A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes

Governance failures are at the origin of many resource management problems. In particular climate change and the concomitant increase of extreme weather events has exposed the inability of current governance regimes to deal with present and future challenges. Still our knowledge about resource governance regimes and how they change is quite limited. This paper develops a conceptual framework addressing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes. The influence of formal and informal institutions, the role of state and non-state actors, the nature of multi-level interactions and the relative importance of bureaucratic hierarchies, markets and networks are identified as major structural characteristics of governance regimes. Change is conceptualized as social and societal learning that proceeds in a stepwise fashion moving from single to double to triple loop learning. Informal networks are considered to play a crucial role in such learning processes. The framework supports flexible and context sensitive analysis without being case study specific.First empirical evidence from water governance supports the assumptions made on the dynamics of governance regimes and the usefulness of the chosen approach. More complex and diverse governance regimes have a higher adaptive capacity. However, it is still an open question how to overcome the state of single-loop learning that seem to characterize many attempts to adapt to climate change. Only further development and application of shared conceptual frameworks taking into account the real complexity of governance regimes can generate the knowledge base needed to advance current understanding to a state that allows giving meaningful policy advice.     

Adaptive co-management and the paradox of learning

Much emphasis has been placed on the importance of learning to support collaborative environmental management and achieve sustainability under conditions of social–ecological change. Yet, on-going struggles to learn from experience and respond to complex social–ecological conditions reflect an emerging paradox. Despite widespread support of learning as a normative goal and process, core concepts, assumptions and approaches to learning have been applied in vague and sometimes uncritical ways. Greater specificity with respect to learning goals, approaches and outcomes is required. In response to this gap, we examine five dimensions of the learning paradox in the context of adaptive co-management, where the learning and linking functions of governance are stressed: (i) definitions of learning; (ii) learning goals and expectations; (iii) mechanisms by which learning takes place; (iv) questions regarding who is involved in the process of learning; and (v) the risks and ethical ambiguities faced by different actors expected to willingly participate in a learning process, whether formal or informal. Lessons from experience with a series of cases from the global North and South illustrate the implications of these dimensions. Resolving the dimensions of this learning paradox will require greater attention to capacity-building, recognition of the role of risk, and consideration of how incentives could be used to encourage learning. Further consideration of the role of power and marginality among groups participating in the learning process is also needed, as is more systematic evaluation to monitor and measure learning outcomes.     

Private sector involvement in urban governance: The case of Business Improvement Districts and Town Centre Management partnerships in England

Although it has many merits, the voluminous literature on urban governance gives scant attention to the actual involvement and positioning of business elites and businesses within Public-Private Partnerships. There is also little consensus among academics as to why the private sector become involved in such schemes. This paper begins to address these issues through a critical empirical examination of how and why the private sector is involved with three English Town Centre Management (TCM) partnerships and the Business Improvement District (BID) subsidiaries all three partnerships have recently developed. In order to do this, the empirical study is guided by a conceptual framework that foregrounds the relationship between (a) the opening up and monitoring of ‘institutional space’ by partnerships and the state, and (b) the motivations and ‘constrained agency’ of the business elites. The paper demonstrates that the positioning of the private sector is more multifarious and fractured than previous studies of urban governance have suggested. It also reveals that business elites and businesses view their participation as an ‘investment’ that needs to accrue significant financial returns and that partnership and state officials are highly selective in their choice of ‘who governs’.     

关于发展中国城市群GIS的探讨

城群GIS是适应城市群区域管治的需要,透过跨政府部门、跨行政区域的政府、企业、学术团体和公众之间的协作,共建和共享地理、人口、经济、资源等空间信息基础设施,发展多种多样的地理信息应用系统,服务于城市区域规划、环境保护、资源利用、大型基础设施建设、灾害防护方面的决策与行动。该文提出了城市群GIS概念,并探讨其功能和架构、关键技术、项目组织、系统实施问题,以期推动学术界对于跨组织、协作型城市群GIS的研究。     

矿山环境治理过程中资金运作模式探索与实践

矿山环境治理恢复基金制度之所以取代矿山地质环境治理恢复保证金制度,目的之一是通过基金的合理运营,为矿山环境治理提供长效稳定的资金保障。通过对矿山地质环境治理恢复保证金制度中的资金问题进行剖析,从基金来源、基金运营、基金投入三个方面提出矿山环境治理过程中新的商业运作模式,并从市场化角度对社会资本进入矿山复绿和综合利用进行了探索,以期对矿山环境治理恢复基金制度的建立提供一定的指导和参考。     

Collaborative Governance and Conflict Management: Lessons Learned and Good Practices from a Case Study in the Amazon Basin

