Here also the ‘facilitating’ participant emphasises that she is making a ‘suggestion’. It is

welcomed though not as a suggestion, but something that should be done. It seems as if,

when there is too much openness in the process, closure is welcome.

6.2.3.6 Meeting May 02, Bali

At the previous meeting, the development and discussion of concrete action plans had fallen

utterly behind for the second time despite being on the agenda (meeting in March and

meeting in April) as the original template had been rejected and there was then a need to

develop a common framework first. Hence, for this meeting it is all the more urgent to make

tangible progress concerning the action plans. Achieving concrete outcomes is now

considered as very critical, as it is the last face-to-face meeting before the Implementation

Conference: “we feel now if we don’t achieve a concrete outcome for today we won’t be

able to get to Johannesburg with any good initiatives.”284

The goal is to select the action

plan projects for the final Implementation Conference, “to develop a clear list” of “a

manageable size” out of about thirty ideas.285

The character of the International Advisory Group „Freshwater“ meeting in Bali is in sharp

contrast to the group’s previous meeting in Switzerland. The Switzerland meeting was not

facilitated and scarcely structured, the atmosphere was relaxed and there was a lot of

laughter.

Unlike the previous meetings, the lead for the meeting in Bali was completely taken over

by the conveners – put into action by a rigorous though highly respected facilitator who was

engaged for that meeting. The participants’ contributions were confined to presenting their

projects and displaying their commitment, expressing interest in joining other projects or

commenting on or questioning what was presented by others in a very short time frame. The

little remaining time in the end was used to give visiting government representatives a say,

leading to a short exchange on how the group would position their IC project within the

official process.

The task for this meeting was to finally put substance behind the action plans and select the

ones eligible for the Implementation Conference in August. The suggested action plans

were checked to ensure that they were “real” and “substantive” enough to be listed on the

284

May 02 IAG-coordinator 0089-90 285

May 02 IAG-coordinator 0098-0100


366

IC agenda: “we’re kind of separating things tonight.”286

The style in which this meeting

was convened (in a restrictive closure mode) served to achieve the long-awaited focus.

Facilitation in order to reach closure

In line with the enhanced pace and in complete contrast to the previous meeting, this

meeting is facilitated strictly and rigorously, leaving hardly any space besides with a strictly

predefined agenda.

The meeting starts without an introduction round which was not very much appreciated287

,

and without the possibility of adding comments/suggestions to the agenda. The facilitator

announces his approach: “my charge tonight is to be incredibly direct and ruthless while

being gentle”288

. This statement refers to the time management during the meeting as well

as to the requirements concerning the proposed projects.

He goes on to state the criteria which need to be fulfilled to make the projects eligible for

the IC. Compared with the progress of the multi-stakeholder process so far, the introductory

words of the facilitator were unfamiliar in their clarity and harshness:

“I have to say to you directly, that if you don’t have committed sponsors, (.) and you don’t have

money, (.) and you don’t have a schedule, and you don’t know who your leader is, you probably

don’t have a project that belongs on the agenda (.) at the IC in Johannesburg.”289

He goes on by framing today’s task in a longer-term perspective, looking towards the next

major water conference, the World Water Forum in Kyoto 2003. By embedding all the

projects at the table in the longer time frame, he provides for applying the closure mode in

the short-term (until Johannesburg):

“Since before the Bonn dialogues, but certainly since them, there’ve been some great meetings and

some superb ideas that have been (...) around. Some of those ideas are not going to really

materialise until we get to Kyoto. Those in effect are on a different track now from the ones that we

have to focus on (pause) (...) [finger snapping] from the ones that we have to focus on for

Johannesburg.”290

“So what we’re doing tonight is beginning to take a look at a set of projects represented by some of

you who are here and looking at a kind of a side-track from the overall development of many things

moving towards Kyoto, but looking towards a very substantive presentation on real things when we

get to Johannesburg.”291

This rigorous selection procedure is mitigated only slightly in the following, but is

explained succinctly with the prevailing criticism of partnerships in their context:

286

May 02 Facilitator 0059 287

May 02 0139, the taping also caused disquiet. 288

May 02 Facilitator 0032-33 289



May 02 Facilitator 0048-52


367

“It would be unfair to say that everything gets side-tracked that doesn’t have money tonight but you

do need to know that if it doesn’t have money and it’s not real and it doesn’t have committed

partners in Johannesburg, then there is a real liability to including it in the agenda. Because as all

of you know and as some of you are leaders there is great criticism of the idea that partnerships

aren’t real anyway. It’s not to say that some good ideas won’t materialise more slowly and that

others will not see major play when we get to Kyoto. But it is to say we’re kind of separating things

tonight.”292

For the projects which might be side-tracked, a longer-term perspective is offered. Thus,

recognition is ensured for all the projects. The convener does not pose as the one who will

finally judge the suggested projects, as he mentions the possibility of the projects that are

not eligible for the IC coming to fruition by Kyoto. By saying in the beginning that the IC is

“a kind of a side-track from the overall development of many things moving towards

Kyoto”293

, he has already made provision against devaluing excluded projects, as they are

only excluded from a side-track of the really important longer-term perspective, the

perspective towards Kyoto. He uses the term ‘side-track’ once for the IC projects and the

second time for the excluded projects. Thereby he achieves equal recognition.

The time frame is rigid294

, not only regarding the remaining time until the IC, but also

regarding the time for the meeting that evening. Because of that, the speaking time allocated

to each project proponent is strictly confined to seven minutes and those seven minutes are

expected to be filled with a substantive project description:

“seven minutes to do several things: to tell us the purpose and a little bit about the project, to let us

know whether you have a committed leader that literally is going to be responsible for delivery, let

us know whether you have written commitments from the partners in the project, do you have

funding, what the status of the funding is and how the schedule for getting good hard answers to all

of those questions. If there is any time left in that seven minute period then we’ll engage in

questions or comments from other folks about the project so we all kind of understand. The reason

that it has to be that short is that we have to be outta here at eight o’clock.”295

The other reason given is the need to come to concrete terms with the action plans:

“Forgive me if I seem to be rushing you, but I do feel a responsibility to try to get to a result

this evening.”296

Only a short time slot after the project proposals is left more open: “then we talk about

additional ideas and a way forward and wrap up toward the end of here”.297

But this short

time slot was then mainly used for an exchange with some visiting government

representatives.

292



May 02 0060-70 295





368

The way the facilitator introduces the meeting prompts the convener to provide a

justification:

“that very focused and slightly harsh introduction from [the facilitator] [some: very slight

laughter] is due to there is a briefing I gave to him about how the process has been so far. We’ve,

since Bonn, there has been this process, we’ve met at the last PrepComs, we’ve met at a conference

in Switzerland recently. And we’ve spent a lot of time consulting and creating a joint vision. And we

feel now if we don’t achieve a concrete outcome for today we won’t be able to get to Johannesburg

with any good initiatives. And that’s really what we’re trying to do today.”298

Reopening the space and offering support

If the facilitator seems to draw a line, the convener reopens the arena for projects excluded

from discussion. The facilitator states the criteria. It sounds as if only quite mature projects

will make it to the IC agenda. Contradicting the facilitator’s wording, the convener extends

the time limit for the decision as to which projects will belong to the IC agenda. This seems

to also include quite premature projects: she suggests that interested people can develop

these ideas further. She bridges the rather contradictory approaches (hers and the

facilitator’s) by reinterpreting what the facilitator has said – “as [name of facilitator] sort of

said” – (even though the reinterpretation differs significantly from what he was saying):

“So as [name of facilitator] sort of said: if we won’t manage to discuss certain points today, that

doesn’t mean that they can’t be discussed bilaterally and you know with those IAG members as well

that aren’t here today, we’re going to continue doing that. And also, just for you, [name of a

participant], I’m not saying, we’re not trying to say that if don’t have funding now, that, you know,

[somebody very slightly laughing] you shouldn’t talk about that which is, that’s not something

we’ve ever .. been asking of you so far, I mean, the idea for today is very much to develop a clear

list, because at the moment we have, I think, about thirty, you know, a lot of good ideas, thirty ideas

for action plans and we just need to limit that to a manageable size for the Implementation

Conference.”299

Instead of speaking of “separating things tonight” she prefers to say “to develop a clear

list”300

. The convener rather hands the decision back to the group by asking if there is

(enough) support for certain projects and (thereby) allows projects which do not yet fulfil

the facilitator’s criteria to stay on board:

“So basically, we are very much hoping to get an idea of who is supporting a certain action plan,

you know, I’ve just, for many ideas I’ve just got one or two lines and if then somebody else from

different stakeholder groups wants to come in to sort of add a different component or, you know,

say their opinion to (...) so, the idea is then that we have a list of people who are interested in a

certain action plan and then to develop subgroups who are going to sit together afterwards after

(...) to develop these ideas further. … and in these subgroups you’re going to think as well about

who are going to be the participants that should actually be part of implementing these ideas, who

should be coming to the Implementation Conference, how are we, if there isn’t funding yet, like for,

298



May 02 IAG-coordinator 0098


369

you know, new, completely new partnerships, how are we going to fundraise for them, and

obviously we’re here to support you.”301

The convener also mellows the funding criterion and offers support for fundraising.

The convener offers space (or time) after this meeting for projects which do not yet fulfil the

facilitator’s criteria to be discussed further.

“Also there might be quite a few ideas that have been raised so far or that haven’t been raised but

that people want to put to the group and we’re going to provide the space afterwards … we’re

going to move to another place, to a restaurant, and continue discussion there.”302

There they are going to eat and as the facilitator adds – taking an ironic turn on the session

as it is being facilitated: “and maybe drink, [some slightly laughing] which we may need by

that time” and, since they will have had quite a tough day, the convener adds “and stop the

decision making after that.”303

Later, during the discussions of the action plans in turn, the facilitator relativates what he

said earlier (“we’re kind of separating things tonight.”304

), so he is also hinting at reopening

the space:

“keep in mind there are probably around I guess there are twenty somewhat projects for whom

someone is not here tonight. So this isn’t like a final decision (...) this is focused on trying to begin

to populate the IC with some very good (projects)305

In the end, there was no explicit discussion about inclusion or exclusion of projects, the

convener simply summed up: “I think we’ve got that list now we’ve been talking about.”306

Having interrupted the discussion in the short time slot at the end of the meeting, the

facilitator hands over – using the supporting mode – to the convener to orient the

participants about the path to the final conference, to “give us a sense of where we are,

what’s next, how we can help you”307

and offers: “So if you would you like to have a

meeting around your idea you contact [Name of IAG-coordinator], she will help identify

people here or others that she knows that you may not know.”308

The interplay of the restrictive and supportive mode, or openness and closure, mirrors the

dilemma of ‘spending a lot of time consulting and creating a joint vision’ versus ‘achieving

301



May 02 IAG-coordinator, Facilitator, Convener 0125-31 304

May 02 Facilitator 0059 305






370

concrete outcomes’: Focusing on the achievement of concrete outcomes is the reason given

for the marked change of pace in the process. At the same time, it is emphasised that a lot of

space had already been provided for “consulting and creating a joint vision”. Still, the

convener continues to ensure that a space is provided for what cannot be discussed in this

meeting.

The restrictive mode at the same time works supportively, for example by ensuring equity in

speaking time. Limiting the speaking time so strictly serves to allocate speaking time fairly.

