Innovations for Stakeholder Engagement in Water Governance: A Systematic Literature Review From a Sustainability Transition Perspective

Sustainable and equitable governance of water resources is among the most pressing global challenges, emphasising the need for innovations towards transitions in the water sector. Innovations for stakeholder engagement can contribute to such transitions through public participation and cross-sectoral collaboration. However, stakeholder engagement has often been promoted as a panacea, assuming that the greater the engagement, the higher are the chances to improve governance. Important insights can be gained for water governance and transitions by understanding stakeholders' rationales for engagement, rather than solely focusing on the act of engagement. To this end, we applied a sustainability transition perspective to synthesise the empirical evidence on the traits of innovations for stakeholder engagement and to identify the indications that stakeholders follow normative, substantive, and instrumental rationales. Based on a systematic review of 61 publications, we show that innovations are characterised by multiple governance modes, with hierarchy as the most common mode and governments as a key actor often initiating stakeholder engagement. Regarding the rationales, a key indication that stakeholders follow a normative rationale is establishing power balance, whereas promoting the diversity of knowledge systems indicates a substantive rationale, and the instrumental rationale is manifested through process-related and institutional indications, covering resources such as information and time. Future research directions relate to longitudinal and in-depth case studies on stakeholder engagement innovations in diverse contexts. Finding congruency of meaning between stakeholders' disparate rationales is crucial for advancing innovations for engagement, which in turn can foster water transitions.