Int. J. Sustainable Development, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2014 403 Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. From shouting matches to productive dialogue – establishing stakeholder participation in Polish fisheries governance Christian Stöhr* Department for Applied Information Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden E-mail: christian.stohr@chalmers.se *Corresponding author Ilan Chabay Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, 130 Berliner Stasse, 14467 Potsdam, Germany E-mail: ilan.chabay@gmail.com Abstract: Environmental governance is increasingly turning away from classic top-down hierarchical governance regimes and experimenting with more collaborative forms of governance, e.g., analytic-deliberative participation of resource users. In this paper, we examine the role of the Polish Baltic Sea Fisheries Roundtable as a multi-stakeholder platform in Polish Baltic Sea fisheries governance. The fisheries sector within a country rapidly transitioning from a centrally planned system to (pseudo) market conditions provides an illustrative case in a very difficult context. Employing an action- and learning-based approach, we participated in the initiation and institutionalisation of a process of levelling the playing field and building trust within the fisheries sector in Poland. Using Adler and Birkhoff’s collaborative process model for action planning and implementation, we evaluate the approach and outcomes of this project and discuss the results in relation to the existing literature. Keywords: stakeholder participation; fisheries governance; environmental governance; sustainability; learning; dialogue; trust building; Poland; action research; analytic-deliberative participation; collaborative process model; CPM. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Stöhr, C. and Chabay, I. (2014) ‘From shouting matches to productive dialogue – establishing stakeholder participation in Polish fisheries governance’, Int. J. Sustainable Development, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp.403–419. Biographical notes: Christian Stöhr is a PhD candidate at the Department of Applied IT of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden and holds an MA in Sociology. His research interests are the conceptualisation and practice of the governance of natural and digital goods. He is particularly interested in the challenges and tensions created by the interplay between decision-making, expertise and participation in complex governance systems. He has conducted empirical research in fisheries, wolf governance and open source software projects.