Boundary work in climate policy making in Brazil: Reflections from the frontlines of the science-policy interface

Despite challenges to the authority and legitimacy of science as a neutral representation of the world, expert advisors are playing an increasingly central role in environmental policy-making in both the Global North and South. This article explores the science-policy interface, based on the experience of the main author as a scientist and policy-maker at FEAM, a state-level environmental agency in Brazil. Contributing to the literature on boundary objects and organizations, the article details the practices necessary to manage the relationship between political and scientific norms in the development of the regional Climate and Energy Plan (CEP) for the state of Minas Gerais. To sustain the role of FEAM as a boundary organization mediating between political and scientific demands, a team of scientists and policy-makers had to perform different types of boundary work in a closely connected manner. It was necessary to actively frame climate change as an economic problem, and structure its solution in terms of mitigation mechanisms. Responding to changes in the national and international political context, FEAM reframed climate change from mitigation into largely an adaptation issue that could lead to win-win solutions as to attain saliency and avoid insurmountable political obstacles for its approval. Based on this experience, the article argues that the performance of boundary objects and organizations in the science-policy interface not only requires an ability to bring ‘truth to power’ but to also the capacity to sense, anticipate and avoid political obstacles. For this reason even though boundary organizations provide a breeding ground for institutional learning it is an unsuitable location for scientific or political revolutions.     

Complementary safeguards for robust regional watershed governance in a federation: New York City and its municipal water supply

In federations such as the United States, governments at various levels are experimenting with new watershed governance arrangements to protect water quality for both ecosystem health and human consumption. Such arrangements may bring previously uncooperative governments together to credibly commit to resource protection under the auspices of new and intricate formal institutions. Given the risks of cooperation, theory indicates that a robust arrangement will contain means of holding governing actors accountable to each other. This paper examines a purportedly successful case, the New York City watershed governance arrangement, to identify how safeguards against intergovernmental opportunism promote lasting cooperation. Using the qualitative method of process tracing, this paper finds that the New York City watershed governance arrangement uses structural, judicial, and popular safeguards against opportunistic behaviors by governing actors that might threaten the resource or the arrangement. The results indicate that such safeguards are present and interact with other safeguards and rule institutions at the state and federal level to maintain compliance.     

The governance of ecosystem services in river basins: An approach for structured data representation and analysis

River basins provide a wide range of ecosystem services important for human well-being. Ecosystem functions and their value to humans have been thoroughly studied. However, the role of governance characteristics for the sustainable management of ecosystem services has been largely ignored up to now. To close this gap, this article introduces the latest modifications to a database building on the Management and Transition Framework (MTF) that serve to study the relationship between water governance and management systems and their performance with regard to impacts on ecosystem services. This comprehensive approach facilitates structured data collection and representation in order to analyze single case studies or compare case studies regarding the governance and management of water resources and associated ecosystem services. It allows the user to investigate whether certain water governance characteristics, such as stakeholder involvement or vertical integration of governance levels, are associated with a change in the management of ecosystem services or a measurable change in their state. A simplified case from South Africa shows how the database modifications allow addressing links between governance and management processes on the one side and ecosystem services and the way they are handled on the other side. Applying the MTF database leads to evidence-based insights into best practices as well as failed management approaches and interventions. This in turn provides knowledge that can be transferred from science to practice supporting sustainable governance of ecosystem services.     

可持续发展治理的一个理论架构

治理作为实施可持续发展的基本途径和重要保障,受到了国际社会的广泛关注.但是目前对可持续发展治理的理解存在着很大程度的模糊性和混乱.本文在界定可持续发展治理内涵的基础上,提出了可持续发展治理的一个理论结构,对可持续发展治理的基本特征、要素组成、实施途径、操作模式以及制度安排进行了比较系统的讨论.可持续发展治理的可操作模式有社会伙伴关系模式、企业自调节模式和利益相关者契约模式;制度安排有兰个核心:制度的结构和功能层、治理功能及其组织、关键制度的规则.     

Who should do what in environmental management? Twelve principles for allocating responsibilities

In environmental management there is often discussion on the allocation of responsibilities. Such discussions can continue for a long time and can form an obstacle for effective action. In this article twelve normative principles for the allocation of responsibilities are identified, coming from three different sources: the arguments used in discussions on responsibilities, Dutch and European law, and the environmental management literature. The principles are (1) capacity, (2) lowest social costs, (3) causation, (4) interest, (5) scale, (6) subsidiarity, (7) structural integration, (8) separation, (9) solidarity, (10) transparency, (11) stability (but not standstill), and (12) acquired rights. These principles point to fundamental tensions in environmental management and sometimes conflict with each other. At the same time they may help to resolve conflicts by providing common points of reference that are independent from the often conflicting interests of the discussants.     

