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Collaboration as a policy instrument in public administration: Evidence from forest policy and governance Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Therese Bjärstig, Johanna Johansson, Irina Mancheva, Camilla Sandström
In recent decades, collaboration has become a common policy instrument in public administration, both internationally and in Sweden. Inspired by scholarly literature on collaborative governance, the aim of this study is to analyze the crucial role of public administration in the design and implementation of collaborative governance. Drawing on several years of research on Swedish forest policy and
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Contextualizing and generalizing drivers and barriers of urban livings labs for climate resilience Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Laura Quadros Aniche, Jurian Edelenbos, Alberto Gianoli, Rochelle Caruso, Marta Irene DeLosRíos-White, Charmae Pyl Wissink-Nercua, Asier Undabeitia, Elena Marie Enseñado, Salem Gharbia
Urban Living Labs are open innovation ecosystems that integrate research and innovation activities within urban communities. However, while solutions co-created and tested in the Urban Living Labs must be contextualized and tailored to each city's uniqueness, broader impact requires generalization and systematic replication across geographical, institutional, and sectoral boundaries. This article examines
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The transformative potential of experimentation as an environmental governance approach: The case of the Dutch peatlands Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Mandy A. Van Den Ende, Dries L. T. Hegger, Heleen L. P. Mees, Peter P. J. Driessen
Governance of societal transformations toward sustainability is needed to address the fundamental system failures responsible for environmental problems. Possible transformation pathways range from radical shifts to more incremental change. Experimentation is seen as a form of incremental change, but its actual transformative potential is debated. The transformative potential of experimentation is
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Conflicting perspectives on ecosystem conservation in a cultivated floodplain: The role of science and the challenge of pluralism in decision-making in Lac Saint-Pierre (Quebec, Canada) Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 Ann Lévesque, Jean-François Bissonnette, Aaron Vansintjan, Jérôme Dupras
By generating and explaining facts, science holds an important role in environmental policy decision-making. However, scientific knowledge is often framed as objective and neutral in policy debates, which can be challenged by stakeholders who have a different view of the issue. To counter this situation, we propose a novel scientific approach to analyze problems that are highly contested and seem difficult
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Framing just transition: The case of sustainable food system transition in Finland Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Suvi Huttunen, Riina Tykkyläinen, Minna Kaljonen, Teea Kortetmäki, Ari Paloviita
Justice in sustainability transitions requires states to design transition policies that ‘leave no-one behind’. Emphasising fairness, however, may entail slowing or scaling down the impetus of sustainability transition. To examine this risk empirically, we analysed how stakeholders frame justice in deliberating policy measures needed to support just transition in agricultural land use and dietary changes
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Disaster management policy changes in Bangladesh: Drivers and factors of a shift from reactive to proactive approach Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Mahed Choudhury, C. Emdad Haque
In this paper, we argue that, while it is necessary to modify existing policy using the lessons learned from disaster events (i.e., reactive learning), this approach is insufficient on its own for dealing with ongoing and emerging climate-induced disaster risks. Rather, we assert that policymakers must also adopt a proactive and anticipatory learning approach that would enable policy learning and policy
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A policy portfolio approach to plastics throughout their life cycle: Supranational and national regulation in the European Union Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-03 Sandra Eckert, Orr Karassin, Yves Steinebach
The environmental and health problems caused by plastics throughout their life cycle have attracted considerable public attention over the past decade, triggering policy responses in many constituencies. Similarly, interdisciplinary research on plastics has been burgeoning in the past few years, and political science contributions have covered the manifold root causes and consequences of this shift
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Empowerment and disempowerment in climate assemblies: The French citizens' convention on climate Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Adrián Galván Labrador, Christos Zografos
Citizens' assemblies to address climate change have multiplied in recent years. Seen as a useful tool to provide solutions to the climate crisis, they have, however, struggled to impact public policy. Additionally, little is known about how citizens' proposals are diluted or rejected in climate assemblies. We explore this situation through a qualitative case study of the French Citizens' Convention
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Swedish bureaucratic biodiversity: Analysing municipal worker discourse with the theory of sociocultural viability Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Benedict E. Singleton
