This article explores an integrative approach for dealing with wicked problems. Wicked problems not only require alternative action strategies but also alternative ways of observing and enabling. Four governance capabilities are essential: (a) reflexivity, or the capability to deal with multiple frames; (b) resilience, or the capability to adjust actions to uncertain changes; (c) responsiveness, or the capability to respond to changing agendas and expectations; (d) revitalization, or the capability to unblock stagnations. These capabilities form the basis for achieving small wins in wicked problems. We illustrate our argument with examples from sustainable food production of the Common Agricultural Policy.

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This paper explores the relevance of various leadership concepts for climate change adaptation. After defining four main leadership challenges which are derived from the key characteristics of climate adaptation issues, a review of modern leadership theories addressing these challenges is presented. On the basis of this review we develop an integrative framework for analyzing leadership for climate change adaptation. It distinguishes between various leadership functions which together contribute to climate change adaptation: the political-administrative, adaptive, enabling, connective, and dissemination functions. Each function requires the execution of specific leadership tasks which can be performed by different types of leaders, such as positional leaders, ideational leaders, sponsors, boundary workers, policy entrepreneurs, or champions. The framework can be used to analyze or monitor the emergence and realization of specific leadership functions and to specify the need for strengthening particular functions in practices of climate adaptation.

A m s t e r d a m U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s

In the climate adaptation literature, leadership tends to be an understudied factor, although it may be crucial for regional adaptation governance. This article shows how leadership can be usefully conceptualized and operationalized within regional governance networks dealing with climate adaptation. It applies an integrative framework inspired by complexity leadership theory, distinguishing several leadership functions to enhance the adaptive capacity of regional networks. We focus on one specific institutional innovation, appointed climate adaptation officers, who seek to connect science and governance practice, and to mainstream climate adaptation. Our question is twofold: What is the potential of climate adaptation officers to advance the adaptation agenda and to what extent did their establishment and working practice mirror the various leadership functions needed to raise the adaptive capacity of the regional network they operated in? The integrative leadership framework structures the analysis of climate adaptation officers forming part of a governmentfunded project seeking to enhance adaptation to climate variability in the central German region of Northern Hesse. The data consist of interviews with scientists and regional authority employees and project documentation including an evaluation. We find that climate adaptation officers raised awareness for climate adaptation and helped to shape and implement a number of projects within the overall KLIMZUG programme, highlighting impeding and enabling factors. The process of setting up this institutional innovation involved all forms of leadership functions and is an example of vertical mainstreaming. Its operation involved most clearly enabling and connective leadership functions and is an example of horizontal mainstreaming.

The European Employment Strategy (EES) has opened up new dynamics of Europeanization in the area of social policy. This article proposes to pay more attention to national core executives and their strategic use of the EES when considering its impact. Through core executives, the EES may not only affect domestic policy agendas, but also decision-making on reform. A comparative case study of activating employment policy reforms in the Netherlands and Germany evaluates expectations about how these agents upload and download ideas to and from the EU level. The findings indicate that uploading is facilitated by holding the EU presidency and a good fit with EES prescriptions, while downloading does not seem to depend on prior uploading and degree of fit but on other domestic factors. True strategic use of the EES by core executives following a sequence of uploading and downloading appears to be contingent on several contextual factors.

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This article adds to recent theorizing on gradual institutional change by focusing on how institutional displacement occurs through sequential patterns of change. It argues that under certain conditions, reformist political actors may achieve systemic reform through sequences of incremental reforms. We illustrate our argument through a comparative analysis of systemic health care reforms in two Bismarckian health insurance systems, the Netherlands and Germany. These reforms involved further universalization of health care insurance combined with regulated competition to enhance efficiency. The analyses show that reformist actors anticipated institutional drift and that they employed layering and conversion over time to pave the way for institutional displacement. In the Netherlands, successive sequences complemented each other so that over time the former bifurcated insurance system could be replaced by a universal system. In Germany, successive sequences did not complement each other, and bifurcation is still in place.