Drivers of collaboration to mitigate climate change: An illustration of Swiss climate policy over 15 years

Climate change mitigation policy is driven by scientific knowledge and involves actors from the international, national and local decision-making levels. This multi-level and cross-sectoral context requires collaborative management when designing mitigation solutions over time and space. But collaboration in general policymaking settings, and particularly in the complex domain of climate mitigation, is not an easy task. This paper addresses the question of what drives collaboration among collective actors involved in climate mitigation policy. We wish to investigate whether common beliefs or power structures influence collaboration among actors. We adopt a longitudinal approach to grasp differences between the early and more advanced stages of mitigation policy design. We use survey data to investigate actors’ collaboration, beliefs and power, and apply a Stochastic Actor-oriented Model for network dynamics to three subsequent networks in Swiss climate policy between 1995 and 2012. Results show that common beliefs among actors, as well as formal power structures, have a higher impact on collaboration relations than perceived power structures. Furthermore, those effects hold true for decision-making about initial mitigation strategies, but less so for the implementation of those measures.     

Global action networks: Agents for collective action

Global action networks (GANs) are civil society initiated multi-stakeholder arrangements that aim to fulfill a leadership role for systemic change in global governance for sustainable development. The paper develops a network approach to study some of these GANs as motivators of global collective action and investigates how in their interaction processes the actors involved create the organizational capacity for collective change. Based on a variety of case studies, the paper highlights crucial factors determining the performance of GANs; among them the characteristics of the issue field and the development stage of the GAN. The analysis also shows how GANs play two crucial roles, sometimes in combination, sometimes successively. These are labelled as the broker and entrepreneur role. The paper concludes with some conditions for collective action that are underexposed in collective action theory.     

Navigating climate crises in the Great Barrier Reef

A dramatic escalation of extreme climate events is challenging the capacity of environmental governance regimes to sustain and improve ecosystem outcomes. It has been argued that actors within adaptive governance regimes can help to steer environmental systems toward sustainability in times of crisis. Yet there is little empirical evidence of how acute climate crises are navigated by actors operating within adaptive governance regimes, and the factors that influence their responses. Here, we qualitatively assessed the actions key governance actors took in response to back-to-back mass coral bleaching – an extreme climate event – of the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017, and explored their perceptions of barriers and catalysts to these responses. This research was, in part, a product of collaboration and knowledge co-production with Great Barrier Reef governance actors aimed at improving responses to climate crises in the region. We found five major categories of activity that actors engaged with in the wake of recurrent mass coral bleaching: assessing the scale and extent of bleaching, sharing information, communicating bleaching to the public, building local resilience, and addressing global threats. These actions were both catalyzed and hindered by a range of factors that fall within different domains of adaptive capacity; such as assets, social organization, and agency. We discuss the implications of our findings as they relate to existing research on adaptive capacity and adaptive governance. We conclude by coalescing insights from our interviews and a participant engagement process to highlight four key ways in which the ability of governance actors, and the Great Barrier Reef governance regime more broadly, can be better prepared for, and more effectively respond to extreme climate events. Our research provides empirical insight into how crises are experienced by governance actors in a large-scale environmental system, potentially providing lessons for similar systems across the globe.     

Social networks and transitions to co-management in Jamaican marine reserves and small-scale fisheries

How social networks support or constrain the transition to co-management of small-scale fisheries and marine reserves is poorly understood. In this paper, we undertake a comparative analysis of the social network structures associated with the transition to co-management in three Jamaican marine reserves. Data from quantitative social relational surveys (n = 380) are integrated with data from semi-structured interviews (n = 63) and focus groups (n = 10) to assess how patterns of relational ties and interactions between and among fishermen and other local level actors (e.g., managers, wardens, NGO staff) support and constrain the transition to co-management. Our research suggests that the transitions to co-management were supported by a combination of three network structure and relational attributes: (i) the presence and position of institutional entrepreneurs; (ii) a dense central core of network actors; and (iii) the prevalence of horizontal ties and vertical linkages held by the community-based organizations formally responsible for the management of the marine reserves. Our findings also show that overall low network cohesion in the three reserves and limited social influence among the wardens may be problematic for sustained collective action that extends beyond the core set of network actors. These findings suggest the importance of strategies to enhance collective action, specifically through attention to the attributes of the corresponding social networks, as a means to contribute to successful transitions to co-management of marine reserves and small-scale fisheries. Our results provide more precise guidance, through social network analysis, on where in the respective networks social capital and leadership may require support or enhancement, and thus on how to target interventions for greatest effect.     

