No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Assisted network governance: An inclusive innovation to mitigate extreme water scarcity
Abstract
We study a local innovation of natural resource governance in Chile in times of extreme water scarcity. Through the issuance of a scarcity decree, the government obliges local water user associations (WUAs) to reach viable water redistribution agreements in order to avoid being overruled by the state. In the Aconcagua River, the government together with the WUAs created the Executive Committee, where only the WUAs have a vote, but private and public stakeholders participate in the process of negotiating water use agreements. Grounded on thematic coding of the detailed minutes of over 80 committee meetings since its inception, we examine the workings of a new local model of Assisted Network Governance (ANG). Based on content and social network analysis of over 1,000 directed interactions among committee members, we find that ANG, as an element of broader hybrid governance, has not only produced viable agreements for immediate water redistribution, but has also facilitated longer-term system improvements by building mutual understanding, resolving conflicts, and mobilizing external resources to improve infrastructure. We conclude that ANG helps accomplish common objectives in the field of natural resources under conditions of extreme water scarcity.
... Co-management requires multilevel organisational structures and processes. Networks are often presented as a flexible organisational form for this purpose (Gutiérrez & Glückler, 2022;Sandström & Rova, 2009, 2010. Indeed, social networks are the basic organisational unit of co-management at multiple levels, especially in complex socio-ecological systems, and a key structure for the articulation of social learning (Berkes, 2009;Marín & Berkes, 2010). ...
... The basic idea of network governance is to collectively engage in complex management processes that are difficult to control through rigid rules and hierarchies (Hirschi, 2010;Lauber et al., 2008). Within a co-management system, each participating entity can become a node in a network built around the value of interaction between different actors and different institutional arrangements (Carlsson & Berkes, 2005;Carlsson & Sandström, 2008;Gutiérrez & Glückler, 2022;Marín & Berkes, 2010). ...
... This study covered only network snapshots of two organisations at a particular point in time, and it has recognised that the influence of multiple factors and events, such as high turnover rates in membership or drastic fluctuations in the stocks of key resources, are important for understanding the evolution of member legitimacy. We hope that our discussion will help other researchers to better understand the interaction between attributes in networks and outcomes in the sustainable governance of the commons Carlsson & Sandström, 2008;Gutiérrez & Glückler, 2022;Ramírez-Sánchez & Pinkerton, 2009). ...
By introducing Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries (TURF), the Chilean government has devolved authority over the appropriation of benthic fisheries to local fishers' organisations. Yet there is little evidence of how this local governance works for membership organisations. Drawing on the theory of lateral network governance, the role of legitimacy in governance outcomes is examined by conducting a comparative case study of two TURF networks in northern Chile. Counterintuitively, more effective governance outcomes were found in the TURF network characterised by a less favourable legitimacy structure of decision-making than the case with a better legitimacy structure. Considering context and network evolution, it is suggested that although organisational renewal and high membership turnover potentially fragment legitimacy, they also enable novel collective action and better governance outcomes. The observed divergence of actual legitimacy from formal governance structure underscores the need for dynamic analysis of collective resource governance beyond the formal chart.
... In light of this debate, it still remains a pending question how particular patterns of governance relations convey effective outcomes in particular contexts. It is this relational context in which network governance approaches have begun to develop solutions for governance practice (Jones et al. 1997;Provan and Kenis 2008;Bodin and Crona 2009;Scott 2015;Keast 2016;Gutiérrez and Glückler 2022). To advance our understanding of the relational forms and processes of collaboration and legitimation in governance, we adopt the concept of lateral network governance (Glückler and Hammer 2015;Glückler 2020). ...
... Chile has experienced a severe water scarcity for several reasons. First, a continuous decline in precipitation has led to an uninterrupted succession of dry years since 2010 (CR2 2015), which is often referred to as the so-called megadrought (Gutiérrez and Glückler 2022). Second, and concurrently, changes in land use from smallholder agriculture to extensive monocultures of various trees have increased water use by agro-industrial companies in the country's many drylands (Budds 2012). ...
We focus on the relationship between the network structure of Chilean rural drinking water associations (APRs) and effective governance outcomes regarding the provision of infrastructure and drinking water to peripheral rural communities in the Valparaiso region. Based on a comparative regional multi-method case study, we assess the coherence of differences in the governance network structure with the corresponding governance outcomes. Using qualitative interviews, participant observation, and a network survey of collaboration and legitimacy relationships among leaders of local APRs, we find that when isolated APRs establish collective organizations, they can generate better governance outcomes even without support from the state. We demonstrate that higher levels of collaboration as well as a more integrative distribution of legitimacy relations in the network are coherent with more effective governance outcomes. The findings suggest to strengthen social and organizational capacity at the local level of water governance in order to overcome the challenges of megadroughts and of a lack of public infrastructure in peripheral rural areas.
This article suggests a contribution to the literature on territorial governance through the study of a local partnership or collaborative mode of action to support innovation, an innovation policy. Our fundamental question can therefore be formulated as follows: How can territorial governance contribute to fostering the dynamics of innovation? The methodology used for the theoretical analysis was descriptive, the research work was carried out on the Scopus platform database, obtaining specific information from 39 scientific productions, a more or less significant number for the subject addressed, which was subjected to a bibliometric study that allowed us to note that the growth in publications from 2018 to 2023 has had a significant increase, which allows us to deduce that this subject is becoming increasingly important and attractive to those concerned because of its importance in territorial development. In fact, we found that France leads the ranking with 6 scientific productions, and the scientific field that stands out most in the publications is that of management sciences and commerce. In the same perspective, visualization via figures and sectors was mobilized in order to obtain the study cartography of the theme of the territorial governance of innovation. Based on the in-depth theoretical analysis, the theories relating to the paradigms of this theme were analyzed, which enabled us to better understand that collaborative actions at the level of territorial governance (regions, industrial districts, etc.) favour innovation. According to this bibliometric analysis, we find that appropriate governance based on collaboration and partnership improves the dynamics of innovation activities, whereas private hierarchical governance generates conflicts between participants, which has a negative impact on the dynamics of innovation.
