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Biodiversity Policy Integration at the sub-national level: Insights from the German Länder in the context of sub-national biodiversity strategies and action plans
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Democratic governments produce more policies than they can effectively implement. Yet, this gap between the number of policies requiring implementation and the administrative capacities available to do so is not the same in all democracies but varies across countries and sectors. We argue that this variation depends on the coupling of the sectoral bureaucracies in charge of policy formulation and those in charge of policy implementation. We consider these patterns of vertical policy-process integration an important feature of bureaucratic quality. The more the policymaking level is involved in policy implementation (top-down integration) and the easier the policy-implementing level finds it to feed its concerns into policymaking (bottom-up integration), the smaller the so-called "burden-capacity gap." We demonstrate this effect through an empirical analysis in 21 OECD countries over a period of more than 40 years in the areas of social and environmental policies.
Global biodiversity targets have not been met due to weak implementation at the national level. National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) are central for mainstreaming biodiversity by translating global ambition into national policies. This study analyzes the practical role of global and national biodiversity agendas. Interviews from France, Germany, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Rwanda, and South Africa show that global targets and NBSAPs have raised awareness, mobilized initiatives, mobilized support for implementation, and fostered accountability. Nevertheless, conflicting interests, weak financial support, and poorly integrated institutional and regulatory structures remain challenges to implementation. Levers for harnessing the role of future NBSAPs to achieve the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework are: improving communication; defining concrete measures and clear responsibilities; fostering cross-sectoral commitment; enshrining targets into national laws; ensuring adequate public funding; reforming harmful subsidies; ensuring coordination among sectors and levels of governance; and strengthening accountability frameworks.
Drivers for biodiversity loss are largely regulated by policies in non-environmental sectors. The limited mainstreaming of biodiversity into respective policies remains yet to be analysed. During the process of updating the German National Biodiversity Strategy, we conducted 33 interviews and a stakeholder workshop to analyse barriers and levers for biodiversity integration in five policy sectors: agriculture, forests, marine & coastal areas, business & industries, rural & urban development. Based on Biodiversity Policy Integration literature, we distinguish four leverage points for transformation related to inclusive, integrated, accountable and adaptive governance. We found that biodiversity inclusive narratives and innovative approaches exist but are overshadowed by conflicting vested interests. Dominant sector policies are incoherent and continue to provide harmful subsidies. Institutional structures fail to reflexively respond to ambitious agendas and are locked into sector specific accountability hierarchies. Thus, transformative national planning needs to overcome institutional lock-ins and empower agents to develop innovative solutions.
Research on policy integration has become an important part of public policy scholarship by analyzing how policymakers create linkages between policy subsystems to deal with complex policy problems. To develop this research program further, it is crucial to know how policy integration relates to broader theoretical and methodological developments in the field of public policy studies. This article reviews the empirical literature on policy integration in the last 10 years focusing on concepts, theories, research design, and methods , drawing upon a sample of 413 articles. Results show no systematic patterns in how these four dimensions combine in policy integration research. Above all, stages and theories of the policy process appear to be incorporated in policy integration studies only to a very limited extent. These findings point to four new directions for policy integration research: (1) Striking a balance between conceptual richness and consolidation regarding "policy integration"; (2) An increased focus on the evaluation of integrated policies; (3) More attention to actor-oriented and explanatory theories; (4) The potential for combining qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis.
Researchers in public policy and public administration agree that policy integration is a process. Nevertheless, scholars have given limited attention to political aspects that facilitate or impede integration. This paper aims at filling that gap, by looking at how different theories of the policy process can help in explaining the process of policy integration as shaped by policy subsystems. By building on insights from theories of the policy process, we develop pathways regarding adoption and implementation in policy integration that account for the politicization and the role of actors and subsystems in the policy process. Our main argument is that policy integration is in permanent political tension with the sectoral logic of policymaking, which predominantly happens between actors in subsystems. Policy integration is, thus, not a single moment when those tensions are solved once and for all, but a political process that requires deliberate efforts to overcome the pull toward sector-specific problem definition, policymaking, implementation, and evaluation.
