The black box of power in polycentric environmental governance

Morrison, Tiffany H.; Adger, W. Neil; Brown, Katrina; Lemos, Maria Carmen; Huitema, Dave; Phelps, Jacob; Evans, Louisa; Cohen, Philippa J.; Song, Andrew M.; Turner, Rachel; Quinn, Tara; Hughes, Terry P.

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101934

Cited by 229 publications

(166 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…Polycentric government systems have multiple governing bodies interacting to make and enforce rules within a specific policy arena or location. It is considered to be one of the more effective ways to achieve collective action in the face of drastic policy change [56]. Trinidad and Tobago has an overall state-centric approach.…”

Section: Analysis and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of an Institutional Assessment and Design (IAD)-Enhanced Integrated Regional Energy Policy and Planning (IREPP) Framework to Island States

et al. 2020

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The integrated regional energy policy and planning (IREPP) framework was devised to evaluate the feasibility of energy policies in meeting declared national targets. While the framework advances the comprehensiveness of the feasibility assessment by bringing in concepts like environment economic equity, the muted way in which institutional factors and capacity are addressed remains weak and ineffective. Here, we corrected this weakness by presenting an IREPP framework that is enhanced by integrating principles of the institutional assessment and design (IAD) framework. The IAD framework emphasizes the careful consideration of contextual factors, it draws attention to the full range of transaction costs, and does not presume a priori that one type of institutional arrangement. This IREPP-IAD framework was used to evaluate the feasibility of energy policies in three different island jurisdictions—Taiwan, Mauritius, and Trinidad and Tobago. With ambitious national targets, these islands are good testing grounds for this updated approach. Through qualitative comparative case study analysis, several institutional factors were found to play an influence if national energy policies are likely to meet set targets. These factors included: government/policy decision makers and the decision/policymaking environment; governance structure and commitment for energy policy; existing policy instruments and tools that are in play and those planned; polycentricity; stakeholder participation and community building; market dynamics; information transparency; pilot programs and technology innovations/research; compliance or responsibilities under the Paris Accord; grid connectivity and monitoring of the policy implementation progress. This study contributes in two ways. First, by providing a more robust framework for assessing institutional arrangements that moderate how energy policies are implemented and second, providing insightful assessments of the energy policies in three island jurisdictions, thereby increasing our understanding of island energy policymaking and implementation in these understudied geographies.

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Section: Analysis and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of an Institutional Assessment and Design (IAD)-Enhanced Integrated Regional Energy Policy and Planning (IREPP) Framework to Island States

et al. 2020

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“…The framework provides selected examples of transdisciplinary management interventions to improve P-use efficiency and reduce eutrophication risk and is based on the conceptual thinking of Abson et al (2016) and Gordon et al (2017) interests, and capacities on the other. In addition to topdown policy makers, key stakeholders to enlist in transition strategy formation include farmers, local and national environmental managers, water companies, agri-businesses, charities, and other organisations with diverse but important system roles (Morrison et al 2019).…”

Section: Wider Food Chain P Inefficienciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards resolving the phosphorus chaos created by food systems

Withers

Forber

Lyon

et al. 2019

Ambio

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The chaotic distribution and dispersal of phosphorus (P) used in food systems (defined here as disorderly disruptions to the P cycle) is harming our environment beyond acceptable limits. An analysis of P stores and flows across Europe in 2005 showed that high fertiliser P inputs relative to productive outputs was driving low system P efficiency (38 % overall). Regional P imbalance (P surplus) and system P losses were highly correlated to total system P inputs and animal densities, causing unnecessary P accumulation in soils and rivers. Reducing regional P surpluses to zero increased system P efficiency (? 16 %) and decreased total P losses by 35 %, but required a reduction in system P inputs of ca. 40 %, largely as fertiliser. We discuss transdisciplinary and transformative solutions that tackle the P chaos by collective stakeholder actions across the entire food value chain. Lowering system P demand and better regional governance of P resources appear necessary for more efficient and sustainable food systems.

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“…Institutional inertia is viewed, in the climate change literature, as the inability of institutional actors to adapt rules for evaluating new climate change conditions (e.g., unprecedented SLR impacts) based on new knowledge and information and the inability of institutions to develop timely responses to climate change impacts [49,50]. Munck af Rosenschöld et al [49] identified five factors that contribute to institutional inertia: (i) cost-incurred for building collective action, communication and negotiation among actors for bringing change to institutional status quo [50]; (ii) uncertainty-around the framing and potential impacts of SLR contributing to the postponement of policy actions as a rational choice [7]; (iii) path-dependency-trapping institutions into the legacy of adaptation policies and technological lock-ins like hard infrastructure-based adaptation [51]; (iv) power-distributed in a fuzzy way among actors who have diverse interests and priorities based on respective roles and mandates [52]; and (v) legitimacy-influenced by cognitive bias to extant adaptation actions (e.g., hard infrastructures), constraining the adoption of new adaptation approaches [47]. Thus, it is still unclear how institutional actors (e.g., bureaucrats) embedded in a hierarchically structured system envision innovative institutional change and influence others to adopt it [29,53].…”

Section: Institutional Innovation For Nbcamentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Innovation for Nature-Based Coastal Adaptation: Lessons from Salt Marsh Restoration in Nova Scotia, Canada

2019

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Sea-levels have been rising at a faster rate than expected. Because of the maladaptive outcomes of engineering-based hard coastal protection infrastructure, policy makers are looking for alternative adaptation approaches to buffer against coastal flooding—commonly known as nature-based coastal adaptation (NbCA). However, how to implement NbCA under an institutional structure demonstrating ‘inertia’ to alternative adaptation approaches is a question that seeks scientific attention. Building on a case study derived from a highly climate-vulnerable Canadian province, this study shows how the entrepreneurial use of scientific information and institutional opportunities helped institutional actors overcome the inertia. Drawing on secondary document analysis and primary qualitative data, this study offers five key lessons to institutional actors aiming at implementing NbCA: (i) develop knowledge networks to help avoid uncertainty; (ii) identify and utilize opportunities within existing institutions; (iii) distribute roles and responsibilities among actors based on their capacity to mobilize required resources; (iv) provide entrepreneurial actors with decision-making autonomy for developing agreed-upon rules and norms; and (v) facilitate repeated interactions among institutional actors to develop a collaborative network among them. This study, therefore, helps us to understand how to implement a relatively new adaptation option by building trust-based networks among diverse and relevant institutional actors.

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The black box of power in polycentric environmental governance

Cited by 229 publications

References 85 publications

Application of an Institutional Assessment and Design (IAD)-Enhanced Integrated Regional Energy Policy and Planning (IREPP) Framework to Island States

Application of an Institutional Assessment and Design (IAD)-Enhanced Integrated Regional Energy Policy and Planning (IREPP) Framework to Island States

Towards resolving the phosphorus chaos created by food systems

Institutional Innovation for Nature-Based Coastal Adaptation: Lessons from Salt Marsh Restoration in Nova Scotia, Canada

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