Social network analysis has become a popular methodology in human geography. This article develops three propositions – connectivity, contextuality, and reflexivity – for relational analysis to overcome the dualism between universalist network science on the one hand and idiosyncratic network stories on the other. Building on a detailed meta-analysis of over 300 network studies published between 1990 and 2018, we offer a sympathetic critique of the actual use of network methods in human geography. To unleash further potential of network research, we propose several research strategies for more inclusive relational analysis, including informed pre-specification, triangulation, and communicative validation.
The author of this article goes beyond acknowledging networks as a governance mode to elaborate on the actual forms of governance that convey legitimate and acceptable coordination. He advances the concept of lateral network governance in the empirical context of organized networks, in which organizations pool resources and join their interests in the pursuit of common goals. To solve the puzzle of having independent equals commit themselves to coordinating their actions, the author aims to overcome the traditional dualism between formal and informal mechanisms of governance. Instead, he conceives lateral network governance as a structure for the legitimate delegation of decision-making. He develops a social network analytic approach to assessing the relational distribution of legitimacy. With his empirical analysis of two case studies of inter-firm network organizations, he illustrates the degree to which the actual legitimacy distribution diverges from formal governance authority. Lateral network governance has practical implications for inter-organizational networks and network managers.
Water Users Associations (WUAs) play a key role in accomplishing a collective water management in Chile since they are in charge of the distribution of the resource as well as the conflict resolution. Even though they have proven to be efficient in fulfilling their objectives, they have low participation and formation rates. Previous research has shown that these problems may come from a weak institutional structure and its limited capacity. However, we lack the information of the institutional situation before 1819. This study then pursues to understand the water management system and how the conflict resolution worked in Chilean colonial times (pre-1819) and how it may have influenced the present system. To this purpose, the transcription of nearly 40 judicial water-related trials from 1729 to 1802 was analyzed in the scope of collective water governance. Results show that even though the main principles of collective action where in fact present during colonial trials, not all actors where equally represented. The lack of representation of all actors in the given institutional framework may have influenced posterior rulings. Thus, current policies must be adapted in order to promote inclusion of all actors in the institutional framework as to promote WUAs successful formation.
Hybrid (or multi-actor) governance has been identified as a key opportunity for upscaling urban nature-based solutions (referred to as urban NBS), representing a demand-driven and cost-effective realization of urban green infrastructure. However it is unclear how such hybrid governance affects the justice outcomes of urban NBS. Through six in-depth cases of urban NBS we show that hybrid governance can lead to both improvements and deterioration of distributional, procedural and recognition justice, depending on the hybrid governance choices. By exploring the tensions between these justice impacts we formulate three main policy implications for hybrid governance settings: the need for transparent decision-making on the distribution of costs and benefits; safeguarding public control over the urban NBS and the use of scientific expertise in combination with bottom-up consultation procedures to recognize both current and future voices.
Faced with accelerating environmental challenges, research on social-ecological systems is increasingly focused on the need for transformative change towards sustainable stewardship of natural resources. This paper analyses the potential of rapid, large-scale socio-political change as a window of opportunity for transformative change of natural resources governance. We hypothesize that shocks at higher levels of social organization may open up opportunities for transformation of social-ecological systems into new pathways of development. However, opportunities need to be carefully navigated otherwise transformations may stall or lead the social-ecological system in undesirable directions. We investigate (i) under which circumstances socio-political change has been used by actors as a window of opportunity for initiating transformation towards sustainable natural resource governance, (ii) how the different levels of the systems (landscape, regime and niche) interact to pave the way for initiating such transformations and (iii) which key features (cognitive, structural and agency-related) get mobilized for transformation. This is achieved through analyzing natural resource governance regimes of countries that have been subject to rapid, large-scale political change: water governance in South Africa and Uzbekistan and governance of coastal fisheries in Chile. In South Africa the political and economic change of the end of the apartheid regime resulted in a transformation of the water governance regime while in Uzbekistan after the breakdown of the Soviet Union change both at the economic and political scales and within the water governance regime remained superficial. In Chile the democratization process after the Pinochet era was used to transform the governance of coastal fisheries. The paper concludes with important insight on key capacities needed to navigate transformation towards biosphere stewardship. The study also contributes to a more nuanced view on the relationship between collapse and renewal.
Most if not all environmental problems entail conflicts of interest. Yet, different actors and opposing coalitions often but certainly not always cooperate in solving these problems. Hence, processes of conflict and cooperation often work in tandem, albeit much of the scholarly literature tends to focus on either of these phenomena in isolation. Social network analysis (SNA) provides opportunities to study cooperation and conflict together. In this review, we demonstrate how SNA has increased our understanding of the promises and pitfalls of collaborative approaches in addressing environmental problems. The potential of SNA to investigate conflicts in environmental governance, however, remains largely underutilized. Furthermore, a network perspective is not restricted to the social domain. A multilevel social-ecological network perspective facilitates integration of social and environmental sciences in understanding how different patterns of resource access can trigger both cooperation and conflict.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 45 is October 19, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Since 2010, Chile has experienced one of the most severe droughts over the last century, the so-called mega-drought (MD). The MD conditions, combined with intensive agricultural activities and the current water management system, have led to water scarcity problems in Mediterranean and Semi-arid regions of Chile. An emblematic case is the Petorca basin, where a water crisis is undergone. To characterize this crisis, we analyzed water provision by using tree-ring records, remote sensing, instrumental data, and allocated water rights within the basin. Results indicate that the MD is the most severe dry period over the last 700-years of streamflow reconstruction. During the MD, streamflow and water bodies of the upper parts of the basin have been less affected than mid and low areas of this valley, where consumptive withdrawals reach up to 18% of the mean annual precipitation. This extracted volume is similar to the MD mean annual precipitation deficits. The impacts of the current drought, along with the drier climate projections for Central Chile, emphasize the urgency for faster policy changes related to water provision. Climate change adaptation plans and policies should enhance the current monitoring network and the public control of water use to secure the water access for inhabitants and productive activities.