Cities are important sites for societal transitions towards sustainability, which is increasingly recognised around the issue of biodiversity conservation and protection. However, cities are often characterised by the need to develop and grow. Furthermore, efforts to promote sustainable development have been criticised as failing to address the fundamental causes of environmental destruction. In this
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Participatory energy futures as decision support on subnational scales Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Claire Copeland
This paper argues the case for participatory exploratory energy futures development to assist net zero emissions decision making on subnational scales (local and regional authorities, communities, and neighbourhoods). There are many challenges for net zero decision making on subnational scales in the United Kingdom including a lack of statutory responsibility and societal consent for the local transformation
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Sustaining business as usual or enabling transformation? A discourse analysis of climate change mitigation policy in Swedish municipalities Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Malin Andersson, Veronica Brodén Gyberg
This article explores how discourses may influence the potential for success in mitigating climate change in Swedish municipalities. We identify dominant discourses in climate change mitigation policy in three Swedish municipalities using argumentative discourse analysis, based on policy documents and interviews as empirical material. Political leadership and adequate organizational preconditions are
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The Circular Economy in European Union Policy: Explaining an idea's success through policy learning Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-20 Josep Pinyol Alberich, Sarah Hartley
The circular economy (CE) was adopted in 2015 by the European Union (EU). Since its emergence, the CE has proved to be a remarkably powerful idea that has shifted the understanding of the economy, and consequently, it has shaped the EU's economic and environmental policies. The public policy literature theorises such shifts in collective understanding through the concept of policy learning, a process
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Transformative climate governance in small Swedish municipalities: Exploring the cases of Enköping and Kiruna Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Anna Kronvall, Wolfgang Haupt, Kristine Kern
Local authorities are important actors in sustainability transformations, but smaller municipalities generally do not have the same capacities as larger ones to work strategically with climate-related risks and long-term sustainability issues. Our study analyses the efforts of two Swedish local authorities to build capacity for transformative climate governance, paying attention to how structural factors
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A global-scale study on decision making in renewable energy policy: Internal and external factors driving the adoption of Feed-in Tariffs and Renewable Portfolio Standards Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Viktória Döme
To accelerate the clean energy transition, it is necessary to better understand the global policy dynamics and motivations behind clean energy policy adoptions and diffusion. This article examines the differential roles of internal and external diffusion factors on decisions to adopt renewable energy policies, that is, Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) and Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), employing a unique
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Accountability in the Anthropocene: Activating responsible agents of reform or futile finger-pointing? Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Kate Macdonald
Confronted by intersecting ecological and social crises associated with the rise of the Anthropocene, architects of global environmental governance have often attempted to harness accountability claims to single out the individual or organisational actors contributing most significantly to these crises and pressure them to uphold responsibilities to society and the planet. Yet critics have cautioned
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Accountability in the environmental crisis: From microsocial practices to moral orders Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-05 Rolf Lidskog, Adam Standring
The global environmental crisis is the result of a complex web of causation and distributed agency, where not even the most powerful individual actors can be considered responsible nor remedy the situation alone. This has prompted multiple calls across societies for transformative social change. What role can accountability play in this context? Starting in the theoretical traditions of microsociology
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Business accountability in the Anthropocene Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-03 Janina Grabs
The arrival of the Anthropocene requires a profound rethinking of business accountability. A central challenge in this age is the possibility of pushing past planetary boundaries, which may irreversibly propel the Earth system into a new equilibrium that is less hospitable for human civilization. Businesses drive many of the processes contributing to such boundaries, and are powerful political actors
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Cross-sectoral metrics as accountability tools for twin transitioning energy systems Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Siddharth Sareen
