Negotiating Authority in Facilitation Practice – A Conceptual Framework to Describe Facilitators’ Use of Power in Collaborative Governance

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to describe facilitators’ use of power in facilitation practice. Facilitators are mainly, in theory as well as in practice, described as neutral power sharers. This reductive understanding of the role of facilitators is problematic as it hides the influence that these practitioners have over the process and outcome of collaborative governance. Analyzing two Swedish collaborative governance processes, we develop a framework that sheds light on facilitators’ use of power. The framework includes three alternative power moves that facilitators can make: sequencing, framing and concluding. Facilitators’ attempts to make these moves are, in the framework, located on a continuum between authority and argumentation in the following positions: authority, tempered authority, tempered argumentation and argumentation. This paper contributes to the facilitation and collaborative governance literatures by providing a conceptual framework applicable for further research into facilitators’ use of power, as well as for developing facilitation handbooks and training programmes.