Este artículo va más allá del reconocimiento de las redes como un modo de gobernanza para elaborar sobre las formas reales de gobernanza que transmiten una coordinación legítima y aceptable. Avanza el concepto de gobernanza lateral de redes en el contexto empírico de las redes organizadas, en el que las empresas ponen en común sus recursos y unen sus intereses en la búsqueda de objetivos comunes. Para resolver el rompecabe-zas de tener iguales independientes que se comprometan a coordinar sus acciones, el documento pretende superar el dualismo tradicional entre los mecanismos formales e informales de gobernanza. En su lugar, concibe la gobernanza lateral de la red como una estructura para la delegación legítima de la toma de decisiones. Desarrolla un enfoque analítico de redes sociales para evaluar la distribución relacional de la legitimidad. El análisis empírico de dos estudios de caso de organizaciones de redes entre empresas ilustra el grado en que la distribución real de la legitimidad difiere de la autoridad formal de gobernanza. La gobernanza lateral de redes tiene consecuencias prácticas para los gerentes de redes.
Water services face global challenges, many of which are institutional by nature. While technical solutions may suit several situations, institutional frameworks are likely to vary more. On the basis of constructive research approach and new institutional economics we analyze and illustrate water services and the roles of various water sector actors in Finnish water utility setting using the “soccer analogy” by the Nobel Laureate D.C. North: Institutions are the “formal and informal rules of the game” while organizations are the “players”. Additionally, we assess the Finnish water governance system and discuss issues of scale and fragmentation and distinguish terms water provision and production. Finally, we elaborate the limitations of the soccer analogy to water services through ownership of the systems. According to the soccer analogy, inclusive institutional development requires skillful players (competent staff), team play (collaboration), proper coaching (education), supporters (citizens, media), managers (policymakers), and referees (authorities). We argue that institutional diversity and player/stakeholder collaboration are the foundation for enhancing good multi-level water governance, and that water management, although fragmented, should be seen as a connector of different sectors. For successful outcomes, scientific results should be communicated to public in more common language.
Central Chile, home to more than 10 million inhabitants, has experienced an uninterrupted sequence of dry years since 2010 with mean rainfall deficits of 20–40%. The so‐called Mega Drought (MD) is the longest event on record and with few analogues in the last millennia. It encompasses a broad area, with detrimental effects on water availability, vegetation and forest fires that have scaled into social and economical impacts. Observations and reanalysis data reveal that the exceptional length of the MD results from the prevalence of a circulation dipole‐hindering the passage of extratropical storms over central Chile—characterized by deep tropospheric anticyclonic anomalies over the subtropical Pacific and cyclonic anomalies over the Amundsen–Bellingshausen Sea. El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a major modulator of such dipole, but the MD has occurred mostly under ENSO‐neutral conditions, except for the winters of 2010 (La Niña) and 2015 (strong El Niño). Climate model simulations driven both with historical forcing (natural and anthropogenic) and observed global SST replicate the south Pacific dipole and capture part of the rainfall anomalies. Idealized numerical experiments suggest that most of the atmospheric anomalies emanate from the subtropical southwest Pacific, a region that has experienced a marked surface warming over the last decade. Such warming may excite atmospheric Rossby waves whose propagation intensifies the circulation pattern leading to dry conditions in central Chile. On the other hand, anthropogenic forcing (greenhouse gases concentration increase and stratospheric ozone depletion) and the associated positive trend of the Southern Annular Mode also contribute to the strength of the south Pacific dipole and hence to the intensity and longevity of the MD. Given the concomitance of the seemingly natural (ocean sourced) and anthropogenic forcing, we anticipate only a partial recovery of central Chile precipitation in the decades to come.
Global food security is negatively affected by drought. Climate projections show that drought frequency and intensity may increase in different parts of the globe. These increases are particularly hazardous for developing countries. Early season forecasts on drought occurrence and severity could help to better mitigate the negative consequences of drought. The objective of this study was to assess if interannual variability in agricultural productivity in Chile can be accurately predicted from freely-available, near real-time data sources. As the response variable, we used the standard score of seasonal cumulative NDVI (zcNDVI), based on 2000-2017 data from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), as a proxy for anomalies of seasonal primary productivity. The predictions were performed with forecast lead times from one-to six-month before the end of the growing season, which varied between census units in Chile. Predictor variables included the zcNDVI obtained by cumulating NDVI from season start up to prediction time; standardised precipitation indices derived from satellite rainfall estimates, for timescales of 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months; the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Multivariate ENSO oscillation indices; the length of the growing season, and latitude and longitude. For each of the 758 census units considered, the time series of the response and the predictor variables were averaged for agricultural areas resulting in a 17-season time series per unit for each variable. We used two prediction approaches: (i) optimal linear regression (OLR) whereby for each census unit the single predictor was selected that best explained the interannual zcNDVI variability, and (ii) a multi-layer feedforward neural network architecture , often called deep learning (DL), where all predictors for all units were combined in a single spatio-temporal model. Both approaches were evaluated with a leave-one-year-out cross-validation procedure. Both methods showed good prediction accuracies for small lead times and similar values for all lead times. The mean R cv 2 values for OLR were 0.95, 0.83, 0.68, 0.56, 0.46 and 0.37, against 0.96, 0.84, 0.65, 0.54, 0.46 and 0.38 for DL, for one, two, three, four, five, and six months lead time, respectively. Given the wide range of climates and vegetation types covered within the study area, we expect that the presented models can contribute to an improved early warning system for agricultural drought in different geographical settings around the globe.