The digital frontiers of fisheries governance: fish attraction devices,drones and satellites

ABSTRACT

High seas fisheries remain one of the least transparent global production practices. Distance from shore, coupled with the highly mobile nature of fish stocks, has put attention on new monitoring, control and surveillance technologies to collect spatially referenced data on the location of fishing vessels, gears and even fish stocks and eradicate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activity. Faced with their nascent implementation, research is yet to address how these technologies are reconfiguring the roles and responsibilities of public and private actors involved in fisheries management, including who collects and controls fisheries related information. In this paper, we compare three monitoring, control and surveillance technologies that are gaining traction in fisheries; the use of private fish attraction devices in oceanic tuna fisheries, unmanned public drones for marine surveillance and global satellite monitoring of fishing vessels. In doing so, we question how different configurations of actors are structuring flows of information and with what effect on sustainability performance of high seas fisheries. We also explore how these technologies configure new (and imagined) geographies of high seas fisheries which challenge existing modes of fisheries management.     

Democratising planetary boundaries: experts,social values and deliberative risk evaluation in Earth system governance

ABSTRACT

Recent debates about the concept of planetary boundaries recall longstanding concerns about whether ecological limits are compatible with ecological democracy. The planetary boundaries framework (originally set out in Rockström et al., 2009a, 2009b) defines values for key Earth-system processes such as climate change and biodiversity that aim to maintain a ‘safe’ distance from thresholds or levels that could endanger human wellbeing. Despite having a significant impact in policy debates, the framework has been criticised as implying an expert-driven approach to governing global environmental risks that lacks democratic legitimacy. Drawing on research on deliberative democracy and the role of science in democratic societies, we argue that planetary boundaries can be interpreted in ways that remain consistent with democratic decision-making. We show how an iterative, dialogical process to formulate planetary boundaries and negotiate ‘planetary targets’ could form the basis for a democratically legitimate division of labour among experts, citizens and policy-makers in evaluating and responding to Earth-system risks. Crucial to this division of evaluative labour is opening up space for deliberative contestation about the value judgments inherent in collective responses to Earth-system risks, while also safeguarding the ability of experts to issue warnings about what they consider to be unacceptable risks.     

Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy-environment nexus

ABSTRACT

Concepts of ecological and environmental democracy seek to reconcile two normative ideals: ensuring environmental sustainability while safeguarding democracy. These ideals are frequently conceived as being in conflict, as democracy is perceived as too slow and cumbersome to deliver the urgent large-scale collective action needed to tackle environmental problems. Theories addressing the democracy-environment nexus can be situated on a spectrum from theories of ecological democracy that are more critical of existing liberal democratic institutions to theories of environmental democracy that call for reforming rather than radically transforming or dismantling those institutions. This article reviews theoretical and empirical scholarship on the democracy-environment nexus. We find continued theoretical and empirical diversity in the field, as well as vibrant debates on democratising global environmental politics, local material practices, and non-human representation. We argue for stronger dialogue between environmental political theory and empirical, policy-oriented research on democracy and sustainability, as well as further exploration of complementarities between ecological and environmental democracy. We identify four main areas of challenge and opportunity for theory and practice: public participation and populism; technocracy and expertise; governance across scales; and ecological rights and limits.     

Contesting neoliberal knowledge politics in restoration governance: the restorationist’s dilemma

ABSTRACT

The success of ecological restoration efforts is tightly coupled with the effectiveness of many U.S. environmental policies. Yet scholars have raised questions about the ability of restoration to produce intended results. We use a case study of tidal wetland restoration planning in Oregon to examine how neoliberal environmental governance exercises influence through a set of knowledge politics that produces subpar outcomes. We present three main findings: (1) restoration policies produce a restoration economy based on a conception of wetland as commodity (2) practitioners in this restoration economy exhibit competitive behavior resulting in a piecemeal rather than a landscape approach to restoration; and (3) limited monitoring prevents changes to existing policies. Practitioners offer insight into the challenge of treating wetlands as a commodity and call for more monitoring to challenge the assumptions of hegemonic knowledge practices that reinforce a neoliberal environmental governance regime. The divergent ideas of reflexive practitioners, though not yet manifest as action, show where changes to restoration governance might be possible.     

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.