State wildlife agencies (SWAs) partner with organizations of various types, on projects of various types, at what is anticipated to be an increasing rate. Inclusion of multiple and diverse stakeholders and partners is postulated to improve effectiveness of wildlife management (Anderson & Loomis, 2007; Jacobson et al., 2010). Through partnerships, actors from private, civil, and public sectors work together to reduce negative impacts from wildlife and improve access to and benefits of wildlife resources. Although partnerships can improve the ability of SWAs to address these issues, little is known about how the perspectives of internal employees and external partners and stakeholders differ regarding factors affecting perceived success of partnerships in wildlife conservation.This dissertation addresses SWA partnerships through an examination of one prototypical SWA’s partnership arrangements. I propose a typology for categorization of SWA partnerships and apply a theory of collaborative capacity to the assessment of them. I surveyed all employees of the Michigan SWA and asked them to identify the three partners they consider most key to their work and found gaps in the frequencies of partners considered key to the work of SWA employees based on their locations in the defined typology. Additionally, the model of collaborative capacity tested varied in performance when applied to SWA employees and SWA partners. This research has implications for transparency regarding how state power is shared and considers how the disparate prevalence of various partnership arrangements may affect wildlife governance. Furthermore, my research findings may be used to improve SWA partnership arrangements and improve their alignment with governance and management-relate goals, as well as increase awareness of differences in views regarding partnership success as defined by SWA employees and partners.
Read