Lock-in mechanisms are major hurdles to sustainability transitions. Scholars identified various types of lock-ins; however, their dynamics and interactions remain underexplored. Using the case of food packaging, this study enhances the conceptual understanding and empirical analysis of lock-ins and their interactions from a socio-technical perspective. We analyze the material, institutional, behavioral, and discursive configuration and the shallow and deep lock-ins reinforcing the persistent dominance of single-use over reusable food packaging in Germany. Additionally, we explore the lock-in interactions both within and between the socio-technical elements. Hence, we introduce archetypical interlock-ins and lock-in clusters pointing to core trends of resistance towards reusable packaging alternatives. This study advances the lock-in concept for future socio-technical analyses while guiding the illumination of the complex dynamics of stability, the assessment of current sustainability transition interventions, and the search for potential unlocking strategies to enable change.
Over fifty years of global conservation has failed to bend the curve of biodiversity loss, so we need to transform the ways we govern biodiversity. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity aims to develop and implement a transformative framework for the coming decades. However, the question of what transformative biodiversity governance entails and how it can be implemented is complex. This book argues that transformative biodiversity governance means prioritizing ecocentric, compassionate and just sustainable development. This involves implementing five governance approaches - integrative, inclusive, adaptive, transdisciplinary and anticipatory governance - in conjunction and focused on the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and unsustainability. Transforming Biodiversity Governance is an invaluable source for academics, policy makers and practitioners working in biodiversity and sustainability governance. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
In 2018, a citizens' initiative (CI) launched in the German State of Bavaria put forth the 'policy idea' of preserving and enhancing biodiversity and formulated a concrete policy proposal for implementing it. This policy idea diffused across Germany and resulted in the launch of similar CIs in the States of Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine-Westphalia. Research on policy diffusion through governmental channels has found that this process typically results in one of two outcomes: the policy in question is either adopted in a copy-and-paste manner or adapted to the respective local conditions. Did the diffusion process of the Bavarian CI result in the other CIs proposing a similar or different mix of policy goals and instruments? We find that the mix of policy goals corresponded closely to that of the Bavarian CI, suggesting diffusion through imitation or learning but with an element of adaptation as well. Striking differences exist between the mix of policy instruments employed by the Bavaria-based CI and the other CIs, which corroborates the importance of adaptation to local conditions.
The study of policy entrepreneurs as agents of change has developed greatly in recent years, supported by increasingly more sophisticated theoretical and empirical research. In this article, we first consider how the concept of the policy entrepreneur can be integrated into broader theories of the policy process, with particular focus on the compatibility of the concept with the narrative policy framework. We then propose that further empirical research on policy entrepreneurs focus on five tasks: (i) delimiting policy entrepreneurs as a distinct class of actor; (ii) investigating contextual factors that encourage the emergence of policy entrepreneurs; (iii) further specifying the strategies policy entrepreneurs deploy; (iv) improving the measurement of the impact policy entrepreneurs have in the policy process; and (v) identifying when policy entrepreneurs prompt widescale change. New theoretical and empirical contributions along these lines could do much to advance our understanding of agency and structure in contemporary politics. © 2020 The Authors. Policy Studies Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Policy Studies Organization
The extent to which public organizations contribute to crosscutting policy programs is a question of organizational commitment, resource allocation, and monitoring. In this paper, we triangulate survey and interview data to study the explanatory power of organizational factors to understand the extent of organizational adaptation. In line with the hypotheses, the organizational task, culture, and the portfolio minister’s level of control seem to explain the extent of adaptation. Policy development as a task has a positive effect on organizational adaptation. However, this effect disappears if we add cultural variables. The second model indicates that a customer-oriented culture has a negative effect on organizational adaptation, and an innovation-oriented culture has a positive one. The portfolio minister’s level of control has a strong positive effect on organizational adaptation. Apparently, incentives are needed to hold organizations accountable and provide them clear direction regarding their contribution to crosscutting objectives.
Coordinating and integrating different policies and public sector organizations is a major challenge for practitioners and a continuing topic of interest for researchers. We argue that existing research on this topic needs reorientation to provide better insights for practice and theory of policymaking as well as policy implementation. We offer four suggestions on how future research could advance: (1) combining existing conceptual and epistemological approaches more systematically; (2) complementing case studies and surveys with large-N analyses and novel research tools and methods; (3) more systematic analysis of the causal mechanisms in policy coordination and integration; (4) more thorough study of the real-world impact of policy coordination and integration.