With the following citations a tension is expressed between ruthlessness and fairness or

rudeness and offering orientation.

“And so I, as I’ve mentioned to some of you in Bonn not in a personal way but in a general way I

will have to be very ruthless on the time. And if you take too much time which means that someone

else is really (...) gonna lose some time. And so I’ll try to be very fair in allocating the time.”309

“in full transparency we’re doing this of course so that there will be equal interest in everyone’s

part and keeping everyone else on schedule [laughter].”310

“Let me, let me be rude for a moment. I know there are a lots of questions and lots of discussions

that then will follow from this. Now we have taken at least part of the initial steps (...) we know who

each other are. And some of those questions maybe go there, I want to give [Name of IAG-

coordinator] some time at the end of this to talk a little bit about where we go from here and next

steps, because I think it’s specifically preparing for the IC because I think that’s critical and we are

just about outta time, so if there’s not giant objection to not stopping, but merely deferring question

and discussion for just a little bit, so we could focus on this [Name of IAG-coordinator] kind of give

us a sense of where we are, what’s next, how we can help you.”311

Each time he manages the dilemma by referring to the benefit of all, with the initial

statements about the (shared) value of fairness and equality, with the later statements about

(orienting) and helping the group. With the later statement he does not stop discussion but

defers it to another place, like the convener did in the beginning of the meeting. Instead of

actually blocking the flow of discussion, it is channelled, the scarce time in the meetings is

used for chosen priorities.

A multi-track approach was pursued at that meeting. Apparently several options were

offered regarding the speed of moving forward in terms of fulfilling the criteria and

discussing the action plans more thoroughly.

309





371

6.2.3.7 Between May and August 02

Since, at the meeting in May and the subsequent dinner, the Action Plans are not able to be

elaborated in detail, the coordinator sends out questions regarding “items not being covered

at dinner”312

. She uses the questions from the formerly rejected template. The questions

remain exactly the same, but the template is changed insofar as the layout is no longer a

table. Thus at least visually it is not the previously criticised ‘restrictive template’.

Furthermore it is ensured that all signs of restriction are diminished by supplementing every

question by a question for comments, suggestions or additions. Content-wise, however,

continuity is maintained with the original action plan draft as suggested by the conveners.

The new framework which was developed by the group in April lost significance, as far as I

know. It had played a rather transient role for the development of action plans subsequent to

the meeting in April.

The proponents of the action plans that had not yet outlined their action plans in detail

according to the questions sent out earlier were asked by email313

to make up leeway if the

purpose, the desired outcomes, and the participants to be invited were still not clear. The

urgent necessity (and the prospect of closure) was highlighted by making eligibility for the

IC of the project contingent on the answers to those questions:

“If we find that we are unable to answer these questions for the Action Plan we should then

question the value of holding or participating in an IC working group in this arena.”314

Shortly before the final conference, the participants of the action plan group are reminded of

what is expected from their participation:

“You’ve been invited to participate in the understanding that you will be motivated and mandated

to actively contribute to the development of this partnerships and possibly engage in its

implementation. It will be crucial to think about your potential contribution to the various aspects

of this action plan in advance to ensure constructive discussions.”315

The convener uses the participant-driven process repertoire, but the fact that she needs to

remind them rather strictly of the participants’ drive is somewhat paradoxical and with that

she seems to speak in the convener-driven mode. If the participants were driving the

process, it would probably not be necessary to remind them. On the other hand, there will be

many newcomers at the conference (the participants of the action plan group who had not

participated in the IAG during the preparations) who do not know the rules yet.

312

Questionnaire “Completing the Plan” May 02 313

Mail 10th Jul 02 314

Mail 10th

Jul 02 315

Mail Aug 02


372

Facilitation. The champions (proponents) were also informed about the facilitation at the

Implementation Conference. The supportive-leadership repertoire was used for

presenting the facilitation infrastructure as a resource for the champions:

“To enable more productive and successful IC sessions there is now a facilitation team in place to

help design and run the IC sessions. This facilitation team has been recruited to a) match the

diversity of the multi-stakeholder parties and b) provide us with the best possible facilitation

resource to enable successful IC outcomes. We now have a team of 5 or 6 Facilitators assigned to

assist in the design of each Action Plan session at the IC. They will also facilitate each of the

sessions for us, this means they will be responsible for helping with the design of each session and

will facilitate both the process and the people during the sessions. Shortly … each will have a

Facilitator resource to support the design and process for each plan. … In reviewing and

answering the above questions [purpose, outcomes, participants, detailed plan] each Action Plan

‘team’ will work with their allocated Facilitator to design and plan the IC working group.”316

6.2.3.8 Implementation Conference August 02, Johannesburg

The action plan group “Multi-Stakeholder Review of Water and Sanitation Strategies” is

not really comparable to the meetings before. Unlike the previous meetings it was not led by

the convener and the coordinator. It also constituted a special case among the other action

plans at the Implementation Conference, as the action plan was championed by the director

of the convening organisation. Thereby the premises for a stronger content lead from the

side of the convening organisation were provided. The championship of the convening

organisation was planned to be only an interim solution, however.

The facilitator explicates the content drive as follows: “So (…) the content comes from you.

There’ll be some content upfront from [name of director-SF] and then you are the experts

from there on.”317

The function of this content input is explained with the supportive-repertoire, to provide for

a levelled basis:

“I hand over to [name of director-SF] from Stakeholder Forum ( ) he is gonna do an opening

presentation for us which will hopefully put us all on the same level, all on the same (page) so (that)

we’re all working within the same context.”318

Beyond this opening presentation, the director of the convening organisation participated as

actively as others from the group, with a considerable content lead. In most of his

contributions, he promoted the expanded version of the review combined with the learning-

sharing repertoire, i.e. to convene case studies where all the different sectors, public,

private, community and their combinations bring in their best examples in order to start

from a positive space, to foster sharing lessons, sharing understanding and mutual learning

in order to find “a better way of doing things”. The results of such a mutual exchange could

316

Mail Jul 02 317




373

then be presented and further shared in the form of road shows in several countries.319

Furthermore, the director contributed with his extensive experience and competence from

his activities “on the corridors”320

of the official processes.321

Because the convening organisation thereby took a clear stance with regard to the

controversial issue (see above), some IC participants criticised the championship and

content lead of the convening organisation.322

However, there were also regrets that the

director could not attend the session on the third day of the conference and that he therefore

could not do the final presentation of the action plan group to the plenary.323

The director championed the action plan group for the IC, but the championship was still

open for the time beyond the IC. The group discussed this question while the director was

absent and suggested that he could prolong his interim championship:

“Suggestions about interim champion, we were thinking of you while you were out of the room.”324

The director displayed a readiness to do that, while emphasising the interim status and the

need for a decision from the complete group of stakeholders.

“we can do that. But then we’ll step away … (and let the) group find a champion”325

.

The next day this issue was re-opened and the idea of an “interim core management

team”326

came into play. On this occasion, voices for and against the interim championship

of the convening organisation came up, whereby it became clear that a heavily convener-

driven mode at the expense of a (balanced) stakeholder-driven mode is to be avoided.

“I thought [name of director-SF] had offered yesterday to actually form that interim stakeholder

group.”327

“Yes. Well, that was my understanding, too.”328

…

“I don’t think relationships between (this) stakeholder (group) and [name of opposing

organisation] are that harmonious. [No] And hh there is a consequence, there is some difficulty

somewhere, I don’t know precisely where this comes from or what the purpose is. As to the

Stakeholder Forum seems to be taking a lead on an initiative as opposed to facilitating and (…)

[Several: yeah].”329

319

IC1 Director-SF 0591-0602; 0782-93; 1139-53; 1373-90; 1841-59; 1883-94; 1919-30; 2610-13; 2637-42; 2792-

2804; 3046-48

IC2 Director-SF 0195-0206; 0240-42; 0399-0407; 0429-47; 0458-61; 1397-98 320


e.g. Director-SF IC1 2109-30; 2399-2439; IC2 0223-31 322

IC1, Notes IC1 323

IC3, after the Facilitator’s question who would be prepared to present to the plenary: “It’s a pity [name of director-

SF] isn’t here” Public-Water-2 0753 324



IC3 NGO-1 0314 327



IC3 NGO-1 0337-40


374

“Well my sense is very much and I was speaking to [Name of IAG-coordinator] again (and I’m)

keeping a bit more conscious, maybe that’s the role, outlined for Stakeholder Forum, and I think

that’s what [name of director-SF] reiterated yesterday, that it is very much Stakeholder Forum

facilitating the (…) we’re getting into a point where it is (up) and running, but not actually carrying

out the review, that was my understanding certainly with discussions with [name of director-SF]

and [Name of IAG-coordinator] prior to this.”330

There seems to be a common agreement on Stakeholder Forum’s role of facilitating the

project, whereas “running” the project or even “taking a lead” would be less unanimously

approved. The convening organisation was reported to have clarified that they would not be

“actually carrying out” the project, and that the director had made clear that championing it

would only be a temporary task. The ‘grey zone’ in between was obviously controversial, in

particular with regard to the party which had left the project and whom they tried to

reintegrate, the unions. From the perspective of their ‘main counterparts’, the private sector

representatives, however, the director is considered as pretty neutral in comparison:

“He has a certain degree of legitimacy and detachment … myself for example, I’m too partisan”331

.

The difficulties of finding and deciding upon a champion are strongly associated with the

difficulty of creating sufficient ownership among the participating stakeholders. Both were

identified as big risks.332

With the latter, reference was mainly made to “insufficient

ownership outside the current group”333

, but the ownership within the current group was

also questionable. The representatives made it clear that their continued participation

depended on the approval of their constituencies, which they considered doubtful as long as

the scope was not defined more specifically to ensure distinctiveness (see above).334

On the last day, the facilitator comes back again to the need to “review your own

participation”335

.

Only one participating representative offered that his organization could take over an

interim championship.336

Instead, some participants were very active in suggesting

extraordinarily high-profile champions. The director of the convening organisation, despite

being regarded as having “a certain degree of legitimacy and detachment”337

, was

considered as “not high enough profile”338

and also for this reason only suitable as an

330



IC2 Business-1 “never find a champion” (1439), “fail to gain a champion” (1487-88) 333

IC2 NGO-1 1468-69; compare also “Basically, loss of ownership of the initiative by stakeholders, if we don’t use a

dialogue process.” (IC2 Business-3 1482-83) 334

IC2 NGO-1 0525-28; IC2 Business-1 0535-37; IC2 NGO-1 1062-63 335




IC2 Business-2 0705; Business-1 0708


375

intermediate champion339

(aside from the need to be confirmed by a more complete

stakeholder group), because the type of person they were looking for “is a sort of an ex

statesman, a retired statesman, we’re looking for a Nelson Mandela type”340

.

