Environmental Policy and Governance最新文献

{"title":"How to Assess Knowledge Cumulation in Environmental Governance Research? Conceptual and Empirical Explorations","authors":"Jens Newig,&nbsp;Michael Rose","doi":"10.1002/eet.2157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2157","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Environmental governance research (EGR) has been criticized for not being cumulative, despite the importance of cumulative knowledge for evidence-informed decision-making in addressing global sustainability problems. However, defining, measuring, and assessing knowledge cumulation in EGR remain challenging. This study presents a systematic effort to address this challenge. Next to conceptualizing knowledge cumulation, we developed metrics to gauge the potential of EGR for knowledge cumulation on the levels of individual articles and scientific community. We applied those metrics to the “Earth System Governance” (ESG) research community within the field of EGR and analyzed its body of research through publications emerging from the first seven ESG conferences, resulting in 362 journal articles. Employing a comprehensive coding scheme, we further analyzed a random sample of 100 of those articles. Our findings suggest limited potentials for knowledge cumulation within ESG research. At the community level, we found a diverse journal landscape, a core-periphery structure in citation networks and co-authorship patterns, heterogeneous research questions, and only a few shared reference works, concepts, frameworks, and variables. At the article level, we observed few literature reviews, little data sharing, infrequent application of theories and frameworks, a shortage of clear definitions, and insufficient reflection on limitations. Moreover, we found that midsized author teams advance the knowledge cumulation potential. The ESG community aligns with Whitley's notion of a “fragmented adhocracy” characterized by diverse but disjointed research efforts, which still may foster interdisciplinary exchange. Our suggested conceptualizations, metrics, and results lay the foundation for future comparative and in-depth research on cumulating knowledge.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 4","pages":"662-681"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.2157","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144767380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Quasi-Governmental Organization Under Pressure: The Connecticut Green Bank's Response to a Budget Shock","authors":"Paul Nix,&nbsp;Adam Goldstein,&nbsp;Michael Oppenheimer","doi":"10.1002/eet.2161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2161","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Numerous barriers interfere with achieving effective outcomes of climate adaptation and mitigation governance. In the United States, the politicization of climate change and the long-standing susceptibility of long-term projects to politicians' short-term budgetary incentives both heighten the difficulties for effective climate change governance. U.S. quasi-governmental organizations (QGOs) were traditionally created to address several of these barriers in non-climate change domains. The properties of QGOs that allow these organizations to address governance barriers may also allow them to cope with shocks more easily than traditional government agencies. Green banks are an emerging and growing form of dedicated climate change governance in the United States. We use the organizational ambidexterity (OA) framework to evaluate the case of the quasi-governmental Connecticut Green Bank (CGB)'s adaptation to a 2017 state-instigated budget shock. The OA framework is useful for this case study given its emphasis on managerial response to organizational survival threats. We find that the CGB adapted financially to the shock, as a result of mission and financial drift away from Connecticut state control and policy. The CGB's adaptation to the shock hinged on its quasi-governmental status—which allowed it to create a nonprofit organization, Inclusive Prosperity Capital (IPC), and pursue activities to render both entities financially and operationally self-sufficient. We characterize the CGB's adaptive response as <i>hybrid</i>, <i>structural</i>-<i>cyclical</i>, <i>ambidexterity</i>. Our study provides the first empirical description of ambidexterity in the quasi-governmental space and builds evidence for the utility of applying hybrid ambidexterity theory in the climate change domain. The analysis carries implications for a wide array of public and private organizations that must adapt to survival threats by balancing activities that affect short- and long-term viability within the context of their mission orientation.