A new framework for collaborative climate governance: linking consensus building and collective action

Collaborative governance has generated influential theoretical frameworks, yet existing research often relies on qualitative reasoning and pays limited attention to the micro-level behavioural dynamics that shape the transition from consensus building to collective action. This article develops a new framework for collaborative climate governance that conceptualises collaboration as a dynamic, sequential process linking these two phases. Drawing on a mixed-method approach that combines extensive field studies with evolutionary game modelling, the study examines how stakeholder behaviours and interaction patterns underpin collaborative outcomes over time. The framework conceptualises consensus building as the development of mutual trust and shared commitment among stakeholders, and collective action as the institutionalisation of this foundation through joint decision making and collaborative implementation. From the interaction between these two dimensions, the framework identifies four collaborative governance patterns – productive, unproductive, independent and symbolic – which are presented as a diagnostic map linking micro-level behavioural dynamics to emergent governance outcomes. In this way, the article advances collaborative governance theory by offering a behaviourally grounded, process-oriented approach to analysing climate collaboration across governance contexts.