With a high-profile person, they hoped to ensure sufficient ownership, especially from the

parties that are still absent:

“If we got [Klaus Töpfer], somebody of that eminence on board. I think they would be able (to bring

with them) the leadership dimension, the ability to bring people along, and say, this is important, I

would like you to come along, so, in a sense, my instinct is, if you can crack that and get it right, it

will carry with it some of those … and that’s why getting the right person would open some of those

doors. Because people actually, if you get the right person, they will not want to refuse the offer. …

And that’s why it … it’s an important decision to get the right person.”341

This logic was controversial, though. One participant submitted that it was eminently

important to “crack the other side before”342

, to ensure ownership from the different sides

in advance before approaching a potential champion. The other, more practical argument

was:

“I don’t think that any of those aspirational champions will have the time …”343

“Obviously these kind of people don’t do this nitty-gritty hands-on stuff anyway”344

The attempt to solve the ownership problem by seeking such a high level champion

therefore appears somewhat paradoxical. The ownership within the group was at that time

questionable, and so the suggestions for a potential champion who might lend his or her

prominence and recognition without really being able to spend enough time felt somehow

unreal if not compensatory.

The difficulties of enacting ownership also became apparent in the question of who was

going to present the action plan process and outcomes to the plenary.

“who would like to, no, that’s not the right question [hhhh] who would be prepared to stand into the

issue plenary and present … back to the plenary group?”345

As choosing a presenter was a difficult process, a new term was introduced. Furthermore,

the facilitator had to make clear why he as facilitator was not taking this job for reasons of

ownership:

“In facilitation we call this ‘voluntold’ [hhh], [Name of NGO-1], you’ve just been voluntold.

Anyway, no, I’m not gonna say, I mean, it’s a serious point because obviously someone does need

to (go) and we made a conscious decision that it wouldn’t be the facilitators, ‘cos it’s about owning

the actions, owning the outcomes. And we don’t own it. … It would be good if someone from this

339


IC2 Business-2 0719-20 341

IC3 Business-4 0443-49 342

IC3 MSO-3 0459 343





376

group would be prepared. … And then, when it’s opened up for the questions then you guys will all

gonna be there anyway.”346

Some representatives deliberately refrained from displaying this form of strong ownership

by presenting the action plan to the plenary. One participant did so because his organization

was close to the most critical party in the audience …

“No, I, because we’re working with [name of opposing organisation] on other issues, and I’m

specifically (nominated/mandated) not to volunteer to do this. So, I mean, it might be a way that

[name of his own and of opposing organisation] will (be able) to come in (as this gets) launched.

But I think at this stage to launch it without having talked to [name of opposing organisation], or to

be up-fronting it in that way, [sure] will compromise that future relationship.”347

… and the other did so because his sector was at the centre of the criticism:

“It’s like waving a red flag, and it’s totally, totally inappropriate. Unfortunately, I mean, it’s so

regretful.”348

It was considered important to explicitly mention the lack of champion in the plenary.

“Stakeholder Forum could also perhaps help the process by introducing [Name of Professional-

Organisation-1] as the champion being ‘voluntold’ for a group that doesn’t have a champion. To

place that firmly …”349

In the plenary, the facilitator introduced the presenter accordingly.350

In a way, not having a champion also proved to be useful. It also freed the group from any

accusations of lacking legitimacy.

“I think different groups (have) different action plans with different processes. And I think ours is,

has a particular position. We don’t have a champion as such. That’s the essence of (it) being very

early (…) (about)”351

This was the director’s answer to a participant’s comment of being neither a representative

nor legitimate group of stakeholders.352

For the same reason it was also essential to make

the lack of a champion explicit in the plenary, as the preliminary status of the project had to

be emphasised as long as some important stakeholders were missing.

Inclusive and balanced participation. As has already been described, the action plan group

was not considered to be a “particularly representative group”353

in terms of horizontal and

vertical balance and inclusion. This complaint came mainly from the private sector

346


IC3 NGO-1 0782-86 348

IC3 Business-1 0792-93 349

IC3 Business-1 0916-17 350

IC3 Issue Group “Freshwater” Plenary: “Unfortunately, this group went into the session without an identified

champion. We had an interim champion with Stakeholder Forum’s [name of director-SF], unfortunately [name of

director-SF] is unable to be in the plenary today, so [name of Professional-Organisation-1] has very kindly volunteered

to represent the group’s output.” (Facilitator 1024-27) 351


IC1 Business-1 0653-70 353

IC1 Business-1 0659


377

representatives who noted that “we represent the worst example of top down. And what

we’re really looking for is bottom up”354

and who identified as key risks “that this is a top

down rather than bottom up”355

process and “that we become, or we remain, too much

dominated by a vision from the North”356

. This criticism stood in stark contrast to the

distribution of speaking time. The stakeholders from the “South” or the “grassroots” took

far less speaking time than did those from the “North” or those who belong to the circles

acting in the UN sphere. Entering this scene as a complete outsider myself, I learned how

very difficult it is to understand and get used to the specialist language and specific way of

dealing with issues. The discussions often seemed to be much more fluent among the

participants belonging to that circle, and it seemed to be difficult for newcomers to gain

access to their talk. It was therefore typical for a new ‘grassroot’ participant to introduce his

turn with “I’m not so sure if that’s relevant”357

compared with the multi-national

corporation’s representative beginning with “I’m afraid it’s me again.”358

It turned out to be very difficult to evade that top-down tendency without manifesting it

further or without becoming enmeshed in contradictions. It often happened that a

presentation started with identifying the top-down tendency and then ended up in reifying it.

Most of the examples have been cited already in the section ‘Requirement and legitimacy in

question’ (5.2.3.3) under the aspect of creating legitimacy towards the context. Some

examples are taken up here again to illustrate the challenge of enacting a bottom-up process.

“We represent the worst example of top down. And what we’re really looking for, is bottom up …

start work at the bottom level (…) to see if they salute the ideas. ‘Cos if the people who really need

the water aren’t prepared to salute the ideas it is just a waste of our time.”359

In this statement the people at the “bottom level” are apparently reduced “to salute the

ideas” with which they are presented, instead of developing ideas themselves or being

involved in developing them. If they do not salute them, “the waste of our time” is in the

foreground instead of the lost opportunity to include the people they hope to benefit.

“You’ve got to get them to buy into the process or otherwise you’re going to have resistance on the

local level.”360

This statement orients to a purely functional view, accounting for how outcomes can be

implemented effectively. The involvement of the beneficiaries has no value on its own in

this comment. Furthermore, the grammatical construction of active and passive agent

354

IC2 Business-2 1019-20 355



IC1 NGO-6 2463 358


IC2 Business-2 1022-23 360



378

“You’ve got to get them buying into the process” seems to be somehow at odds with a

bottom-up stakeholder-driven process.

In other instances, the top-down talk is repaired in order to fit the participatory talk:

“we need to look at what’s proper for the communities or (let) the communities (…) or what’s

proper for them. And that brings us to the governance issue and creating participatory models and

allow communities to make on what they would like to have.”361

Actually there are local representatives at the table, but they are not very integrated in the

talk, and they are not explicitly invited to contribute their needs and ideas.

One example of how the professionalized and therefore necessarily elitist talk is reframed to

make it more inclusive is the conscious extension of the term “professional”:

“And in this particular case we would be taking a very very broad view of what a water

professional is. Everything from, somebody running a community water supply to a … with the

bucket on the street delivering water, small town suppliers, as well as the traditional public or

private professional.”362

Sharing and balancing leadership and ownership between conveners and participants is an

intricate and precarious task that needs to be dealt with over the whole course of the

process. The leadership activities involve caring for and balancing openness and closure as

well as flexibility and continuity with regard to the integration of diversity while ensuring a

bottom-up, equitable process and focusing on concrete outcomes. For the conveners, this

means finding a balance between a restrictive and a supportive mode of convening the

multi-stakeholder process.

Particularly because multi-stakeholder processes are value-laden undertakings, the necessity

and potential of enacting both poles of the tension tends to be neglected. The emphasis then

is on the supportive and responsive convening mode and on maintaining openness. There is

a tendency to discount the restrictive mode and an emphasis on closure as not appropriate

for an inclusive and empowering stakeholder-driven process. However, it is essential for a

pragmatic, target-oriented proceeding despite the fact that and because a broad range of

concerns needs to be integrated, the changing composition of participants needs to be coped

with and a turbulent context needs to be handled.

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IC3 Professional-Association-1 0099-0102


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6.3 Integrating the collaborative core activities

The multi-stakeholder collaboration claims to strive for achieving change towards

sustainable development by integrating the diverse relevant stakeholders in a stakeholder-

driven process. To create a legitimate collaborative identity, they need to distinguish

themselves by establishing newness and change while at the same time maintaining

connectivity. Connectivity is meant in relation to their context – the addressees,

beneficiaries and potential donors – and in relation to what has been achieved so far by the

collaborating stakeholder group, the stakeholder movement and also by the addressees and

beneficiaries. The diverse range of views, interests and concerns needs to be integrated in a

way that cultivates diversity while enabling collective action. For the definition of a

distinctive (but not disconnected) issue this would mean somehow finding a balance

between focus and breadth in order to ensure the integration of diversity and enable

collective action. For the togetherness of the stakeholders this would mean living the

diversity and at the same time the interconnectedness, the balancing convergence and

divergence. To drive the process, this would mean fostering an inclusive bottom-up process,

enabling flexibility while ensuring a certain degree of connectivity. Consequently, the

conveners would lead it in a way to enable the stakeholders to take the lead.

Although I am aware of the impossibility of taming the complex, dynamic and multi-

layered interconnectedness of the main fields of tension into a chart, I attempt to sum up the

results of this analysis with figure 5. The chart illustrates the core activities of multi-

stakeholder collaboration and the key tensions inherent in the creation of a collaborative

identity. The repertoires within which the core activities are enacted are different ways of

dealing with these tensions. Those repertoires again play within various strategies used to

cope with the tensions in order to create a legitimate collaborative identity.


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Figure 5 – Multi-stakeholder collaboration – creating a paradoxical collective identity


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The following core activities of multi-stakeholder collaboration were identified:

• positioning within the context of actors by

• defining the issue,

• organising togetherness and dealing with controversies,

• driving the process, with a focus on relating among participants and conveners.

• The identified fields of tension are:

• distinctiveness – connectivity

• divergence – convergence (integrating diversity while enabling joint action)

• bottom-up – top down; or, from the conveners’ perspective:

leading the process without taking the lead.

The analysis so far shows the development of the multi-stakeholder process along the

threads of defining the issue and positioning within the context, organising togetherness and

driving the process. For reasons of clarity, these threads have been depicted separately.

However, the threads are dynamically interwoven and interconnected.

As described earlier, Huxham and Vangen (2005: 89) differentiate between

substantive outcome aims (what?) and process aims (how?). With multi-stakeholders, the

substantive outcome aim ‘implementing international sustainability agreements’ is being

pursued, and, at least as important, if not more important, the aim of ‘promoting multi-

stakeholder processes’. The latter has a substantive outcome status while at the same time

being closely connected to the process aim ‘conducting a multi-stakeholder process’. To

create legitimacy, it is vital that the ‘what’ and ‘how’ correlate convincingly, that the

process mirrors the substance aim. For this reason, organising togetherness flows into the

issue definition and positioning within the context in a twofold sense. Through the way they

relate among each other, the stakeholders come to jointly define their common issue and

how they position themselves as a collective within the context. At the same time this

process of relating among each other serves to distinguish and legitimise the collaborative

identity claims enacted in the issue definition and the positioning within the context. With

their substantive process aim ‘promoting MSPs’, a stakeholder-driven bottom-up process

which integrates diversity for pursuing joint action is being advanced, which has to be

practised, at least to a certain degree, by the collaborating stakeholders themselves, to

maintain legitimacy.

