Climate change in mountain regions: how local communities adapt to extreme events

This paper examines how local communities adapt to climate change and how governance structures can foster or undermine adaptive capacity. Climate change policies, in general, and disaster risk management in mountain regions, in particular, are characterised by their multi-level and multi-sectoral nature during formulation and implementation. The involvement of numerous state and non-state actors at local to national levels produces a variety of networks of interaction and communication. The paper argues that the structure of these relational patterns is critical for understanding adaptive capacity. It thus proposes an expanded concept of adaptive capacity that incorporates (horizontal and vertical) actor integration and communication flow between these actors. The paper further advocates the use of formal social network analysis to assess these relational patterns. Preliminary results from research on adaptation to climate change in a Swiss mountain region vulnerable to floods and other natural hazards illustrate the conceptual and empirical significance of the main arguments.     

Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive in Norway: Bridging the Gap Between Water Management Networks and Elected Councils?

To handle the challenge of complex cross-sector and multilevel coordination in the implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive, Norway has established multilevel governance networks. Observers have pointed to a risk of such governance arrangements being dominated by experts. This article studies the highly complex multilevel governance networks of water management in Norway, and unveils the importance of political anchorage of such governance networks at local and regional levels. The study finds evidence that political anchorage matters for further network achievements. Because the water governance networks are subordinated to the hierarchy of government, they need to ‘talk to' the system of hierarchical government in order to be effective. In this regard, it seems crucial that networks are politically anchored. Furthermore, the study unveils the important role of political leadership and network managers in ensuring political anchorage.     

Intergovernmental relationships after disaster: state and local government learning during flood recovery in Colorado

ABSTRACT

When communities experience disaster, emergency response and recovery are led internally, based on local-level policy decisions and priorities. Decisions about how or whether to rebuild are made by local governments. Higher governmental authorities such as states and provinces may institute their own disaster recovery processes and policies in addition to or in competition with local governments. Greater intergovernmental engagement could increase resources and knowledge, which would yield higher levels of learning and result in superior disaster recovery policy outcomes. The role of higher authorities, then, can have important implications for policy processes and outcomes. The learning literature includes a dearth of studies that analyze the relationships between state and local governments during disaster recovery. We move the learning literature forward by analyzing intergovernmental relationships during disaster recovery. We find that learning within local governments is associated with higher levels of resource flows from state agencies as well as more collaborative intergovernmental relationships. We also find that state governments can improve processes for disaster recovery assistance and bring together disaster-affected local governments to promote learning during the recovery process. While this study focused on relationships constrained by U.S. federal dynamics, the lessons are useful to other multilevel governance systems.     

Recapturing fugitive power: epistemology,complexity and democracy

While policy network theory employs complexity concepts (self-regulation, emergence) mainly as explanatory tools, potential theoretical contributions arising from the underpinning analytical principles have been less explored. It is argued that by directly considering multi-level environmental governance as a far-from-equilibrium complex system, it is possible to explore how governance structures might better support and construe the dynamic and delicate conditions necessary for the presence of life. Problem formulation or 'agenda setting' powers exerted by civil servants and scientists are examined as emergent properties, systemic in and necessary for the stability of multi-level governance structures. Finally, it is proposed that multi-level environmental governance design may be improved through a reconceptualisation of representation, informed by principles from complexity theory, which embraces and 'recaptures' power exerted through extra-electoral governance relationships.     

Integrating Swedish water resource management: a multi-level governance trilemma

This paper analyses proposals for new multi-level governance of Swedish water resources to implement the EU Water Framework Directive. The question is, do they satisfy the criteria for ecologically rational and democratically legitimate governance? The core of the analysis concerns an administrative 'trilemma' encountered in designing ecologically effective and democratically acceptable multi-level governance. This trilemma is characterised by tensions between effectiveness, participation and legitimacy, all core values of 'good governance'. The Swedish proposal constitutes an effort to achieve cost-effective implementation of the EU Directive through an ecosystem-based multi-level organisation. It also seeks to bring about democratically legitimate governance through stakeholder networks and negotiations at the sub-catchment level, and governance 'partnerships' among local governments and organised interests. In particular, the assessment addresses issues of integrating such 'super-local' and local alternatives within the larger web of multi-level water resource governance. Although intended to escape the 'trilemma', the proposed combination of formal government and informal governance is found wanting in terms of effectiveness as well as participation and legitimacy.     

