Transformation of Countervailing Power in Collaborative Governance: A Case Study of the Shi-Hwa Sustainable Development Committee

The existence of adversarial countervailing power has been considered a necessary condition to making collaborative governance fair and effective. However, adversarial countervailing power cannot be easily transformed into a collaborative one that is more appropriate for collaborative governance. This article explores a mechanism of power transformation by bridging the theory of trust building and the theory of power in collaborative governance. This article posits that when there is distrust among parties, comprehensive, up-front prenegotiation on the structure of collaboration may set the stage for a small-wins approach to trust building by managing power imbalances. Power transformation may follow this trust-building cycle accordingly. The framework of power transformation is tested with the case of the Shi-Hwa Sustainable Development Committee, a successful experiment of collaborative governance in balancing development and environment in Korea in which adversarial countervailing power was transformed into a collaborative one. The results of this article imply that a key factor in successful collaborative governance is power management.