The way the stakeholders interact among each other is intertwined with the issue

definition. When the definition of the issue is highly controversial, as was the case within

the multi-stakeholder-review action plan group, organising togetherness and defining the

issue is mediated strongly by the manner of dealing with controversies. The preference for


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the starting-from-agreement approach, or, alternatively the tackling-controversies approach

crucially affects the issue definition, as the former excludes controversies and a prevalence

of a critical stance.

Organising togetherness serves to narrow down diversity to a manageable number of

focus areas and key issues. The different approaches for achieving that differ as to how

much common ground is needed and how controversies are dealt with. The issue-driven

approach aims to maximise common ground while the partnership or networking approach

can make do with relatively little common ground. The tackling-controversies approach has

more space within the issue-driven repertoire and the normative-holistic repertoire. The

issue-driven repertoire explicitly includes the negotiation, discussion and analysis of

differences. Within the normative-holistic repertoire, controversies could be tackled in order

to clarify roles and responsibilities. The starting-from-agreement approach is more suitable

within the partnership repertoire and the learning-and-sharing repertoire, as they rely on

agreement as a basis and on a ‘positive’ exchange.

Furthermore, the distribution of leadership affects the issue definition. Depending on

the enactment of a bottom-up or more top-down approach, the definition of the issue reflects

the interests from ‘the ground’, of a critical stance or of the already more powerful

stakeholders. For defining the issue, the conveners can pursue a strong content lead or can

refrain from doing so.

Furthermore, the way the stakeholders interact among each other is intertwined with

how the stakeholders position themselves as a collective within the context. The holding-to-

account repertoire corresponds strongly to the issue-driven repertoire and the normative-

holistic repertoire. The holding-to-account repertoire fits into the official political

negotiation process as it relies on political pressure to make decision-makers assume their

responsibility and therefore to work against the lack of political will. For pursuing the

lobbying aim, an issue-driven process (a position-paper process) is the classic approach. The

issue-driven repertoire is based on the negotiation of divergent positions in order to come to

a collective position towards the political decision-makers. This collective position,

consolidated through the negotiation process, can then be used for political pressurising and

for insisting on the responsibilities that the decision-makers need to assume. The normative-

holistic repertoire also focuses on the distribution of responsibilities among the stakeholders

and consequently can provide a base to hold political decision-makers to account according

to their responsibilities. In contrast, the inspiring-challenging repertoire, which does without

political pressurising, corresponds rather to the partnership repertoire, and to the passionate

transformative repertoire, both relying on change through inspiration and cross-fertilisation.

The advisory repertoires correspond to the learning-sharing repertoire in the way that it


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strives for maximising expertise among the stakeholders, which then provides the base for

an advising relationship towards the governments. Generally speaking, the different

repertoires present different possibilities as to how diversity is used to assemble expertise

and identify the relevant focus areas in order to influence and change the domain. The use

of the repertoires seems to be connected to the further activities of the participating

stakeholders outside of the Implementation Conference process: some are more engaged

with lobbying and position paper activities, while others are more on the hunt for

partnerships.

Moreover, positioning within the context of actors interacts with creating ownership.

Making a difference within the context (while maintaining connectivity) can energise the

process and enhance ownership and engagement. For example, the participants were urging

a link-up with the water community in order to have more influence. Conversely, strong

ownership and engagement allows for a more significant contribution within the context.

The different core activities within the fields of tension are also intertwined through

mutual dependencies and causalities. In this regard, participants make use of different and

sometimes opposing logics. The activities ‘organising togetherness’ and ‘defining the issue’

were concatenated circularly. Within one logic, the definition of the issue emerges somehow

automatically by assembling case studies, in concordance with a learning-sharing repertoire

or a partnership repertoire. Within the opposing logic, the issue needs to be defined before

those case studies are assembled, in order to ensure that the case studies are valuable in

making a specific point, which again is relevant with regard to positioning the project within

the context of actors. The definition of the issue is also regarded as dependent on defining

the audience, which is part of positioning within the context.

Another significant and contentious concatenation of core activities became obvious in

the circularity of defining the issue, establishing ownership and legitimacy, and securing

inclusive participation. Different logics emerged as to which activity needs to be primarily

pursued. Within one logic, the issue needs to be defined more clearly at the outset in order

to secure ownership. The defined issue would help on the one hand to enable a decision of

the participants and their constituencies if they want to (further) participate in the

collaborative project, and on the other hand to engage a legitimate and integrative

champion. The engagement of a recognised champion again would help to ensure inclusive

participation, bringing stakeholders who had not previously participated into the project.

Within another logic, inclusive participation needs to be achieved first before defining the

issue more concretely and before deciding upon a champion. For this variant, a suggestion

was also that, as a first step, a process for bringing the whole range of stakeholders to the

table needs to be defined.

Chapter 7 - Conclusion

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7 Conclusion

My study explored the processual questions ‘how is multi-stakeholder collaboration

discursively enacted?’ and ‘what is the potential and what are the difficulties of multi-

stakeholder dialogical processes for multi-party problems?’ The multi-stakeholder

collaboration convened by Stakeholder Forum offered insights into a new form of societal

interaction, created in response to the crisis of governance in achieving a more sustainable

society. With this study I generated a ‘thick’ processual understanding of the formation of a

multi-stakeholder collaborative identity. The collaborative identity formation has been

conceived as a relational process within which the relations among the participants and the

relations of the collective towards its context have to be negotiated and sufficiently defined.

I identified four key collaborative activities, 1) setting the issue, 2) defining the relations to

the context, 3) defining the relations among the diverse participants and 4) defining the

relations among participants and conveners. The negotiation and construction of the

common issue is central to the collaborative project as it forms its purpose and interlinks

both relating towards the context and relating among participants. These key collaborative

activities engender inherent paradoxical tensions which the actors inevitably have to deal

with. With regard to positioning the collaboration in its domain, collaborators have to

establish connectivity and simultaneously distinctiveness through the way they define their

issue. With regard to relating among participants, the joint issue needs to be defined in a

way that integrates diversity while creating sufficient focus in order to enable joint action.

Accordingly, the relations between participants and conveners also have to be defined in a

way that balances leadership and ownership in order to allow for a bottom-up stakeholder-

driven process, yet well-organised and focused process.

The diverse range of participants and ideas assembled in a multi-stakeholder process

comes to bear in diverse constructions or repertoires of issues and relations, whereby the

constructions might be convergent or divergent. Even though strong tendencies towards

convergence are not desirable for a multi-stakeholder process, which is meant to be

capitalising on diversity, dealing with strongly divergent constructions presents a major

collaborative challenge. In my case analysis, I presented the convergent and divergent

constructions of the focal issue as well as the diverse repertoires defining the key relations

and studied how they took effect over the course of the process. Furthermore I identified the

strategies participants made use of in order to deal with the paradoxical tensions and the

divergent constructions. The constructions, repertoires and strategies were examined for

their significance for integrating diversity and enabling societal change.


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In this concluding chapter I sum up the results from the analysis along the four

collaborative key activities (section 7.1). Since the analysis is complex and strongly

empirical, and has therefore been studied on several levels and presented in chapter 5 and 6

with a large amount of discursive data from the field, it seems worthwhile to recapitulate my

findings here in a succinct but lucid way. The identified discursive repertoires, strategies

and approaches are illuminated for how they are dealing with paradoxical tensions. To link

the results back to the significance of such a multi-stakeholder process for societal change,

they are discussed with regard to the collaboration’s embeddedness in its institutional and

discursive context (section 7.2). Finally, I discuss the implications of conceptualising multi-

stakeholder collaboration as an inherently paradoxical collective identity formation process

for theory, research and practice (section 7.3 and 7.4).

7.1 Creating a collaborative identity – four core activities of

multi-stakeholder collaboration

In this section I summarise the collaborative identity formation process along the

collaborative core activities. I do so in reverse order, going from the organisation of the

internal relations to constructing the issue and the relations to the context. This sequence is

chosen in order to elaborate on the organisation and convening of such a multi-stakeholder

process first and then to lead over to considering the significance of such processes for

achieving societal change.

7.1.1 Organising togetherness

The main challenge within organising collaboration among diverse stakeholders is to

integrate (and benefit from) diversity of interests, viewpoints and expertise while at the

same time achieving sufficient focus to enable joint action. In the Implementation

Conference process, this resulted in the tension of covering the breadth of suggested issues

versus focusing on concrete action plans. Hence, the main paradoxical tension that needs to

be handled is integrating diversity while narrowing complexity down to develop concrete

action plans, which means keeping a balance between divergence and convergence. In the

analysis, five approaches could be identified, enacted discursively through interpretive

repertoires, of how to organise the relationships among the collaborating stakeholders in

such a way as to balance divergence and convergence: 1) the issue-driven repertoire, 2) the

partnership repertoire, 3) the learning-sharing repertoire, 4) the normative-holistic repertoire

and 5) the passionate-transformative repertoire. The various discursive repertoires shape the

collaborative identity of the process by defining the relations among the participants. The


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repertoires differ on how togetherness is conceptualised, on the significance of common

ground, on how controversies and divergent stakes are dealt with, and on how change is

achieved. Furthermore, each suggests a specific way of connecting to governments.

The different ways of organising the collaborative space came into play in a fluid

manner, some were more prevalent during specific stages of the process, at times they were

in competition, and sometimes they were pursued in parallel. The outline for the project

offered the space for several ways of relating among each other. The issue-driven mode and

the partnership mode were combined in a rather complementary sense. Through the

discussions in a later stage of the process, they were constructed as oppositional and

mutually exclusive. In the oppositional version, the partnership approach was more

inclusive as it brought together diverse positions and initiatives in an and-and-logic, while

the issue-driven approach, by identifying and possibly negotiating and resolving

differences, tended towards an either-or-logic. The partnership approach can also be dealt

with more flexibly over the course of the process, as new participants can join at any time

without missing out on fundamental either-or-decisions. The partnership mode was also

constructed to be more action-oriented and specific. It was mainly through countering these

specific modes of organising their togetherness in order to deal with the paradoxical tension

between convergence and divergence that the different approaches were sharpened. Thus,

these modes themselves were established in the form of a paradoxical tension.

Diversity, divergence and convergence are therefore enacted on two levels, not only in

the various themes, criteria and suggestions for initiatives, but also in the various

approaches for dealing with the diverse themes, criteria and suggestions.

Besides studying the different ways of organising togetherness that were used to

balance convergence and divergence, the logics and approaches towards each pole of the

tension, convergence and divergence, were also studied separately. With regard to dealing

with divergence, the different approaches of dealing with controversies are studied, taking

into account the controversies in organising togetherness as well as in constructing the

issue. Four approaches for dealing with controversies were identified, each with a

characteristic way of handling differences and using common ground:

• Technical approach

• Starting-from-agreement approach

• Tackling-controversies approach

• Excluding-sharpened-positions approach


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With regard to achieving convergence, the question of how much common ground is

needed and what the significance of common ground is with regard to integrating diversity

was discussed extensively among the stakeholders. The significance of common ground was

conceptualised in the following ways:

• the common framework serves to enable the scoping or mapping of focus areas and

existing initiatives and, consequently, the identification of gaps,

• the common framework serves to yield a set of criteria which should be followed by

each action plan,

• the significance of the framework lies in a more transient function.