Determining how to adapt to freshwater scarcity and variability has become an important question for institutional analysis and development. This paper addresses the assignment challenge in drought adaptation, namely the challenge of assigning and coordinating governance responsibilities across nested levels of social organisation. The subsidiarity principle suggests that adaptation decisions and associated governance responsibilities should occur at the lowest level at which they can be performed competently. Droughts and related slow-onset ‘shocks’ throw into question which level is lowest, and how this varies with the duration, severity and extent of the event. This paper explores the potential for the subsidiarity principle to guide the assignment and assessment of governance responsibilities associated with drought adaptation. It reviews literature at the intersection of common pool resource studies and new institutional economics to elaborate four diagnostic questions: (1) what are the opportunities and limits of decentralised (independent) drought adaptation?; (2) how are social dilemmas and spillovers associated with drought adaptation managed?; (3) when do higher level institutions complement versus crowd out decentralised adaptation?; and (4) how does adaptation by individuals and groups affect adaptive efficiency? An illustrative comparison of drought adaptation in the US portions of the Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers of North America demonstrates: (i) the potential and limits of decentralised adaptation through urban water conservation and irrigation efficiency (ii) the importance of both formal and informal coordination institutions (e.g. river basin organisations) to address cross-border externalities, including conflicts and economies of scale, and (iii) the pivotal role of groundwater management for adaptive efficiency, requiring a balance between local, short-term dependence on groundwater for drought adaptation with transboundary, long-term outcomes caused by unsustainable extractions. © 2018, Igitur, Utrecht Publishing and Archiving Services. All rights reserved.
This chapter provides an introduction to the analysis of relational event data (i.e., actions, interactions, or other events involving multiple actors that occur over time) within the R/statnet platform. We begin by reviewing the basics of relational event modeling, with an emphasis on models with piecewise constant hazards. We then discuss estimation for dyadic and more general relational event models using the relevent package, with an emphasis on hands-on applications of the methods and interpretation of results. Statnet is a collection of packages for the R statistical computing system that supports the representation, manipulation, visualization, modeling, simulation, and analysis of relational data. Statnet packages are contributed by a team of volunteer developers, and are made freely available under the GNU Public License. These packages are written for the R statistical computing environment, and can be used with any computing platform that supports R (including Windows, Linux, and Mac).
The updated Köppen–Geiger climate classification for continental Chile is a cartographic product of great interest for climate research in the South American context. This study included 200 weather stations and climate surfaces at a scale of 1:1,500,000. The results indicate that the climates of continental Chile are essentially arid (B), temperate (C) and polar (E), the latter due to the elevation of the Andes. The predominant climates are high tundra (ET) and mediterranean (Cs). We have concluded that the use of climate surfaces enables the development of new classifications and indices as a function of scale. With respect to latitude, the climates of northern Chile are arid due to the Atacama Desert, and those of southern Chile are temperate, ranging from mediterranean to marine west coast.
Community-based approaches to environmental management have become widely adopted over the last two decades. From their origins in grassroots frustrations with governmental inabilities to solve local environmental problems, these approaches are now sponsored frequently by governments as a way of dealing with such problems at much higher spatial levels. However, this 'up-scaling' of community-based approaches has run well ahead of knowledge about how they might work. This article explores how Elinor Ostrom's 'nesting principle' for robust common property governance of large-scale common-pool resources might inform future up-scaling efforts. In particular, I consider how the design of nested governance systems for large-scale environmental problems might be guided by the principle of subsidiarity. The challenges of applying this principle are illustrated by Australia's experience in up-scaling community-based natural resource management from local groups comprising 20-30 members to regional bodies representing hundreds of thousands of people. Seven lessons are distilled for fostering community-based environmental governance as a multi-level system of nested enterprises.
Researchers, development agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world are promoting greater local public participation in the use and maintenance of forests, pasture lands, wildlife, and fisheries in order to improve local development and natural resource management.1 Under the rubric of “decentralization,” governments across the developing world are also transferring management responsibilities and powers from central government to a variety of local institutions (see Dillinger 1994:8, Crook and Manor 1998; UNCDF, 2000:5–11; World Bank 2000; Ribot 1999a:51; Fisher 1991). These reforms aim to increase popular participation to promote more equitable and efficient forms of local management and development. Such decentralizations across Africa are re-shaping the local institutions that manage natural resource, promising to increase participation in ways that will profoundly effect who manages, uses, and benefits from these resources.
For as long as groups and teams have been the subject of scientific inquiry, researchers have been interested in understanding the relationships that form within them, and the pace at which these relationships develop and change. Despite this interest in understanding the process underlying the unfolding of relationships in teams, current theoretical and operational formulations of team process require greater specificity if they are to truly afford a high-resolution understanding. Most researchers interested in team process, study it as either a snapshot, or as a limited series of snapshots, rather than as a continuous movie displaying the nuanced sequential interactions unfolding among various subsets of team members. Given the increasing availability of rich data regarding team dynamics, corresponding advances are needed in conceptual and analytic frameworks to utilize continuous-time data to further our understanding of team processes. This paper identifies four challenges that hinder the identification of team process/dynamics and elaborates a theoretical approach with the associated analytic machinery needed to advance a truly time-sensitive understanding of team process.
We argue that collaboration can act as a source of change in institutional fields through the generation of “proto-institutions”: new practices, rules, and technologies that transcend a particular collaborative relationship and may become new institutions if they diffuse sufficiently. A four-year study of the collaborative activities of a small nongovernmental organization in Palestine suggests that collaborations that are both highly embedded and have highly involved partners are the most likely to generate proto-institutions.
