Who is in Charge here? Governance for Sustainable Development in a Complex World*

Meadowcroft, James

doi:10.1080/15239080701631544

Cited by 301 publications

(226 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Driessen, Dieperink, van Laerhoven, Runhaar, & Vermeulen, 2012;Lemos & Agrawal, 2006;Meadowcroft, 2007). A similar line of reasoning has been observed among governance of climate adaptation scholars, who contend that the 'wickedness' of climate adaptation induces new governance arrangements other than traditional government approaches (e.g.…”

Section: Public Versus Private Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 71%

Local governments in the driving seat? A comparative analysis of public and private responsibilities for adaptation to climate change in European and North-American cities

Mees

2016

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

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The division of responsibilities between public and private actors has become a key governance issue for adaptation to climate change in urban areas. This paper offers a systematic, comparative analysis of three empirical studies which analysed how and why responsibilities were divided between public and private actors for the governance of local urban climate adaptation. For 20 governance arrangements in European and North-American cities, the divisions of responsibilities and the underlying rationales of actors for those divisions were analysed and compared. Data were gathered through content analysis of over 100 policy documents, 97 indepth interviews and 2 multi-stakeholder workshops. The comparative analysis reveals that local public authorities are the key actors, as they bear the majority of responsibilities for climate proofing their cities. In this stage of policy emergence, local authorities are clearly in the driving seat. It is envisaged that local public authorities need to more actively engage the different private actors such as citizens, civil society and businesses through governance networks along with the maturation of the policy field and the expected acceleration of climate impacts in the coming decades.ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Public Versus Private Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 71%

Local governments in the driving seat? A comparative analysis of public and private responsibilities for adaptation to climate change in European and North-American cities

Mees

2016

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

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“…While research has so far tended to focus on questions of the design and production of niches and experiments, analysing these processes requires that more attention is given to dynamics of agency and power -the practices of governance on the ground (Smith and Raven 2012). At the same time, there are growing calls for research to engage with the spatial and political contexts within which transitions evolve, and the processes through which niches and experiments are related to these wider systemic contexts Meadowcroft 2007;Shove and Walker 2007). In this regard, understanding the role of cityregions in the governance of transition pathways has become a critical area for research and action (Bulkeley et al 2011;Nevens et al 2013).…”

Section: Suggestions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The geography of sustainability transitions: Review, synthesis and reflections on an emergent research field

Hansen

Coenen

2015

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

673

396

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“…Thus, as Grin, Rotmans, and Schot (2010, p. 331) note, the role of consumers and 'grassroots' civil society initiatives in transitions is underrated and under-conceptualized within the literature. In other words, recognizing the distributed nature of power within modern societies opens the door for multiple routes of intervention (Meadowcroft, 2007), from various actors including various kinds of 'public' and diverse forms of democratic engagement.…”

Section: Participation In Transition(s) 587mentioning

confidence: 99%

Participation in Transition(s): Reconceiving Public Engagements in Energy Transitions as Co-Produced, Emergent and Diverse

Chilvers

Longhurst

2016

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

235

213

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This paper brings the transitions literature into conversation with constructivist Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspectives on participation for the first time.In doing so we put forward a conception of public and civil society engagement in sustainability transitions as co-produced, relational, and emergent. Through paying close attention to the ways in which the subjects, objects, and procedural formats of public engagement are constructed through the performance of participatory collectives, our approach offers a framework to open up to and symmetrically compare diverse and interconnected forms of participation that make up wider socio-technical systems. We apply this framework in a comparative analysis of four diverse cases of civil society involvement in UK low carbon energy transitions. This highlights similarities and differences in how these distinct participatory collectives are orchestrated, mediated, and subject to exclusions, as well as their effects in producing particular visions of the issue at stake and implicit models of participation and 'the public'. In conclusion we reflect on the value of this approach for opening up the politics of societal engagement in transitions, building systemic perspectives of interconnected 'ecologies of participation', and better accounting for the emergence, inherent uncertainties, and indeterminacies of all forms of participation in transitions.

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Who is in Charge here? Governance for Sustainable Development in a Complex World*

Cited by 301 publications

References 12 publications

Local governments in the driving seat? A comparative analysis of public and private responsibilities for adaptation to climate change in European and North-American cities

Local governments in the driving seat? A comparative analysis of public and private responsibilities for adaptation to climate change in European and North-American cities

The geography of sustainability transitions: Review, synthesis and reflections on an emergent research field

Participation in Transition(s): Reconceiving Public Engagements in Energy Transitions as Co-Produced, Emergent and Diverse

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