Abstract

Given the linkages between natural resources and social conflicts, evidence increasingly shows that successful natural resource management requires conflict mitigation and prevention. However, there may be a gap in practice between knowing what processes and tools need to be used to manage conservation conflicts and how to actually implement them. We present learning from a practice-based case study of conflict management in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon that aimed to develop natural resource governance institutions and build stakeholder capacity, including of indigenous groups, to navigate existing conflict resolution mechanisms. Through applying good practices in conservation conflict management and collaborative governance, we generated important lessons on the practical considerations involved in collaborative conservation. These lessons, while specific to our case, could be applied to a variety of protected areas facing complex social-ecological systems dynamics and wicked problems.     

城市情感地理与空间治理：广州市区宣传类户外广告案例

受人文地理“情感转向”思潮的影响,城市公共空间研究开始关注情感对空间的构建作用,情感空间的营造与城市空间的治理存在一定的耦合关联。本文以广州市区的宣传类户外广告为例,援引情感地理与空间治理的相关理论,采用访谈、文本分析等方法,探讨宣传类户外广告在营造情感氛围过程中与城市空间的内在关联,进而讨论情感氛围与城市空间治理的联系。研究发现,户外广告尤其是宣传类户外广告通过视觉表征生产情感空间,由身体-街区-城市三个尺度构成情感化的公共空间,置身城市公共空间的个体在宣传类户外广告的话语作用下重构对城市空间的想象,产生“归属感”“认同感”和“安全感”等情感,并通过视觉、情感等非表征形式使居民在自我审视中加深群体文化认同,使空间治理内化。研究将情感地理的研究放置在城市这一中观尺度,通过广州市区宣传类户外广告的讨论丰富了情感地理的实证研究,同时对拓展情感地理研究的尺度与视角进行了有益探索。     

Governing industrial estates on Jakarta's periurban area: From shadow government to network governance

This article investigates the way in which periurban politics have mediated foreign direct investment relocations and facilitated the spatial restructuring of the Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA), one of the largest and fastest‐growing megaurban regions in Asia. We conducted a series of in‐depth interviews in Cikarang, the largest, most developed industrial estate corridor in the urban periphery of JMA. We identified institutional settings, power struggles and governance mechanisms underlying the industrial estate transitions in the past three decades. We found that periurban governance in JMA has resulted in poor infrastructure connectivity and tight interactor and inter‐regional competition. As global economic turbulence and decentralization policies restrict the effectiveness of privatization strategies, network strategies are trialled to promote sustainability and inclusiveness in JMA's industrial estates and towns.     

Between coercion and consent: the politics of “Cooperative Governance” at a time of “Austerity Localism” in London

At a time of “austerity localism”, this paper explores how local authorities in London, England, are simultaneously addressing the dual pressures of delivering fiscal retrenchment and of enrolling citizens in new participatory public service arrangements, asking whether “these trends pull against one another, in opposite directions, or whether they are the tough and tender dimensions of a singular process: austerian management” Drawing on empirical research into the London Borough of Lambeth’s Cooperative Council agenda, as well as Foucauldian and Gramscian critiques of participatory network governance theories and practice, this paper shows how participatory forms of governance can be folded into the logic of hierarchy and coercion through various governmental technologies of performance and agency (consent), and through tactics of administrative domination (coercion). As budget cuts continue to affect local government in England, this paper concludes that although small experiments in participatory governance may persist, the dominant mode of governance is likely to shift towards more hierarchical and coercive forms.     

2000年以来中国县级行政区划调整的类型、特征及趋势分析

系统地梳理了2000—2016年中国县级行政区划调整的631个案例,归纳了县级行政区划调整的主要类型,包括撤县（市）设区、撤县设市、行政区合并、增设行政区、边界调整、隶属变更和建制升格7类,发现各种类型变更的背后都隐含着深刻的社会经济背景和特定的需求。详细分析了县级行政区划调整数量和类型的时空分布特征,发现具有时间上集中和空间上聚集相结合的特点,随着不同时期国家或区域发展的战略导向不同,县级行政区划调整的构成和指向会随之发生变化;县级行政区划变更有着明显区域差别,经济发达和城镇化发育较高的地区是调整重点,城镇化导向突出;县级行政区划较多的省份变更频繁,减少了县和县级市数量;注重了民族地区和边疆地区行政区划变革,有利于促进民族和边疆地区发展。立足于空间治理,认为县级行政区划调整和优化基本上围绕城镇化、区域发展、边疆治理和民族地区发展等战略的要求展开,代表了未来调整的趋向。