Exogenous factors in collective policy learning: the case of municipal flood risk governance in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Conceptualizing and analyzing collective policy learning processes is a major ongoing theoretical and empirical challenge. A key gap concerns the role of exogenous factors, which remains under-theorized in the policy learning literature. In this paper, we aim to advance the understanding of the role that exogenous factors play in collective learning processes. We propose a typology of exogenous factors (i.e. material, socioeconomic, institutional, discursive), and subsequently apply this in a comparative study of flood risk policymaking in two municipalities in the Netherlands. We find that exogenous factors are indeed essential for understanding collective learning in these cases, as the combined influence with endogenous factors can steer similar learning processes towards different learning products. We conclude our contribution by identifying two opportunities for further developing the collective learning framework, namely regarding the distinction of varying learning products, and the dynamics of exogenous factors over time.     

Leveraging the power of learning to overcome negotiation deadlocks in global climate governance and low carbon transitions

ABSTRACT

Learning among actors within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations helped transferring climate policies across countries and changed negotiation positions. Together with group pressure and leadership by key governments and non-national actors, experience, knowledge and belief-based learning types altered the UNFCCC negotiation dynamics and facilitated the Paris Agreement. Governments, the UNFCCC secretariat and NGOs created opportunities for government representatives to explore policy options and learn from each other’ successes of designing and implementing low carbon policies. These experience exchanges during and beyond the UNFCCC meetings were established to help countries share their experiences with low carbon economic development plans to address climate change while decoupling economic growth. Based on elite interviews, participant observation and document analysis, this contribution examines how learning facilitated breakthroughs in international climate negotiations. It finds that structured experience exchange of and reflection on other countries’ and non-national actors’ successful policy experiences can modify national interests as policymakers increasingly understand that climate action can support economic growth. This resulted in a higher willingness to take on more ambitious climate action commitments. Sharing experiences with climate policies can facilitate other actor’s learning how they can adapt successful policies to their specific framework conditions.     

Economic and Ecological Transformation Processes in East German Water Management Regimes: The Role of Property Rights and Governance Structures

As in many fen land regions in East Germany, long-standing intensive arable farming—enabled by reclamation—has caused soil deterioration and high water runoff in the Schraden region. The more than ten years of economic and political transformation that followed the breakdown of the socialist regime has worsened the situation and even added new problems. The visible consequences are droughts in the summer, waterlogged plots in the spring, and worn-down water management facilities that operate in an uncoordinated or even unauthorized way. Given the local public-good character of some features of the fen land, the common-pool character of the ecosystems intermittently scarce resource water, and the conflicting interests of regional stakeholders, it is argued that the reallocation of property rights over reclamation systems, together with ineffective coordination mechanisms, have caused the physical and institutional failure of the water management system and so impeded appropriate land use. Note: This version was published online in June 2005 with the cover date of August 2004.     

Monitoring Sustainable Forest Management in Different Jurisdictions

The concept of sustainable forest management (SFM) requires forest resource managers to monitor and collect information pertaining to their environmental, economic and social impact. There are increasing expectations from a variety of publics (government, customers, and other stakeholders) that forests be demonstrably well-managed, creating incentives for forest managers to design credible systems for assessing their management performance. It is against this background that local, national and international approaches to regulating forest practices have been evolving. This article reviews the different dimensions of governance as they relate to monitoring and information reporting in the forest sector. Specifically, it discusses the changing role of sovereignty, the effects of globalization and the emergence of civil society stakeholders in forestry-related decision-making. Concepts such as sovereignty and globalization have important implications for monitoring forest practices and for defining SFM. Whether SFM standard creation and enforcement involves a sovereign, shared-sovereignty or civil society approach will affect the level and nature of SFM monitoring. As a result, we need to better consider the concept of monitoring appropriate to the scale and intensity of operations, how monitoring and information reporting standards differ between jurisdictions, and what this means for independently verifying SFM at an inter-jurisdictional level.     

论系统论视域下的流域生态环境行政治理

流域及其生态环境问题的特殊性引发行政治理体系的变革,系统论为流域生态环境行政治理体系的建构指明了方向,流域生态环境行政治理体系的建构是系统化的工程。在系统论指引下,结合相关规范性文件,流域生态环境行政治理系统的建构需从建立协调机制、规范职权行使与推进治理协同三方面切入,并分别明确三者在流域生态环境行政治理系统中的作用,通过建立议事协调机构发挥协调机制的统筹协调功能、通过整合与上收行政机关职权明确规范职权行使的实施功能、通过建立治理协同机制发挥推进治理协同的支持与保障功能。     

Interrupting the balance: reconsidering the complexities of conflict in South Sudan

By the start of 2014, violent conflict had erupted across much of South Sudan following initial violence in Juba on 15 December 2013. The speed with which the fighting has spread raises questions regarding the impact of national‐level politics on violence at the local level. This article develops a framework in which violent conflict can be comprehended as a response to the interruption of the negotiation of the balance of power between groups; the negotiation is interrupted when that balance tips in favour of one group, such as through changes in the national political market or government reforms. The article provides two cases studies of attempts to strengthen the state that inadvertently interrupted local power relations between groups. In response, the groups engaged in violent conflict to reinstate a balance of power. Both examples involve conflict among Dinka groups from 2005 to 2008.     