Disentangling intangible social–ecological systems

Contemporary environmental challenges call for new research approaches that include the human dimension when studying the natural environment. In spite of the recent development of several conceptual frameworks integrating human society with nature, there has been less methodological and theoretical progress on how to quantitatively study such social–ecological interdependencies. We propose a novel theoretical framework for addressing this gap that partly builds on the rapidly growing interdisciplinary research on complex networks. The framework makes it possible to unpack, define and formalize ways in which societies and nature are interdependent, and to empirically link this to specific governance challenges and opportunities using a range of theories from both the social and natural sciences in an integrated way. At the core of the framework is a set of basic building blocks (motifs) that each represents a simplified but non-trivial social–ecological systems (SES) consisting of two social actors and two ecological resources. The set represents all possible patterns of interdependency in a SES. Each unique motif is characterized in terms of social and ecological connectivity, resource sharing, and resource substitutability. By aligning theoretical insights related to the management of common-pool resources, metapopulation dynamics, and the problem of fit in SES with the set of motifs, we demonstrate the multi-theoretical ability of the framework in a case study of a rural agricultural landscape in southern Madagascar. Several mechanisms explaining the inhabitants’ demonstrated ability to preserve their scattered forest patches in spite of strong pressures on land and forest resources are presented.     

Creating adaptive social-ecological fit: The role of regional actors in the governance of Sea-level rise adaptation in San Francisco bay

Sea level rise is one of the most pressing climate adaptation issues around the world. Often, coastal communities are interdependent in their exposure to sea level rise – if one builds a seawall, it will push water to another – and would benefit from a coordinated adaptive response. The literature on social-ecological systems (SES) calls for actors placed at higher levels of governance (e.g. regional government in a metropolitan area) to improve coordination between local managers by serving as brokers. However, we lack empirical insight on how higher-level actors might improve coordination in practice, and theoretical development on the implications of their intermediation. To address these gaps, we study the case of adaptation to sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay Area. We build a social-ecological network of social actors and shoreline segments using original survey data and simulated scenarios of tidal and traffic interdependencies between shoreline segments. We perform a frequency analysis of network motifs that operationalize social-ecological ‘fit’ in the context of the Bay Area. We find that regional actors and non-governmental organizations increase social-ecological fit by providing intermediation between actors who work on different shoreline segments, whether interdependent or not. This shows that these actors provide adaptive social-ecological fit, future-proofing the Bay Area to current and future climate adaptation challenges.     

Burning through organizational boundaries? Examining inter-organizational communication networks in policy-mandated collaborative bushfire planning groups

Collaboration can enhance cooperation across geographic and organizational scales, effectively “burning through” those boundaries. Using structured social network analysis (SNA) and qualitative in-depth interviews, this study examined three collaborative bushfire planning groups in New South Wales, Australia and asked: How does participation in policy-mandated collaboration affect bushfire communication networks amongst organizational representatives? Inter-organizational communication networks became more active, less centralized, and more closely connected during planning than they had been prior. However, efforts to institutionalize collaboration were intrinsically biased towards placing administrative power and influence in public agencies. Further, collaborative planning groups did not maintain “during planning” levels of network activity and structure after planning was completed. In one case, the mandated planning process had a negative impact on inter-agency communication networks. Contextual aspects such as group size, history of inter-organizational conflict and fire occurrence, and process management were important in the development of inter-organizational networks. Though communication diminished after planning was completed, participation in the collaborative planning effort may serve as an important basis for the continuation of inter-organizational relationships beyond the scope of the planning process.     