Policy integration has come to be known as the Holy Grail of public policy. Given the increased complexity of societal problems, academics and policymakers alike have called for better integrated governance approaches to deal with these problems more effectively. Despite the intuitive appeal of these calls, pursuing policy integration may not always be expedient, as it comes with significant costs and pitfalls. So far, the question of when pursuing policy integration may be considered opportune has remained largely unaddressed in the public policy literature. This article takes up this question and addresses it by discussing two interrelated elements: the desirability and the feasibility of policy integration. The former is reflected upon by synthesizing the main pros and cons that emerge from previous studies. The latter is addressed by proposing a heuristic that evaluates policy integration possibilities based on two key determinants: integrative capacity and leadership. Together, the synthesis and heuristic can serve as a point of departure for more critical reflections on pushes for more policy integration and on how to allocate scarce resources. The other way around, the heuristic allows policy entrepreneurs pushing for integrated "solutions" to focus their attention on the variables that matter most. ARTICLE HISTORY
Non‐state and sub‐national actors (e.g. cities, regions and companies) are increasingly taking action to address biodiversity loss. They set up standards and commitments, provide funding, create and disseminate information, and execute projects on the ground. As part of the post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) decided to implement the ‘Sharm El‐Sheikh to Beijing Action Agenda for Nature and People’. While there is general support for a voluntary commitment process, the question now is how the Action agenda should look like, what form voluntary commitments for biodiversity should take and if and how the action agenda could become a meaningful pillar in the post‐2020 global biodiversity framework. A recent study by the authors reveals the actual depth and breadth of biodiversity governance beyond the CBD. This contribution argues that lessons learned from the ongoing climate change action agenda should urgently be taken into account when further developing the biodiversity action agenda. A global action agenda for biodiversity, as envisaged in the ‘Sharm El‐Sheikh to Beijing Action Agenda for Nature and People’, is a feasible way forward for increasing the ambition level of global biodiversity policy while at the same time focusing on rapid and scalable implementation.
Biodiversity is suffering dramatic declines across the globe, threatening the ability of ecosystems to provide the services on which humanity depends. Mainstreaming biodiversity into the plans, strategies and policies of different economic sectors is key to reversing these declines. The importance of this mainstreaming is recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Aichi targets. Individual countries can implement the goals of the CBD through their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), which aim to, inter alia, support the mainstreaming of biodiversity into the policies of key economic sectors, such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries. This paper investigates the performance of countries at incorporating biodiversity mainstreaming into their post-2010 NBSAPs. We conduct a large-scale review of 144 NBSAPs against five criteria and calculate a national-level indicator for comparing levels of mainstreaming among countries. Our results show that developing countries, particularly those in Africa, have higher scores, indicating that they have a higher awareness of the importance of biodiversity mainstreaming. Developing nations were also more likely to involve a greater range of stakeholders in the NBSAP development process, whilst developed nations were less likely to give specific details about the monetary contributions of biodiversity to their economies. Overall, our findings suggest that biodiversity mainstreaming remains a challenge across much of the world, but that progress in some areas can provide direction and momentum in the future.
The report provides a comprehensive assessment of 115 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans submitted after May 2014 against the following parameters:
• The NBSAP preparation processes
• The legal preparedness of countries to implement NBSAPs, based on the information provided in the NBSAPs reviewed
• The extent to which NBSAPs encompass the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets
• Coverage of indicators and measures for monitoring and review
• How countries have responded to decision XI/4 of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity on resource mobilization
For all post-2010 NBSAPs, the assessment has had an additional, strong emphasis on mainstreaming and the extent to which NBSAPs provide for legal and policy frameworks to promote mainstreaming.
Mainstreaming biodiversity into the governance of economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries is required to reverse biodiversity loss and achieve globally adopted conservation targets. Governments have recognized
this but little progress has been made. This paper addresses the following research question: What are the barriers and levers for mainstreaming biodiversity into economic sectors that exert high pressure on biodiversity?
