Governance Arrangements for Transboundary Issues: Lessons from the Food Waste Programs of Italian Regions

Abstract

Focusing on transboundary issues contributes to highlighting how new governance modes can emerge from increasing interdependence and complexity in public policies. This article analyzes food waste as a transboundary issue that cuts across different policy subsystems (PSs), intersects multiple levels of government, and calls into question consolidated policy making for new modes of governance. The analytical framework provides a multidimensional approach and a new typology of governance arrangements to be used in empirical research. Evidence from an Italian case study and an empirical investigation of 20 regional food waste programs shows that regions can adopt different driving ideas and can activate a variety of governance arrangements and differentiated, as well as viable, modes of integration between consolidated PSs. The article argues that different tool mixes combined with different levels of governance complexity may lead to a variety of governance arrangements and a differentiated likelihood of policy integration.

How scholars break down “policy coherence”: The impact of sustainable development global agendas on academic literature

“…Following some suggestions, PC literature should be more inspired by what the OECD and the EU already recommend to governments when addressing the coherence issue: to "devote more attention to critical evaluations of the results" achieved (Keijzer, 2017, p. 178;Koff et al, 2020). We argue that more widespread analytical and empirical considerations of the outcomes, impacts, and policy beneficiaries' Within PC literature a "systemic perspective" strives to emerge, shedding new light on cross-sectoral policy processes by simultaneously looking at the nexus between goals, tool-mix and outcomes across various policy subsystems, phases of policy cycles, and governance arrangements (Howlett & Rayner, 2007;Righettini & Lizzi, 2019). Nevertheless, rather than being considered a policy attribute, policy coherence should be conceptualized and operationalized as a policy process attribute, a strategy and a mechanism to facilitate consistency and synergies.…”

“…Within PC literature a “systemic perspective” strives to emerge, shedding new light on cross‐sectoral policy processes by simultaneously looking at the nexus between goals, tool‐mix and outcomes across various policy subsystems, phases of policy cycles, and governance arrangements (Howlett & Rayner, 2007; Righettini & Lizzi, 2019). Nevertheless, rather than being considered a policy attribute, policy coherence should be conceptualized and operationalized as a policy process attribute, a strategy and a mechanism to facilitate consistency and synergies.…”

Governance tools for urban food system policy innovations in the Milano Urban Food Policy Pact

“…Policy integration scholarship argues that most of the contemporary policy challenges – including that of climate change, food security and sustainable development – are crosscutting the boundaries of established jurisdictions, governance levels and policy domains (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016). The complexity and multiple facets of urban food systems call for transboundary governance tools to foster multi-level and multi-sectoral policy-making (Barling et al, 2002; Righettini and Lizzi, 2020). In this view, municipal inter-departmental government bodies are expected to contribute to ensuring effective food policy coordination across dimensions of the food system, enabling integrated actions, especially when combined with a strategic overarching objective (Candel and Pereira, 2017: 90).…”