Uneven interventions and the scalar politics of governing livelihood adaptation in rural Nepal

Accounts that address the governance of adaptation are increasingly exploring the ways in which the institutional context can both enable and constrain effective and equal adaptation. This paper contributes to such a growing field by providing empirical evidence derived from participatory field research in the Nepali districts of Chitwan and Nawalparasi in 2010. The results support previous arguments that emphasise the need to address the multi-scalar context of adaptation as a governance issue associated with individual and collective deliberative action (or inaction). Institution analysis identifies the ways in which networks of powerful and well-connected political actors are able to control adaptation projects, flows of knowledge and information, and the ways in which institutions and organisations intervene in response to livelihood needs. This control is under-pinned by an unequal scalar politics that constructs and reproduces particular local adaptation needs at multiple governance scales at once. Many existing tools and frameworks for assessing the institutional elements of adaptation are unable to grapple with these factors systematically. The paper concludes with a call for further attention to forms of scalar politics in the governance of adaptation so that we might be able to more effectively theorise up from local complexity without glossing over inherent power relations, social inequalities, and institutional constraints.     

Rival private governance networks: Competing to define the rules of sustainability performance

Private governance of environmental and social performance of organizations, processes and products is gaining prominence in market and policy arenas, and thus, increasingly influencing sustainability outcomes. This study presents a concept of rival private governance where multiple initiatives compete for rule-setting authority. Specifically, we argue that heterogeneous actors organize in network form to establish legitimacy of new sustainability governance fields. In an effort to preempt threats from these new fields of governance, nonparticipating actors create rival private governance networks and compete based on each network's ability to access unique relational assets from participants. Based on the cases of carbon off-set standards, green building rating systems and sustainable forestry certifications, we suggest that this competitive market vetting results in pressures toward the convergence of governance rules over time, but not a single winning set of rules. Our findings illustrate that multiple and competing networks can provide innovative, legitimate and dynamically evolving governance of sustainability, while presenting new challenges for public and private sector actors.     

A social-ecological network approach for understanding wildfire risk governance

Large wildfire events (e.g. >100 square km) highlight the importance of governance systems that address wildfire risk at landscape scales and among multiple land owners and institutions. A growing body of empirical work demonstrates that environmental governance outcomes depend upon how well patterns of interaction among actors align with patterns of ecological connectivity, such as wildfire transmission. However, the factors that facilitate or inhibit this alignment remain poorly understood. It is crucial to improve understanding of the conditions under which actors establish or maintain linkages with other actors with whom they are interdependent because of ecological linkages. To this end, we introduce the concept of “risk interdependence archetypes” based on the spatial configurations by which one actor (i.e. a particular organization) is exposed to risk via the actions of another actor. We then develop a set of hypotheses to explore how different sets of conditions associated with each spatial configurations of risk interdependence may shape the likelihood that an actor coordinates with another actor in ways that promote social-ecological alignment. We test these hypotheses using network analysis of a wildfire transmission network developed through simulation of wildfires over several thousand fire seasons and a governance network created from interviews with 154 representatives of 87 organizations involved in efforts to mitigate wildfire risk in the Eastern Cascades Ecoregion, USA. Results indicate that social-ecological alignment is more likely when actors have opportunities to influence forest management practices on ignition-prone lands that they do not manage themselves, and when actors bear greater responsibility for averting losses from wildfires that spread to lands they manage independently. Importantly, not all forms of risk interdependence increase the likelihood of alignment, implying that organizations have limited capacity for interaction and may prioritize certain risk mitigation partnerships over others. While the performance of risk governance systems may hinge on the alignment of social and ecological networks, our results suggest that alignment in turn may depend on actor-level strategies for interaction with other actors.     

Seeing the forest and the trees: Facilitating participatory network planning in environmental governance

Governance processes to address environmental change involve many different actors from multiple spatial, temporal and socio-political scales, not all of whom are connected by hierarchy and whose actions cannot always be mandated. In the environmental governance literature, Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been found useful in understanding complex governance arrangements. In this paper we present and reflect on our experience with the Net-Map tool for participatory network mapping. The Net-Map tool was applied in three transdisciplinary case studies for three different purposes: (a) to contribute to an improved understanding of biodiversity knowledge flows in Europe, (b) to explore the interplay between actors with influence on water, agriculture, and energy developments at the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, and (c) to understand the challenges facing stakeholders engaged in conservation and economic development in a Southeast Asian mountain range. The case studies explore how network maps can serve as boundary objects to engage stakeholders of diverse points of view and jointly design strategies to address governance challenges. More specifically they show how network maps are used to gain a better understanding of governance situations, to help stakeholders identify strategies for navigation of the complex networks in which they are embedded and to support transdisciplinary research processes. We close with some reflections on the potential and limitations of the Net-Map tool in facilitating multi-stakeholder processes and disentangling complex governance arrangements.     