As energy systems become ever more closely intertwined in order to enable electrification and real-time coordination across sectors, tracking the nature of change to ensure accountability during complex implementation processes presents novel challenges and requires renewed thinking on data infrastructures. For instance, sectors like electricity generation, electricity distribution and electrified
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Theorising the climate change accountability of Persian Gulf petrostates Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-11-01 Michael Mason
For states with political economies largely dependent on oil and natural gas rents, there seems to be little scope for accountability practices that answer for, and curb, fossil fuel production contributing to anthropogenic climate change. Critically engaging with rentier state theory, I examine the climate change accountability of Persian Gulf petrostates according to state responsibility norms under
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The effects of policy discourse on the governance of deforestation and forest degradation reduction in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-10-20 Eliezer Majambu, Moise Tsayem Demaze, Richard Sufo-Kankeu, Denis Jean Sonwa, Symphorien Ongolo
The international initiative to combat deforestation and forest degradation, known as REDD+, was put on the DRC agenda following actors' policy discourse aimed at convincing policy-makers of its effectiveness. This paper uses discursive institutionalism (DI) as a theoretical and analytical framework to analyse a set of selected policy documents on REDD+ issue and to assess the effects of policy discourse
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Enabling successful science-policy knowledge exchange between marine biodiversity research and management: An Australian case study Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Denis B. Karcher, Christopher Cvitanovic, Rebecca Colvin, Ingrid van Putten
Knowledge exchange (KE) between research and decision-making is increasingly demanded for tackling environmental challenges, yet there is still much to learn about how to enable that effectively. Here, we analyze a distributor of research funding (i.e., the Australian National Environmental Science Program Marine Biodiversity Hub (‘the hub’)) which actively coordinated KE between researchers and state-
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A participatory framework to evaluate coherence between climate change adaptation and sustainable development policies Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-10-02 Nađa Beretić, Alissa Bauer, Matteo Funaro, Donatella Spano, Serena Marras
Adapting to climate change involves taking a series of actions that reduce and/or avoid the effect of climate risks while ultimately increasing development opportunities in affected environments. Therefore, adaptation to climate change must become an integral part of a sustainable development process, in which it maintains the same priority as other development goals and strategies. Aiming to address
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Governing intersectional climate justice: Tactics and lessons from Barcelona Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Ana Terra Amorim-Maia, Isabelle Anguelovski, Eric Chu, James Connolly
Cities and local governments are important actors in the global governance of climate change; however, the specific governance principles and arrangements that enable urban climate plans and policies to realize commitments to social equity and justice remain largely unexplored. This article uses the City of Barcelona, Spain, as a critical case study of emerging “intersectional climate justice” practice
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Granting legitimacy from non-state actor deliberation: An example of women's groups at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-08-31 Bi Zhao
Non-state actors (NSAs) have been widely recognized as important participants in the global climate regime. Their participation is considered to have the potential to enhance the democratic legitimacy of global governance institutions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). What is the mechanism through which NSAs grant legitimacy to the institution? This study connects
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Danish nearshore wind energy policy: Exploring actors, ideas, discursive processes and institutions via discursive institutionalism Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-08-25 Helene Dyrhauge, Jenny Fairbrass
This article explores Danish renewable energy policy and policymaking, focusing on the development of nearshore wind energy and the role played by various actors, their competing ideas, the discursive processes in which they participate, and the institutional settings where exchanges occur. The research employs a case study design, concentrating on the Vesterhav Syd nearshore windfarm project. Drawing
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The water–energy–food–land–climate nexus: Policy coherence for sustainable resource management in Sweden Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-08-09 Malgorzata Blicharska, Richard J. Smithers, Magdalena Kuchler, Stefania Munaretto, Lotte van den Heuvel, Claudia Teutschbein
The concept of a ‘nexus’ across issues regarding the management of natural resources has gained increasing academic attention in recent years, but there is still relatively limited research on the application of the nexus approach for evaluating policies. This study analyses coherence among the main goals of five policy areas (water, energy, food, land, and climate) in Sweden, drawing upon a desk review
