It has been posited that US national forest administration is undergoing a governance transition characterized by an increase in the involvement and influence of non-state actors. One example of this new form of national forest governance is the use of multi-stakeholder collaborative efforts for planning and implementing projects. This has raised normative and positive questions about the value and effectiveness of such efforts and how they compare with more traditional public involvement and planning processes. This study attempts to address the latter questions by analyzing project-level planning and implementation data while comparing collaborative and traditional projects on a suite of metrics related to pace, scale, complexity, and legal outcomes. We used administrative data from the USDA Forest Service to conduct a quantitative analysis of projects over a 14-year period. We found that collaboratively developed projects were larger and more complex than traditional projects and were associated with greater planning efficiency. This analysis responds to the need to systematically assess the impact of collaborative governance and contributes to existing theories of governance, organizational learning, and policy implementation.

中文翻译：

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合作对爱达荷州国家森林管理速度和规模影响的实证评估

据推测，美国国家森林管理部门正在经历以非国家行为者的参与和影响力增加为特征的治理转型。这种新形式的国家森林治理的一个例子是利用多方利益相关者的合作来规划和实施项目。这引发了关于此类努力的价值和有效性的规范性和积极性问题，以及它们与更传统的公众参与和规划过程的比较。本研究试图通过分析项目级别的规划和实施数据来解决后一个问题，同时在与速度、规模、复杂性和法律结果相关的一组指标上比较协作项目和传统项目。我们使用美国农业部林务局的行政数据对 14 年期间的项目进行了定量分析。我们发现，协作开发的项目比传统项目更大、更复杂，并且与更高的规划效率相关。该分析响应了系统评估协作治理的影响的需要，并有助于现有的治理理论、组织学习和政策实施。