There is a growing scientific debate regarding the suitability of certain modes of governance for promoting sustainable development (SD). However, thus far there is neither agreement on ways to meaningfully distinguish and understand governance modes nor a foundation of the aspects to be chosen for this endeavour. In order to overcome this conceptual vagueness, this paper presents a meta-framework for a sound conceptualization of governance modes. Founded on a reinterpretation of the discourse ‘from government to governance’, we argue that only a multi-dimensional approach giving consideration to political processes (politics), institutional structures (polity) and policy content (policy) adequately captures the complexity of governance phenomena. We furthermore highlight possible key features for exploring these dimensions and compare three recently published frameworks for modes of governance. By offering a sound conceptual clarification of governance modes, we facilitate both their meaningful differentiation and a more systematic understanding of their inherent complexity. In so doing, we inform both theoretical and empirical research on governance for SD. We pave the way not only for making more differentiated theoretical statements on the relationship between governance modes and SD but also for empirically exploring this relationship on a profound basis.
Abstract Interpretive politics is a contest over the framing of ideas. In the context of closed-door, elite policy making groups, interpretive politics shapes the thinking of both group members and the wider community,of stakeholders.This paper identifies a temporal structure to interpretive politics in group policy making,settings and a related set of "framing moves." Framing moves are actions taken by meeting participants to challenge existing policy frames and to project new ones. These moves correspond to the unfolding interpretive task of the meeting. The paper explores interpretive politics at policy meetings of the Federal Reserve. We will examine,the interpretive politics that characterize the group's efforts to enact a major policy change. Data are drawn from verbatim transcripts of meetings at which a major policy change was debated and approved. Framing Moves: Interpretive Politics at the Federal Reserve This paper offers a new approach for studying the micropolitics of policy making,groups.
A phenomenon of the last 20 years has been the rapid rise of the network form of governance. This governance form has received significant scholarly attention, but, to date, no comprehensive theory for it has been advanced, and no sufficiently detailed and theoretically consistent definition has appeared. Our objective in this article is to provide a theory that explains under what conditions network governance, rigorously defined, has comparative advantage and is therefore likely to emerge and thrive. Our theory integrates transaction cost economics and social network theories, and, in broad strokes, asserts that the network form of governance is a response to exchange conditions of asset specificity, demand uncertainty, task complexity, and frequency. These exchange conditions drive firms to use social mechanisms for coordinating and safeguarding exchanges. When all of these conditions are in place, the network governance form has advantages over both hierarchy and market solutions in simultaneously adapting, coordinating, and safeguarding exchanges.
Environmental governance and management are facing a multiplicity of challenges related to spatial scales and multiple levels of governance. Water management is a field particularly sensitive to issues of scale because the hydrological system with its different scalar levels from small catchments to large river basins plays such a prominent role. It thus exemplifies fundamental issues and dilemmas of scale in modern environmental management and governance. In this introductory article to an Environmental Management special feature on "Multilevel Water Governance: Coping with Problems of Scale," we delineate our understanding of problems of scale and the dimensions of scalar politics that are central to water resource management. We provide an overview of the contributions to this special feature, concluding with a discussion of how scalar research can usefully challenge conventional wisdom on water resource management. We hope that this discussion of water governance stimulates a broader debate and inquiry relating to the scalar dimensions of environmental governance and management in general.
This article examines the governance of organizational networks and the impact of governance on network effectiveness. Three basic models, or forms, of network governance are developed focusing on their distinct structural properties. Propositions are formulated examining conditions for the effectiveness of each form. The tensions inherent in each form are then discussed, followed by the role that management may play in addressing these tensions. Finally, the evolution of governance is explored.
Ecological compensation, which is known as an effective pathway to restore ecosystems, has been widely adopted in trans-boundary river basins management. Public participation is an important determinant of the efficiency and efficacy of an eco-compensation program. However, how to motivate public participation in eco-compensation in trans-boundary basins is still a challenge. Public intention and motivation regarding ecological compensation are the determinants of public participation in ecological compensation. In this study, the theory of planned behaviour is extended to explain the motivations for public eco-compensation intention in a trans-boundary river basin. Public eco-compensation intention is measured by the contingent valuation method. The main findings show that (1) the mean willingness to pay (WTP) in the downstream area and the mean willingness to accept payment (WTA) in the upstream area are 51.08 RMB and 373.9 RMB per month per household, respectively. WTA/WTP divergence is approximately 7.32 in this study. (2) Upstream of the Taipu River Basin, behavioural attitude, subjective norms, knowledge of eco-compensation and satisfaction with government work are significant influential factors of residents' behavioural intention towards eco-compensation. In the downstream area, behavioural attitude, perceived behavioural control and risk perception are among the most significant influential factors. (3) Situation awareness can promote residents' subjective norms and perceived behavioural control in downstream areas. A pathway to promote public participation in eco-compensation is given based on residents’ eco-compensation intention and motivation.
Collaborative networks attract the attention of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers as an alternative to solve complex problems. However, there are gaps regarding the day-to-day activities network leaders perform to foster collaborative environments. We propose a research framework for the micro-governance of collaborative networks by analyzing how contextual factors influence the use of governance functions and practices. Our study contributes to the nascent theory of network governance by proposing relationships among contextual factors, functions, and practices. We also offer insights for practitioners and policymakers who want to improve the effectiveness of collaborative networks composed of public and private members.
Agriculture in the Aconcagua Basin is both vital to Chile’s economy and critically dependent on water resources from snow and glaciers. Expanding croplands, a growing population, and a changing climate are all expected to exacerbate water scarcity in this arid region where agriculture requires 7.1 × 10⁸ m³ of water for irrigation annually. We investigate agricultural water resources in the Aconcagua Basin by examining the drivers of and trends in river discharge, calculating approximate crop water demand, and assessing the potential for future water scarcity given discharge rates and agricultural demand. We find that growing-season (October to March) discharge is significantly correlated with austral winter precipitation and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Austral winter precipitation provides snow that melts during the growing season, supplying water for agricultural irrigation. Time series analysis shows that temperature increased by 0.23 °C per decade between 1965 and 2017, and snow cover frequency decreased (2.7% per decade) over the relatively short time period of 2000 to 2017. Based on historical discharge data and our assessment of current agricultural water demand, we show that the Aconcagua Basin is already water-scarce, experiencing demand exceeding supply approximately three out of every 10 years.
