Karin Ingold

University of Bern | UniBe · Institute of Political Science

The majority of the world's largest carbon emitters are either federations or have adopted systems of decentralised governance. The realisation of the world's climate mitigation objectives therefore depends in large part on whether and how governments within federal systems can cooperate to reduce carbon emissions and catalyse the emergence of low-...

The role of the parliamentary arena and members of parliament (MPs) therein for both mainstreaming and cross-sectoral policy integration is largely unknown. Studying the case of Switzerland, this paper analyzes the integration of the biodiversity issue into policies of 20 different policy sectors over a period of 19 years to assess how two specific...

The effective conservation and promotion of biodiversity requires its integration into a wide range of sectoral policies. For this to happen, the issue must receive attention across policy sectors. Yet, we know little about how attention to the issue evolves over time and across sectors. Drawing from the literature on environmental policy integrati...

Policy discourses are important platforms for political actors to express their preferences on certain issues and are usually linked to a specific policy subsystem. From a research perspective, they have the potential to indicate ideological coalitions, policy change and learning. Using discourse network analysis, we identify core policy actors, is...

Managing environmental problems requires cross‐sectoral and cross‐level collaboration among actors. Scholars of institutional arrangements investigate how rules shape such collaboration. Scholars of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) look for explanations for collaboration in actors' values and beliefs. Rarely have these two factors been consid...

Pestizide werden primär in der Landwirtschaft, aber auch im Siedlungsraum und in weiteren Bereichen eingesetzt. Als Pflanzenschutzmittel vermindern sie Ertrags- oder Qualitätseinbussen durch Schadorganismen. Der heutige Pestizideinsatz belastet aber die Umwelt und insbesondere die Biodiversität beträchtlich. Trotz Wissenslücken sind die unerwünscht...

This chapter discusses water governance, network concepts and methods, and their relations. It does so by referring to the case study chapters and the elements studied therein. After systematically presenting the complexities of water governance and the ways water issues are typically governed and managed, the chapter discusses the contributions of...

The world is in the grip of a crisis that stands unprecedented in living memory. The COVID-19 pandemic is urgent, global in scale, and massive in impacts. Following Harold D. Lasswell’s goal for the policy sciences to offer insights into unfolding phenomena, this commentary draws on the lessons of the policy sciences literature to understand the dy...

With the consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss becoming more and more apparent, both the protection of water resources and water-related ecosystems as well as protection from water, that is flood protection policies, have become increasingly important. This book explores the latest applications of network analysis concepts and meas...

Policy positions are used extensively to explain coalition formation, advocacy success and policy outputs, and government consultations and stakeholder surveys are seen as important means of gathering data about policy actors' positions. However, we know little about how accurately official consultations and stakeholder surveys reflect their views....

One major challenge of water quality management is that the source of pollution and its effects might be spatially disentangled. This cause-effect misfit has large implications on how surface water in a hydrological catchment area is managed and regulated. We argue in this paper that such misfit can best be addressed through interconnected and mult...

The concept of “advocacy coalitions” is the bedrock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), one of the most established and successful approaches for understanding policy processes across the globe. This article revisits and sharpens the conceptual definition of advocacy coalitions. We summarize the lessons from its theoretical emphases under th...

This paper is about stakeholders’ acceptance regarding regulatory instruments in energy policy. We expect that today’s introduced instruments not only correspond most to technocratic principles and what elected officials prefer, but that they correlate with the preferences of a wider number of public and private actors in policymaking. We therefore...

Multiple actors across different institutional levels play a role in water governance. The coordination of these actors is important for effective water governance. However, the joining together of multiple actors can have several implications, such as a redistribution of power across actors, a change in democratic control and citizen influence as...

This chapter shows how public administrations, in order to maintain influence over the conduct of public policies, assume new roles, at least when compared to the tasks and sovereign competencies under an ideal-typical Weberian bureaucracy. Empirical evidence from Switzerland indicates that an administrative entity can cast itself in turn as a poli...

Environmental problems are often multi-faceted and complex by nature, consisting of diverse, intertwined dimensions. In this article, we argue that environmental problem characteristics have consequences for the selection of appropriate governance modes, and finally on policy effectiveness. We rely on an in-depth literature review to proceed in two...

Citizens are the target group of sustainability policies, and their acceptance and subsequent behavioral change are key in transition processes. But what drives citizens to accept new instruments that will be added to a pre-existing instrument mix? To answer this question, we suggest an innovative combination of sustainability transitions and socia...