Multi-level water governance – the case of the Morsa River Basin in Norway

Management of fresh water resources meets a range of often conflicting interests. Waterways usually run across political and administrative borders and hence make management difficult and collective action politically challenging. In order to meet these challenges, multi-level bioregional approaches to water management have been called for. Such an approach is institutionalised in the EU's Water Framework Directive (WFD). This paper presents the experiences of the Morsa water sub-district in southern Norway, a pilot for implementing the WFD. The paper discusses Morsa in the light of four principles for multi-level water governance: management on a bioregional scale; polycentric governance; public participation; and an experimental approach to water governance. Contrary to widely held assumptions that collective action in polycentric networks will be difficult because actors will follow their own narrow interests, the findings demonstrate how this is not an absolute truth, and how social action cannot be fully explained by rational action theories. The analysis concludes that the relative success of Morsa relates to a complex of factors, including openness of practices and active involvement of key actors, strong but including leadership, and a knowledge based ‘hybrid’ type of multi-level network combining horizontal and vertical network governance.     

Urban contractual agreements as an adaptive governance strategy: under what conditions do they work in multi-level cooperation?

ABSTRACT

The Norwegian urban growth agreement (UGA) is a governance platform combining transport-infrastructure development with land-use and transport policy. It is a policy package of measures involving network cooperation between national, regional and local government levels established to coordinate transport and land-use development. Shared responsibility for goal achievement, autonomy and learning and adaptation as new knowledge and experience arise are clear prerequisites for the UGAs. This makes it relevant to investigate the conditions for the UGAs to work as an adaptive governance strategy because their central features are in line with the attributes of adaptive governance. Further, adaptive governance is an approach to handle complex problems like transport development issues. The study shows that UGAs have several strengths in terms of autonomy and learning. However, the multi-level cooperation in the UGAs is framed by complex underlying structures of roles and powers, which challenge the working and legitimacy of the governance structures. Multi-level adaptive governance processes like the UGAs require attention to issues of power and legitimacy. Securing transparency and democratic anchorage is paramount in bringing such processes in line with the intended benefits of adaptive governance.     

Recapturing fugitive power: epistemology, complexity and democracy

While policy network theory employs complexity concepts (self-regulation, emergence) mainly as explanatory tools, potential theoretical contributions arising from the underpinning analytical principles have been less explored. It is argued that by directly considering multi-level environmental governance as a far-from-equilibrium complex system, it is possible to explore how governance structures might better support and construe the dynamic and delicate conditions necessary for the presence of life. Problem formulation or 'agenda setting' powers exerted by civil servants and scientists are examined as emergent properties, systemic in and necessary for the stability of multi-level governance structures. Finally, it is proposed that multi-level environmental governance design may be improved through a reconceptualisation of representation, informed by principles from complexity theory, which embraces and 'recaptures' power exerted through extra-electoral governance relationships.     

Integrating Swedish water resource management: a multi-level governance trilemma

This paper analyses proposals for new multi-level governance of Swedish water resources to implement the EU Water Framework Directive. The question is, do they satisfy the criteria for ecologically rational and democratically legitimate governance? The core of the analysis concerns an administrative 'trilemma' encountered in designing ecologically effective and democratically acceptable multi-level governance. This trilemma is characterised by tensions between effectiveness, participation and legitimacy, all core values of 'good governance'. The Swedish proposal constitutes an effort to achieve cost-effective implementation of the EU Directive through an ecosystem-based multi-level organisation. It also seeks to bring about democratically legitimate governance through stakeholder networks and negotiations at the sub-catchment level, and governance 'partnerships' among local governments and organised interests. In particular, the assessment addresses issues of integrating such 'super-local' and local alternatives within the larger web of multi-level water resource governance. Although intended to escape the 'trilemma', the proposed combination of formal government and informal governance is found wanting in terms of effectiveness as well as participation and legitimacy.     