This question is approached through applying an analytical framework developed from literature on mainstreaming and Environmental Policy Integration as well as governance theory and practice to four cases in
agriculture, agro-forestry and fisheries covering multi-level and transnational governance contexts. Decisionmaking and governance in these cases look quite different compared to the kind of public policy machinery of governmental bureaucracies that much EPI literature has focused on. Our analysis demonstrates mainstreaming efforts in some of our cases at the degree of harmonization and even coordination among key actors. It further identifies a number of ‘additional’ barriers and levers that from an Environmental Policy Integration perspective would be considered as external factors out of reach for mainstreaming efforts. The results are pertinent for the evaluation of EPI performance because the governance perspective expands the borders of who can initiate, enable and sustain mainstreaming, what scope of regulatory norms they can use and the potentially useful resources for the process.
Global declines in insects have sparked wide interest among scientists, politicians, and the general public. Loss of insect diversity and abundance is expected to provoke cascading effects on food webs and to jeopardize ecosystem services. Our understanding of the extent and underlying causes of this decline is based on the abundance of single species or taxonomic groups only, rather than changes in insect biomass which is more relevant for ecological functioning. Here, we used a standardized protocol to measure total insect biomass using Malaise traps, deployed over 27 years in 63 nature protection areas in Germany (96 unique location-year combinations) to infer on the status and trend of local entomofauna. Our analysis estimates a seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82% in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study. We show that this decline is apparent regardless of habitat type, while changes in weather, land use, and habitat characteristics cannot explain this overall decline. This yet unrecognized loss of insect biomass must be taken into account in evaluating declines in abundance of species depending on insects as a food source, and ecosystem functioning in the European landscape.
The role of policy integration in the governance of cross-cutting policy problems has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent years. Nevertheless, the concept of policy (dis)integration is still under theorized, particularly regarding its inherent processual nature. The main argument of this paper is that policy integration should be understood as a process that entails various elements that do not necessarily move in a concerted manner but may develop at different paces or even in opposite directions. To study such dynamic integration pathways, the paper proposes a multi-dimensional framework. Drawing on existing literature, the framework distinguishes four dimensions of integration: (1) policy frame, (2), subsystem involvement, (3) policy goals, and (4) policy instruments. For each of these dimensions, we describe different manifestations that are associated with lesser or more advanced degrees of policy integration within a governance system. Apart from offering an innovative theoretical approach that does justice to the dynamic and oftentimes asynchronous nature of integration processes, the framework allows for holding decision-makers accountable for promises they make about enhancing policy integration. Simultaneously, it is argued that the merit of lower degrees of integration should not be underestimated, as these may sometimes be the most feasible or appropriate for the governance of a cross-cutting problem.
Until the mid-2000s, the rise of a “new pattern of strategy formation” in the context of sustainable development (SD) appeared to be a promising shift from mostly ineffective one-off-planning to iterative governance processes. The present paper revisits this once promising governance approach critically. Based on studies, evaluations and peer reviews, it synthesizes how national SD strategies have failed as policy documents and as governance processes in better integrating policies across sectors and levels of government. Based on the conclusion that comprehensive policy integration cannot be achieved through a single multi-sectoral strategy, we argue that it is time to either abandon an approach that has obviously failed to deliver or to recalibrate SD strategies towards the more realistic end of effectively communicating a long-term vision. Although the political relevance of SD strategies has declined in recent years, our findings are relevant to implementing other multi-sectoral strategies and the post-2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. While the former replicate already the governance failures analyzed here, the implementation of the latter runs a considerable risk of doing so in the near future.
Although policy capacity is among the most fundamental concepts in public policy, there is considerable disagreement over its definition and very few systematic efforts try to operationalize and measure it. This article presents a conceptual framework for analysing and measuring policy capacity under which policy capacity refers to the competencies and capabilities important to policy-making. Competences are categorized into three general types of skills essential for policy success-analytical, operational and political-while policy capabilities are assessed at the individual, organizational and system resource levels. Policy failures often result from imbalanced attention to these nine different components of policy capacity and the conceptual framework presented in the paper provides a diagnostic tool to identify such capacity gaps. It offers critical insights into strategies able to overcome such gaps in professional behaviour, organizational and managerial activities, and the policy systems involved in policy-making.
