A framework for analyzing and practicing Integrative Governance: The case of global animal and conservation governance

Abstract

This article presents a framework to analyze and practice Integrative Governance, defined as the theories and practices that focus on the relationships between governance instruments and/or systems. The need to pay explicit attention to such relationships is increasingly recognized, especially in achieving the transformative change needed for sustainable development. The Integrative Governance framework focuses on explanatory analyses of the relationships and performance of governance instruments and/or systems, and is inspired by a pragmatic theoretical perspective. It includes three steps of analysis, with the first focused on the governance instruments and the relationships between them, the second on the combined performance of governance systems, and the third on explanations for the relationships and performance. Especially for this third step, insights from different theoretical perspectives are used, incorporating insights from rational choice theory, institutionalism, constructivism and critical theory. The application of the framework is illustrated by the example of the global animal and conservation governance systems. The preliminary analysis shows that the global conservation governance system is relatively more developed than the global animal governance system. The latter is mainly focused on animal health, with fewer instruments on welfare, and none on animal rights. The former includes more governance instruments and has some systems in place for monitoring implementation. The performance of both systems however remains limited, and there are few interactions between the systems. Main explanations include the interests of countries involved in the governance systems, the dominant anthropocentric discourses, and the current mostly animal-unfriendly and unsustainable political economy. Applying the Integrative Governance framework enables an enhanced understanding of the multiple and intertwined explanations of the relationships and performance of governance systems, allowing academics and practitioners to develop more realistic, durable solutions both in the shorter and longer term.

The emerging accountability regimes for the Sustainable Development Goals and policy integration: Friend or foe?

“…The need for integration between policy issues is hardly new, as recognized by the theme of this special issue -integrative governance (IG), defined as the theories and practices focused on the relationships between governance instruments and/or systems (Visseren-Hamakers, 2015, 2018a. One of the first areas of governance where this was acknowledged was the environment, leading to efforts of mainstreaming or integrating environmental issues in other policy areas (Lafferty and Hovden, 2003;Nilsson and Persson, 2003;Persson, 2009).…”

Framing and integration in the global forest, agriculture and climate change nexus

“…With this conceptual lens, this article addresses several gaps in the IG literature (Visseren Hamakers, 2015, 2018a. It contributes by providing an explanatory analysis, aiming to better understand why the relationships in the nexus are the way they are and also provides enhanced insights into the relationships among the governance systems.…”

Killing nature to save it? : an analysis of two sport hunting policy arrangements in Uganda

“…Closely related to institutionalism is regime theory (Haggard & Simmons, 1987), which can be considered as a specialised part of institutional theory. The literatures on regimes and institutions recognise the commonality between the two concepts (see Giddens, 1984;Scott, 2001) as bothin a nutshelldenote sets of (in)formal rules and norms (Arts & Buizer, 2009;Visseren-Hamakers, 2018;Wiering & Arts, 2006). New-institutionalist or neo-institutionalist scholars (e.g.…”

“…In order to analyse performative governance capacity, the conceptual framework includes the concept of effectiveness (Kalfagianni & Pattberg, 2011;Mitchell, 2003). The concept of effectiveness has been defined, discussed and operationalised in various literatures, including literature on regimes (Mitchell, 2003), and in particular international environmental regimes (Visseren-Hamakers, 2018; see also section 2.2, this chapter); institutions (Giddens, 1984); and policy evaluation Visseren-Hamakers, 2018).…”

“…The concept of effectiveness has been defined, discussed and operationalized in literature on regimes (Mitchell, 2003), and in particular international environmental regimes (Arts, 2000; Visseren-Hamakers, 2018); institutions (Giddens, 1984); and policy evaluation (Crabbé & Leroy, 2008;Visseren-Hamakers, 2018). The literature on regimes and institutions recognises the commonality between the two (Giddens, 1984;Scott, 2001), as bothin a nutshelldenote sets of rules (Visseren-Hamakers, 2018).…”