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Policy integration by implementation: Lessons from frontline staff policy practices around small-scale gold mining in Liberia Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-08-08 Rebecca K. Fallah, Jaap Evers, Leon M. Hermans
Environmental policy integration is needed to ensure environmental policy goals are being realized, given their cross-sectoral nature. Most of the published research has focused on integration and coherence of (inter)national policies, plans, and programs. The implementation practices for these policies, however, are at least as important. This paper therefore looks at policy implementation for the
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The roles of community-based organizations in socializing sustainable behavior: Examining the urban case of Budapest, Hungary Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-06-29 Tamas Veress, Gabriella Kiss, Agnes Neulinger
This research supports the argument that community-based organizations (CBOs) can be effective vehicles to shift societal norms and expectations in order to facilitate co-creation and acceptability of new and sustainable ways of living. CBOs are conceptualized as meso-level entities where sustainable behavior can be socialized through not-for-profit and socioecological-oriented approaches, a unique
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The influence of visions on cooperation among interest organizations in fragmented socio-technical systems Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-06-28 J. P. Wesche, S. O. Negro, H. I. Brugger, W. Eichhammer, M. P. Hekkert
The paper shows that visions of the future can be used as a predictor of cooperation and division between actors in their efforts to shape the institutional environment, specifically policy in socio-technical systems. Accordingly, the paper suggests a new method to analyze visions: a virtual solution space in which visions can be grouped according to their similarity. The similarity of visions is calculated
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Challenging state authority and hierarchical power: A case study of the engagement of Peru's Amazonian Indigenous Peoples' organizations in the governance of REDD+ Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-06-03 Liliana Lozano Flores, Deborah Delgado Pugley, Santiago Casas Luna, Pieter Van den Broeck, Constanza Parra
The reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) mechanism is a climate change mitigation policy tool widely used in tropical forested countries that faces institutional and governance challenges in its implementation. Peru provides a particularly rich case study to analyze the agency of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples' organizations (IPOs) in the development of a national REDD+ policy
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Exploring paths and innovation in Norwegian carbon capture and storage policy Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Jørgen Wettestad, Tor Håkon Jackson Inderberg, Lars H. Gulbrandsen
Norway, a significant petroleum producer and exporter, has been a frontrunner within policies for carbon capture and storage (CCS). As CCS is recognized as a key technology for achieving the Paris climate policy targets, there is a clear need for more knowledge about how to design successful projects. Norway's first CCS policy initiative, the ambitious Mongstad project, was the result of a political
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Exploring friendship in hydropolitics: The case of the friendship dam on the Asi/Orontes river Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Hannah Haemmerli, Christian Bréthaut, Fatine Ezbakhe
“Friendship dams” are an explicit, yet underexplored, materialization of hydropolitics that illustrate the potential role of water in international cooperation. Via a case study analysis of the Syria-Turkey Friendship Dam project proposed for the Asi/Orontes river, we trace the process of cooperation that led to the use of this notion of “friendship” in transboundary cooperation. Using a transversal
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Extended producer responsibility: An empirical investigation into municipalities' contributions to and perspectives on e-waste management Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-05-09 Stéphanie H. Leclerc, Madhav G. Badami
The development and implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies to manage e-waste provide multilevel governance frameworks for achieving greater material circularity. However, the roles and responsibilities that are allocated to various stakeholders under these policies, which are crucial for program effectiveness, often vary across jurisdictions, and consensus is lacking about
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Barriers and enablers of environmental policy coherence: A systematic review Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Alain Fopa Tchinda, David Talbot
The literature on policy coherence (PC) examines contradictions and synergies between policies. This systematic review explores factors that facilitate or disrupt PC in the environmental field. Based on 70 empirical studies, this research describes the evolution of the PC literature, identifying eight critical PC factors. Furthermore, this study identifies six avenues for future research on PC, such
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How resilience is framed matters for governance of coastal social-ecological systems Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Sarah Clement, Javad Jozaei, Michael Mitchell, Craig R. Allen, Ahjond S. Garmestani
