Dialogue: A Promising Vehicle to Steer Transformative Local Change towards More Sustainable Communities?

Abstract

This paper engages in a reflection on how, and under what conditions, dialogue can contribute to local transformative change towards climate neutrality, based on the case of the German city of Marburg which has engaged in a collaborative governance process to steer climate mitigation since 2019. The research findings are drawn from the work of the 2020-created Franco-German Forum for the Future. The project seeks to increase dialogue among states, citizens, and the economy to foster learning, mutual understanding and ultimately collaboration for an inclusive socio-ecological transition. Hence, dialogue plays a central role in both objectives and the methodology in our work with the city of Marburg, based on a collaborative action-research approach. Central to the Forum’s approach are different forms of tailored dialogic engagements, including reflection sessions with our research partners, interviews and theme-based peer-to-peer dialogues between various local initiatives to create space for experience-sharing and knowledge transfer. In this paper, we show how dialogue can create space for self-reflection among stakeholders to recognise some of the structural barriers of designing and implementing local climate policy. Findings offer insights into how multi-stakeholder exchanges can ease conflict in working relationships, by making divergent role understandings and institutional constraints more explicit. We also reflect on the framework conditions dialogue requires to enable collaborative implementation of local policies.