The aspiration to integrate environmental concerns into all areas of policy has long served as a rhetorical reference point in the environmental debate. But only recently has the objective of environmental policy integration (EPI) been tackled through serious institutional reforms. Although this has led to a rise of academic interest in the issue, much conceptual work on EPI remains to be done. This paper draws on the policy studies literature on ecological modernization to develop a framework for the analysis and evaluation of institutional strategies for EPI, arguing that they can be fruitfully evaluated on the basis of four specific functions of EPI: agenda setting, horizontal communication, capacity building and policy learning. The application of the framework to the Cardiff process in EU enterprise policy shows that its impact has varied in relation to different functions of integration.
The principle of environmental policy integration (EPI) attracts great scholarly interest as well as widespread political backing. Political support is particularly strong in the European Union, where it enjoys a prominent quasi-constitutional status. However, the practical fulfilment of EPI appears to lag well behind these aspirations, although the evidence base of this widely held view remains rather fragmented. This article aims to review the ‘state of the art’ in EPI research and practice from the perspective of its conceptual meaning, processes of implementation and outcomes ‘on the ground’. It finds that the political commitment to EPI is indeed widespread, especially in industrialized states, but that deep disagreement surrounds its actual application. In terms of everyday practices, ‘policy integration’ is complex and contingent, and there are few ‘best practices’ that can be easily shared between jurisdictions. Finally, knowledge about policy outcomes is very sparse indeed, and policy-making systems seem very ill prepared to address this lacuna. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Compared to early expectations, the process of European integration has resulted in a paradox: frustration without disintegration and resilience without progress. The article attempts to develop an institutional explanation for this paradox by exploring the similarities between joint decision making (‘Politikverflechtung’) in German federalism and decision making in the European Community. In both cases, it is argued, the fact that member governments are directly participating in central decisions, and that there is a de facto requirement of unanimous decisions, will systematically generate sub-optimal policy outcomes unless a ‘problem-solving’ (as opposed to a ‘bargaining’) style of decision making can be maintained. In fact, the ‘bargaining’ style has prevailed in both cases. The resulting pathologies of public policy have, however, not resulted either in successful strategies for the further Europeanization of policy responsibilities or in the disintegration of unsatisfactory joint-decision systems. This ‘joint-decision trap’ is explained by reference to the utility functions of member governments for whom present institutional arrangements, in spite of their sub-optimal policy output, seem to represent ‘local optima’ when compared to either greater centralization or disintegration.
This article reviews the concept of policy entrepreneurship and its use in explaining policy change. Although the activities of policy entrepreneurs have received close attention in several studies, the concept of policy entrepreneurship is yet to be broadly integrated within analyses of policy change. To facilitate more integration of the concept, we here show how policy entrepreneurship can be understood within more encompassing theorizations of policy change: incrementalism, policy streams, institutionalism, punctuated equilibrium, and advocacy coalitions. Recent applications of policy entrepreneurship as a key explanation of policy change are presented as models for future work. Room exists for further conceptual development and empirical testing concerning policy entrepreneurship. Such work could be undertaken in studies of contemporary and historical policy change.
Sustainable innovation has been widely acknowledged as the key driver for societal transitions towards sustainability. Recently, there have been widespread calls to mainstream nature-based solutions (NBS), a form of socio-ecological-technical innovation, to address urban sustainable development concerns especially for climate change and increasingly for biodiversity loss. However, what mainstreaming means and how sustainability-oriented innovations like NBS can be mainstreamed to benefit multiple agendas remains underexplored. In this paper, we first critically discuss existing literature on mainstreaming and argue that the common understanding of the concept rooted in policy sciences does not fit the governance context in which urban innovations like NBS are being shaped and adopted. Drawing on sustainability transitions and urban studies literature, we then propose a new approach that promotes the use of NBS to deliver multiple sustainability goals simultaneously. We argue that mainstreaming NBS relies on identifying and acting on a certain set of key forms of interventions-stepping stones-that can facilitate the embeddedness and maintenance of NBS across urban infrastructure regimes. Based on case studies of existing European practices, we identify pivotal stepping stones and promising pathways for mainstreaming NBS for climate change and biodiversity separately and explore what this means for addressing both agendas simultaneously.
