Translating Across Boundaries: The Process of Integrating Forestry Into the German National Water Strategy

Participatory processes are increasingly recognized as essential components of modern environmental governance. While much scholarly attention has been devoted to the design and implementation of such processes, less is known about the critical phase between participatory processes and final policy outputs. The article addresses this research gap by proposing policy translation as an analytical lens to investigate how narratives are transformed as they are transmitted from participation to policy. In order to apply the concept of policy translation empirically, the ideational policy integration of forestry into the German National Water Strategy (NWS) is investigated. Accordingly, this research examines how forestry was, after previous fragmentation of the water and forest sectors, ideationally integrated into the NWS. Based on a qualitative analysis of 100 process‐accompanying documents, two drafts and a final version of the NWS, as well as eight semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders, the study uncovers a narrative shift throughout the NWS' development. The results insinuate that this shift occurred primarily throughout the translation process, which is here characterized as ongoing discursive struggles, including practices of gatekeeping and imposition. This research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the policy process by illuminating the discursive dynamics that occurred throughout the translation process. It calls for future research to critically explore the policy translation between participatory process and final policy output, as it highly influences policy outcomes and may, as shown here, overshadow the inputs from the participatory process.