Abstract
Effective stakeholder collaboration plays an integral part in addressing emerging issues concerning building the resilience of urban areas. In practice, however, stakeholder collaboration remains ineffective and insufficient. This paper argues that a pragmatic form of stakeholder collaboration is required to address issues of power imbalance in neoliberal urban governance and to effectively build robust partnerships among key actors in constructing sustainable and resilient urban areas in the Global South. Through the lens of stakeholder theory, this study aims to (1) identify key roles of the main actors for building urban resilience in Phnom Penh city, (2) explore practical mechanisms that can assist stakeholders to better collaborate, and (3) examine the main opportunities and challenges for promoting stakeholder collaboration. Using qualitative methods, key findings reveal that increasing grassroots public forums, supporting the involvement of government figures in local projects, and formulating a conducive and transparent governance system are required to underpin stakeholders’ active involvement and mobilise their inputs in constructing urban resilience. We explain how the process of stakeholder collaboration is impeded by poor local understanding, livelihood constraints, insufficient information sharing and lack of coordination.
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Notes
In a growth mindset, as suggested by Dweck (2010, n.p), “people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment”.
Dweck (2010, n.p.) also reveals that in a fixed mindset, “people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong”.
“Disciplinary power” or can also be called “normalising power” is the power that determines what we see as normal. It constructs our view of the world and ourselves and shapes our views, desires and decisions. It reflects a truth in individuals and makes them do anything because they thought that is the right thing to do based on the norms. Deborah Johnston cited in Lilja and Vinthagen (2014: 109) perceived disciplinary power “as a system of knowledge that seeks to know the individual as an object to be known in relation to others who can be known”.
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Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely thank all the FGD and KII participants for providing information for this research. This study has benefitted from funding from a University of New South Wales (UNSW). The work was conducted under the approval from the Human Research Ethics Advisory Panel, UNSW Canberra.
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Nop, S., Thornton, A. & Tranter, P. Towards effective stakeholder collaboration in building urban resilience in Phnom Penh: opportunities and obstacles. Environ Dev Sustain 25, 297–320 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-02055-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-02055-y