In recent years, a wide array of local collaborative efforts has sprung up. This has encouraged a growing number of public agencies to devote significant financial and human resources to these efforts. The factors affects the success or failure of these partnerships remain rather poorly understood. Studies to date of watershed negotiating processes have involved either detailed cases studies of a few efforts or surveys of large numbers of groups. While these have suggested some interesting hypotheses, they also face important limitations.
Subjective methods used in the case study approach are likely to have unknown biases.
Also, the small number of cases raises serious concerns about the generalizability of results. Existing surveys of a large number of cases have been good at gathering descriptive information, but have presented only a very limited understanding of high conflict situations. We hope to develop a better understanding of stakeholder negotiations. Please note that detailed information about partnerships will be kept strictly private, if desired. Several partnership representatives will always have the opportunity to review any information specific to the partnership prior to publishing.