Effective governance of social-ecological systems (SES) is an enduring challenge, especially in coastal environments where accelerating impacts of climate change are increasing pressure on already stressed systems. While resilience is often proposed as a suitable framing to re-orient governance and management, the literature includes many different, and sometimes conflicting, definitions and ideas
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Reconciling welfare policy and sustainability transition – A case study of the Finnish welfare state Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-04-10 Paula Saikkonen, Ilari Ilmakunnas
The paper investigates the capacity of welfare policies to support sustainability transitions. Welfare policy involves the discussion on public and private responsibilities and choices in public spending. The Finnish government's decision to turn Finland into a carbon neutral welfare society by 2035 is interpreted as a possible sustainability transition. The government launched a social security reform
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Policy implementation barriers in climate change adaptation: The case of Pakistan Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-03-26 Shafaq Masud, Ahmad Khan
This article focuses on the policy implementation barriers that result in poor adaptation and enhanced risk of exposure to extreme vulnerabilities, based on experiences in Pakistan. A number of policy implementation barriers are identified including: (i) Whether policy development is seen as a closed or open consultation process, (ii) Whether policy is seen as a generic document or an instrument for
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Assessing local government's response to black women's vulnerability and adaptation to the impacts of floods in the context of intersectionality: The case of eThekwini metropolitan municipality, South Africa Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Fidelis Udo, Maheshvari Naidu
This article assesses how adaptation governance within the eThekwini (Durban) metropolitan municipality, KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa, addresses the vulnerability and adaptation of black African women to flood impacts within the municipality. The article argues that there is an intersectional lens through which black local women's experiences of vulnerability to the impact of climate change
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The importance of calibration in policy mixes: Environmental policy integration in the implementation of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy in Germany (2014–2022) Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-03-07 Pascal Grohmann, Peter H. Feindt
Environmental policy integration (EPI), that is, the incorporation of environmental concerns in non-environmental policy areas, has been widely adopted in public policies. However, EPI research has found much discrepancy between environmental objectives and actual implementation. This paper argues that analyzing EPI in the context of policy mixes with multiple objectives, multiple instruments and their
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Communication and urban air quality governance in Germany: Discursive framing by selected national environmental NGOs and the Automotive Industry Association (VDA) and its potential impacts Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-02-27 Philipp Cyrus
It is presented and contrasted through a framing analysis how selected environmental NGOs and the German Automotive Industry Association (VDA) engaged in the national German debate on urban air quality governance during the height of the emission scandal between 2015 and mid-2019. For this, frames of communication applied to communicate organizational priorities and conceptualizations of air quality
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Greening recovery – Overcoming policy incoherence for sustainability transformations Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-02-09 Sara Gottenhuber, Björn-Ola Linnér, Victoria Wibeck, Åsa Persson
Policy coherence is crucial in the 2030 Agenda's transformative ambitions and heralded as of paramount importance to ensure the successful implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and climate policy targets. Despite political efforts to achieve policy coherence, apparent trade-offs and goal conflicts have emerged – even in a proclaimed ‘front-runner’ country like Sweden. This paper examines
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The grammar of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms in international conservation: A comparative institutional analysis of four treaty regimes Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Ute Brady
Of enduring interest to social scientists is better understanding institutional design. Formal institutions (e.g., treaties and regulations) convey salient governance information, including actors' required, allowed, or prohibited actions, and monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to foster institutional compliance with those actions. Yet, few studies have compared these features in international instruments
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Reframing governance possibilities for urban biodiversity conservation through systemic co-inquiry Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Laura M. Mumaw, Ray Ison, Helen Corney, Nadine Gaskell, Irene Kelly
Despite decades of effort, biodiversity has not attracted effective political discourse, policies, or action to halt its decline. In cities in particular, biodiversity conservation is challenged by short-term approaches, separately focusing on biodiversity or community well-being rather than on their interconnection, and pervasive beliefs that urban citizenry lack the requisite ethic or skills for
