Environmental Policy and Governance最新文献

{"title":"For the Few, Not the Many: Tracing the Residualist and Compensatory Nature of British Energy Support","authors":"T. M. Croon,&nbsp;M. G. Elsinga,&nbsp;J. S. C. M. Hoekstra,&nbsp;M. Sunikka-Blank,&nbsp;R. Galvin","doi":"10.1002/eet.70067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70067","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Drawing on extensive documentary analysis, this article traces the evolution of British energy policy support since World War II. It analyses shifts in policy design through two interpretive lenses: eligibility (residualist vs. universalist) and function (compensatory vs. preventive). While the UK was once a global leader in preventive, relatively broad-based energy efficiency investments, since the 1980s it has moved increasingly towards reactive, narrowly targeted schemes, mostly delivered through energy supplier obligations and providing means-tested relief. Moments of crisis, such as the oil shocks of the 1970s and the recent energy price surge, prompted temporary shifts to universalism, but such measures have proved short-lived. While successive governments emphasised the many co-benefits of energy efficiency schemes, they remain inconsistently implemented and underfunded. We argue that the persistence of residualist-compensatory models is driven by political, institutional, and ideational factors. To make sense of these developments, we introduce a typology of four models - residualist compensatory, residualist-preventive, universalist-compensatory, and universalist-preventive- which is used to map key policy shifts and assess their implications. We conclude by explaining that a transition towards a universalist-preventive approach must be grounded in a rights-based framework.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 3","pages":"529-547"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70067","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148154237","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":"“Passive” Scalecraft as a State Strategy in Post-Authoritarian Environmental Governance: A Case From South Korea","authors":"Souyeon Nam","doi":"10.1002/eet.70062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70062","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study employs a scalar politics framework to unpack how participatory rhetoric operates statecraft in a post-authoritarian context, thereby illuminating hybrid-regime behavior along a continuum of environmental governance. An examination of the environmental governance of an ecotourism project in South Korea is performed using ethnographic methods over an 18-month period in 2011–2013. The results reveal that the state has actively deployed participatory rhetoric and purportedly maintained a passive stance in managing and promoting an ecotourism project, while actively reconfiguring institutional arrangements to reinforce state authority. The findings present a range of a decentralized state's paradoxical stance toward scalar politics. This study demonstrates a “passive” scalecraft in environmental governance as a gradual and nuanced form of authoritarian innovation in a post-authoritarian country.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 3","pages":"491-500"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70062","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148153219","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 Engagement in Collaborative Governance Networks Through Motivation, Learning, and Values","authors":"Gustav Osberg","doi":"10.1002/eet.70058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70058","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Collaborative governance networks are increasingly central to local climate action, yet research offers limited understanding of the personal, psychological, and informal factors that sustain engagement within them. This paper examines how such networks facilitate meaningful and lasting participation through an in-depth study of Malmö Works, a long-standing public–private collaboration focused on sustainable mobility in Malmö, Sweden. Drawing on more than 2 years of process-oriented, action-informed qualitative research, including participant observation, interviews, workshops, and document analysis, the study investigates how individual motivations, organisational conditions, and network structures interact to support climate action. Integrating perspectives from Self-Determination Theory and values research with collaborative governance scholarship, the analysis identifies three intertwined learning processes: <i>knowing the issue</i>, <i>knowing each other</i>, and <i>knowing the possibilities</i> that enable participants to translate abstract climate ambitions into concrete, contextually grounded action. These processes are reinforced by three motivational conditions: <i>autonomy</i> through participant-driven co-creation, <i>relatedness</i> fostered by informal relational practices, and <i>competence</i> built through experimentation and open exchange. The paper contributes an integrated framework that distinguishes between process and outcome dimensions of values and goals in collaborative governance, with learning linking the two. It argues that networks such as Malmö Works advance climate action not only by coordinating activities, but by cultivating shared purpose and agency. However, the same informality enabling these benefits also generates vulnerabilities related to continuity, institutionalisation, and representativeness. The study concludes with implications for designing collaborative governance networks capable of supporting durable, equitable, and scalable climate action.