Environmental justice for the governance of aquatic environments

Environmental justice sheds light on the distributive and procedural aspects of planning and decision-making. We examined the challenges arising from the perspective of environmental justice on multi-level and participatory environmental governance by exploring the governance of aquatic environments in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. We found three main challenges and potential responses to them. First, even though most of Helsinki’s shoreline is free and/or accessible by road and accordingly used actively by people for recreational purposes, many parts of the shoreline are perceived as inaccessible, reflecting a need to combine factual and perceived accessibility of aquatic environments in detail during the planning processes and to discuss reasons for possible discrepancies between these two. Second, there was a remarkable seasonal variation in the use of aquatic environments, so more attention should be paid to social-demographic factors explaining the distribution of the use of urban nature. Third, it seems to be difficult to capture the variety of perceptions of people and to integrate them into planning and decision-making processes even on a local scale, and this challenge is likely even more pronounced on higher levels of planning and governance. Thus, better integration of regional and local-scale planning procedures should be encouraged. Building on these observations, we conclude that integration of procedural and distributive environmental justice into the practices of the governance of aquatic environments could remarkably decrease unwanted trade-offs and potential conflicts in their use and management.     

Reflexive capacity in local networks for sustainable development: integrating conflict and understanding into a multi-level perspective Transition Framework

ABSTRACT

One core element of reflexive governance is the reflexive capacity-building of actors involved in governance networks. A wider range of actors have to be empowered to understand and improve governance arrangements in order to create second-order reflexivity. As a contribution to this challenge, a heuristic framework is developed from two complementary approaches to reflexive governance: the multi-level perspective (MLP) and the conflict-orientated understanding (COU) approach. The new framework is applied to two case studies – water management and long-term climate adaptation – where it has helped to develop a participatory process to analyse and reflect on local networks and multi-stakeholder arenas. The two contrasting processes are analysed and their contribution to reflexive capacity building is assessed. Building on the findings, further advancements of MLP, COU, and the concept of reflexive governance are recommended.     

The importance of place in early disaster recovery: a case study of the 2013 Colorado floods

Recovery is an important but understudied phase in the disaster management cycle. Researchers have identified numerous socio-demographic factors that help explain differences in recovery among households, but are less clear on the importance of place, which we define as a household's locality and local governance. In this paper, we examine the influence of place on disaster recovery through a study of the 2013 Colorado floods. Our findings are based on data collected from interviews, observation of recovery meetings, and a survey of 96 flood-affected households. We show that place shapes a household's disaster recovery by structuring: (1) physical exposure to hazards; (2) which local government has jurisdiction over recovery decisions; (3) local planning culture and its approach to citizen participation; and (4) the strength of social capital networks. Our findings expand the recovery literature and show that place-level variables should be taken into consideration when conceptualizing household recovery and resilience.     

Victoria's emerging framework of regional governance for sustainability: the case of catchment management authorities and regional catchment strategies

The aim of this paper is to presents a progress report on how a subnational jurisdiction, the Australian state of Victoria, is attempting to implement regional governance for sustainability through its catchment planning framework. The paper examines the lessons learnt from a best practice approach to the implementation of network governance to see whether there are actions that can be taken to improve regional governance for sustainability in Victoria. The authors argue that Victoria is implementing a network governance approach to natural resource management (NRM) as a significant component of sustainability and that this has certain advantages. In particular the emergence of Regional Catchment Strategies developed by the State's ten statutory Catchment Management Authorities as 'regional sustainability blueprints' is bringing a significant level of maturity to the state's governance framework. Furthermore the state is currently working to complete its governance for sustainability through new statewide integrating frameworks—an Environmental Sustainability Framework as well as a statewide Catchment Management and Investment Framework. The paper concludes that taking a network governance approach could have transformative potential but there are significant challenges ahead: the complex task of aligning of national, state, catchment and local government strategies through an outcomes focus; the scarcity of mechanisms and tools to assist in translation of strategies into integrated investment priorities; gaps in knowledge and understanding of natural resource management problems; limitations in the capacity of regional and local bodies, including local government; and getting the policy tools right within the framework. However, as the best practice examples illustrate, taking a gradual approach to the development of the institutions—building on successive wins in capacity—is the best and only way to proceed.     