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Putting the power back in empowerment: Stakeholder perspectives on community empowerment in energy transformations Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-01-11 Dominique Coy, Shirin Malekpour, Alexander K. Saeri
Energy systems are rapidly transforming towards sustainability, involving significant realignments in social, economic and political systems. New actors such as communities are seeking empowerment to engage in transformations. A range of actors has applied the concept of empowerment in energy transformations to signify different ideas for how communities can engage with energy. As such, its meaning
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Promoting ecodesign implementation: The role and development areas of national public policy Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2023-01-03 Susanna Horn, Hanna Salo, Ari Nissinen
The European Parliament adopted the Circular Economy Action Plan in 2021, with which it identifies the importance of the design phase to improve products' circularity and environmental impacts. With an environmental design approach – ecodesign – companies can proactively reduce, avoid, or eliminate adverse environmental impacts that occur during the life cycle of a product. However, the practical implementation
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The influence of COVID-19 on modes of governance for climate change—Expert views from the Netherlands and the UK Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-12-30 Cas Bulder, Iain Todd, Darren McCauley, Mary-Kate Burns
While the world is still in the grasp of COVID-19, countries are contemplating how to get their economies back on their feet. With a unique opportunity to do so in a sustainable manner, there is an urgent need to revisit the governance of climate change. Opportunities are clearly there: the resurgence in top-down policies in the pandemic might spill-over to climate governance; green economic stimuli
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Political economy of renewable energy transition in rentier states: The case of Oman Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 Aisha Al-Sarihi, Judith A. Cherni
Despite the abundance of renewable resources, renewable energy accounts for less than 1% of the total installed power capacity in oil-producing Gulf Arab states. While the political–economic structures of oil-producing Gulf Arab states are thought to have played a role in determining these states' remarkably low uptake of renewable energy, these structures remain understudied. With a focus on Oman
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Cross-sectoral information and actors' contact networks in natural resource governance in the Swiss Alps Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-11-22 Martin Nicola Huber, Manuel Fischer, Nicolas Egli
Governance of natural resources is challenging due to cross-sectoral dependencies across related sectors such as, for example, water, agriculture, and energy. Actors involved in natural resource governance create network contacts with each other, in order to deal with specific governance issues. An important resource for actors is information, and actors act according to the amount of information they
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Political drivers of policy coherence for sustainable development: An analytical framework Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-11-01 Zoha Shawoo, Aaron Maltais, Adis Dzebo, Jonathan Pickering
Prominent conceptualizations of policy coherence for sustainable development focus primarily on the roles of intra-governmental policy processes and institutional interactions in shaping coherence between various agendas and policies. These technocratic understandings of coherence overlook the more political drivers of coherence, such as the vested interests or ideologies that may encourage or hinder
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Mapping stakeholders and identifying institutional challenges and opportunities for waste management in towns of Uttar Pradesh, India Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-28 Indranil De, Ila Patel
The extensive research on waste management has primarily remained confined to metro cities and focused on economic and environmental issues. The present study explores waste management in smaller urban areas from an institutional standpoint, mapping formal and informal players onto a two-dimensional framework: institutional type and institutional strength. The analysis is based on data accumulated
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How environmental regulation can drive innovation: Lessons learned from a systematic review Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-26 Lauge Peter Westergaard Clausen, Maria Bille Nielsen, Nikoline Bang Oturai, Kristian Syberg, Steffen Foss Hansen
Regulation is often seen as a barrier to innovation. However, if done properly, it can actually serve as a driver of innovation. To understand how environmental regulation can be designed to stimulate innovation, we scrutinise the scientific literature related to regulation, innovation and the environment. Fifty one carefully selected studies are examined with regard to their scope, results and geographical
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Norm domestication challenges for local climate actions: A lesson from Arizona, USA Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-26 Mahir Yazar