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 3","pages":"460-475"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70058","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148153200","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":"Innovations for Stakeholder Engagement in Water Governance: A Systematic Literature Review From a Sustainability Transition Perspective","authors":"Anne Ellermann,&nbsp;Gül Özerol,&nbsp;Joanne Vinke-de Kruijf,&nbsp;César Casiano Flores,&nbsp;Vuokko Laukka,&nbsp;Ulf Stein,&nbsp;Suvi Sojamo,&nbsp;Rob Collins","doi":"10.1002/eet.70066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70066","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sustainable and equitable governance of water resources is among the most pressing global challenges, emphasising the need for innovations towards transitions in the water sector. Innovations for stakeholder engagement can contribute to such transitions through public participation and cross-sectoral collaboration. However, stakeholder engagement has often been promoted as a panacea, assuming that the greater the engagement, the higher are the chances to improve governance. Important insights can be gained for water governance and transitions by understanding stakeholders' rationales for engagement, rather than solely focusing on the act of engagement. To this end, we applied a sustainability transition perspective to synthesise the empirical evidence on the traits of innovations for stakeholder engagement and to identify the indications that stakeholders follow normative, substantive, and instrumental rationales. Based on a systematic review of 61 publications, we show that innovations are characterised by multiple governance modes, with hierarchy as the most common mode and governments as a key actor often initiating stakeholder engagement. Regarding the rationales, a key indication that stakeholders follow a normative rationale is establishing power balance, whereas promoting the diversity of knowledge systems indicates a substantive rationale, and the instrumental rationale is manifested through process-related and institutional indications, covering resources such as information and time. Future research directions relate to longitudinal and in-depth case studies on stakeholder engagement innovations in diverse contexts. Finding congruency of meaning between stakeholders' disparate rationales is crucial for advancing innovations for engagement, which in turn can foster water transitions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 3","pages":"548-567"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70066","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148153580","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":"State-Level Politics in Forest Governance: The Role of the Narrative-Policy Nexus in the Brazilian Amazon","authors":"Gabriela Russo Lopes,&nbsp;Fabio de Castro","doi":"10.1002/eet.70059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70059","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Deforestation and its social impacts are an enduring challenge in agrarian frontiers, especially in the tropics. Fueled by global demand for commodities, this process is mediated by ideas, concepts, meanings, and policies that uphold socioenvironmental degradation. A key and understudied—arena in which this mediation occurs is the sub-national level, where cross-scale forest governance arrangements are shaped. The present article investigates the state-level politics in Acre and Mato Grosso, two contrasting jurisdictions of the Brazilian Amazon. We propose the <i>narrative-policy nexus</i> to analyze the interplay between material and immaterial dimensions of forest governance co-produced by society and governmental actors. We compare the nexus between the <i>Florestania</i> narrative and the Ecological-Economic Zoning (ZEE) policy in Acre (1999–2018) with the Modern Frontier narrative and the Produce, Conserve and Include (PCI) policy in Mato Grosso (2015–2019). While Acre's nexus is permeated by the valorization of forest-based livelihoods led by local communities and support for their local agency, Mato Grosso's nexus represents a business-as-usual approach embedded in a dominant system of agricultural expansion which keeps dominant structures unaltered. In the analyzed period, the centrality of forests in Acre's politics contrasts with their marginal position as a supporting element to green commodity production in Mato Grosso. In conclusion, state-level politics plays a crucial role in landscape transformations and deserves further attention within land-use debates. This analysis brings nuances to generalizing interpretations of the Amazon as a homogeneous region, highlighting the diversity of contexts within the biome.