Innovations in water governance: The importance of time

Time is often considered to be an inert background against which governance processes evolve. Instead, this article approaches time as a factor that influences the development of innovation processes in water governance. Drawing on two Dutch cases, we analyse perceptions of time and the management of time. Public managers manage time by trying to fix deadlines, by synchronizing different timelines or by imposing their time horizon on the process. Different actors' timeframes may interfere with one another, and this may hinder governance processes. The analysis of time helps to explain the dynamics of governance processes, and this article shows that the alignment of timeframes is a crucial activity in realizing innovations in governance.

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