Multiple-criteria decision-aiding framework to analyze and assess the governance of sustainability

Past and present disasters and scandals, such as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the Servier Mediator (Benfluorex) scandal in 2009 and the Enron collapse in 2001, have uncovered weaknesses in governance issues. The authors argue that there is a need to develop methods and tools to diagnose and assess the governance of organizations with respect to Sustainable Development (SD). However, this task remains difficult due to the fact that it is difficult to appraise the quality of governance. The authors propose a protocol to diagnose and analyze the governance of SD and explore the use of multiple-criteria decision-aiding methods to achieve this task. Two aggregation methods to assess the global governance are proposed: (1) The identification of a final governance index for an Organization. This method helps in establishing a global diagnosis of the quality of the governance of an Organization with respect to SD challenges. The governance index is based on the calculation of three indexes: the partial opportunity index, the partial risk index and the partial equilibrium index. (2) The ranking of a set of Organizations according to their governance of SD. This method aims at assessing a set of Organizations based on a pairwise comparison according to a set of criteria that represents the seven domains of the ISO 26000 norm (ISO 26000—Guidance on social responsibility, 2010). This method is based on the outranking aggregation approach ELECTRE III. A practical example is used to illustrate two methods of governance assessment.     

Disaster governance and community resilience: reflections on Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan

Typhoon Morakot triggered flooding and mudslides in various areas and devastated Aboriginal villages located near areas under construction by the Water Diversion Project in Kaohsiung County. This paper examines the controversy surrounding Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan from the perspective of disaster governance. This study provides competing perspectives regarding who was responsible for causing the disaster. Post-disaster reconstruction initiatives by the government tend to adopt a technical approach to risk, and do not incorporate the complex social and cultural dimensions of vulnerability and sustainability. This perspective reflects misrecognition problems, and the lack of empowerment and participation in governance by residents, as well as their exclusion in decision making. Aboriginal civic groups have various methods of interacting with local residents to alleviate the suffering of survivors, promoting tribal culture and building resilient communities. This continuing development of social interactions and new forms of engagement will effectuate transformation and contribute to broader reflections on the Morakot disaster and social capability and building resilience.     

Still some way to go: institutionalisation of sustainability in German local governments

There is a widespread consensus among sustainability experts about the need for ambitious transformative practices in order for a sustainable development to progress. Agenda 21 emphasised the need for multilevel and multi-actor governance and explicitly focused on the local level. The conceptual and analytical preference of governance beyond government has directed attention towards the interaction between state and non-state actors. The present article focuses on the role of (local) state institutions in sustainability governance. We argue that an effective implementation of sustainability in government institutions is a precondition for a successful multi-stakeholder governance of a sustainable development. The guiding question of this article is: How has sustainability been institutionalised in local governments in Germany in the last 20 years after Agenda 21 was adopted? Based on a conceptual framework, we are presenting the empirical results of a survey of 371 German cities and municipalities in this article, which primarily aims at providing empirical evidence on to what extent sustainability has been institutionalised in German local governments. The article ends with discussing the potential reasons for the institutionalisation deficit observed and gives an outlook on the potential for developing a sustainability state, that is, a state dedicated to institutionalising sustainability.     