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 3","pages":"476-490"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70059","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148153526","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":"Governing Within the Constraints of Carbon Budgets: Regional Insights From Sweden","authors":"Paula Lenninger,&nbsp;Magdalena Kuchler","doi":"10.1002/eet.70076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70076","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Staying within the limits of a rapidly shrinking global carbon budget while avoiding dependency on negative emissions technologies and carbon dioxide removal remains a significant challenge in a multi-level governance system, where resources and responsibilities are dispersed among different actors. In this paper, we analyse the distribution of perceived agency aimed at accelerating climate action aligned with regional carbon budgets among various actors in three Swedish counties—Östergötland, Västra Götaland, and Västerbotten. Drawing on the definition of embedded agency, we conceptualise agency as the capacity of organisations to act or effect change as perceived by those actors themselves. We interpret these perceptions through the lens of the six modes of governing: self-governing, provision, authority, enabling, experiment, and agenda-setting. We employ this framework through a series of workshops with regional stakeholders responsible for influencing territorial emissions, centring around 19 regional energy and climate interventions. Our study highlights that regional climate governance across the three counties could benefit from a greater emphasis on informal and non-hierarchical modes, particularly in enabling, agenda-setting, and experimentation, which actors perceive as having the greatest potential to advance more ambitious climate action within the constraints of regional carbon budgets. While formal authority remains underutilised despite its legal availability, the findings demonstrate the need for more decisive leadership, capacity-building, and supportive structures to translate other modes of governing, such as enabling strategies, into tangible results. Regional variations further show that tailored approaches, responsive to local contexts, are crucial for scaling effective climate initiatives.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 3","pages":"701-714"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70076","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148153209","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":"Open Space Policy-Making and Planning in Urban Regions: Towards a Theoretical Approach Based on the Multiple Streams Framework","authors":"Gerd Lintz,&nbsp;Mariam Diagayété","doi":"10.1002/eet.70070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70070","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Open space networks provide multiple ecosystem services and other benefits which are particularly important to urban regions. Accordingly, there are many examples around the world of urban-regional open space policies such as regional parks and green belts that connect non-built-up areas over several municipalities. Yet it is still unclear how and why this kind of policy can prevail in regional political decision-making against often strongly competing forms of land use. In this conceptual paper, we elaborate a theoretical approach to explain the adoption and implementation of the mentioned open space policies. Focusing on policy-making and planning processes, we use the well-established Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), originally developed by Kingdon, which has been subsequently refined and extended over the years. Drawing on relevant strands of literature, our paper applies the MSF to the field of open space policy-making and planning in conurbations. In line with our understanding of the framework, the likelihood of a significant policy being adopted and implemented in this policy field increases when three largely independent process streams (problem, policy and political) are coupled by a capable policy entrepreneur during a policy window, and this coupling is subsequently maintained. Our approach goes beyond Kingdon's original MSF by introducing an initial and an implementation phase to the analysis. At the same time, we integrate many process-related aspects of spatial and open space research into our MSF-based theoretical approach. The result is summarised in a set of seven propositions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 3","pages":"674-684"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70070","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148153197","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":"Shared Waters, Shared Responsibility: Solving Collective Action Problems in an Upstream-Downstream Setting","authors":"Anna Bendz,&nbsp;Simon Matti,&nbsp;Patrik Öhberg","doi":"10.1002/eet.70048","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eet.70048","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The governance of shared water systems requires collaboration across diverse stakeholders. In this study we advance the theoretical understanding of asymmetric collective action problems (CAPs) by reassessing the role of third-party interventions and emphasizing the strategic importance of policy brokers and institutional venues. Drawing on insights from the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), we argue that policy brokers can play a pivotal role in bridging divides, fostering dialogue, and enabling “small-scale” solutions within complex governance settings. Empirically, we examine a case from Sweden's largest water system, where municipalities with asymmetric upstream–downstream positions negotiated the creation of a Water Protection Area. The study is based on interviews with local decision-makers. We illustrate how structural asymmetries in power, influence, and risk exposure, in combination with heterogeneous local interests, shape both incentives and capacities for cooperation. Our findings suggest that the presence—or even the perceived potential—of third-party involvement may foster a more conducive environment for coordination. We conclude by underscoring the strategic role of policy brokers in mediating between actor coalitions and the significance of institutional venues as platforms for consensus-building.