'Us versus Them' mentalities in Natura 2000 forest management: Narratives, identity constructions and a culture of conflict

This paper aims to explore the influence of narratives and identity constructions on the social dynamics between diverse actors involved in collaborative governance with the purpose to facilitate Natura 2000 implementation in local forest management. Natura 2000 is a European-wide network of protected areas to protect endangered biodiversity, but its implementation has been loaded with troubles and contestations since its adoption in 1992. Local administrators have therefore increasingly relied on initiating collaborative arrangements with other state actors and affected stakeholders to create acceptance and to facilitate the implementation locally. Applying a collaborative approach to governance and management is however no panacea for smooth processes and accepted policy implementation. Integrating the study of narratives, identity constructions and social relational structure through means of social network analysis builds the conceptual and methodological foundation in the analysis of the case study to explore the social dynamics between actors involved in the case. I identify two opposing narratives that compete with each other over power and competency in determining proper management planning in the Natura 2000 areas. Furthermore, negative identity constructions and antagonizing with the other side fuels an “Us versus Them” dynamic among the involved actors and over time a culture of conflict has become institutionalized. Thus, interactions between the involved actors seemingly build on a complex, iterative pattern of conflict that is barely breakable and reversible into cooperative attitudes of affected stakeholders. Interestingly, this culture of conflict is not translated into the relational structure between actors in the case study as the results from the social network analysis show. This points to an incongruence between structural and cognitive mechanisms underlying social dynamics in actor collaborations. Although some collaborative arrangements seem to be shaken by intractable conflicts, these results render hope and are discussed in light of conflict resolution strategies for collaborative governance approaches.