农村环境治理中的政府责任再论析:元治理视域

当前,我国农村环境问题日益突出。如何实现农村环境的有效治理,学者从不同角度进行了探讨。无论学者如何强调PPP模式的意义、如何强调社会公众以及社会组织的作用,研究最后基本都会指向政府责任。本论文的创新之处就在于重新强调农村环境治理中的政府责任,特别是将其置于元治理视域下进行论析。元治理即治理的治理,元治理并不排斥治理主体的多元化,但更加重视和强调政府在社会治理中的重要性。根据元治理理论,政府在农村环境治理中的责任可以界定为:农村环境治理成本的承担者和多元治理体系的构建者,PPP模式的设计和监督者,社会组织参与治理的支持者和农民参与治理的引导者。当前,农村环境治理中政府责任担当存在的主要问题包括,政府农村环境治理投入不足和治理体系不完善、PPP模式中政府监督责任弱化、对社会组织参与治理的支持不足以及对农民参与治理的引导不够。元治理视域下农村环境治理中政府责任的实现,不仅需要政府承担起最主要治理主体责任,而且需要政府积极引领其他主体参与到农村环境治理中来,形成治理合力。具体而言,应以财政投入增加和多元治理体系构建实现政府最主要主体责任,同时,政府应以监督责任强化为重点保障PPP模式实施,以发展能力提升积极支持社会组织参与,以环境意识和制度信任水平提高等引导农民参与。     

中国海洋生态保护制度的演进逻辑、互补需求及改革路径

海洋生态问题本质上是制度问题。中国海洋生态保护制度经历了从无到有、从少到多的发展过程,但多种复杂制度之间是否能够形成治理合力,制度缺失、制度无效和制度冲突等问题是否存在,尚有待进一步解答。为此,文章在梳理中国海洋生态保护制度演进逻辑的基础上,基于制度互补视角挖掘现有制度的互补空间,探究查缺补漏、规范修正和协调统筹的制度改革路径,以期推动海洋生态保护制度“从多到优”的有效过渡。中国海洋生态保护制度的演进可分为初步建立、稳步推进和改革转型三个阶段,呈现出从陆海分割到陆海一体化治理、从政府单一主体监管到多元主体协同治理、从标准规范到法律保障的趋势特征。制度需求引致与制度供给滞后、制度成本制约与制度收益驱动之间的联动关系是推动海洋生态保护制度演进的内在动因。海洋生态保护是一项跨区域、跨部门的复杂系统性工程,不同生态保护制度之间的联动耦合至关重要。立足制度互补理论视角,中国海洋生态保护制度在保护主体、保护手段和保护过程三个层面均存在较大的互补需求,其中保护主体单一的问题主要因制度缺失导致,保护手段的低效主要受到制度适应性不足的影响,而保护过程的割裂主要反映了制度不协调、不匹配的矛盾。基于此,未来中国海洋生态保护制度的补充应围绕政府职责梳理和多元主体参与建设,制度的修正重点在于进一步完善市场激励、信息公开等非政府机制,制度的协调则要实现立足事前、事中和事后全过程,推动政策工具的有效衔接配合。     

长三角区域一体化的环境治理效应评估——基于DID模型的实证研究

随着长三角一体化的范围不断扩大,融入区域一体化的城市不断增加,对区域城市环境协同治理提出了更高要求。本文采用2003—2019年中国225个地级以上城市面板数据,利用双重差分法评估长三角区域一体化对地区环境治理的影响和作用机制。研究发现长三角区域一体化能显著促进整体城市和原位城市的污染排放强度下降,但对新进城市的环境治理影响并不显著。长三角区域一体化对不同规模城市的环境治理效应没有显著差异;对非资源型城市和高行政等级城市的环境改善作用则优于资源型城市和低行政等级城市。进一步机制分析表明,长三角区域一体化带来污染排放强度整体下降,这一结果主要来自经济集聚效应和技术进步效应,来自产业结构升级的环境治理效应并不显著;同时,长三角区域一体化对环境治理具有显著的反向空间溢出效应,即在降低本地污染排放强度的同时,加大了周边城市污染排放强度。     

The power of environmental norms: marine plastic pollution and the politics of microbeads

Emerging environmental norms gain strength and diffuse more quickly when scientific evidence of harm is consolidating, when activism is intensifying, and when political and corporate resistance is relatively weak. The anti-microbead norm – that plastic microbeads should be removed from personal care products – has been gaining global influence since 2012; witness the upsurge in anti-microbead activism, public concern, voluntary corporate phasedowns and governmental bans. By 2018, the world was on track to eliminate microbeads from ‘rinse-off’ products within a decade, reducing microplastics flowing into oceans by 1–2%. This confirms the power of environmental norms, but how and why this phaseout is occurring – unequally across jurisdictions, with firms creating loopholes, missing deadlines and limiting the scope of reforms – also reveals innate weaknesses of bottom-up, ad hoc norm diffusion as a way of improving marine governance. These weaknesses are heightened when economic stakes are high, solutions are complex and costly, authority is fragmented across jurisdictions and corporate resistance is strong.