Victoria's emerging framework of regional governance for sustainability: the case of catchment management authorities and regional catchment strategies

The aim of this paper is to presents a progress report on how a subnational jurisdiction, the Australian state of Victoria, is attempting to implement regional governance for sustainability through its catchment planning framework. The paper examines the lessons learnt from a best practice approach to the implementation of network governance to see whether there are actions that can be taken to improve regional governance for sustainability in Victoria. The authors argue that Victoria is implementing a network governance approach to natural resource management (NRM) as a significant component of sustainability and that this has certain advantages. In particular the emergence of Regional Catchment Strategies developed by the State's ten statutory Catchment Management Authorities as 'regional sustainability blueprints' is bringing a significant level of maturity to the state's governance framework. Furthermore the state is currently working to complete its governance for sustainability through new statewide integrating frameworks—an Environmental Sustainability Framework as well as a statewide Catchment Management and Investment Framework. The paper concludes that taking a network governance approach could have transformative potential but there are significant challenges ahead: the complex task of aligning of national, state, catchment and local government strategies through an outcomes focus; the scarcity of mechanisms and tools to assist in translation of strategies into integrated investment priorities; gaps in knowledge and understanding of natural resource management problems; limitations in the capacity of regional and local bodies, including local government; and getting the policy tools right within the framework. However, as the best practice examples illustrate, taking a gradual approach to the development of the institutions—building on successive wins in capacity—is the best and only way to proceed.     

Hybrid governance tensions fuelling self-reflexivity in Alternative Food Networks: the case of the Brussels GASAP (solidarity purchasing groups for peasant agriculture)

This paper applies the concept of Hybrid Governance to the analysis of the GASAP (Groupe d’Achats Solidaires de l’Agriculture Paysanne), a solidarity-based producers–consumers network established in Brussels in 2006. The Hybrid Governance concept allows to capture the role of key governance tensions in driving the self-organisation, scaling out and self-reflexive dynamics of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs). The approach provides a multifaceted and sound socio-political account of the ways AFNs arise, self-organise, associate and build networks in the pursuit of their food allocation objectives, often facing a contradictory socio-institutional environment. Three types of governance tensions, i.e. organisational, resource, and institutional, as well as the interactions among them, are analysed throughout the life-course of the GASAP network. The analysis identifies three phases in the GASAP’s life-course, showing how governance tensions and their interrelations arise and play a critical role in conditioning the overall development of the organisation through time. The paper concludes with highlighting prospective values of the hybrid governance approach for the analysis of AFNs in general. These values relate to: the role of the hybrid approach in illuminating on key drivers behind the scaling out of AFNs; the hybrid governance as a tool to conceptualise and sustain the self-reflexive capacity of local food initiatives and the ways by which this approach unravels challenges to build cooperative alliances and networks among a diversity of agents in the food arena.     

From disaster management to adaptive governance? Governance challenges to achieving resilient food systems in Australia

Building resilient food systems in the context of climate change and increased natural disasters depends on governance being more ‘adaptive’. Through a case study of events surrounding the extensive flooding that occurred in Queensland, Australia, in 2011, this paper examines how governance settings and processes affected food system actors’ engagement with three aspects of adaptive governance – responsibility, participation and collaboration – as those actors sought to ensure food availability and access during the crisis. We found that, despite the existence of formal governance instruments committed to disaster management, food security and resilience at local, state and national levels, responsibilities for ensuring food supply during a disaster were not clearly articulated. Responsibility was largely assumed by supermarkets, who in turn increased the influence of retailer–government coalitions. The participation of non-supermarket food system actors in governance was low, and there was limited collaboration between local, and other, levels of governance. The policy challenge is to ensure that responsibility, participation and collaboration become a stronger foci for adaptive governance during and after a disaster such as flooding.     

Participatory GIS and its application in governance: the example of air quality and the implications for noise pollution

Abstract

Participatory GIS (geographic information systems) is designed to use community mapping exercises to produce spatial representations of local knowledge. The ideals of Participatory GIS revolve around the concept of public participation in the use of spatial data leading to increased community involvement in policy-setting and decision-making (Weiner et al., Community participation and geographic information systems, in: Craig et al., Community participation and geographic information systems, London: Taylor & Francis, 2002). This paper reports on findings from two case studies, one relating to assessments of air quality and how Participatory GIS has been used in the UK to improve local government policy, and the second on assessments of noise pollution. It concludes by discussing a caveat on the use of Participatory GIS for environmental governance, which is that, ideally, only issues on which participants are likely to have direct experiential knowledge should be targeted.