Dieses Lehrbuch bietet eine systematische, theoriegeleitete und empirisch basierte Einführung in das politische System Deutschlands. Es wendet sich vornehmlich an Studierende der Politikwissenschaft, aber auch an alle Interessierten, die einen theoretisch und empirisch fundierten Überblick über die politischen Institutionen und Prozesse in der Bundesrepublik gewinnen wollen. Die einzelnen Dimensionen des politischen Systems werden aus einer einheitlichen Perspektive analysiert, die auf der Unterscheidung zwischen Mehrheits- und Konsensdemokratie basiert. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt der Darstellung liegt auf der politischen Willensbildung und Entscheidungsfindung im Mehrebenensystem, das von der kommunalen bis zur europäischen Ebene reicht. So ergibt sich ein umfassendes und übersichtliches Bild, wie die bundesdeutsche Demokratie aufgebaut ist und wie sie funktioniert.
Die Autoren
Dr. Florian Grotz ist Professor für Politikwissenschaft, insbesondere Vergleichende Regierungslehre am Institut für Politikwissenschaft der Helmut-Schmidt-Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg.
Dr. Wolfgang Schroeder ist Professor für das „Politisches System der BRD – Staatlichkeit im Wandel“ an der Universität Kassel und Fellow am Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).
Mit der Nationalen Strategie zur biologischen Vielfalt (NBS) erfüllt Deutschland seinen Auftrag aus dem internationalen Übereinkommen über die biologische Vielfalt (CBD): Mit dem Beitritt zur Konvention verpflichteten sich die Staaten, eigene Strategien zur Sicherung der biologischen Vielfalt zu entwickeln sowie bestehende Strategien, Pläne und Programme zur biologischen Vielfalt anzupassen. Seit Verabschiedung der NBS im Jahr 2007 haben viele Bundesländer eigene Biodiversitätsstrategien oder vergleichbare Programme auf den Weg gebracht, die einen wichtigen Schritt zu konkreten Maßnahmen für die Erhaltung der Biodiversität darstellen. Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand der ländereigenen Biodiversitätsstrategien und -programme und stellt Gemeinsamkeiten sowie länderspezifische Schwerpunkte heraus. Ein Vergleich mit den Handlungsfeldern der Naturschutz-Offensive 2020 des Bundesumweltministeriums zeigt darüber hinaus die Arbeitsschwerpunkte auf nationaler Ebene bzw. auf Ebene der Bundesländer.
The paper firstly summarizes the approach and findings to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental policies around the globe as it was undertaken in the Sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6; 2019). The data gathered in GEO-6 reveals (1) a high level of institutional innovation, increasingly from the global south, (2) a lack of environmental policy integration (3) spatial and temporal dynamics and (4) the importance of the policy design. Current environmental policies are, however, not sufficient to effectively preserve natural resources and limit emissions to a sustainable level. This has led to a general recognition of the need for a transformative change that goes beyond mere improvements of efficiency. The second part of the paper analyses how environmental policies could contribute in shaping such transformations to sustainability. Transformative policies can be built on social innovations and experimentation with institutional innovation. This is compatible with incremental and sectoral policy making. However, given the complexity and stability of social systems, the outcomes of such policies are uncertain. This is why we argue for strengthening conventional, strategic environmental policies and complementing rather than replacing them with transformative policies.
Meeting today’s environmental challenges increasingly requires individuals who are able to operate at the boundary between science and policy. This work can involve mediating, bridging, and brokering knowledge. In practice, a range of challenges limit both the capacity and number of individuals who are able to serve, and serve effectively, in these roles. We draw on recent literature to synthesize these challenges and characterize ‘who’ boundary spanners are and what they do. Through the articulation of their unique attributes and functions, we explore opportunities for cultivating and legitimizing the role of boundary spanners, along with formalization and recognition of the profession. We reflect upon our own professional experience as boundary spanners to bring deeper meaning and understanding of how to build greater support while capturing key challenges in the field. We argue that greater acknowledgement and professionalization of boundary spanning will improve the use of science in practice and knowledge to action.