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 4","pages":"647-661"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144767674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fostering Urban Climate Transition Through Innovative Governance Coordination","authors":"Kateryna Pereverza,&nbsp;Harald Rohracher,&nbsp;Olga Kordas","doi":"10.1002/eet.2163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2163","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The role of cities in addressing the challenge of climate change is growing and becoming more noticeable in global debates and actions on the ground. However, transformative innovations needed for addressing complex and wicked societal challenges cannot be achieved by cities alone and require concerted efforts also at national and international levels. In addition to multi-level governance collaborations between cities, regions and the state or horizontal networks between cities, unconventional polycentric governance arrangements are emerging that still need to be explored and understood better. This study analyses the case of the Swedish Strategic Innovation programme ‘Viable Cities’ and its ‘Climate-neutral Cities 2030’ (CNC2030) initiative over the period of 6 years. Our analysis shows how during this time, Viable Cities successfully mediated the design and implementation across governance levels (urban, national and European) of a number of governance instruments that influenced the work of Swedish municipalities towards the goals of climate-neutrality in their cities. Through mutual commitments, learning platforms and an alignment of instruments, this governance innovation increases the collective capacity of Swedish cities to act in the climate transition. Our study shows how intermediaries can facilitate innovative arrangements grounded in multi-level governance alignments and inter-urban interactions to enact and shape transformative innovation policy for urban climate transition.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 4","pages":"631-646"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.2163","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144768021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding the Complexity of Governing Energy Transitions: Introducing an Integrated Approach of Policy and Transition Perspectives","authors":"Jörg Radtke","doi":"10.1002/eet.2158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2158","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article offers a comprehensive examination of integrating transition studies and policy studies in the context of energy transitions, highlighting the importance of participatory governance, reflexive policy frameworks, and innovation ecosystems. By combining insights from transition studies, such as niche innovations, multilevel governance, and socio-technical regime shifts, with policy studies' institutional analysis, the paper provides a holistic framework using Germany's <i>Energiewende</i> as a case study. It explores how participatory governance enhances legitimacy and how reflexive governance adapts to emerging challenges, sustaining long-term transitions. The <i>Energiewende</i> demonstrates the value of inclusive governance, where stakeholder engagement bolsters both policy legitimacy and social acceptance. This approach also shows that empowering local communities can lead to increased trust and cooperation in implementing policies. By leveraging frameworks that support innovation ecosystems, Germany has been able to integrate renewable technologies into existing infrastructures. Additionally, aligning local initiatives with national policies has proven critical in maintaining momentum in transitions. The integration of transition and policy studies reveals that leveraging multilevel frameworks is essential to accelerate sustainable technologies while ensuring equitable stakeholder participation. Further, adaptive measures in the <i>Energiewende</i> highlight how iterative feedback supports continuous learning and flexibility in transition pathways. This integration underscores the necessity of balancing technological innovation with social equity to ensure a just and sustainable transition. This paper argues that integrating these fields offers a better explanatory framework and practical strategies for overcoming transition obstacles. It concludes with recommendations for future research and policy development, emphasizing inclusivity, adaptability, and innovation in creating sustainable systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 4","pages":"595-614"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.2158","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144768001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Climate Backlash and Policy Dismantling: How Discursive Mechanisms Legitimised Radical Shifts in Swedish Climate Policy","authors":"Nora Förell,&nbsp;Anke Fischer","doi":"10.1002/eet.2160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2160","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Climate backlash and policy dismantling, that is, the reversal of existing decarbonisation policies, can be observed in an increasing number of countries. Typically, policy change tends to be slow, while climate backlash can unfold quite fast. How is such rapid political change made possible? Here, we investigate the case of Sweden, where a newly elected government significantly revised and changed existing climate policies. This change was forecast to increase carbon emissions rather than reduce them and included the abolishment of existing policies. While this process, in hindsight, could thus be seen as policy dismantling, it was characterised by a highly ambiguous debate that portrayed the new climate political approach as superior and much more effective than previous governments' approaches, and there was little, if any, opposition to these changes. To understand how such radical political change was possible, we examine policy documents and political debates and identify the discursive mechanisms employed in its legitimation. Our findings suggest that the parties in government used a set of discursive mechanisms to speak to different climate political discourses—welfarism, liberalism and nationalism—simultaneously. This created an effect that we call discursive flipping, which is qualitatively different from discursive blending, and that appeased potential opposition from both the left and right. As part of this, the creation of epistemic confusion seemed particularly effective in disarming opposition. We argue that discursive mechanisms are useful conceptual tools to examine the discursive legitimation of radical policy change, here realised by rendering discourses so ambiguous that opposition became discursively difficult to uphold.