Regarding the question of how the issue definition and the assemblage of the action

plan initiatives or case studies are connected sequence-wise, different logics were

competing:

• the common framework is to be developed before starting with developing concrete

action plans (for the MSR: the common issue is to be defined first in order to find

the suitable examples and case studies),

• concrete initiatives are to be assembled from which the common framework would

then emerge (for the MSR: the diverse stakeholders are to present the examples and

case studies that they regard as positive examples, and from which the common

issues are then to be derived or lessons are to be learned),

• both logics are to be pursued in parallel.

Against the backdrop of the engrained sectoral conflict, two countervailing logics for

dealing with the tension between convergence and divergence could be identified in the

multi-stakeholder review. They relate to the question of how vaguely or specifically their

common ground, formed by the focal issue, needs to be defined in order to integrate the

diverse stakeholders who make their participation contingent on the issue definition:

• The focal issue needs to be specified before further efforts are made to draw the

diverse stakeholders together.

• The focal issue needs to be kept vague until all the diverse stakeholders come

together to jointly define it in more specific terms. This means that firstly a process

needs to be set up for involving the whole range of stakeholders before defining the

issue and the champion. Hence, the common ground needs to be defined in

processual terms.

What becomes obvious here is that all of the identified approaches and logics of

dealing with convergence and divergence are characterised by the occurrence of two main

countervailing thrusts. As such this is not a surprising result as it is rooted in the


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methodological research design, by which the paradoxical tensions were traced via trouble

points and controversies. What results from the analysis though, besides the identification of

the specific approaches, is the disclosure of the simultaneity and fluidity of the divergent

approaches as they unfold over the process. The analysis also shows how a tension was

transformed into a different tension over the course of the process. When the tension

between the issue-driven and the partnership mode was established and the partnership

mode prevailed, the significance of the common framework gained importance and with

that the question of whether the initiatives are to be deduced from the framework or vice

versa.

Moreover, it became clear that the countervailing logics are not necessarily

contradictive in absolute terms, even though some of them were hard-fought. So for

example the tension between ‘starting from agreement’ and ‘tackling controversies’ allowed

for simultaneity, as agreement is not expected to be fully unanimous and as a joint tackling

of controversies assumes some minimal agreement on how to tackle which controversy. The

same applied to the order of sequence of specifying the issue and including further

stakeholders. Since the way in which participants assessed the degree of vagueness or

specificity varied a lot among the participants and across time, these two countervailing

logics were not necessarily contradictive.

The simultaneity of multiple voices and perspectives, resulting from ambiguity or

from competing divergent approaches and stakes, helps to maintain a creative tension of the

paradox. By preventing unifying tendencies, the simultaneity and fluidity expand the

capability for integrating diversity. Maintaining multivoicedness is essential as “absolute

integration would mean the end of the original and creative inputs” (Bouwen and Steyaert

1999). Cultivating the interplay of multiple perspectives and stakes also allows for flexible

adjustments of the process to new developments.

For the most part, the identification of the diverse approaches does not result in

evaluating them, as their use is too context- and situation-dependent, and therefore the

evaluation needs to be made by stakeholders and conveners themselves. There is only one

approach where caution is strongly advised in a dialogic multi-stakeholder setting, the

excluding-sharpened-positions approach. The use of this approach jeopardises inclusiveness

and mutual appreciation, the foundation for multi-stakeholder collaboration. Hence,

tendencies aiming at excluding specific stakes should be made explicit and need to be

reflectively scrutinised for their adequacy.


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7.1.2 Driving the process – organising the convener-participants

relationship

The Implementation Conference process was designed and convened as a

“stakeholder-driven” process by experts in multi-stakeholder collaboration. Hence,

leadership and ownership were assigned to the participating stakeholders while at the same

time the project was initiated and led by the conveners. With my study I followed the

question of how leadership and ownership were enacted over the course of the process, or

how participants and conveners gave and took agency for driving the project. In what way

was the IC process established as a stakeholder-driven process? And in what way was it

established as the convening organisation’s project?

Several key tensions were ascertained which are subject to leadership activities. What

follows from what was elaborated with the other collaborative core activities is that the task

of integrating diversity while focusing on concrete outcomes (balancing divergence and

convergence) and the task of balancing connectivity and distinctiveness (in order to

establish a legitimate and well-recognised process and to make a difference for

implementation) has to be managed through leadership activities. For this, a bottom-up

process is sought because, in the sense that it is a process driven by the participating

stakeholders instead of the conveners, and in the sense that it is a process co-created by

stakeholders “from the ground”, and therefore domination by the more powerful

stakeholders has to be avoided. Hence, inclusive, balanced and active participation is

essential. In addition, flexibility and continuity must be balanced to cope with the fluid

composition of participants and the turbulences in the context. More generally, there must

be a balance between openness and closure. Openness and closure may connect to

divergence and convergence, inclusiveness and concreteness, breadth and focus, flexibility

and continuity, as well as ambiguity and clarity. This means that the paradoxical tensions

related to the other collaborative core activities can transform into the tension of creating

openness versus closure in the process.

Participant-driven and convener-driven modes of managing the tensions just

mentioned were distinguished. From a convening perspective, the two modes correspond to

a supportive-leadership repertoire and a restrictive-leadership repertoire. Here also, the

simultaneity of participant-driven and convener-driven processes and supportive and

restrictive leadership modes is essential to keep the creative tension. If simultaneity is not

possible, the fluid interplay of contrary approaches is fruitful for the integration of the

equally important tendencies.


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7.1.3 Constructing the issue

The construction of the focal issue as the central aspect of the collaborative identity

was studied on two levels: for the IC process in general and for the action plan ‘multi-

stakeholder review of water and sanitation supply strategies’ (MSR) in particular. The

former was characterised by a relatively high degree of convergence. Participants were by

and large unanimous about the broad aims of ‘implementing international sustainability

agreements’ and of promoting multi-stakeholder processes in environmental governance

processes. These broad, convergent issue constructions were examined for how they

referred to the paradoxical tension of establishing and maintaining connectivity and

simultaneously distinction vis-à-vis the collaboration’s context. The definition of the focal

issue has specific implications for how the boundary of the collaborative identity is created.

For the IC process as a whole, the paradoxical tension between connectivity and

distinctiveness was in the foreground. Both connectivity and distinctiveness could be

established, securing legitimacy and recognition of the multi-stakeholder collaboration. In

contrast, constructing the issue for the MSR was highly controversial. In the issue-setting

process of this specific action plan group, the definition of the boundaries between the

participating stakeholders, representing different societal sectors, was in the foreground.

Whereas the formation of the collective identity was most prominent for the IC process as a

whole, this was not so much the case for the MSR, as here the stakeholders were too much

concerned with the sectoral identities against the background of the long-standing conflict

along the ‘public-private divide’. Negotiating the focus of the review (focus on private

sector engagement vs. focus on all sectors) was inevitably intertwined with positioning the

sectoral identities. Due to the strong split between the represented sectors regarding

boundary setting, creating a legitimate collaborative identity remained a continuous struggle

and, in the end, could not be sufficiently achieved.

With the analysis of the conflictive issue construction process of the MSR action plan

group, I was able to show how various strategies oriented at (re-)setting boundaries were

used. They were used for power plays but also in an attempt to transcend the conflict within

the collaborative identity formation process. The strategies can be differentiated according

to three different kinds of effects on the public-private boundary, in the sense of sharpening

the boundary, dissolving the boundary or blurring, redrawing or moving beyond the

boundary. Each strategy has specific effects on how the sectoral stakes are mutually

positioned. They are briefly recapitulated here:


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Drawing the boundary sharply

• Isolating stakes, polarising

• Criticising the other stake and strengthening one’s own stake

• Strengthening one’s own stake while marginalising the other stake

Dissolving the boundary

• Levelling strategy by positioning the stakes at different but equal levels, also to

distribute the ‘blame pointers’ and merits more evenly

• Making the stakes indistinct in order to defend one’s own stake from criticism

• Making the stakes indistinct in order to pursue a creeping-in strategy (incorporating

the other sector)

• Embedding the other sector in order to maintain control

(embedding the private sector within the public sphere under the control and

regulation of the public according to the participatory-democracy repertoire)

(incorporating the other sector)

Blurring, redrawing or moving beyond the boundary

• Focusing on a third sector (community instead of public or private)

• De-homogenising the controversial stakes

• De-homogenising the sectors

• Focusing on underlying structures.

Depending on the context, the situation and the actual power constellation, some of the

strategies may differ substantially in their significance. For example, it makes a difference if

the levelling strategy is used by the party considered as more powerful than its collaborating

partners, as it somewhat disguises the more powerful position. Used by a party considered

as less powerful, the levelling strategy could be understood as claiming equal power. With

the polarising strategy, adversarial vested interests are advanced, wherein this strategy

works for both equally powerful adversaries and unequally positioned adversaries. In

contrast, reflecting on boundary issues from an appreciative stance for mutual learning,

exploring and possibly transforming or transcending the boundary is facilitated if

participants attempt to refrain from maintaining the upper hand. However, stakeholders can

also use a strategy of taking a seemingly appreciative stance, using the collaborative setting

for power plays. They might be accused of doing so if they are talking nicely in the dialogic

setting while their actual policies and practices are marginalising other stakeholders.

In the MSR process, sharpening and dissolving the boundary were the two

oppositional thrusts. For dealing with the long-standing conflict, blurring or moving beyond

the boundary seems to be particularly promising as it enriches the controversy with further


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perspectives necessary to transcend the conflict, e.g. by enhancing reflection by questioning

taken-for-granted sectoral properties and boundaries. However, this is not to say that the

other, more polarised strategies should be abandoned in order to deal with the conflictive

situation. They ‘drive’ the debate on and they highlight otherwise neglected important

concerns and power aspects in the conflictive situation. At any rate, the polarised strategies

prevent the group from converging too greatly.

Here again the simultaneity of approaches is crucial. Paradox helps to transcend the

engrained, traditional boundaries if both concerns are appreciated and both strategies,

dissolving and drawing the boundary, are allowed to be pursued simultaneously. Besides

being politically unrealistic, an either/or decision or a definite resolution would offer less

transformative potential. Stakeholder interaction in a dialogic, collaborative setting creates

and recreates the paradoxical tension, transforming the paradox back and forth from public

versus private to small-scale versus large-scale providers or to inclusive versus elitist

governance systems regarding water provision, mapping the space for exploring and

transforming the boundaries further.

7.1.4 Relating to the context

For the IC process as a whole, the construction of the issue in its general sense,

implementing international sustainability agreements, was broadly shared. However, what

this meant for how exactly the relations to the context were constructed, and therewith how

the collaborative identity was positioned in its domain, was the subject of debate. The

debate centred mainly around two trouble points, firstly the question of how far the

unanimous implementation aim is complemented by a lobbying aim, and secondly the

question of whether the official outcome format, the newly created type II outcomes, should

be used. Responding to those controversial questions required a specification of what kind

of change the multi-stakeholder project was striving for. For the first trouble point the

tension was whether decision-makers should be influenced directly or indirectly. For the

second trouble point the tension was whether the collaborating stakeholders should, when

presenting their outcomes, maintain independence or directly connect to the official

structures. As previously with crafting the more convergent issue constructions, the

interplay of those divergent constructions also mirrored the paradoxical tension between

connectivity and distinctiveness and the related tension between independence and

influence.


