Adaptive Governance

Final sum-up

Learning goals• Define and describe key concepts related to adaptive

governance, such as adaptive co-management, social networks, bridging organizations, and polycentric governance

• Define and describe the role of innovation and transformations in adaptive governance

• Describe how these concepts are related to each other in the context of governance of dynamic social-ecological systems

• Apply concepts related to adaptive governance at multiple levels, on a real-world case

How do we govern complex SES in an era of rapid global

change?

Governance – many definitions!• “the processes groups of actors adopt to negotiate decisions and

determine a path of action” (Wyborn 2015)

• “the exercise of authority over the environment through the processes and institutions by which decisions are made” (Plummer et al. 2013)

• “a social function centered on steering human groups toward mutually beneficial outcomes and away from mutually harmful outcomes” (Brondizio et al. 2009)

• Griggs et al. (2014): the popularity of governance owes much to its ambiguity, it is a useful ‘catch-all’ for the “bewildering and often contradictory range of strategies and tactics deployed in regulating, administering and managing organisations, localities, nation states and international organizations”

What does adaptive governance add?

• Emphasis on dynamic temporal and spatial change

• Surprise, shocks, cascading dynamics

• Rapidly evolving knowledge (uncertainty, incompleteness)

• Ecological change (as well as social, political, economic, and so on)

"Adaptive governance denotes models of steering, coordination and information sharing that are able to respond, and

sometimes even transform systems in the face of uncertainty, change and surprise."

(Folke et al. 2005)

AG links dynamically evolving forms of knowledge and action…

… with a ton of concepts

collective action innovation systemsinternational regimes

Bridging organizations innovationtrust institutions

transitions and transformationssocial networks Polycentric systems

adaptationlearning coping with crises

But how are these concepts related?

Time to connect the dots!

Intro – AM, ACM, AG?

National actors

International actors

Ecosystem

Local actors

Learning and collaboration

Thomas Hahn - Bridging Organizations

• BOs link diverse actors, organizations and networks at multiple scales (crucial role in shift from mgm. to governance)

• BOs link both formal and informal actors/networks, and can themselves be more or less formalized

• They are important because they can facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, reduce the transaction costs of collective action, and they can enhance the “fit” between ecosystems and governance

• BOs can operate at any scale (ecosystem/watershed scale in Olsson et al. 2007, Crona and Parker 2012, and Southern Ocean in Osterblom and Sumaila 2011) - and they provide crucial links between scales

Gunilla Reischl – Global Environmental Governance

• Global enviro. governance has moved from relatively simple interstate relations to a complex scene of international regimes, organizations, institutions, and networks

• Regimes: sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations (Krasner, 1983, p.2), e.g. ‘the climate regime’

• Institutions: sets of rules meant to govern international behaviour (Reischl), e.g. WTO, or the ‘liberal capitalist market’

• Organizations: international bureaucratic structures connected to norm and rule systems, characterized by permanent headquarters, secretariat, staff, budget (e.g. UNEP, WTO, FAO)

• Networks: voluntary collaborative relationships between states, regions, cities, companies, and so on, usually around a particular issue area (e.g. ICLEI - global cities network)

Per Olsson – Innovation and Transformation

• How do we transform/innovate towards desirable forms of governance? What forms of governance stimulate transformation and innovation?

• Transformation: What are the practices of transformation? Tensions between adaptive and transformative capacity? Move from ‘windows of opportunity’ to dynamic ‘opportunity contexts’…

• Scaling: all transformations are context-specific – how can we ‘scale up’

to the global and scale-down to the local? What are the politics of this? (Who is innovating for who?)

• Agency: Individuals important, but an increasing recognition of distributed and relational agency

Henrik and Andrew – Global Adaptive Governance

• Changing information, teleconnections, complexity, global problems – how might the concepts that we have learned so far (knowledge sharing, bridging orgs, networks, institutions) play out on a global level?

• Polycentricity – multiple forms, structures, useful to understand interrelations in governance

• Supernetworks – interaction between networks and traditional institutions?

• Technology – challenges and opportunities for governance?

• Legitimacy and efficiency – how do we balance and how might these shift through time?

Common themes and tensions

• Formal-informal relationships (individuals, groups, networks, institutions, organizations) – how to manage? Bridging orgs?

• Centralized-decentralized governance structures – how to balance? Polycentricity?

• Temporalities and spatialities of change – how can we be both reactive and proactive? Adapt and transform? Interplay between structures and agency?

• Politics, values and visions – how do we conceptualize the relationships between evolving science, information and knowledge, with the politics of evolving values, norms and principles?

Emerging Research Areas?

• Biophysical effects of adaptive governance – what benefits/problems does AG bring compared to other forms of governance? Is it really such a good thing?

• Are there types of institutional reform that may nurture adaptive governance across scales? E.g. decentralization? A global environment organization?

• Agency, practice and AG – what capacities on an individual/group level are required to actually do adaptive governance?

• Politics and power of AG – who determines the ‘desired state,’ what voices are (un)heard? Do AG transformations challenge/reify existing power imbalances?

• Relationships between ‘good governance’ (justice, equity, legitimacy) and ‘adaptive governance’ (information sharing, experimentation, networking) – related or separate concepts?

Questions?

Exam!

1 two-part essay question (with a word limit), one full day of work to answer

Handout: Friday, 09:00Deadline: Friday, 17:00

Tips

1. Define

2. Be specific

3. Exemplify

4. Relate/apply the concepts

Q: How do institutions in the GBR support adaptive

governance of coral reef ecosystems?

A: Institutions matter because they can help actors adapt to changing circumstances. They can also help

bring actors together, and help them solve urgent issues and

promote resilience of coral reefs.

Q: How do institutions in the GBR supportadaptive governance of coral reef

ecosystems?

A: Institutions (here defined as... (REF YEAR) matter because they can help actors such as xxxx adapt to

changing circumstances. These entail ecological changes such as ...., and social changes such as....

(REF YEAR). They can also help bring actors together as they define rules guiding xxxx. They can help them solve urgent issues by facilitating

communication, overcome institutional fragmentation xxx, and promote resilience of coral reefs. For example, Olsson et al. 200x explore ....

Preparation

1. Skim through material

2. Look into the case studies (compare your results with the

other group, but watch for mistakes)

3. Connect concepts (conceptual models), think about relationships,

change, cross-scale interplay (temporal and spatial)