This paper presents a framework for analysing policy coherence in a European Union setting through the perspective of policy interaction. Building on a simple policy‐analytical approach and theories of institutional interaction, the framework develops a three‐step analytical approach, consisting of the inventory of policy objectives, the screening matrix and a more in‐depth analysis of key interactions. Central to the analytical framework is the identification of synergy and conflict at three levels: policy objectives, policy instruments and implementation practices, also taking into account as far as possible outcome and impacts. The paper presents illustrative examples from EU renewable energy and cohesion policies in relation to different environmental policy areas such as biodiversity, habitats, resource efficiency and water. It finds that policies are often coherent at the level of objectives, but that associated instruments and in particular implementation practices cause concern for policy conflict in all three examples. Finally, the paper identifies emerging challenges in the application of policy coherence analysis and a need for further development of the analytical approach. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

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We focus on a large and sustained stakeholder process for river restoration related to hydropower production that failed to reach any significant natural resource management outcomes. We explore to what extent the stakeholder process can be characterized as a learning-based intervention as well as the reasons for the lack of outcomes. The analysis draws on insights from existing literature of procedural and institutional factors identified to foster and hinder social learning in stakeholder processes. The analysis finds that the stakeholder process featured virtually all fostering procedural factors as well as various fostering institutional factors identified in the literature. The main hindering institutional element consisted of strong pre-existing water rights, granted by the legislation governing hydropower production and river restoration in Sweden. Existing legislation provided a key stakeholder with the power to successfully reach its objective through the unilateral action of exiting the stakeholder process. Our results demonstrate that various learning outcomes, including knowledge acquisition, trust building, and the creation of networks are possible in stakeholder processes that feature power imbalances. The results also suggest that, ultimately, the power imbalance limited the process from reaching significant natural resource management outcomes, both in the short and longer terms. Based on comparison with international cases, the results reveal the need to focus attention on the national scale to remediate power imbalances in stakeholder processes that arise from a share of stakeholders possessing strong prior rights to the use of natural resources. In such cases, sustainable management of natural resources could be better served by efforts to modify existing legislation, rather than investments in resource-intensive learning-based interventions.

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Damming and water regulation creates highly modified rivers with limited ecosystem integrity and resilience. This, coupled with an ongoing global biodiversity crisis, makes river restoration a priority, which requires water reallocation. Coupled human–natural systems research provides a suitable lens for integrated systems’ analysis but offers limited insight into the governance processes of water reallocation. Therefore, we propose an analytical framework, which combines insight from social–hydrological resilience and water reallocation research, and identifies the adaptive capacity in highly modified rivers as the capacity for water reallocation. We test the framework by conducting an analysis of Sweden, pre- and post-2019, a critical juncture in the governance of the country’s hydropower producing rivers. We identify a relative increase in adaptive capacity post- 2019 since water reallocation is set to occur in smaller rivers and tributaries, while leaving large-scaled rivers to enjoy limited water reallocation, or even increased allocation to hydropower. We contend that the proposed framework is broad enough to be of general interest, yet sufficiently specific to contribute to the construction of middle-range theories, which could further our understanding of why and how governance processes function, change, and lead to outcomes in terms of modified natural resource management and resilience shifts.