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 4","pages":"615-630"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.2160","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144768000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Popular Protest Movements, Political Attitudes and Democratic Climate Governance: Exploring the Dynamics in Four Scandinavian Cities","authors":"Trond Vedeld,&nbsp;Einar Braathen,&nbsp;Lukas Smas","doi":"10.1002/eet.2162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2162","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In this article, we unpack and compare how differently reactive protest groups and movements respond to climate-related policy implementation and engage with public institutions to raise grievances and change the course of climate action. We argue that as the climate agenda has become integrated into broad-based policies, such as urban densification and transport/road-tolls, a range of contestations emerges that cannot be reduced to anti-elite sentiments and climate scepticism, as often held in studies of populism and climate politics. The article offers an analytical framework to study how such reactive protest movements and their leadership respond to climate-related policy implementation in several distinct areas of contestation. The approach is tested with empirical observations from four case studies of popular protests in four Scandinavian cities. We found that the hostility and grievances of the protesters included a mix of ideological and material/socio-economic concerns not perceived, recognised or responded to by public institutions. Citizen action groups thus actively engaged with a diversity of public agencies and politicians to influence climate-related decisions and actions. We observed that these interactions and resulting effects were highly place-based and context-specific, and dynamic. We suggest that engaging with popular/populist climate politics needs to observe changing contextual circumstances and more firmly distinguish between responsiveness to economic, cultural recognition/identity, anti-elitist and knowledge foundations it is entangled in. This includes aspects related to the procedural functioning of public institutions and officials. Relationships are complex and multilayered. A processual and qualitative multi-case study approach facilitated these observations.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 4","pages":"583-594"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144768078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Grassroots Initiatives as Political Actors: Scaling, Capture and Constituency in Food Policy Councils","authors":"Francesca Fiore,&nbsp;Giuseppe Feola,&nbsp;Francesca Piló","doi":"10.1002/eet.2156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2156","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Grassroots initiatives (GIs) play a crucial role in driving sustainability transitions. They adopt different approaches to exert impact through multi-stakeholder governance platforms, such as ‘scaling up’, ‘scaling through’ and ‘amplifying’. This paper argues that understanding how GIs achieve this impact requires viewing them as political actors and recognising multi-stakeholder governance platforms as inherently political spaces. Analysing the history of two food policy councils (FPCs) as case studies, the paper develops and applies a conceptual framework that highlights the political agency and power of GIs in sustainability transitions leading to both sociotechnical and sociopolitical change. Drawing on the concept of ‘constituency’ from social movement studies, the study highlights the political power of GIs to impact sustainability transitions with democratising aims. The findings reveal that the political context—shaped by factors such as a history of collaboration, institutional proximity, and varying levels of competition between state authorities at distinct administrative levels —profoundly influences how FPCs function as political spaces and the approaches enacted by GIs to exercise political power and agency. The study underscores the need for future research to better account for the sociopolitical and cultural context, political power, agency, and different models of impact in sustainability transitions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 3","pages":"559-579"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.2156","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144197077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Deliberative Turn or Business as Usual? Assessing the Deliberative Capacity of the Swedish Mining Governance System","authors":"Andreas Johansson","doi":"10.1002/eet.2159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2159","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In response to the increasing conflicts over natural resources, such as minerals, several states, including Sweden, have turned to deliberative democratic practices as a means of governance. Yet, despite significant efforts to incorporate deliberative elements into Sweden's mining governance system, the system falls short of fulfilling the promises