Abstract Transformative changes in the ways we manage and govern natural resources are needed to address multi-faceted, multi-scalar threats such as climate change, while recognizing the interaction and interdependence of natural and social systems. However, the establishment of new governance institutions is often hindered by and in conflict with dominant paradigms and legacy institutions. In the United States, approximately one-third of the country’s land base is held in public ownership, making the state a dominant actor in the governance of public lands and resources. Within the Forest Service, an administrative agency responsible for managing a large portion of the nation’s public lands, new models of governance, such as collaborative governance, have proliferated across the country as a means of moving decision-making closer to the ground, engaging the knowledge and resources of civil society and increasing the legitimacy of the state. While there is growing evidence that these arrangements can lead to improvements in management outcomes, theorizing and empirical work to understand the critical role of bureaucratic actors as mediators of change in governance institutions remains understudied. This paper presents a case study on the practice of collaborative governance among Forest Service actors in the state of Idaho. By applying an institutional work lens to actor narratives of collaborative practice, this study reveals the situated actions undertaken to mediate the translation of collaboratively developed agreements and recommendations into management outcomes, and the institutional work that leads to both stability and change in governance institutions. In doing so, this study extends existing theoretical models by proposing a set of mechanisms for understanding collaborative environmental management in institutional contexts where the state retains decision-making authority.
Chelsea S. Pennick (Fri,) studied this question.