Collaborative governance: an overview

 Government as the entity in charge of addressing public issues and accomplishing collective goals, in broad terms, has the responsibility to seek the best strategies in order to fulfill those aims and delivery services and goods. The previous statement help us answer the question made by Donahue & Zeckhauser (2011) on page 27, whether the government is responsible for ensuring the accomplishment of the public mission. However, since public problems have become more complex, in the same way they require a multidimensional response. That is when creating synergy with non-state agencies and other governmental entities becomes important.

Collaborative Governance's definition provided by Donahue & Zeckhauser (2011) is limited to tangible outcomes (services and goods), nevertheless, Ansell and Gash (2007) present collaboration as a decision-making process in which both, public agencies and non-state stakeholders, directly engage.
Apart from the differences in the definitions (shared discretion vs consensus oriented), I also found that Donahue & Zeckhauser (2011) focus on private partners such as companies to delivered public goods in its three dimensions (semiprivate, directed and pure public goods), they do not give space for the stakeholders or state agencies to get involve in the public policy process: defining public problems, setting the agenda and designing alternatives that best fit the problem. In the same line, bureaucracy as an obstacle for innovation and creativity (Thompson, 1969), contrasting with collaboration, is not taken into consideration in their definition of collaborative governance.
On the other hand, Ansell and Gash (2007) cover that gap and go even further in their explanation, establishing six important criteria where "arrangement, direct engagement, consensus oriented and public policy making and implementation" are admitted. Furthermore, they note there are many forms of collaboration, but that does not imply public agencies will play the same role ergo it won't necessarily be called collaborative governance. 
From my experience working for the public sector and from what I have gathered so far based on theoretical readings, the mere action of adding "collaboration" to the governmental equation is already a challenge. 
Nevertheless, Huxham (2000) writes about two specific dimensions that seriously affect collaboration: structural complexity and diversity. From these dimensions, I will go with structural complexity as the most challenging factor within the design of the collaboration. Why? because it covers starting conditions such a power, incentives to participate and collaboration history (related to trust and legitimacy), furthermore, it takes into consideration the dynamics of collaboration and its development (especially purpose-wise).
On the other hand, another challenge not mentioned in detail by the authors we have been reading is "political interest." Every policymaker and decision-maker brings to the "table of collaboration" their own interests and values, most of the time hidden or implicit. Therefore, it is difficult to come up with an effective design that satisfies every individual or organizational goal (or at least most of them) when entering the collaboration sphere.