In this paper, we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of social behavior by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of individual social networks. More precisely, we ask if personality traits significantly relate to individuals’ social integration and position in their ego-network. W...

Kapitel 4 setzt seinen Fokus auf die Akzeptanz und die Wahl von energiepolitischen Steuerungsinstrumenten zur Förderung von erneuerbaren Energien. Wir befinden uns dabei auf der Ebene der Schweizer Kantone (im Gegensatz zur nationalen Energiepolitik) und fokussieren auf die sogenannte «politische Elite». Dazu zählen neben Entscheidungsträgerinnen u...

In policymaking, actors are likely to take the preferences of others into account when strategically positioning themselves. However, there is a lack of research that conceives of policy preferences as an interdependent system. In order to analyse interdependencies, we link actors to their policy preferences in water protection, which results in an...

Die Schweiz hat sich ambitionierte Ziele in der Energiepolitik gesetzt. Das vorliegende Buch nimmt die aktuelle Debatte über die Erreichung der Ziele auf und untersucht die Chancen und Herausforderungen, die sich beim Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien im Rahmen der Energiestrategie 2050 des Bundes ergeben. Ziel ist es, die Bestimmungsfaktoren der so...

Fragmentation across scales in natural resource governance can impede coordinated action and decrease innovation capacity. Bridging actors who connect others within governance networks helps to overcome this challenge. We analyze two bridging positions for actors in governance networks. First, periphery connectors integrate otherwise unconnected ac...

One open question in environmental sciences is whether effective management of natural resources depends on the fit between the bio-physical and the governance system. To address this question, we investigate water quality in transboundary rivers and ask to what extent a fit between the area covered by the physical extent of pollution and the area...

We address a key puzzle in policy studies: why don't major differences in political systems and policy produce major differences in policy processes, outputs, and outcomes? We show why key aspects of fracking policy are similar in the UK and Switzerland despite the UK majoritarian government being 'all out for shale' and Switzerland's consensus dem...

This paper analyzes the prospects for introducing the precautionary principle in water protection policy. In situations where a problem enters the political agenda and scientific uncertainties remain about causes or effects, political actors can justify state intervention based on the precautionary principle. It allows for public action even if ris...

New techniques of unconventional oil and gas extraction, such as hydraulic fracturing, challenge current political, institutional and administrative practices in how to regulate activities in the underground. Conflicts of interests between economic promotion, landscape and natural resource protection, and new trends on energy markets are further in...

Research on social processes in the production of scientific output suggests that the collective research agenda of a discipline is influenced by its structural features, such as “invisible colleges” or “groups of collaborators” as well as academic “stars” that are embedded in, or connect, these research groups. Based on an encompassing dataset tha...

Die öffentliche Politik der Schweiz unter der Lupe: Wer sich in der Politik engagiert, will, dass gesellschaftliche Fragen gemäss den eigenen Vorstellungen geregelt werden, wie zum Beispiel in der Migrations-, Umwelt-oder Landwirtschaftspolitik. Die verschiedenen Arten der Lösung gesellschaftlicher Probleme bilden die öffentliche Politik. Die Polic...

The processes and impacts of climate change require adaptation through what can be described as horizontal and vertical structures of actors' integration. In climate adaptation and natural resource management literature, this structural component is often related to social capital, which is defined in various ways but usually refers to a public goo...

Although there are no immediate projects of unconventional gas exploitation using hydraulic fracturing in Switzerland, the issue is on the political agenda. In federalist Switzerland, cantons are responsible for attributing the respective concessions to private companies according to the usual regulatory procedure of mineral and gas extraction. Yet...

The UK government seems to be ‘all out for shale’, but the regulatory process is ongoing, and there remain many hurdles to pass before shale gas can be developed commercially. We try to understand the intermediate policy outcome by identifying advocacy coalitions and explaining how they share information. We identify a large, tentatively pro-explor...

The conclusion of this book highlights the major insights surrounding the comparative study of advocacy coalitions and public policies on hydraulic fracturing across seven countries. Based on the chapter findings, it discusses insights into factors influencing the structure and functioning of policy subsystems, the characteristics of advocacy coali...

This study investigates the conditions under which pro-status quo groups increase their advocacy success during an entire policymaking process. It scrutinises whether pro-status quo defenders who are involved in multiple institutional venues and who join many coalitions of interest groups are able to achieve their policy preferences. A case study f...

