Collaborative Governance and Gender: Conditions for a constructive process in the field of public policy

Ione Ardaiz, Naia Begiristain, Miren Estensoro, Naiara Goia, Claudia Icaran, Miren Larrea and Ane Miren Valenciano.

After several years of collaboration between Arantzazulab and Orkestra in the framework of the public policies of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa promoting collaborative governance, we, the authors of this post, want to deeper explore the intersection between this type of governance and gender. As a first step to do so, on the one hand, both institutions recognize that we share a vision and a path that facilitate our collaboration, and on the other hand, we are united by our desire to clim a place for reflection on gender in the field of collaborative governance.

The initial reflection of this collaborative process was based on the book “The Art of Facilitating Action Research” written and illustrated by one of us, Miren Larrea (2024). It highlights the need to overcome ten forms of dichotomic thinking that emerge in the development of public policies when these are based on collaborative governance. The book recognizes that these dichotomic ways of thinking are intersected by the gender dimension. Consequently, our aim is to become aware of how we reproduce gender roles in collaborative governance processes, and thus promote the co-creation of new perspectives that overcome these dichotomies. To do so, we start from a double question: how do we reproduce gender roles in our collaborative governance processes? And what do we need to change in our processes so that this does not happen?

There are various ways of defining collaborative governance. We emphasize that collaborative governance can be a solution to integrate society into deliberation and decision-making processes, as well as to develop new spaces for co-creation, shared reflection and action between governments and civil society. Collaborative governance seeks to involve people in a constructive way to collectively achieve objectives that several actors have in common and that otherwise could not be achieved. We believe that this model of collaboration between governments, organized society and citizens, in addition to seeking a more significant involvement of civil society in important issues on the public agenda, can help reduce structural inequalities, including gender inequalities. On the way to this goal, we believe that it may be interesting to work on the intersection of gender with facilitation and different forms of leadership in the field of collaborative governance.

In addition to recognizing the potential of analysing this connection between governance and gender, we would also like to point out that this connection has been absent in our previous work on collaborative governance. We are, therefore, breaking new ground in our processes, with the hope of understanding this connection and reflecting on its effects. To do so, we will use our experience and, complementarily, the contribution of feminist literature on the criteria, structures and roles to be taken into account for the development of collaborative governance processes. They have been referents in our reflection, among others, Jone Martínez Palacios (2018, 2021), Mari Luz Esteban (2017) and Fraser and Glass (2020).

In short, why do we want to explore the intersection of collaborative governance with gender? Because we believe it will enrich, among others, the following elements of our work: leadership and facilitation, the different roles that appear in the transformation processes, the capacities to be developed, the culture and the incorporation of diverse forms of knowledge into the processes.

Among these areas we would especially like to work on the different forms of leadership required by collaborative governance. Indeed, collaborative governance requires forms of leadership that intentionally engage actors to transform individual efforts into collective ones. This necessarily implies relational forms of leadership, i.e., it requires moving the focus from individual leadership to distributed leadership throughout the system; and placing relationships, complexity and communication at the centre of the process. This more horizontal and open leadership model challenges traditional ways of understanding and exercising power, since in collaborative governance power must be shared or collective. We start from the hypothesis that gender has an influence here, because the forms of appropriation of power between men and women, as a result of our different forms of socialization, are different. According to this hypothesis, female leadership exercises power more collectively, while male leadership is based more on individuation.

One of the authors who opens this field of research is Mari Luz Esteban, who mentions that “there is not enough empirical information to state whether feminists who have responsibilities both in public institutions and in private companies, political parties and trade unions in Euskal Herria have very different forms of leadership”, but there are intuitions and indications (Esteban, 2017, pp. 74). We start from similar intuitions when putting the following questions on the table: will this type of inequalities between men and women be noticed in the governance of our public policies? Will we end up seeing that women currently have other ways of exercising their leadership role in public policies and in collaborative governance processes, for example, through more participatory, horizontal, relational forms? Or how do these forms of leadership differ from potentially more competitive male praxis? We want to focus on these new forms of leadership, highlight them, open a dialogue on their possible impact and understand how they relate to gender perspectives.

We have mentioned that our starting point was a publication by a member of the group, Miren Larrea, on public policies that are developed through collaborative governance. This reflection has led us to look for ways to overcome dichotomous ways of thinking, including dichotomous thinking between masculine and feminine. The importance that these ways of thinking acquire in public policy coincides, as Jone Martínez Palacios (2018) points out, with our tendency to binarism, internalizing binary gender identities and strict norms about the tendencies we should have based on gender. Within this binarism, power differences are reinforced, and the value given to things varies according to their relation to one gender or the other. Our collaborative work has been an attempt to overcome these perspectives.

But despite starting from reflection, from the beginning of the process we had in mind the idea of working in practice and with different agents of the territory that are involved in collaborative governance processes. We have written this document on the eve of starting to share our work, and we want it to serve as a bridge to the new stage in which we will work with other territorial actors.

Our intention for the coming months is to launch a space for dialogue called “Governance and Gender” based on the shared work of those of us who sign this blog. In this space we will highlight the importance of gender in the processes of collaborative governance in the framework of public policies, and we will deepen the reflection to transform action. We wanted to take the first step towards the creation of this space through this document, anticipating some of the reflections and questions that we share in it. Not only do we seek answers to these questions, but we anticipate a path of redefining the questions, in order to seek answers again. If you would like to contribute to this process of reflection, we will be happy to hear from you at the following address: alab@arantzazulab.eus

References:

Esteban, M.L. (2017). Feminismoa eta politikaren eraldaketak. Susa, Lisipe.
Fraser, T. eta Glass, J. (2020). Bridging the fields of feminist and systems practice: Building ecosystems for gender equity. The Systems Sancturary.
Larrea, M. (2024). The art of facilitating action research. A first-person account in policymaking. Deusto University Press.
Martinez-Palacios, J. (2018). No te pongas nerviosa. Pamiela.
Martinez-Palacios, J. eta Ripio Rodriguez, V. (2021). Pegarse a la cuerpa. Ménades Editorial.