Collaborative governance draws from diverse realms of practice and research in public administration. This article synthesizes and extends a suite of conceptual frameworks, research findings, and practice-based knowledge into an integrative framework for collaborative governance. The framework specifies a set of nested dimensions that encompass a larger system context, a collaborative governance regime, and its internal collaborative dynamics and actions that can generate impacts and adaptations across the systems. The framework provides a broad conceptual map for situating and exploring components of cross-boundary governance systems that range from policy or program-based intergovernmental cooperation to place-based regional collaboration with nongovernmental stakeholders to public-private partnerships. The framework integrates knowledge about individual incentives and barriers to collection action, collaborative social learning and conflict resolution processes, and institutional arrangements for cross-boundary collaboration. It is presented as a general framework that might be applied to analyses at different scales, in different policy arenas, and varying levels of complexity. The article also offers 10 propositions about the dynamic interactions among components within the framework and concludes with a discussion about the implications of the framework for theory, research, evaluation, and practice. Colaborativa gobernanza extrae de diversas esferas de la practica e investigación de la administración pública. Este articulo sintetiza y extiende marcos conceptuales, resultados de investigación y conocimiento basado en la práctica dentro de un marco integrativo de gobernanza colaborativa. El marco específica un conjunto de dimensiones anidadas, abarcando un gran contexto del sistema, un régimen de gobernanza colaborativa, y las dinámicas y acciones colaborativas internas que pueden generar impactos y adaptaciones a través de los sistemas. El marco proporciona un mapa conceptual amplio para situar y explorar los componentes más allá de los límites del sistema de gobernanza los cuales van desde cooperación regional intergubernamental in base a programas o políticas hasta cooperación con interesados non gubernamentales en base a su localización hasta incluir asociaciones entre entes públicas y privadas. El marco integra información acerca de los incentivos y dificultades individuales de acción colectiva, el aprendizaje social y colaborativo, los procesos de resolución de conflicto, y las configuraciones institucionales para colaboración fuera de límites. El marco general que se presenta podría ser aplicado a análisis de escalas diferentes, en diferentes áreas de política, y en diferentes niveles de complejidad. El artículo también proporciona 10 proposiciones acerca de las interacciones dinámicas entre los componentes del marco y concluye con una discusión de las implicaciones del marco para teoría, investigación, evaluación y la práctica. Translations by Claudia N. Avellaneda, University of North Carolina Charlotte and Nicolai Petrovsky, University of Kentucky

All forms of economic production and exchange involve the use of energy directly and in the transformation of materials. Until recently, cheap and seemingly limitless fossil energy has allowed most of society to ignore the importance of contributions to the economic process from the biophysical world as well as the potential limits to growth. This paper centers on assessing the energy costs of modern day society and its relation to GDP. Our most important focus is the characteristics of our major energy sources including each fuel's energy return on investment (EROI). The EROI of our most important fuels is declining and most renewable and non-conventional energy alternatives have substantially lower EROI values than traditional conventional fossil fuels. At the societal level, declining EROI means that an increasing proportion of energy output and economic activity must be diverted to attaining the energy needed to run an economy, leaving less discretionary funds available for “non-essential” purchases which often drive growth. The declining EROI of traditional fossil fuel energy sources and the effect of that on the world economy are likely to result in a myriad of consequences, most of which will not be perceived as good

Economic production and, more generally, most global societies, are overwhelmingly dependant upon depleting supplies of fossil fuels. There is considerable concern amongst resource scientists, if not most economists, as to whether market signals or cost benefit analysis based on today’s prices are sufficient to guide our decisions about our energy future. These suspicions and concerns were escalated during the oil price increase from 2005 – 2008 and the subsequent but probably related market collapse of 2008. We believe that Energy Return On Investment (EROI) analysis provides a useful approach for examining disadvantages and advantages of different fuels and also offers the possibility to look into the future in ways that markets seem unable to do. The goal of this paper is to review the application of EROI theory to both natural and economic realms, and to assess preliminarily the minimum EROI that a society must attain from its energy exploitation to support continued economic activity and social function. In doing so we calculate herein a basic first attempt at the minimum EROI for current society and some of the consequences when that minimum is approached. The theory of the minimum EROI discussed here, which describes the somewhat obvious but nonetheless important idea that for any being or system to survive or grow it must gain substantially more energy than it uses in obtaining that energy, may be especially important. Thus any particular being or system must abide by a “Law of Minimum EROI”, which we calculate for both oil and corn-based ethanol as about 3:1 at the mine-mouth/farm-gate. Since most biofuels have EROI’s of less than 3:1 they must be subsidized by fossil fuels to be useful.

The near- and long-term societal effects of declining EROI are uncertain, but probably adverse. A major obstacle to examining social implications of declining EROI is that we do not have adequate empirical understanding of how EROI is linked, directly or indirectly, to an average citizen′s ability to achieve well-being. To evaluate the possible linkages between societal well-being and net energy availability, we compare these preliminary estimates of energy availability: (1) EROI at a societal level, (2) energy use per capita, (3) multiple regression analyses and (4) a new composite energy index (Lambert Energy Index), to select indicators of quality of life (HDI, percent children under weight, health expenditures, Gender Inequality Index, literacy rate and access to improved water). Our results suggest that energy indices are highly correlated with a higher standard of living. We also find a saturation point at which increases in per capita energy availability (greater than 150GJ) or EROI (above 20:1) are not associated with further improvement to society

We examine technological progress in the US and Canada to answer the question: has the efficiency (e.g., the edible energy efficiency, or EEE) for producing agricultural products in the US and Canada increased in recent decades? Specifically, we determined the energy efficiency of agriculture at the farm gate in recent decades by dividing the outputs (the total annual crop and animal output in energy units minus the feed used for animal production and the grain used for ethanol production) by the energy inputs: all the energy used by the nation to produce food (the energy used to generate and apply the fertilizer, pesticides, seed and to operate machinery) minus the energy inputs to produce grain for ethanol. Our data comes primarily from national and international agricultural censuses. Our study found that the energy efficiency of US agriculture has more than doubled from 0.8:1 in 1970 to 2.2:1 by 2000, then increased more slowly to 2.3:1 by 2009. The energy efficiency of the agricultural sector in Canada has not changed appreciably since 1980, and has varied about a mean of 2:1 from 1981 to 2009. Our study found that EEE improvements in the US could be attributable in part to advancements in crop production per hectare, and lower direct fuel consumption, but also a greater proportion of less energy-intensive corn and changes to the diet of livestock (e.g., increased use of meals and other by-products which have increased the availability of grain). Thus increases due to technological progress alone for the last several decades appear small, less than one percent a year.