Ocean governance and maritime security in a placeful environment: The case of the European Union

Adopting a critical geopolitics approach that accounts for the mutually reinforcing link between geo-informed narratives and projection practices, this article proposes that ocean governance and maritime security have translated into states' and regional organisations' increasing control over maritime spaces. This leads to a certain territorialisation of the sea, not so much from a sovereignty and jurisdictional perspective but from a functional and normative perspective. The article starts by discussing the ways oceans have been represented and shows that they are far from a placeless void, both in practice and in discourse. The article then frames the analysis of ocean governance and maritime security within critical geopolitics, and elaborates on the case of the European Union's narrative and practice. It concludes on the mutually reinforcing link between discourse and practice in the field of ocean governance and maritime security in general, and on the consequences for the EU in particular. Scholars working on ocean governance and maritime security are encouraged to challenge the traditional view that oceans are placeless.     

Relations between professional groups in the Atlantic and Mediterranean fishing enclaves of Andalusia (Spain): A personal networks approach with clustered graphs

This paper proposes a new network-based approach to analyse intergroup relations in fishing ports. The technique of clustered graphs is applied to the case of the Andalusian fishing ports to assess the balance between intra and inter-professional relationships. The patterns of sociability in Mediterranean and Atlantic fishing enclaves in the southern region of Spain were compared, examining their implications for participatory governance of marine resources. The personal networks of 53 fishermen, ship owners or skippers and key individuals of 18 Andalusian fisheries were analysed. The personal networks were compared in terms of fishing ground (Atlantic versus Mediterranean) and port type (by size and form of participation). The data of 45 individuals with whom each respondent usually interacts in the harbour was summarised in clustered graphs of intra-group and inter-group relationships between 8 professional roles in the harbour. Results show primarily that personal networks of Mediterranean ports are overall denser, in comparison with those of the Atlantic, which are more centralised and have a higher average betweenness. Secondly, in the Atlantic a clear difference of roles between ship owners and skippers is observed. A strong link between ship owners and the crew was found, and also between the ship owner and commercial roles in the Mediterranean. Small ports seem to be more apt for the artisanalisation of fisheries, as well as for the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy.     

《巴黎协定》实施细则适应议题焦点解析及后续中国应对措施

适应是《联合国气候变化框架公约》及其《巴黎协定》下的重要谈判内容。2018年12月举行的第24次缔约方大会（COP24）就适应议题后续实施方案达成了共识,为全球气候治理带来新的机遇和挑战。中国在未来全球气候治理中,如何借助新成果推动国内适应工作稳步发展,积极发挥中国作用,是新形势下亟需考虑的重要问题。基于此,本文梳理了适应议题的焦点问题、各集团和缔约方的立场观点,展望了2019—2025年适应相关议题主要工作安排,并对此提出了中国未来适应领域完成相关工作需要考虑的应对措施建议,包括：(1)深入分析国际信息报告体系与国内信息的联系,梳理国内适应工作亮点,为构建高质量报告奠定基础;(2)构建跨部门跨地区协作机制,加强信息搜集与完善,有效提高数据和信息统计功能;(3)强化气候变化适应技术、规范、标准等科学研究的作用,为制定政策规定时纳入相应技术要求、提高政策规定等需求提供科学性和可操作性的服务。     

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.     

Confronting the nitrogen challenge: Options for governance and target setting

The release of excessive anthropogenic nitrogen contributes to global climate change, biodiversity loss, and the degradation of ecosystem services. Despite being an urgent global problem, the excess nitrogen is not governed globally. This paper considers possible governance options for dealing with excessive nitrogen through target setting, which is an approach commonly adopted to address global environmental problems. The articulation of the nitrogen problem and the numerous international institutions dealing with it, provide evidence of a nitrogen regime characterised by limited coordination and targets covering sources and impacts only partially. This calls for improving the nitrogen governance in the direction of more integrated approaches at the global scale. In this vein, the paper investigates two opposite governance options – here labelled as ‘holistic’ and ‘origin-based’ – and evaluates them for their capability to define solutions and targets for human-induced nitrogen. From the analysis, it emerges that origin-based solutions can be preferable to holistic solutions as they can be more specific and potentially have greater immediate results. Independent from which governance arrangement is chosen, what matters most is the speed at which an arrangement can deploy solutions to combat (fast-growing) nitrogen pollution.     