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Strategies for dealing with the tension between the implementation aim and the

lobbying aim. For both aims, implementing and lobbying, a double-tracking strategy was

pursued in the first half of the process. By maintaining the “two-pronged approach” it was

planned “to impact the type 1 and type 2 Summit outcome documents so that they become

mutually reinforcing”. However, the priority always tended towards the implementation

aim, establishing it as the main focus. At the same time, the opportunities for reacting

responsively to what happened in the official process were kept open during the whole

process. The possibility of maintaining this kind of openness and responsiveness was

achieved at the cost of some notable confusion. In the end, the process resulted mainly in

influencing the intergovernmental negotiation process indirectly by showing governments

that “there’s a world of action out there”, as it was prospected in the April meeting,

whereby diversity became significant as inspiring and enlivening. Additionally, the

possibility of influencing the negotiation processes in the longer term was prospected,

whereby diversity was used to depict the stakeholders as a powerful group in terms of

influence. The two issue constructions ‘implementing existing agreements’ and ‘lobbying

for stronger agreements’ sometimes competed as oppositional, and were sometimes

complementary. In summary, the tension between those constructions was kept open while

more weight was clearly placed on the implementation aim.

Strategies for dealing with the tension ‘Submitting to the official outcome format or

not’. In order to maintain connectivity, the stakeholders were dependent on what was

happening in their context, however they still managed to position themselves as

independently as possible. The possibility of responding to the structures given by the

official process was kept open. The conveners were in continuous contact with the WSSD

secretariat and so they were up-to-date with what was happening. In most of the preparatory

meetings, they invited a short discussion on this topic. The IC conveners and participants

did not commit themselves to a submission to the type II format, which could have been

understood as bowing to this much-criticised format. They used it as a nice opportunity to

present the outcomes they were going to achieve anyway, thereby maintaining a critical

distance from the controversial concept of type IIs. Moreover, they were able to construct

themselves as avant-garde. Hence, also with regard to the controversial type II format, the

tension was kept open during the preparatory stage. Some of the final action plans were

submitted in the end, depending on the decision of the respective group.

With regard to this tension, diversity was used to maintain independence, to achieve

accountability on the part of the governments with respect to the type IIs, to contribute their

expertise on how this format develops from a critical distance and to use the outreach

capacities of the diverse group to monitor the outcomes by telling “how it really is”.


394

With regard to both trouble points, the stakeholders were coping with the paradoxical

tensions through spatial separation (Poole and Van de Ven 1989), as each action plan group

could decide on these questions separately. The strong emphasis on implementation for the

process as a whole was also the result of a spatial separation, this time within the convening

organisation. The IC process was one project among others. With their other activities,

Stakeholder Forum aimed at influencing the official process more directly while devoting

the IC process to implementation. Regarding the lobbying aim, the collaborators also made

use of temporal separation (Poole and Van de Ven 1989) when they suggested focusing on

implementation for now and, in addition, to influence the negotiation processes in the longer

term. However, during the preparatory stage, for each trouble point both possibilities were

kept open, resulting in ambiguity and confusion, but also in a creative tension and in

enhanced flexibility.

For the action plan ‘multi-stakeholder review of water and sanitation supply strategies’

the relationship to the intergovernmental process was characterised by the contentious

questions of requirement and legitimacy, both of which were recurrently doubted. Here I

studied how, in the face of these doubts, the requirement and legitimacy of the review was

substantiated. Several strategies for dealing with the problem of potentially lacking

legitimacy and requirement were used, thereby ensuring connectivity and distinction. They

served to counter actual doubts or critics but also to preventively counter potential

reproaches. Due to the resulting unbalanced participation, the stakeholder group had to

account for the alteration of the issue and therefore had to go back to the origins again and

again, knowing that not recognising the origins would completely nullify their legitimacy.

The identified strategies for countering actual or potential criticism of the review’s

expanded focus were:

• Strategy of emphasising the preliminary stage

• Strategy of assuming the requirement as given

• Strategy of normalising incomplete representation

• Strategy of reversal (turning the problem into an advantage)

• Strategy of searching for a high-level champion to solve legitimacy problems

• Strategy of de-legitimising the original focus.

Across the trouble points and the divergent and convergent constructions, five

competing repertoires could be identified, each enacting a specific way of relating towards

and influencing the collaboration’s context and hence presenting a specific way of

managing the paradoxical tension in order to establish legitimacy and recognition. This


395

differed with regard to the construction of the underlying problem, the audience to which

the stakeholders are orienting, the way in which decision-makers should be influenced, the

distribution of responsibilities, and the way diversity is used to achieve change. With each

of the different ways of positioning, the participants enact a certain collaborative identity.

For the multi-stakeholder process as a whole, the diverse repertoires enacted specific

ways of ensuring connectivity and making a difference. With the holding-to-account

repertoire the stakeholders were positioned distinctively yet connected as they were

constructed to take the international sustainability agreements more seriously than the

governments who agreed them. As a form of political pressurising, the stakeholders match

up with the negotiating environment of the official summit process. With the inspiring-

challenging repertoire the stakeholders positioned themselves as avant-garde, creating a

world of action and thereby breathing life into what governments had decided, thereby

recognising these decisions. By presenting alternative suggestions for implementation, the

stakeholders connect to the decision-makers loosely and in a playful way. Both of the

advisory repertoires rely on the distinctive feature of expertise due to the diversity among

the stakeholders. The supply-driven version is anchored in the need to implement the

international agreements and draws from that the legitimacy to push the decision-makers to

fulfil their responsibilities. In the demand-driven version, connectivity is dependent on the

decision-makers expressing the need to seek advice. With the acting-in-our-own-right

repertoire the stakeholders are distinguished by their extraordinary engagement for

implementation, even without recognition from the context. Hence, they do so without

being firmly connected; connectivity is limited to a moral basis which is recognised in the

context if they are lucky, but what is more important is to emphasise their independence.

This way of relating to the context from an independent position is a political mode of

resisting by creating a strong alternative.

The creative tensions enacted in the trouble points – the tensions between connectivity

and distinctiveness and between independence and influence – were fostered by the

interplay of the various repertoires. The tensions in their various shapes facilitate the

modification of existing discursive repertoires and the emergence of new repertoires

engendering new practices (cf. Beech et al. 2004) and hence, new forms of stakeholder

engagement.


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7.2 Collaborating for societal change

The process was embedded in the broader institutional context of environmental

governance processes through the use of the positioning-within-the context repertoires,

which illuminate different conceptions of the kind of influence a multi-stakeholder

movement can have, or of how civil society may interact with politicians or other key

decision-makers. Hence, the IC process offered a space for experimenting with repertoires

for new forms of participatory governance. By creating an audience at the WSSD and by

actively bringing in their experience in the CSD processes, the stakeholders disseminate

their discursive repertoires and can thus contribute to institutionalising governance

processes that are more inclusive and participatory. This way, the aim is not merely

changing international environmental governance processes but also strengthening them.

Even the most politically pressurising repertoire, the holding-to-account repertoire, in

enacting a ‘watch-dog’ function of civil society by monitoring and reviewing

implementation of, or compliance with, sustainability agreements can be recognised as

enhancing the legitimacy of international environmental politics (cf. Leininger 2005).

The process was also embedded in the broader discursive context formed by the

contested terrain of sustainable development with its different paradigms on organising

societal relations within the natural environment. To define the issue with the natural

resource freshwater at its centre, different repertoires concerning the organisation of societal

relations around the resource water came into play, each related to one of the broader

discursive paradigms:

• the integrative-water-management repertoire (reformist environmentalism paradigm),

• the water-as-human-right repertoire (reformist environmentalism paradigm with an

emphasis on environmental justice),

• the water-as-having-an-inherent-value repertoire (ecological paradigm), and

• the water-as-commodity repertoire (neo-liberal paradigm).

The use of those repertoires influenced the definition of the collaboration’s focal issue.

Thus, the use of the water-as-human-right repertoire, working as a counter repertoire to the

water-as-commodity repertoire, helped to insist on the critical focus on private sector

participation and emphasised the notion of environmental justice. In reaction to this critical

focus, and in order to substantiate the extension of the review’s focus, the water-as-human-

right repertoire was combined with a ‘but’, in that even though water may be a human right,

there is a cost in providing water services. How this cost is eventually met is then open to

debate. The integrative-water-management repertoire allows for both: a more market-

centred paradigm with an emphasis on economic efficiency or a more ecocentric paradigm


397

with an emphasis on ecological and social improvements. Notably, the water-as-commodity

repertoire did not explicitly enter the process, despite the influence of the neo-liberal

paradigm in the recent history of the domain. It was mainly visible in being countered. Also,

the water-as-having-an-inherent value repertoire reflecting the ecocentric paradigm could

hardly be identified in the process. Forming the two extremes of the sustainable

development continuum (see chapter 2), it is obviously difficult to sustain these repertoires

in a collaborative process assembling different stakes. Participants representing a neo-liberal

perspective might have been too cautious to show it openly in order to preclude opposition.

Stakeholders representing an ecocentric perspective might tend to refuse to participate from

the outset, as their stance is less negotiable than for example the strong reformist

perspective. Supposedly, the ecocentric paradigm does not fit or is marginalised in the

context of UN negotiations.

Of course, repertoires concerning the organisation of societal relations in general are

of crucial significance for the process, since this is where the stakeholder movement aims to

achieve change. Stakeholders, i.e. people and organisations “who influence a decision, or

can influence it, as well as those affected by it”, are claimed to have rights and to fulfil

responsibilities. These claims may point to the direction of change. The right that

“stakeholders should be able to participate meaningfully in decision making”, combined

with the “principles of stakeholder collaboration”, “equity” and “transparency” could

mean an enormous redistribution of participatory rights and possibilities, depending on what

“meaningfully” actually implies. Likewise, the responsibilities that “stakeholders should

play their part in delivering sustainable development” may have far-reaching consequences,

depending on how this responsibility is actually constructed.1 This a priori definition from

the project’s outline suggests a direction of change while maintaining sufficient vagueness

to be put into more concrete terms by the collaborating stakeholders. The definition,

together with the principles of stakeholder collaboration like “accountability”, “good

governance”, “inclusiveness”, “participation & engagement”, “societal gains”, “voices,

not votes”2, suggests the promotion of the participatory-democracy (good-governance)

repertoire, countering or complementing an elitist-state or free-market-dominated

organisation of society in which the participation of civil society and communities is

reduced to decisions as electors and consumers. The participatory-democracy repertoire can

be positioned as new in contrast to a traditional-representative-democracy repertoire or the

neo-liberal repertoire. It may not only be used counter those dominant repertoires though, it

may also complement them. This is the case, for example, when it is combined with the




398

embedded-market-economy repertoire, which embeds private sector activities in a more or

less defined manner in other forms of societal organising. However, the good-governance

repertoire could also be used as a fig leaf, purporting a semblance of newness. In addition to

complementing the dominant repertoires, it would then serve to support and stabilise them.