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 2","pages":"253-262"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70048","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147708111","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":"‘Incoherence Is, in a Way, a Choice’: The Production of Policy Coherence at the Intersection of Uruguay's Agricultural, Environmental and Water Policies","authors":"Simon Ryfisch,&nbsp;Paula Díez Boldú,&nbsp;Tamara Avellán,&nbsp;Carlos Santos,&nbsp;José Sciandro,&nbsp;Manuel Vázquez Cirillo,&nbsp;Malgorzata Blicharska,&nbsp;Mariana Meerhoff","doi":"10.1002/eet.70055","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eet.70055","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study explores the production of coherence between Uruguay's agricultural, environmental and water policies amidst growing tensions, which are particularly manifested in conflicts between an expanding agricultural sector and water insecurity for the broader public. We apply a novel mixed-method approach, combining a political discourse analysis of key sectoral policies, the ruling party's programme and workshop discussions with a survey of implementing technical staff, thus capturing both the discursive nature of coherence and perceptions of its practical implementation—extending thereby beyond instrumental and even existing critical policy coherence analysis frameworks. Our findings reveal divergent views on policy coherence, with agricultural sector staff generally viewing it more positively than their counterparts in the environmental and water sectors. We also identified two distinct discourses: the hegemonic discourse, which promotes agricultural growth with minimal environmental safeguards, and the counter-hegemonic discourse, which advocates for a cultural shift that challenges the capitalist structures underpinning large-scale agriculture. Our study highlights how prevailing discourses shape both the perception and practice of policy coherence. However, we also found that vagueness in policy objectives and instruments allow powerful actors to maintain the status quo, making policy objectives appear coherent while diverging from the discursive ideals of ‘strong sustainability’ in practice. The gap between discursive ideals and real-world outcomes illustrates that coherence, to a degree, is a ‘choice’ shaped and limited by power dynamics and institutional capacities. Overall, our approach and findings bear relevance for an ever-increasing number of contexts in which economic and environmental priorities intersect and compete.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 2","pages":"365-384"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70055","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147708378","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":"From Disruption to Stabilization: A Functional Governance Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition in Montenegro","authors":"Alexander L. Q. Chen-Florea,&nbsp;Igor Luksic,&nbsp;Bojana Boskovic","doi":"10.1002/eet.70057","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eet.70057","url":null,"abstract":"<p>As global climate ambitions intensify, the key challenge lies not in setting renewable energy targets but in designing governance systems that can translate them into lasting transformation. The transition management literature has advanced a valuable research agenda for initiating change through niche innovations and participatory arenas in early transition phases. However, more attention is required to understand the governance functions needed to stabilize and scale these transitions. This article offers a complementary perspective to the transitions management literature by outlining a functional governance framework for assessing Montenegro's renewable energy transition, with a focus on five governance pillars: (1) motivation and actor mobilization (input), (2) policy agenda-setting, translation, and anchoring (process), (3) implementation, enforcement, and accountability (output), (4) resources and competences (support), and (5) leadership and coordination (support). Drawing on expert surveys and focus group interviews, the analysis reveals how the entanglements between weak coordination, fragmented leadership, and inadequate enforcement mechanisms produce systemic inertia despite formal commitments to a renewable energy transition. The functional approach foregrounds governance itself as an object of inquiry and shows how cascading failures across functional domains can stall transitions. Nonetheless, it also identifies emerging synergies, such as donor coordination and cross-sectoral platforms, that may offer entry points for reform. Montenegro's experience underscores the need for context-sensitive, system-oriented governance design in transition-ready states.</p>","PeriodicalId":47396,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Policy and Governance","volume":"36 2","pages":"385-402"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eet.70057","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147708375","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}