typically associated with deliberative democracy, such as effective conflict management. This paper explores this paradox by examining how deliberation has been implemented in the system's institutional design and evaluates the extent to which it fosters conditions conducive to deliberation aligned with the ideals of deliberative democracy. The findings reveal a notable expansion of deliberative practices within the institutional design, particularly through provisions requiring consultation and dialogue with actors affected by mining and related activities. However, substantial deficiencies remain, especially regarding participant selection mechanisms, the prescriptions for participant interactions and the connection between these interactions and decision-making. These shortcomings hinder the realization of ideal deliberation, offering a compelling explanation for the system's difficulties in managing escalating conflicts. In response to these challenges, the study recommends institutional reforms aimed at enhancing the system's democratic qualities. Furthermore, it highlights the need for future research to investigate various institutional designs and their impact on deliberation within different governance systems. Such research could illuminate how these designs either facilitate or obstruct effective deliberation, ultimately contributing to the advancement of democracy and the ability of governance systems to address escalating natural resource conflicts.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 3","pages":"547-558"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.2159","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144196961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Knowledge Cumulation at Science-Policy Interfaces: Opportunities for Environmental Governance Research","authors":"Benjamin Hofmann,&nbsp;Manuel Fischer,&nbsp;Karin Ingold,&nbsp;Eva Lieberherr,&nbsp;Sabine Hoffmann","doi":"10.1002/eet.2155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2155","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>To increase the societal impact of environmental governance research, scholars have called for knowledge cumulation, meaning that scientific evidence builds more systematically on previous findings. Our article develops the perspective that such knowledge cumulation takes place not only within academia but also at science-policy interfaces (SPIs). Drawing on literature on knowledge integration, synthesis, and use as well as science-policy literature, we outline five opportunities for knowledge cumulation at SPIs: (1) proximity to democratic discourse and decision-making; (2) suitability for inter- and transdisciplinary integration; (3) combined problem and solution focus; (4) potential to increase the generality of scientific findings; and (5) creation of targeted synthesis products. We illustrate their respective benefits and challenges with empirical examples from SPIs for climate change, biodiversity and natural resources, and food systems. We conclude that SPIs are an important locus for cumulating knowledge used in complex environmental governance and that future research could explore how this interacts with knowledge cumulation in the academic realm.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 3","pages":"538-546"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144197151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Institutional Design of Collaborative Water Governance: The River Chief System in China","authors":"Xiaomeng Zhou,&nbsp;Yanliu Lin,&nbsp;Pieter Hooimeijer,&nbsp;Jochen Monstadt","doi":"10.1002/eet.2152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2152","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Collaborative governance has been increasingly applied in the field of water governance. However, this approach is often criticized for overlooking the political nature of water governance and the necessity of collaboration across multiple dimensions. The river chief system (RCS) in China represents a collaborative water governance approach designed to address collaboration challenges in Chinese water governance sector and ultimately combat its severe river pollution. This study develops a conceptual framework to analyze the institutional design of the RCS and examine its effectiveness in structuring vertical, horizontal, and territorial collaborations in local water governance. Taking the RCS in Xiamen as a case study, we find that public entities predominantly engage in collaborative initiatives mandated by higher-level authorities, while collaborations between state and nonstate actors mainly focus on information collection and public environmental education. The collaborative processes under the RCS are characterized by the unchallenged authority of political leaders, exclusive decision-making mechanisms, restricted information flows, implicit pay-off structures, and limited involvement of nonstate actors. Consequently, the institutional design of the RCS falls short in fostering effective multidimensional collaboration among diverse actors. This study contributes to the literature on collaborative governance by offering insights into the institutional design of collaborative water governance within an authoritarian context and sheds lights on China's recent reforms of environmental governance.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"35 3","pages":"525-537"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.2152","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144197647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}