Consequently, integrating the full range of diversity to achieve change towards sustainable

development remains a difficult undertaking, especially as long as some stakes, most

probably the more powerful ones, favour persistence rather than change. The significance of

incremental change efforts, enacted by introducing and jointly developing new discourses as

complements or alternatives to dominant discourses, is extremely difficult to evaluate in

terms of their effect on substantive societal change. While collaborative dialogic settings

certainly offer a huge potential, there is also a danger of distracting from and stabilising

existing power relations and detrimental environmental practices supported by dominant

discourses. Especially when the power imbalances are immense, cooptation of multi-

stakeholder collaboration is more likely. Hence, the attentiveness of critical participants and

conveners is crucial. What the ultimate goals of multi-stakeholder processes eventually

mean for sustainable development, sustainability and participatory governance remains to

be negotiated by the participants. In the process, stakeholders can insist on the definition of

the sustainability concept’s more radical ‘core’ meaning and use the concept to hold the

decision-makers accountable for their activities. They can do so as the creation and

acknowledgement of legitimacy remains a joint task. Moreover, if a ‘weak’ sustainability

discourse is introduced, stakeholders may take it up, challenge, change and ‘strengthen’ it to

feed it back in a dialogic manner, enabling the exploration of other forms of relating

between the stakeholders and towards the environment. This is facilitated through enriching

the range of underlying paradigms, hence the balanced inclusion of otherwise marginalised

voices, in particular local communities and indigenous peoples, is crucial. Joint action,

reflective deliberation and critical dialogue within a multi-stakeholder collaborative setting

can work to strengthen the concept of sustainability and to augment accountability of those

who make use of the weak version of sustainable development. As ‘model’ for inclusive,

plurivocal democracy, multi-stakeholder processes allow for contesting any dominant

ownership of the sustainability concept. The enhanced discursitivity among a diverse and

inclusive range of stakeholders in collaborative spaces fosters mutual accountability and

responsiveness. Hence, reflective collaborative spaces offer potential for societal change

and help to prevent social fragmentation jeopardising democracy.


399

7.3 Implications for theory and research

The main theoretical contribution of this thesis is the conceptualisation of multi-actor

collaboration as a discursive, processual formation of an inherently paradoxical collective

identity. The concept of collective identity has hardly been used in collaboration research,

and where it has been, the concept was predominantly used for the collective identities

represented within the collaboration (e.g. Beech and Huxham 2003) instead of for the

collaboration as a whole. In Hardy, Lawrence and Grant’s (2005) article on discourse,

collaboration and collective identity, I found a study I could connect to with my model of

collaborative identity. I could add to their model by defining four relational core activities

of multi-stakeholder collaboration as a way to specify their concept of membership ties.

Furthermore, I could build on the authors’ emphasis on the fundamental collaborative

tension between convergence and divergence, and add further paradoxical tensions

characterising multi-stakeholder collaboration. Moreover, I conceptualised collaborative

identity as embedded and positioned within its domain – its discursive and institutional

context.

With two of the collaborative core activities, my study connects to the research themes

of issue construction and leadership in collaboration, both of which are well researched

using a similar discursive, interactive approach (Dewulf 2006; Dewulf et al. 2004; Eden and

Huxham 2001; Huxham and Vangen 2000b; 2005; Vangen and Huxham 2003a). My

findings regarding the dilemmatic tendencies within collaborative leadership, the supportive

and the restrictive leadership mode, match Huxham and Vangen’s facilitative and directive

mode resulting from the leadership dilemma between ideology and pragmatism (Huxham

and Vangen 2005; Vangen and Huxham 2003a)3. My model integrates these better-

researched collaborative themes with core activities under-researched from this angle, the

relating among participants, and the relating to the collaboration’s context, and therefore

adds a novel way to conceptualise the creation of a collaborative space. Both of the new

aspects in collaboration research were also inspired by the case itself, which seems to differ

from other cases presented in collaboration research in two important ways.

Firstly it was a multi-stakeholder collaboration in its formative stage – the joint action

phase did not come about. For the study this meant that the relating among participants

consisted in large part of ‘meta-theorising’ about their modes of togetherness. They talked

about how, in general, they could proceed as a group with divergent interests. This might be

3 In their 2005 publication, however, they loosened the strong connection between the two leadership modes and the

ideology-pragmatism dilemma as conceptualised in the 2003 article.


400

a reason why the ‘styles of talk’ as described by Hardy and colleagues (2005) – the

cooperative and assertive mode – could not be identified in the case at hand. Supposedly, an

assertive mode is more likely to surface in a ‘hands-on’ implementation stage, when the

collaborators have committed to and invested in the joint undertaking. In the formative

stage, making use of the ‘power of exit’ is an easier move, rendering the assertive mode

rather superfluous. What I found instead of the cooperative and assertive style of talk was an

array of more sublime techniques like the legitimising, de-legitimising and the excluding-

sharpened positions strategies.

Secondly, the collaboration was much more oriented towards change in its

institutional context – in this case in the sense of contributing to enhanced stakeholder

involvement in governance processes – then many of the cases in the collaboration

literature. Literature on collaboration for tackling multi-party problems usually assembles

cases in which the multiple parties come together to address their common problem. The

collaboration at hand was not so much concentrating on solving a problematic issue between

the collaborating stakeholders but was set up to make a joint case towards its context. Hence

I put the relating towards the context in the spotlight. Even though emphasis on the relations

to the context was inspired by this specific case, I believe that positioning within the context

is a key collaborative activity for collaboration in general, as there are usually issues of

outward accountability and institutional parameters that need to be addressed.

Taken together, the four areas of collaborative activity are integrated and framed by

conceptualising them as constituting a paradoxical collaborative identity. The identity-

relevant core activities are vital for any collaborative undertaking.

With my analysis I can contribute to a small but growing research perspective within

collaboration studies focusing on tensions, dilemmas or paradoxes inherent in multi-actor

collaboration (Beech et al. 2004; Hardy et al. 2006). For the most part, collaboration

literature emphasises convergence on issues, trust-building and the importance of

unambiguous, cooperative and supportive modes of communication as key factors for

success (cf. Hardy et al. 2006). In consequence, collaborators should attempt to avoid or

resolve emerging tensions. In contrast, the value of the paradoxical tensions perspective lies

in the appreciation of these tensions, dilemmas and paradoxes as unavoidable and

irresolvable, yet productive and creative. The dilemmatic tensions allow for an integration

of diversity, not in a unifying manner, but in a way that fosters multivoicedness.

From this perspective, balancing these tensions does not mean finding a mid-way

position between two extremes. In this sense, Hardy and colleagues draw attention to the


401

“existence of struggle”, caused by the constant tensions between equally important demands

towards the collaborative project. The participating stakeholder is both representative of

specific interests and collaborator in a common cause, the collaboration needs to be both

anchored in and distinguished from its context, the process needs to be convened both in a

supportive and a restrictive leadership mode. It is in such tension that the potential for

creativity and change can be tapped. Hence, collaboration engenders continuous struggle

between competing tensions (Hardy et al. 2006). My analysis contributed to this research

strand by identifying discursive resources and strategies used for dealing with the

paradoxical tensions within collaboration.

From a methodological point of view, this dissertation offers an in-depth interactional

approach to the study of collaboration in the making. By attending to the fine-grained and

ongoing discursive creation of collaborative identity with its inherent tensions, the big tasks

and dilemmas of collaboration can be traced to how they are enacted and dealt with in the

actual talk. Discourse analysis provided the necessary tools. This study added to the body of

discourse analytic work which shows that DA has a lot to offer for studying organising

processes as they unfold. The identification of the interpretative repertoires, the discursive

strategies and their interactive use over the course of the process shed light on the creation

of collaborative identity as a complex and dynamic discursive accomplishment. For

complex cases like the one in this study, such a fine-grained analysis is usually dismissed as

too laborious. Yet, as this study shows, such a deep level of analysis on a turn-by-turn basis

helps to understand the processual unfolding of how the tensions inherent to multi-party

collaboration are created and managed through participants’ talk.

Even though this is an in-depth single case study, the results are likely to be inspiring

for other contexts, as the framework can be of use for other sorts of organizing of collective

action with multiple parties bringing in different and often conflictive stakes and

perspectives. In the most general sense, this might be inspiring for studying ‘organizations-

in-the-making’ (Hosking and Morley 1991) or for ‘emerging organization contexts’

(Bouwen 1998). Besides being relevant for cross-sectoral partnerships and collaboration, the

study might have relevance for strategic change contexts involving interdependent actors, as

strategic change efforts are commonly in need of legitimisation.


402

With the case in this study the focus was confined to a preparatory stage of multi-

stakeholder collaboration. It would be interesting to look at how the preliminary phase

would then translate into the joint action phase. Regarding this specific public-private

conflict, the Water Dialogues within which the original focus of the multi-stakeholder

review was realised could be examined for how they make use of the identified discursive

repertoires and strategies.

Furthermore, the focus could be extended to incorporate the study of repertoires used

within the various constituencies. Then it could be studied how they develop over time, in

what way the collaboration influences and is influenced by what is going on in the member

organization. Thereby it could be examined if any transformative effects reach beyond the

actual collaborators to the member organisations.

Another possibility would be to conduct action research drawing on the insights of this

study by explicating the paradoxical tensions and the discursive strategies and resources that

are used to deal with them.

My original intention was to identify specific business talk and specific civil society

talk and to study how the stakeholders take up, sustain or transform each other’s way of

talking, thereby identifying transformative and conservative discursive practices. This

would need a longer time-frame and the incorporation of the constituencies into the study.

Moreover, a longer time-frame would also allow for studying stakeholder-instigated

institution-building processes through the creation of new meanings and understandings of

governance processes, for example within the CSD. In such an undertaking, the

dissemination of new repertoires, the legitimisation of new practices accompanied by de-

legitimisation of existing institutions could be examined (cf. Maguire and Hardy 2006).

I would have expected more specific insights from the use of the paradoxical tensions

perspective. For future research, it would be worth taking a closer look at the tensions and

how participants deal with them from a psychodynamic perspective. Recently, some authors

introduced a psychodynamic perspective in collaboration research (Gray and Schruijer

forthcoming; Prins 2006; Prins et al. 2006), which seems to be a generative undertaking

worth building on. Analysing participants’ discourse and actions from a psychodynamic

perspective sheds light on aspects that could not have been illuminated in this study. A

psychodynamic approach would focus more on affective aspects in interaction and on what

is not said in the discourse in order to explore the emergence of what Huxham and Vangen

(2005) call “collaborative inertia” and “collaborative energy” more thoroughly. Researchers

would then trace the symbolic meaning of participants’ discourse and actions. An equally

interesting research lens on multi-actor collaboration could be the systemic perspective.


403

My study focused on a case dealing with freshwater, but on a very abstract level. Apart

from the bottled water on the meeting tables there was no direct connection between the

actual resource and participants’ discourse.4 Instead of focusing exclusively on talk

occurring in conference rooms of international meetings, examining a hands-on context

would offer the opportunity to extend the focus from a purely language-based interaction to

interaction with the actual natural resource as well as with technical devices of all sorts used

for dealing with freshwater. A promising approach for this would be actor-network theory

(Latour 1986; 2005; Law and Hassard 1999).

7.4 Implications for multi-stakeholder collaboration in practice

Collaboration is messy, multifaceted and highly complex. It is characterised by the

interplay of multiple views and concerns, intricate power relations and various interrelated

tensions and contradictions in an ongoing dynamic process. Hence, multi-stakeholder

collaboration raises significant managerial challenges. The theoretical model and the case

analysis are rather descriptive in character, which means that highly prescriptive

recommendations cannot be derived (Huxham and Vangen 2005). Still, some important

implications for organising multi-stakeholder collaboration can be presented.