Challenges to scenario-guided adaptive action on food security under climate change

This paper examines the development and use of scenarios as an approach to guide action in multi-level, multi-actor adaptation contexts such as food security under climate change. Three challenges are highlighted: (1) ensuring the appropriate scope for action; (2) moving beyond intervention-based decision guidance; and (3) developing long-term shared capacity for strategic planning. To overcome these challenges we have applied explorative scenarios and normative back-casting with stakeholders from different sectors at the regional level in East Africa. We then applied lessons about appropriate scope, enabling adaptation pathways, and developing strategic planning capacity to scenarios processes in multiple global regions. Scenarios were created to have a broad enough scope to be relevant to diverse actors, and then adapted by different actor groups to ensure their salience in specific decision contexts. The initial strategy for using the scenarios by bringing a range of actors together to explore new collaborative proposals had limitations as well as strengths versus the application of scenarios for specific actor groups and existing decision pathways. Scenarios development and use transitioned from an intervention-based process to an embedded process characterized by continuous engagement. Feasibility and long-term sustainability could be ensured by having decision makers own the process and focusing on developing strategic planning capacity within their home organizations.     

Micropolitics in collective learning spaces for adaptive decision making

Recent advances on power, politics, and pathways in climate change adaptation aim to re-frame decision-making processes from development-as-usual to openings for transformational adaptation. This paper offers empirical insights regarding decision-making politics in the context of collective learning through participatory scenario building and flexible flood management and planning in the Eastern Brahmaputra Basin of Assam, India. By foregrounding intergroup and intragroup power dynamics in such collective learning spaces and how they intersect with existing micropolitics of adaptation on the ground, we examine opportunities for and limitations to challenging entrenched authority and subjectivities. Our results suggest that emancipatory agency can indeed emerge but is likely to be fluid and multifaceted. Community actors who are best positioned to resist higher-level domination may well be imbricated in oppression at home. While participatory co-learning as embraced here might open some spaces for transformation, others close down or remain shut.     

Not all baselines are created equal: A Q methodology analysis of stakeholder perspectives of additionality in a carbon forestry offset project in Costa Rica

This paper uses a Q methodology for analyzing actor subjectivity in order to examine the extent to which differently situated actors agree or disagree about baseline constructions of land-use change, and the potential role of offsets in an indigenous community. In so doing, this study aims to accomplish three goals. First, it examines the level of convergence or divergence between actors concerning the land-use claims embedded within offset procedures. Second, it examines discursive alignments within actors by gauging how one's view of land-use change correlates with one's understanding of the goal of the offset project itself. Finally, the paper assesses the extent to which a level of discursive agreement is needed for project cooperation. The results show points of radical divergence between indigenous and non-indigenous experts involved in implementing the offset project, as well as points of pragmatic optimism regarding offsets and markets in affecting land-use change. Results indicate that discursive disagreement concerning basic understandings of land-use change and project goals did not preclude collaboration. The strong divergences between actors over the causes of land-use change, and the nature and intent of the offset project, suggest that truly collaborative offset implementation is illusory.     

Narratives,narrations and social structure in environmental governance

Avoiding further aggravation of the consequences of global environmental change remains a complex governance challenge. Social relational structure among actors plays a key role for enhancing the capacity of collaborative approaches to environmental governance. We present an encompassing conceptual framework to advance understanding of the mechanisms that shape dynamics in environmental governance entities. Narrative theory is integrated with insights on group dynamics grounded in social network theory to contextualize local social complexities in governance processes. We assume that social relational structure between actors, and narrations they tell, co-produce narratives and dynamics at the group level. Three important mechanisms that influence dynamics are described: (1) the interplay between collaborative relationships and narrative congruence between individual actors, (2) the characteristics of actors, and (3) the actors’ embeddedness in the wider social structure. A set of testable hypotheses on the interplay between narration, narratives and social relational structure in environmental governance processes is presented. We conclude by discussing why we regard this framework useful to study local and regional governance entities in the context of addressing global environmental change.     