Current water governance systems and processes are often insufficient to deal with the challenge of climate uncertainty. Adapting to climate uncertainty requires trialing out new experiments in water governance and establishing processes to learn from those experiments. Social learning is regarded as an important aspect that supports the transformation of water governance systems. Understanding where and how social learning is occurring is critical to improving adaptation outcomes of water management in an uncertain climate. Yet, there is little research asserting the scope of social learning processes in a wide variety of empirical contexts. This article examines social learning in water management in Western Australia. Two specific case studies involving the state‐of‐the‐art experiments in surface and groundwater management are used to illustrate and to understand the institutional dynamics and barriers of social learning. The cases depict single‐loop learning to a larger extent and double‐loop learning to a lesser extent. The findings emphasize the importance of dealing with learning externalities, the mismatch of ecological and administrative scales, and facilitating actor networks and multilevel interaction in order to embed social learning in climate adaptation. Water governance reforms should facilitate institutional configurations that enhance social learning opportunities.
FREE DOWNLOAD UNTIL 15.12.2018!
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Xydx5Ce0rVtLN
For several decades, water policy reform and the design of governance systems were dominated by simplistic panaceas. This was accompanied by changing preferences for specific types of policy instruments and modes of steering. Such dominance has given way to a more nuanced understanding of requirements for sustainable and integrated water governance capable of addressing the challenges of global and climate change. This paper focusses on the role of governance modes and on meta-governance. Governance mode refers to a certain logic and form through which governance can be realized. The paper uses the distinction between bureaucratic hierarchies, networks and markets to denote different modes of governance. It argues that hybrid governance
systems with synergistic interplay between these different governance modes are essential for dealing with complex water management challenges. Furthermore, it argues that the development of such governance systems requires a combination of purposeful design and self-organization. An exploratory comparative analysis of water governance in Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, China and South Africa illustrates the validity and relevance of the conceptual considerations. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for meta-governance as a reflexive process of societal learning to develop, evaluate and adapt governance approaches with the purpose of addressing complex societal challenge.
This chapter discusses the nature of relational research designs that aim to overcome separations between different disciplinary perspectives within economic geography and create linkages to other academic fields. The relational approach is a comprehensive research perspective grounded in three principles of relationality of economic action: contextuality, path dependence, and contingency. Using the cases of manufacturing versus professional services clusters, it is shown that the relational approach does not proclaim a meta-theory of economic organization in space but provides a framework for contextual theorization, adjusted to the specific sectoral and technological contexts under investigation. Relational research designs across academic fields agree (i) that social relations between people and organizations are key to understanding the contemporary economy, (ii) that economic processes rest on the spatial and temporal interplay between regional and global networks, and (iii) that innovation and learning depend on simultaneous inter-firm, intra-organizational and community-based interactions and relations.
Sustainability transitions is an emerging field of research that has produced both conceptual understandings of the drivers of technological transitions, as well as more prescriptive and policy-engaged analyses of how shifts from unsustainable to sustainable forms of production and consumption can be achieved. Yet attention towards the role of the state is underdeveloped in the field. The significance of this neglect has become more apparent in particular due to the heightened urgency around the need to tackle climate change and energy security, where there are increasing calls for an enhanced role for the state. This paper sets out to advance understandings of the multiple and conflicting roles that states play in transitions. It first addresses key weaknesses in the way the state has been examined thus far. Second, it highlights theoretical resources and conceptualisations of the state that can help scholars of transitions open up new and more productive avenues for understanding drivers and barriers to sustainable transitions drawing on examples from different sectors, regions and issue areas.
It has been widely recognised that numerous countries across the world are entering an era of severe water shortages. The constant increase in the human population, as well as the increase in water consumption per capita across the globe, has resulted in an increase in water shortages. The limitations in freshwater supply are already present as large areas all over the world are facing the consequences of their dwindling and disappearing water reserves. Water scarcity is a multi-faceted problem which is not just determined by water availability but also water quality and access to safe drinking water. The uncertain influences of climate change also need to be kept in mind as it will also play a role in influencing future water scarcity and stress. It is very likely that the costs of climate change will outweigh the benefits globally due to that precipitation variability is expected to increase, and more frequent floods and droughts are anticipated. Potential conflicts may arise on a local and/or regional level between agriculture, domestic use, industry and the natural reserve. Different types of sub-national conflicts can therefore arise all over the world from water scarcity and be accompanied with immense socio-economic consequences. Focus is placed on global water scarcity, possible influences of climate change, future water availability as well as water conflicts.
Green roof systems have been developed and adopted in the temperate and cool-temperate climates of Europe and North America. Although these regions can get extreme weather, they generally do not experience climatic extremes of high temperatures, prolonged drought, and intense rainfall events of tropical and subtropical regions. This presents challenges for green roof design to not only provide adequate growing conditions for plants, but also to improve roof performance with respect to intrinsic (e.g. cooling building, extension of roof membrane lifetime) and extrinsic (e.g. flash flood mitigation, building cooling, reduction of heat island effect) benefits. Therefore, the components of conventional green roof including plant palette, growing media composition and the other synthetic layers need to be modified. The characteristics of green roof water retention, plant water availability, plant selection, and thermal properties are all critical factors which need to be adapted to help address the harsher environmental conditions and performance demands of hot climates. If these problems can be overcome, the combined environmental, ecological and sociological benefits suggest green roofs could be an imperative technology for towns and cities in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.