The study of public policy deals with subsystems in which actors cooperate or compete to turn their beliefs into policy solutions. Yet, most studies concern mature subsystems in which the main actors and their allies and enemies can easily be identified. This paper tackles the challenge of studying nascent subsystems, in which actors have begun to...

The aim of this paper is to investigate how sustainability perceptions are emergent properties of collaborative networks in flood governance in Switzerland. In recent decades, the impact of global warming and multiple stresses on water regimes has influenced the design of new approaches to flood risk management, especially in Western Europe. The us...

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is widely accepted and has been implemented though international, national and regional water management guidelines. Nonetheless, concrete implementation of IWRM gives rise to new questions for policy analysis. Scholars interested in water regulation, the design of effective and efficient policy instrumen...

Social Network Analysis (SNA) conceptualizes a policy-making process as a network of actors. It can assess if an interest group (IGs) occupies a leading central position within this policy network, if it belongs to various ad hoc coalitions or if it plays a brokering role between different stakeholders. Such network variables are crucial to capture...

In a complex and multilevel regime, countries’ national and international strategies to address climate change may considerably differ. Adopting an actor-centered approach, the aim of this article is to outline and understand the potential difference between a nation’s domestic climate policy and its position in the international climate regime. We...

Policies and politics are an integral part of socio-technical transitions but have not received much attention in the transitions literature so far. Drawing on the advocacy coalition framework, our paper addresses this gap with a study on actors and coalitions in Swiss energy policy. Our results show that advocacy coalitions in Switzerland have lar...

The reclamation, treatment and reuse of municipal wastewater can provide important environmental benefits. In this paper, 25 studies on this topic were reviewed and it was found that there are many (>150) different drivers acting for and against wastewater recycling. To deal with the challenge of comparing studies which entailed different research...

Policy implementation by private actors constitutes a “missing link” for understanding the implications of private governance. This paper proposes and assesses an institutional logics framework that combines a top-down, policy design approach with a bottom-up, implementation perspective on discretion. We argue that the conflicting institutional log...

Co-authorship is an important indicator of scientific collaboration. Co-authorship networks are composed of sub-communities, and researchers can gain visibility by connecting these insulated subgroups. This article presents a comprehensive co-authorship network analysis of Swiss political science. Three levels are addressed: disciplinary cohesion a...

Although the recycling of municipal wastewater can play an important role in water supply security and ecosystem protection, the percentage of wastewater recycled is generally low and strikingly variable. Previous research has employed detailed case studies to examine the factors that contribute to recycling success, but usually lacks a comparative...

In this chapter, we suggest an empirical analysis of the power distribution outlined in the current Swiss constitution. We furthermore concentrate on the historical evolution of the constitutional text. We compare three points in time: the original Federal constitution of 1874, its complete revision in 1999, and finally the text in force in 2011.

Policy actors tend to misinterpret and distrust opponents in policy processes. This phenomenon, known as the “devil shift”, consists of the following two dimensions: actors perceive opponents as more powerful and as more evil than they really are. Analysing nine policy processes in Switzerland, this article highlights the drivers of the devil shift...

Policies and politics are an integral part of socio-technical transitions but have not received much attention in the transitions literature so far. Our paper addresses this gap with a study on actors and coalitions in Swiss energy policy making. Drawing on the advocacy coalition framework, we develop first ideas about the interplay of socio-techni...

Policy brokers and policy entrepreneurs are assumed to have a decisive impact on policy outcomes. Their access to social and political resources is contingent on their influence on other agents. In social network analysis (SNA), entrepreneurs are often closely associated with brokers, because both are agents presumed to benefit from bridging struct...

The central assumption in the literature on collaborative networks and policy networks is that political outcomes are affected by a variety of state and nonstate actors. Some of these actors are more powerful than others and can therefore have a considerable effect on decision making. In this article, we seek to provide a structural and institution...

In natural resources governance, there is a growing awareness on the importance of being able to manage multidimensional networks which involve a multitude of actors representing different levels (from local to international; vertical integration) and various (public and private) sectors (horizontal integration). The organizations which play key ro...

Although many policy process and diffusion theories follow the premise that scientific and technological knowledge plays a crucial role in a wide variety of policy fields, very few empirically assess the impact that institutional and process-relevant factors may have on the position of science within a process. The present study addresses the quest...