Social–ecological memory in urban gardens—Retaining the capacity for management of ecosystem services

Many ecosystem services are in decline. Local ecological knowledge and associated practice are essential to sustain and enhance ecosystem services on the ground. Here, we focus on social or collective memory in relation to management practice that sustains ecosystem services, and investigate where and how ecological practices, knowledge and experience are retained and transmitted. We analyze such social–ecological memory of allotment gardens in the Stockholm urban area, Sweden. Allotment gardens support ecosystem services such as pollination, seed dispersal and pest regulation in the broader urban landscape. Surveys and interviews were preformed over a four-year period with several hundreds of gardeners. We found that the allotment gardens function as communities-of-practice, where participation and reification interact and social–ecological memory is a shared source of resilience of the community by being both emergent and persistent. Ecological practices and knowledge in allotment gardens are retained and transmitted by imitation of practices, oral communication and collective rituals and habits, as well as by the physical gardens, artifacts, metaphors and rules-in-use (institutions). Finally, a wider social context provides external support through various forms of media, markets, social networks, collaborative organizations, and legal structures. We exemplify the role of urban gardens in generating ecosystem services in times of crisis and change and conclude that stewards of urban green areas and the social memory that they carry may help counteract further decline of critical ecosystem services.     

Local collective action: Adaptation to coastal erosion in the Monkey River Village,Belize

Successful adaptation to environmental change and variability is closely connected with social groups’ ability to act collectively, but many social-ecological challenges exceed local adaptive capacity which necessitate assistance from governmental institutions. Few studies have investigated how local collective action can be used to enrol external support for adaptation. This paper reduces this research gap by analysing a locally driven adaptation process in response to coastal erosion in Monkey River Village, Belize. Drawing on literature on adaptation and political ecology, we examine the different strategies the local residents have used over time to influence government authorities to support them in curbing the coastal erosion. Our findings show that the local mobilisation generated government support for a temporary sea defence and that collective strategies emerge as a response to threats to a place specific way of life. Our case illustrates that it was essential that the villagers could ally with journalists, researchers and local NGOs to make their claims for protection heard by the government. The paper contributes to adaptation research by arguing that local collective action, seen as contestation over rights to protection from environmental change, can be a means for places and communities not prioritised by formal policies to enrol external support for adaptation. Our study supports and adds to the perspective that attention to formal arrangements such as adaptation policy alone has limited explanatory power to understand collective responses to change.     

Complexity and challenges of long-term environmental governance

Some important processes of environmental change – including those of climate change and loss of biodiversity – share three characteristics that make them extremely demanding challenges of governance. First, time-lags between human action and environmental effect are very long, often extending beyond one human generation. Second, problems are embedded in highly complex systems that are not well understood. Third, these problems involve global collective goods of a type that links them to a wide range of human activities and leaves them beyond the scope of unilateral solutions. Social science research offers two essentially different models of collective response to severe challenges. One portrays effective response as collective action through central leadership and contraction of power. The other conceives of societal response as involving a variety of local activities undertaken by subunits of a complex and decentralised system. I argue that both models have considerable merit, but also that they respond to different types of challenges. Therefore, useful insights can be gained by specifying more precisely the circumstances under which each model applies.     

Measuring,mapping and quantifying the effects of trust and informal communication on transboundary collaboration in the Great Lakes fisheries policy network

Ecosystem-based management of fisheries and other transboundary natural resources require a number of organizations across jurisdictions to exchange knowledge, coordinate policy goals and engage in collaborative activities. Trust, as part of social capital, is considered a key mechanism facilitating the coordination of such inter-organizational policy networks. However, our understanding of multi-dimensional trust as a theoretical construct and an operational variable in environmental and natural resource management has remained largely untested. This paper presents an empirical assessment of trust and communication measures applied to the North American Great Lakes fisheries policy network. Using a scale-based method developed for this purpose, we quantify the prevalence of different dimensions of trust and in/formal communication in the network and their differentiated impacts on decision-making and goal consensus. Our analysis reveals that calculation-based ‘rational trust’ is important for aligning mutual goals, but relationship-based ‘affinitive trust’ is most significant for influencing decision-making. Informal communication was also found to be a strong predictor of how effectively formal communication will influence decision-making, confirming the “priming” role of informal interactions in formal inter-agency dealings. The results also show the buffering and interactive functions of these components in strengthening institutional resilience, with procedural trust undergirding the system to compensate for a lack of well-developed relationships. Overall, this study provides evidence to suggest that informal communication and multi-dimensional trust constitute a crucial element for improving collaboration and reducing conflict in the networked governance of transboundary natural resource systems.