Mainstreaming biodiversity across political sectors and levels is a central challenge to conserving global biodiversity. This article introduces biodiversity policy integration (BPI) as an analytical approach for assessing the ecological performance of nonenvironmental sectors using the following criteria: inclusion, operationalization, coherence, capacity and weighting. To date, we know little about the barriers and enabling factors for integrating biodiversity into sector policies in resource intensive economies of the Global South. BPI in Peruvian political sectors of Agriculture and Irrigation, Economy and Finance, Energy and Mining, Production and Fishery, and Communication and Transport were analyzed based on sector strategies, related legal and strategic documents as well as qualitative expert interviews. While sectors commit to biodiversity conservation in general terms, a weak operationalization of biodiversity targets and low institutional capacity results in ineffective policy. Specific targets and indicators are not yet incorporated into sector strategies, national development planning, the evaluation of impact assessments or budget allocation. Biodiversity policies remain disconnected from the sectors' policy practices, which undermines the potential of reducing harmful incentives (Aichi target 3) and maintaining production within sustainable limits (Aichi target 4). Based on the results I identify the framing of sector-specific targets, favorable actor constellations and adaptive institutional learning arrangements as key elements for improving BPI. Facilitating agents, such as the environmental Ministry or intersectoral commissions, play a central role in generating ownership of biodiversity objectives in sector policy-making and supporting institutional learning processes.
This book provides unique insights into the role of policy capacity in policymaking and policy change, as it is being uncovered at the research frontier in contemporary policy studies. The book is structured into a series of sections on policy capacity in theory and practice, each focusing on a specific aspect of policy capacity and its influence on policy formulation, decision-making, implementation and evaluation. In addition to making a significant contribution to the body of literature on the theoretical approaches to researching the role of capacity in policymaking, it also provides practical examples of the application of these approaches through a variety of national and sectoral case studies. Including contributions from authors working in a wide variety of disciplines, the book demonstrates, across the various topics investigated, many commonalities and consistencies in relation to the study of policy capacity and policy-making. This work has interdisciplinary appeal and will engage scholars in fields ranging from geography to communications, health, social work and political science, amongst others with an interest in public policy.
Dieser Band bietet in aktualisierter und erweiterter Neuauflage einen umfassenden Überblick über die Politik in den Bundesländern nach den beiden Föderalismusreformen. Er beschreibt, wie die Länder die hinzugewonnenen Kompetenzen ausfüllen und wie sie neuartige Instrumente wie die Abweichungsgesetzgebung nutzen. Zudem untersucht er, inwiefern die Schuldenbremse die Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten der Länder einengt. Neu hinzugekommen gegenüber der ersten Auflage sind die Politik der Energiewende, die Agrarpolitik, die Justizpolitik und die Regional- und Stadtentwicklungspolitik.
Der Inhalt
Politik in den Bundesländern • Schulpolitik und Landeshochschulpolitiken nach der Föderalismusreform • Polizeipolitik und Strafvollzug auf Länderebene • Finanzpolitik der Bundesländer • Verwaltungspolitik und Verwaltungsreformen in den Bundesländern • Bundes- und Europapolitik der Länder • Wirtschaftspolitik der Länder • Verkehrspolitik, Landwirtschaftspolitik, Umwelt- und Naturschutzpolitik, Energiepolitik, Regional- und Stadtentwicklungspolitik, Sozial- und Arbeitsmarktpolitik und Integrationspolitik der Länder • Zwei Föderalismusreformen und ihre Folgen
Die Zielgruppen
• PolitikwissenschaftlerInnen
• Journalisten und politische Praktiker
Die Herausgeber
Dr. Achim Hildebrandt ist Akademischer Oberrat am Institut für Sozialwissenschaften der Universität Stuttgart.
PD Dr. Frieder Wolf ist Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Politische Wissenschaft der Universität Heidelberg.
The Convention on Biological Diversity's national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) are major mechanisms for mainstreaming biodiversity into national policies. This article examines whether and how the NBSAPs contribute to mainstreaming biodiversity across policy sectors in Finland in order to halt biodiversity loss. We have developed an innovative analytical framework where the concept of responsibility addresses how motivations for mainstreaming can be built, and the concept of social learning outcomes addresses the extent of institutional changes for biodiversity. The Finnish NBSAP processes have been able to build diverse forms of responsibility (liability, accountability, responsiveness and care) in different policy sectors by providing new knowledge, careful process design and developing institutional linkages. Despite pro-biodiversity outcomes in the targeted policy sectors, the responsibilities do not diffuse from the environmental administration to other policy sectors to a sufficient extent. Closing this ‘responsibility gap’ is a key challenge for building effective environmental policies.