The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) is one of the most frequently applied theories of the policy process. Most applications have been in Western Europe and North America. This article provides an overview of the ACF, summarizes existing applications outside of Western Europe and North America, and introduces the special issue that features appli...

Climate change is clearly discernible in observed climate records in Switzerland. It impacts on natural systems, ecosystems, and economic sectors such as agriculture, tourism, and energy, and it affects Swiss livelihood in various ways. The observed and projected changes call for a response from the political system, which in Switzerland is charact...

This paper applies a policy analysis approach to the question of how to effectively regulate micropollution in a sustainable manner. Micropollution is a complex policy problem characterized by a huge number and diversity of chemical substances, as well as various entry paths into the aquatic environment. It challenges traditional water quality mana...

The liberalization process of the Swiss telecommunications sector follows a logic of ‘autonomous adaptation’ to the regulations of the European Union (EU). Switzerland, which is not a Member State of the EU, voluntarily adapts to the European policy without being formally required to do so (Sciarini et al., 2004). This process went hand in hand wit...

This article uses a policy network perspective to assess the independence of regulatory agencies (RAs) in liberalized public utility sectors. We focus on the de facto independence of RAs from elected politicians, regulatees and other co-regulators. We go further than previous studies, which only undertook a general analysis of the de jure independe...

Environmental policy and decision-making are characterized by complex interactions between different actors and sectors. As a rule, a stakeholder analysis is performed to understand those involved, but it has been criticized for lacking quality and consistency. This lack is remedied here by a formal social network analysis that investigates collabo...

Independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) were created in various sectors and on different governmental levels to implement liberalization policies. This paper investigates the link between IRAs' independence, which is said to promote regulatory credibility and the use of technical expertise, and their accountability, which is related to the need for...

Climate adaptation policies increasingly incorporate sustainability principles into their design and implementation. Since successful adaptation by means of adaptive capacity is recognized as being dependent upon progress toward sustainable development, policy design is increasingly characterized by the inclusion of state and non-state actors (hori...

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 parti...

This article looks at the reconfiguration of the regulatory actors' network, as induced by the liberalization and reregulation processes in utility sectors. It investigates the changes in governance structures and patterns of collaborative ties between actors resulting from these processes. Applying stochastic actor‐oriented modeling (SAOM) to data...

Appropriately bounded integration can be a basis for sustainable management of water resources.

The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) pays special attention to "so-called" policy brokers when explaining policy change. However, this prominent policy approach neither clearly defines who the policy brokers are nor identifies under which institutional rules they have an influence on policy processes and outputs. This article thus formulates two...

How can we distinguish between political brokers and political entrepreneurs within political space? Examining the role of individual agents, we can identify a number of definitional weaknesses in the entrepreneurship and leadership literature. This leads us to consider the agency determinants of broadly defined exceptional actors. We argue that ac...

Network analysis provides a powerful toolkit to operationalize, measure, and model core theoretical concepts in research on the policy process. Prominent among these concepts is that of an advocacy coalition, or a group of actors who coordinate with one another to pursue common policy goals. How to identify advocacy coalitions is an important empir...

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is a prominent approach to investigate the formation of coalition and their impact on policy outputs. Although the ACF combines both the network structures of a political process with actors' values and belief systems, most empirical tests focus mainly on beliefs rather than network structures. Considering a r...

Forestry is an important source of income for forest owners and those employed in rural areas. In recent years, this sector has had to tackle far-reaching changes taking place in the social, economic and political system. New demands are now being addressed and policies reformulated. As a response to this pressure, new decision-making structures an...

This paper examines how local communities adapt to climate change and how governance structures can foster or undermine adaptive capacity. Climate change policies, in general, and disaster risk management in mountain regions, in particular, are characterised by their multi-level and multi-sectoral nature during formulation and implementation. The i...

Cet article constitue une contribution à l'analyse des politiques publiques en Suisse. Concrètement et en appliquant une approche bi-dimensionnelle, il explique l'output actuel de la politique climatique suisse en tenant compte des structures et préférences au sein de l'élite politique. Sur la base de l'Advocacy Coalition Framework, l'article étudi...

This paper explores the reasons why economic instruments of climate change are reluctantly applied and stresses the need for interdisciplinary research linking economic theory and empirical testing to deliberative political procedures. It is divided in three parts. The first one recalls the main issues in implementing Cost-Benefit Analysis such as...

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