Who governs here? Informal resource extraction,state enforcement,and conflict in Ghana

Over the past two decades, “illegal” natural resource extraction has become a significant driver of environmental change and social conflict across the Global South. In response, numerous Sub-Saharan African states have engaged in governance reforms that heed calls to securitize – or, establish and consolidate state control over – natural resources. In Ghana, securitization has served to entrench the informal economy as domestic producers, marginalized in the process of reform, continue to utilize non-state institutions to maintain access. While the Ghanaian state has branded “illegal” resource extraction a major environmental, social, and national security concern, it has responded to this threat unevenly; it has violently enforced its authority in some contexts but remained relatively indifferent in others. This article explores the phenomenon of selective enforcement to explain patterns of violence that have emerged between state and society in response to both securitization and informality. Drawing on a multimethod approach, I find that natural resource governance authority remains fragmented across resource contexts, and that the configuration of authority and interests on the ground shapes the extent of state intervention. I propose a natural resource typology that identifies when the state is most likely to enforce its authority, and the degree of violent conflict likely to result. Ultimately, I contend that domestic patterns of enforcement are shaped primarily by: 1) competition with local power holders over resource entitlements and 2) global conservation and extraction priorities. While specific to Ghana, this argument can provide important insights into the relationship between informal extraction, state enforcement, and social conflict in other Global South contexts.     

Knowledge integration in sustainability governance through science-based actor networks

Understanding how science, technology and innovation can best help to accelerate progress in achieving sustainable development remains a grand challenge for researchers and practitioners. In the context of the global consultation process for preparing a post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda, various science-based actor networks have emerged, aiming to translate research into political decision-making and to inform transformations towards sustainability. Over the last years, these networks seem to have taken an ever-growing role in structuring the science-policy interface in global sustainability governance. The question arises, however, how they understand and organize ‘scientific knowledge integration’ in sustainability politics.This study offers a structured comparison of twelve global science-based actor networks engaged in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. It shows that these networks use two types of strategies to foster scientific knowledge integration in sustainability governance. A new framework emerges, in which each strategy corresponds to two main approaches of scientific knowledge integration: The entrepreneurial strategy generally seeks to advance advice-oriented and solution-oriented knowledge processes, while assessment-oriented and learning-oriented processes in scientific knowledge integration are mainly promoted through a mediating strategy.     

Centralization in the global avoided deforestation collaboration network

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation projects currently cover an area approximately twice the size of Germany and challenge traditional concepts of centralization and decentralization in studies of environmental governance. Emerging from the interactions of a complex network of actors, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation demonstrates that transnational governance networks of organizations can become spatially centralized. Using a historical analysis of the development of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, we argue that the evolution of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation policy has been directed primarily from donor countries, especially in North America and Europe. Adopting a social network analysis approach, we present findings from a new dataset of collaboration on 276 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, avoided deforestation, and sustainable forest management projects that began some on-the-ground operations between 1989 and June 2012, finding that organizations in donor countries have from the beginning been the central actors in the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation network. We conclude that Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation exhibits spatial centralization within transnational governance architectures despite institutional fragmentation, raising important normative questions about participation in transnational forest governance.     

SYNERGISTIC EFFECTS ON ATMOSPHERIC ANOMALY OF THE TROPICAL INDIAN AND PACIFIC OCEANS IN NORTHERN WINTER

In terms of observational analysis and numerical simulations,study is performed of thesynergistic effects of the tropical Indian Ocean and Pacific SSTA on the atmosphere in northern win-ter.It turns out that the SSTA features show in-phase variation for the Indian Ocean and the central/eastern Pacific at low latitudes and anti-phase change compared with that in the neighborhood of thewestern Pacific“warming pool”.When negative SSTA in the western Pacific and positive SSTA inthe central/eastern Pacific and the Indian Ocean are available,the 500 hPa height anomaly exhibits awave train of a positive-negative-positive anomaly following a great-circle path emanating from thesubtropical western Pacific via the NW portion to North America,with enhanced westerly jet overmidlatitude East Asia and the NW Pacific,and v.v.The comparison to the results from the numeri-cal modeling of the tropical western Pacific SSTA reveals the importance of the synergistic effects ofthe oceans on atmospheric circulations.     

Landscape governance: The “politics of scale” and the “natural” conditions of places

Governance has become an iridescent concept in recent years. The term is widely used in almost all social-science disciplines as well as in the political process. The intention of this paper is not so much to clarify these sometimes vague meanings but to highlight some characteristics of environmental governance connected with the restructuring of the spatial dimensions of politics. It starts from the assumption that the quest for multi-level decision making is particularly pressing for environmental governance. However, multi-level governance raises concern about the constitution of various spatial levels and their relationships with each other, as discussed under the term of “politics of scale”. Moreover, it is argued that for environmental governance the spatial reference is strongly connected with another challenge, which concerns the question of how to deal with the biophysical conditions of particular places. The term landscape governance is introduced to tackle this question without referring to an ontologically given space. Thus, landscape governance deals with the interconnections between socially constructed spaces (the politics of scale) and “natural” conditions of places. For this task, the concept of societal relationships with nature is introduced and applied to the term “landscape” as a bridging concept between social and natural sciences. The paper illustrates the approach of landscape governance with examples of problem-oriented interdisciplinary research at the UFZ-Centre for Environmental research in Leipzig, Germany.