Research on norm domestication in multi-level governance structures is overlooked in urban climate governance and policy literature. This paper conceptualizes multi-scalar interactions of norm domestication for local climate actions. The city of Phoenix, which operates under the “purple” (blue cities and red legislatures) state of Arizona, is analyzed to illustrate how a local government can take up
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Toward the sustainability state? Conceptualizing national sustainability institutions and their impact on policy-making Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-12 Okka Lou Mathis, Michael Rose, Jens Newig, Steffen Bauer
The achievement of global sustainability and climate objectives rests on their incorporation into policy-making at the level of nation-states. Against this background, governments around the world have created various specialized sustainability institutions—councils, committees, ombudspersons, among others—in order to promote these agendas and their implementation. However, sustainability institutions
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Success by agreement? Uncovering power struggles in translating Swedish moose policy Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-11 Annelie Sjölander-Lindqvist, Katarina Hansson-Forman, Camilla Sandström
Exploring how actors translate public policy content into practice provides new insight into policy processes. Because they are driven by contextual circumstances and values, that is, they are socially constructed, studying the interpretations and negotiations involved in the translation process advances our understanding of what shapes implementation agents, and subsequently the success of policy
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Social acceptance of biodiversity offsetting: Motivations and practices in the designing of an emerging mechanism Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Liisa Varumo, Juha M. Kotilainen, Eeva Primmer
Biodiversity offsetting is a governance mechanism proposed as a solution to ecosystem degradation and the underlying economic drivers. Biodiversity offsetting's potential is often evaluated and argued with ecological and economic criteria. These factors are intertwined with a multitude of social and ideological conditions for acceptance and legitimacy, which have received less systematic empirical
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Copenhagen CO2 neutrality in 2025? A polycentric analysis of urban climate governance in Copenhagen 2006–2020 Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-05 Karsten Bruun Hansen, Annika Agger
In 2009, the City of Copenhagen declared its objective to become the first CO2-neutral city in the world by 2025 by practicing a collaborative climate governance approach. However, a 2020 status reported a further need for decarbonisation of at least 33% to reach this target. By applying a synthesised polycentric concept—supplemented by participatory climate governance studies—we analyse the deficient
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Why policy coherence in the European Union matters for global sustainability Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-09-18 Hanna Ahlström, Beate Sjåfjell
The global economy is producing unequal economic exchanges between countries, including illegitimate transfer of wealth from low-income countries, which ultimately undermine efforts towards securing robust social welfare systems. This puts policies on trade and finance, corporate governance and circular economy at the centre of the global development puzzle. Policy coherence for development must be
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Policy integration in urban living labs: Delivering multi-functional blue-green infrastructure in Antwerp, Dordrecht, and Gothenburg Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-08-23 Jannes J. Willems, Lizet Kuitert, Arwin Van Buuren
Policy integration required for delivering multi-functional blue-green infrastructure (BGI) is difficult to achieve, because environmental policymaking is characterised by sectoral responsibilities and institutional structures that hinder collaboration. Both theory and practice consider urban living labs (ULLs) as promising vehicles for policy integration, as ULLs can overcome institutional structures
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Social innovation for developing sustainable solutions in a fisheries sector Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-08-12 Ebun Akinsete, Achilleas Vassilopoulos, Laura Secco, Elena Pisani, Maria Nijnik, Valentino Marini-Govigli, Phoebe Koundouri, Alkis Kafetzis
In this paper, we explore how social innovation can provide a range of ecosystem services to local people while supporting public policies and private sector initiatives in delivering successful and innovative food distribution channels. In the Mediterranean basin, the status of commercial fish stocks is critical. In this sense, small-scale, low-impact fishing is a way to sustainably utilise socially
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How can a cooperative-based organization of indigenous fisheries foster the resilience to global changes? Lessons learned by coastal communities in eastern Québec Environmental Policy and Governance (IF 3.136) Pub Date : 2022-07-29 Marco Alberio, Marina Soubirou
Halieutic resources and small-scale fisheries are globally under stress due to global changes. This phenomenon has very strong impacts on the socioeconomic situation of vast coastal areas worldwide and of the communities living there, whose economies rely on the ocean. In the current context of a decrease of several halieutic stocks, there is a need of understanding what could be the avenues for fisheries-dependent