Water markets in Chile have been enabled since the 1981 National Water Law. This law was designed to provide market incentives with the capacity to reallocate water toward more valuable uses. Although there have been many controversies, especially concerning the initial allocation of water-use rights, and the coexistence of consumptive and non-consumptive use rights, water markets have gradually expanded. Large scale trading has not occurred in many basins. Likewise, large scale intersectoral trading has not occurred because the agricultural sector has remained prosperous, with growth outpacing the rest of the economy. Market transfers have occurred throughout Chile. The 2005 Reform of the Water Law addressed many concerns, especially speculation in unused non-consumptive water-use rights. And some concerns remain. Groundwater has been depleted and new efforts need to be made to improve groundwater data and groundwater users associations. Registering water-use rights and recording transactions are inconsistent. Large dispersions in prices reflect imperfect market conditions. Nonetheless the expansion, geographically, and volumetrically, of market trading suggests that these markets are meeting the needs of most water using sectors.
Polycentric networks of formal organizations and informal stakeholder groups, as opposed to centralized institutional hierarchies, can be critically important for strengthening the capacity of governance systems to adapt to unexpected social and biophysical change. Adaptive governance is one type of environmental governance characterized by the emergence of networks that stimulate adaptive capacity through increases in social-learning, communication, trust, public participation and adaptive management. However, detecting and analyzing adaptive governance networks remains elusive, especially given contexts of highly contested resource governance such as large-scale negotiations over water use. Research methods such as social network analysis (SNA) are often infeasible as they necessitate collecting in-depth and politically sensitive personal data from a near-complete set of actors or organizations in a network. Here we present a method for resolving this problem by describing the results of an institutional SNA aimed at characterizing the changing governance network in the Klamath River Basin, USA during a period of contested negotiations over water. Through this research, we forward a method of institutional SNA useful when an individual or egocentric approach to SNA is problematic for political, logistical or financial reasons. We focus our analysis on publically available data signaling changes in formal relationships (statutory, regulatory, contractual) between organizations and stakeholder groups. We find that employing this type of SNA is useful for describing potential and actual transitions in governance that yield increases in adaptive capacity to respond to social and biophysical surprises such as increasing water scarcity and changes in water distribution.
The notion of polycentric governance has become increasingly popular in recent years. Such development may be attributed to expectations that polycentric governance systems have a higher capacity to deal with complex challenges arising from global and climate change. Most often, employed interpretations of polycentricity emphasize the presence of several independent centers of authority in a governance domain. A commonly neglected feature of polycentric governance, as introduced by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom, is that this concept entails as well operation under one set of overall accepted rules. This paper analyzes the underlying feature of effective polycentric governance and makes a distinction between polycentric, fragmented, and centralized governance regimes. An empirical analysis of water governance systems in 27 national river basins using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) shows that a set of factors associated with polycentricity has the highest explanatory power for high performance regarding climate change adaptation. Factors associated with fragmented and centralized regimes can be identified for paths leading to low performance. Furthermore, the analysis identifies the effectiveness of formal institutions as important condition, in particular for paths leading toward low performance. The paper elaborates on these findings and discusses as well the potential of fsQCA in such comparative analyses.
Shifting from traditional, large, centralised infrastructure to alternative, distributed technologies is widely accepted as essential for enabling sustainable water management. Despite technical advances in sustainable urban water management over recent decades, the shift from traditional to more sustainable approaches remains slow. Current research on socio-institutional barriers suggests this poor implementation relates to a limited understanding of the different forms of governance needed to support alternative approaches, rather than the potential ineffectiveness of the technologies and practices. While some governance scholars express preferences for ideal hierarchical, market or network governance approaches, others suggest a hybrid of these approaches may be more appropriate for achieving sustainability. Currently, there is limited commentary about the potential characteristics of sustainable urban water governance. To extend the current scholarship, this paper systematically draws on the tacit knowledge of expert sustainability practitioners to identify potential governance characteristics of sustainable urban water management. In comparison with current urban water scholarship, which is supportive of a network governance approach at a conceptual level, the results strongly suggest that sustainability practitioners see the need for hybrid governance arrangements at a practical and operational level. These hybrid arrangements tended to comprise network and hierarchical approaches with market governance instruments. These insights from practitioners to help identify future research needs, focused on examining interaction among governance approaches at a variety of scales and locations.
This paper provides an evidence-based contribution to understanding processes of climate change adaptation in water governance systems in the Netherlands, Australia and South Africa. It builds upon the work of Ostrom on institutional design principles for local common pool resources systems. We argue that for dealing with complexities and uncertainties related to climate change impacts (e.g. increased frequency and intensity of floods or droughts) additional or adjusted institutional design propositions are necessary that facilitate learning processes. This is especially the case for dealing with complex, cross-boundary and large-scale resource systems, such as river basins and delta areas in the Netherlands and South Africa or groundwater systems in Western Australia. In this paper we provide empirical support for a set of eight refined and extended institutional design propositions for the governance of adaptation to climate change in the water sector. Together they capture structural, agency and learning dimensions of the adaptation challenge and they provide a strong initial framework to explore key institutional issues in the governance of adaptation to climate change. These institutional design propositions support a “management as learning” approach to dealing with complexity and uncertainty. They do not specify blueprints, but encourage adaptation tuned to the specific features of local geography, ecology, economies and cultures.
Multi-organizational partnerships are now an important means of governing and managing public programmes. They typically involve business, community and not-for-profit agencies alongside government bodies. Partnerships are frequently contrasted with competitive markets and bureaucratic hierarchies. A more complex reality is revealed once partnerships as an organizational form are distinguished from networks as a mode of social co-ordination or governance. Data from studies of UK urban regeneration partnerships are used to develop a four-stage partnership life cycle: pre-partnership collaboration; partnership creation; partnership programme delivery; and partnership termination. A different mode of governance - network, market or hierarchy - predominates at each stage. Separating organizational form from mode of governance enables a richer understanding of multi-organizational activity and provides the basis from which theory and practice can be developed. The key challenge for partnerships lies in managing the interaction of different modes of governance, which at some points will generate competition and at other points collaboration.
