ABSTRACT
Complex policy challenges, such as responding to climate change at the local scale, are difficult to address comprehensively and efficiently only with established planning and decision-making models of “plan-do-check-act” (O’Brien et al. 2013). The multilayered complexity of climate change and the institutional challenges involved in responding to its impacts are a poor fit for using straightforward, top-down planning and decision-making models. The necessity for changes to existing policy-making paradigms is reflected in an increasing awareness of networked and collaborative forms of governance, where state authority, while important, is just one of many actors involved in the problem-framing and decision-making process at the science-policy interface. In this chapter, we critically examine the role of different forms of collaboration in local planning and decision-making for local climate change mitigation and adaptation. We examine networked forms of governance in real-world contexts by focussing on intra-organisational and inter-municipal collaboration in two specific situations where networked modes of governing can be observed. Both case studies are located in the state of Victoria, Australia, and cover two scales of climate change adaptation planning and decision-making. Through a discussion of theory and practice, we explore both the innovations and constraints in enacting collaborative modes of governing at the local scale.
