together of actors, sectors and/or policy domains to aim for defining collective goals as well as mutual benefits. Actors are willing to cooperate when the outcome suits the self-interests of all actors involved, i.e. when collective goals indeed bring mutual benefits (Bosch-Sijtsema and Postma, 2009), but also in situations with no direct impacts on actors' benefits, when compromises are accepted due to positive expectation to future developments of the society
where one belongs (Soma and Vatn, 2014). Cooperation among heterogeneous actors necessitates the pooling of resources of multiple stakeholders to solve problems (Varjopuro et al., 2008).
We see cooperation as a necessary strategy for integration and regionalization in Marine Governance to obtain mutual benefits.