Conceptualising multi-stakeholder collaboration as collective identity formation emphasises

the importance of creating and recreating the ties among the collaborators and the ties to

their focal issue and the context. Constructing and organising these relations is an intense

and time-consuming process for which participants and conveners need to be prepared. The

need to continuously balance the paradoxical tensions inherent in these intricate processes

emphasises the fragile character of collaboration. In line with the Huxham and Vangen’s

research, this study should help to shape realistic, rather than idealistic, expectations

regarding the organisation of such processes. Organising collaboration is often thwarted by

difficulties so that outcomes are not as intended. By drawing attention to the inherent

tensions and contradictions, the pain involved in organising multi-stakeholder collaboration

is illuminated and legitimised. Understanding that the problems that collaborators and

conveners are experiencing are inevitable is disburdening.

With the collaborative core activities and their inherent dilemmatic tensions, I outlined

areas in which active attention and careful management is particularly needed. The

paradoxical tensions view gives legitimacy to each of the countervailing tendencies and to

temporal discontinuities within a multifaceted and collaborative identity. Establishing and

juggling the countervailing tendencies is therefore the crucial task in organising

4 which actually sometimes entered the discourse, labelled as ‘luxury good’ (e.g. Notes IAB meeting, March 02)


404

collaboration (Hardy et al. 2006). This is also why prescriptive management advice makes

less sense, as it would deny the complexity and the situated interplay of tensions in

collaboration. Alternative ways of addressing issues imply tensions between specific

advantages and disadvantages. Accordingly, management advice would in itself consist of

counter-opposed pieces. For example, convening and facilitating the process needs to ensure

a bottom-up, stakeholder-driven process in which no particular stake is dominating. At the

same time, strong leadership needs to be enacted to keep the threads together and the

process in the time-frame (Huxham and Beech 2003; Huxham and Vangen 2005). Hence,

the intention has not been to put forward a single best approach to creating a promising

collaborative identity. Rather, in identifying the core collaborative activities and the

corresponding tensions I have attempted to depict major hurdles participants have to

struggle with in the identity formation process. The model of collaborative identity

formation with its main relational organising needs elaborated here can therefore be used as

“conceptual handles for reflective practice” (Huxham and Vangen 2005). What actions are

to be pursued is to be decided by the practitioners in the specific situation. Understanding

the inherent, dynamic tensions helps to manage them more wisely, and appreciating them

increases the chances that the collaborators can develop new and useful ways of relating by

exploring alternative discursive repertoires and moves (cf. Tracy and Ashcraft 2001).

As regards dealing with differences, an important method proposed in this case was to

document and analyze differences and common ground. This might be very helpful for

clarifying the issues, on the other hand existing differences might be further reified. This

study also proposes to look at the process of how those differences are discursively dealt

with in the here-and-now interaction, and to disentangle the web of interacting and

potentially countervailing aims. The turn-by-turn level of analysis as presented here raises

awareness as to how the differences are dealt with in conversation. Such a close look might

enhance the chances of moving out of gridlocked situations and therefore it is hoped that the

analysis might be inspiring for practitioners facilitating multi-stakeholder collaboration.

When dealing with differences, power issues are not to be neglected. The question of

how to address the power dynamics emerging in the practice of collaborative multi-

stakeholder settings is rather underresearched in the literature on collaboration, dialogue and

deliberation (Phillips et al. 2000; Ryfe 2007). This study contributes to the addressing of

power dynamics more explicitly. It does so on two distinct yet interrelated levels. As

regards the power relations among the participating stakeholders, my analysis illuminates

various strategies with which power is enacted. As regards the collaborative aim of

achieving societal change, this study draws attention to the different forms of change by

looking at multi-stakeholder collaboration against the backdrop of the broader discursive


405

paradigms around sustainable development. Societal change towards sustainable

development could be rather incremental, radical or transformative in character, depending

also on how the concept of sustainable development is constructed. Depending on the

construct, considerable shifts in power relations could be aimed at. Consequently, the

collaborative aim of achieving societal change towards sustainability is highly contentious,

which has an effect on the power relations among the participating stakeholders.

This study should help to reflect the intricate processes of multi-stakeholder

collaboration and thus to enable more conscious choices for the use of the different

repertoires, modes of relating and strategies. Identifying the modes of relating and the

discursive strategies currently in use helps to clarify what is happening in the process. If

required, this facilitates a shift towards a different mode by promoting a conjoint reflection

of the discursive resources and strategies in use, by bringing different discursive repertoires

into play or by jointly developing new ones. Sensitised to recognising different modes of

relating and ways of talking, facilitators, conveners and participants are able to play with

and reflect on them with regard to their effects on inclusiveness, achievement of change,

legitimacy and ownership. Hence, they may switch between an idealistic and pragmatic

approach to convening, experiment with different ways of conceptualising the togetherness

of the diverse stakeholders, discuss how to tackle emerging or long-standing conflicts, and

try out various ways of connecting to their context. To sum up, revealing the subtle patterns

and strategies used in participants’ talk, in order to position the collaboration as a whole and

the stakeholders among each other, increases the potential of their transformation.

Recognising the various repertoires, paradigms and strategies helps to make full use of the

collaborative energy by supporting the exploration of creative new ways of organizing the

environmental governance domain.

References

406

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Appendix

435

Appendix

Transcription Notation

underline emphasis

(unsure) Words the transcriber is unsure about

(unsure/unsure) Alternative versions the transcriber is unsure about

(...) Words the transcriber did not understand

. Stopping intonation

((comment)) Comments from the transcriber

h Small laughter

thi-h-s Laughter within a word

HHHH Loud laughter

[inserts] Nonverbal stuff or inserts

[name of NGO-1] Anonymised name

talk [overlap]

[overlap] talk Overlapping speech

in-”

“-Water Talk is interrupted by next speaker

°quieter° Encloses speech that is quieter than the surrounding talk

LOUDER Speech that is louder than the surrounding talk

Compare Speer and Potter (2000: 571f)

List of meetings and participants

Stakeholder group

/ Major group IAG / MSR Acronym Organisation

Bo

nn

Co

nf D

ec 0

1

En

ga

gem

en

t meetin

g D

ec 0

1

Tel- C

on

f Ma

r 0

2

IAG

PC

III Ma

r 0

2

Su

bm

ission

s

IAB

2 A

pr 0

2

IAG

CH

Ap

r 0

2

IAG

Ba

li Ma

y 0

2

TelC

on

f MS

R J

ul 0

2

IC 1

24

th A

ug

02

IC 2

25

th A

ug

02

IC 3

26

th A

ug

02

Women IAG Women-1 Gender & Water Alliance x x x x x x

IAG Huairou Commission x

Youth IAG Youth-1 Youth Water Action Team x x x

NGOs IAG & MSR NGO-1 WaterAid x x x x x x x

IAG NGO-2 IMAH / Development and

Managerial Institute for the

Environment, Brazil

x x x x

MSR NGO-3 UNA Dominican Republic

(UN Organization) x

MSR NGO-4 Istanbul Water Initiative x x x

MSR NGO-5 Kenya Rainwater Association

(KRA) x

MSR NGO-6 AWARD x x

MSR NGO-7 AWARD x x

MSR NGO-8 Vitae Civilis Institute x

IAG NGO-9 Watershed Organisation Trust x x x

IAG NGO-10 IUCN x

IAG NGO-11 International Development

Enterprises x

IAG NGO-12 Institute for Trade and Agriculture

Policy x x

IAG NGO-13 ECO-Accord x x

MSR NGO-14 ENDA tw x

IAG IUCN x

IAG Environmental Monitoring Group x

IAG International Rivers Network x

IAG Self-education for women's

empowerment x

Local Authorities IAG Local-Authorities-1 ICLEI x x x

IAG ICLEI x x

MSR x

Workers and

Trade Unions

IAG Unions-1 PSI x x x

IAG Unions-2 ICFTU x x

IAG Unions-3 PSI x

IAG ICFTU x

Business and

Industry

IAG & MSR Business-1 Ondeo / Suez x x x x x

IAG & MSR Business-2 WBCSD x x x x x

IAG & MSR Business-3 Severn Trent plc / then Strategic

Environmental Management x x x x

IAG & MSR Business-4 Severn Trent plc x x x

IAG Business-5 Unilever x x

MSR Small-Business-1 Umgeni Water x x x

MSR Small-Business-2 Fulcrum Ecosystems x

Public water

provider

IAG Public-Water-1 RandWater x x x

MSR Public-Water-2 x x x

Farmers IAG Farmers-1 International Federation of

Agricultural Producers x x x

IAG Farmers-2 Confederazione Italiana

Agricoltori x x

Intergovernmental

bodies

IAG IGO-1 World Bank x x x x x x

IAG 3rd World Water Forum

Preparatory Committee Kyoto x

IAG 3rd World Water Forum

Preparatory Committee Kyoto x

Professional

Associations

IAG & MSR Professional-

Association-1

International Water Association x x x x

Media Guest Media-1 x

Multi-stakeholder

organisations

IAG MSO-1 World Water and Sanitation

Collaborative Council x

IAG MSO-2 Global Water Partnership x x

MSR MSO-3 BPD Water&Sanitation x x

IAG MSO-4 World Water and Sanitation

Collaborative Council and

WaterAid

x

IAG Global Water Partnership x

Indigenous

Peoples

Faith

Communities

Parliamentarians

Possible others Finance sector corporations

Organisations dealing with

disaster preparedness and

management

Stakeholder

Forum

Director, SF x x x x x x

IC-Team Coordinator IAG Coordinator x x x x

Convener IC Coordinator x x x x x x

Co-convenor IC Coordinator x x x x

Facilitators Facilitator x x

IC lead facilitator x ?

Facilitator x x x

Guests Guest WSSD-Secretariat Senior Advisor to the WSSD

Secretariat x

Guest Government-1 German Ministry of Environment x x x

Guest Government-2 The Netherlands

Guest Government-3 The Netherlands

Guest EU-Commission-1 EU commission x

Guest World Water Assessment Report

(UNESCO) x x

Guest German Government x

Guest ecos ag x

Guest Global Water Report x

Guest Swiss Re x

researcher Visiting-Researcher Visiting Researcher (PhD

Student) x x

Anna Heydenreich PhD student x x x x x x x

Curriculum Vitae

440

Curriculum Vitae

Anna-Katrin Heydenreich

Born 16th March 1973

Education

University of St. Gallen, CH

Research Institute for Organizational Psychology

Doctoral Studies

2002-2008

University of Augsburg, Germany

Economic and Business Science

Majors: Organizational Psychology, Environmental Economics

Degree: Diplom-Ökonomin

1992-1999

University of York, UK

Studies in ‘Environmental Economics and Environmental Management’

1995-1996

Schönbuchgymnasium Holzgerlingen, Germany

Abitur (university entrance qualification)

1983-1992

Practical Experience

Executive MBA, University of St. Gallen, CH

Scientific Assistant in Organisational Psychology

2001-2003

Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen, CH

Researcher in the team project “Learning Dynamics”

1999-2000

Landesgirokasse Stuttgart, Germany

Internship, ‘Abteilung für Umweltschutz’ (department for environment

protection)

1997-1998

Stadtwerke Rottweil, Germany

Internship, ‘Kaufmännisches Praktikum’

1992

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