Social behavior over short time scales is frequently understood in terms of actions, which can be thought of as discrete events in which one individual emits a behavior directed at one or more other entities in his or her environment (possibly including himself or herself). Here, we introduce a highly flexible framework for modeling actions within social settings, which permits likelihood-based inference for behavioral mechanisms with complex dependence. Examples are given for the parameterization of base activity levels, recency, persistence, preferential attachment, transitive/cyclic interaction, and participation shifts within the relational event framework. Parameter estimation is discussed both for data in which an exact history of events is available, and for data in which only event sequences are known. The utility of the framework is illustrated via an application to dynamic modeling of responder radio communications during the early hours of the World Trade Center disaster.
Chile's free-market Water Code turned 20 years old in October 2001. This anniversary was an important milestone for both Chilean and international debates about water policy, because Chile has become the world's leading example of the free-market approach to water law and economics and water resources management − the textbook case of treating water rights, not merely as private property, but also as a fully marketable commodity. This approach is often referred to as the 'Chilean model'. This paper summarises key aspects of the Chilean experience since 1981, in order to draw lessons for international discussions about how to reform water laws, policies, and economics. The Chilean model of water resources management shows the need for a more institutional and interdisciplinary approach to the economics of water. Reference: to this paper should be made as follows: Bauer, C.J. (2005) 'In the image of the market: the Chilean model of water resources management', Int. Mendoza, Argentina. He also regularly consults on water issues for international organisations. Bauer has a BA in geology, an MS in geography, and a PhD in law and social science.
The governance debate is wide-ranging and complex. The aim of this article is to bring order to the debate by concentrating on how the rise of governance challenges many of the more traditional notions of public administration. Governance is about new methods and forms in governing and ultimately is about a change in the meaning of government. This article argues that a governance perspective provides an organizing framework for understanding the changing processes of governing. Five propositions and associated dilemmas are examined. Governance involves: multi-agency partnerships, a blurring of responsibilities between public and non-public sectors, a power dependence between organizations involved in collective action, the emergence of self-governing networks and the development of new governmental tasks and tools. The key of governance are: its weak underpinnings, a tendency to facilitate blame avoidance and scapegoating, the proliferation of unintended consequences and inadequate accountability mechanisms. In the light of such factors analysts and practitioners should consider the prospect of governance failure. Governance represents a positive attempt to tackle social and economic challenges in innovative ways but it should not be seen as a panacea. This article draws on insights from the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Local Governance Programme.
Resent research has identified the existence of social networks as a common and important denominator in cases where different stakeholders have come together to effectively deal with natural resource problems and dilemmas. It has even been shown that social networks can be more important than the existence of formal institutions for effective enforcement and compliance with environmental regulations. However, all social networks are not created equal. On the contrary, the structural pattern of relations (i.e. the topology) of a social network can have significant impact on how actors actually behave. This clearly has implications for actors’ abilities to manage environmental challenges. This review aims to add more precision to initial insights and pending hypotheses about the positive impacts of social networks on governance processes and outcomes, by reviewing and synthesizing empirically based literature explicitly studying structural characteristics of social networks in natural resource governance settings. It is shown that significant differences in governance processes and outcomes can be expected among networks experiencing structural differences in terms of density of relations, degree of cohesiveness, subgroup interconnectivity, and degree of network centralization. Furthermore, the review shows that none of these structural characteristics present a monotonically increasing positive effect on processes of importance for resource governance, and that favoring one characteristic likely occurs at the expense of another. Thus, assessing the most favorable level and mix of different network characteristics, where most of the positive governance effects are obtained while undesired effects are minimized, presents a key research and governance challenge.
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.
Climate change impacts and responses are presently observed in physical and ecological systems. Adaptation to these impacts is increasingly being observed in both physical and ecological systems as well as in human adjustments to resource availability and risk at different spatial and societal scales. We review the nature of adaptation and the implications of different spatial scales for these processes. We outline a set of normative evaluative criteria for judging the success of adaptations at different scales. We argue that elements of effectiveness, efficiency, equity and legitimacy are important in judging success in terms of the sustainability of development pathways into an uncertain future. We further argue that each of these elements of decision-making is implicit within presently formulated scenarios of socio-economic futures of both emission trajectories and adaptation, though with different weighting. The process by which adaptations are to be judged at different scales will involve new and challenging institutional processes.
Elinor Ostrom delivered her Prize Lecture on 8 December 2009 at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. She was introduced by Professor Bertil Holmlund, Chairman of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee.
"The problem of overuse of open-access resources was clearly articulated by Scott Gordon (1954) and Harold Demsetz (1967). Garrett Hardin (1968) speculated about the same problem, but stressed that the resource users themselves were trapped in tragic overuse and that solutions had to be imposed on them from the outside. Gordon, Demsetz, and Hardin ignited a general concern that when property rights did not exist related to a valuable resource, the resources would be overharvested. "Sufficient empirical examples existed where the absence of property rights and the independence of actors captured the essence of problems facing users of land-based commonpool resources that the empirical applicability of the theory was not challenged until the mid-1980s. The massive deforestation in tropical countries and the collapse of many ocean fisheries confirmed the worst predictions to be derived from this theory for many. Since harvesters are viewed as being trapped in these dilemmas, repeated recommendations have been made that external authorities must impose a different set of institutions on such settings. Predictions of overharvesting are also supported in the experimental laboratory when subjects make anonymous decisions and are not allowed to communicate with one another, but not when they are able to engage in face-to-face communication."