This paper elaborates water issues as a problem of water governance capacity to face multi-plicity of levels, sectors and domains. In order to do so, we will apply a complexity embracing theoretical approach, aiming to understand the interdependencies in the system that decline the effectiveness of one-sided top down interventions and urge for high quality interaction. Physical water systems as well as social systems dealing with water are considered to be complex and interconnected. The systems are compounded in the sense that there is no clear hierarchy and interconnected in the sense that the quality of the one can be heavily influenced by the other. The water systems touch upon other domains like agriculture, economic development, social development, ecology, health, etc. And along with these other physical system a variety of stakeholders, like industries, municipalities, farmers, recreational sector and environmental organizations comes along. All stakeholders do approach the problem and the possible solutions differently. In this paper we argue that complex nature of water governance processes call for the need for boundary spanning that leads to acting between domains, levels and sectors. Building up trustworthy relationships is crucial for gaining water governance capacity. We recommend a complexity embracing approach that focuses on boundary crossing capacities and capabilities.
This paper presents a framework for analysing policy coherence in a European Union setting through the perspective of policy interaction. Building on a simple policy-analytical approach and theories of institutional interaction, the framework develops a three-step analytical approach, consisting of the inventory of policy objectives, the screening matrix and a more in-depth analysis of key interactions. Central to the analytical framework is the identification of synergy and conflict at three levels: policy objectives, policy instruments and implementation practices, also taking into account as far as possible outcome and impacts. The paper presents illustrative examples from EU renewable energy and cohesion policies in relation to different environmental policy areas such as biodiversity, habitats, resource efficiency and water. It finds that policies are often coherent at the level of objectives, but that associated instruments and in particular implementation practices cause concern for policy conflict in all three examples. Finally, the paper identifies emerging challenges in the application of policy coherence analysis and a need for further development of the analytical approach. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
Mainstreaming has been adopted internationally as a key approach to promoting environmental concerns and opportunities in national plans and strategies, as well as in sectoral policies and plans. As the climate change response begins to look to mainstreaming as a way forward for adaptation, lessons should be learnt from the environmental mainstreaming experience on the forms of organisational arrangements adopted. From an analysis of experience in a range of southern countries, the article uses a framework of vertical and horizontal organisational arrangements for policy integration to assess which organisational forms have been adopted and with what implications. The review found a mix of experience, with strong political commitment seeming to support a vertical approach to organisational integration, with a lead, overarching agency, as opposed to a more horizontal approach with the ministry responsible for the environment leading. The theory and analysis suggests that a more promising approach to facilitate effective mainstreaming might be to combine elements of vertical and horizontal arrangements, at least over the medium term, where there is strong central commitment and capacity for sustained implementation.
This paper is concerned with governance and how some new forms of collaborative dialogue, policy making, and action are filling the gaps left as our formal institutions of government are failing to carry out their responsibilities or where no agency has jurisdiction. These collaborative processes, engaging public and private sector players representing many interests working on tasks that are about public welfare, have become part of an emerging governance system. This system lacks formal authority, is linked in varying ways to formal government, and engages stakeholders who are typically outsiders to public choices. Our goal in this paper is to outline an evaluative framework to assess these emerging collaborative governance efforts in terms of how they are changing our capacity to manage our systems, whether economic, social, or environmental. We hope in this process to explore how these developments may be changing the very concept of governance in contemporary times.
Environmental policy integration: An introduction (Policy Integration for Sustainability (PINTS)
- Å Persson
Green issues and debates - an A to Z guide
- L Giessen
- Giessen L.
Public integrative leadership
- B C Crosby
- J M Bryson
- Crosby B. C.
Pursuing horizontal management
- G Peters
- Peters G.
Strategien Und Maßnahmenprogramme Der Bundesländer Zur Erhaltung Der Biologischen Vielfalt
- E Schubert
- K Stöckl-Bauer
- U Hoffmann
- Schubert E.