Recommended Book on Collaborative Governance

<p>Rick Morse is a School of Government faculty member </p> <p>One of my primary research interests is the emerging practice of collaborative governance. I  have recently blogged about some of my own research on the topic and am happy here to recommend an excellent book I have recently read. Professor Carmen Sirianni (Brandeis University) recently published Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance (2009, Brookings Institution Press), an engaging book that captures the many interweaving facets of collaborative governance and brings the concepts to life with three richly drawn case studies. This book will be of interest to a wide variety of people, including community development practitioners.</p> <p>Sirianni’s contribution to the growing literature on collaborative governance is two-fold. First, he masterfully integrates several related streams of literature into eight “core principles of collaborative governance and policy design.” The eight principles (discussed in the book’s second chapter) are:</p> Co-produce public goods Mobilize community assets Share professional expertise Enable public deliberation Promote sustainable partnerships Build fields and governance networks strategically Transform institutional cultures Ensure reciprocal accountability <p>The principles are not meant to be seen as a checklist–not “all inclusive, or all-or-nothing,” but rather “represent a selective menu whose various combinations might be relevant for some governance and policy problems but  not for others” (p. 41). What is most helpful about the distillation of principles in this manner is how the many different aspects of collaborative governance are brought together. Collaborative governance encompasses inter-agency collaboration, multi-sector partnerships, and civic (or stakeholder) engagement. Too often these practices are considered in isolation [...]</p>