2. Learning goals
• Define and describe key concepts related to adaptive
governance, such as adaptive co-management, social
networks, bridging organizations, and polycentric
governance
• Define and describe the role of innovation and
transformations in adaptive governance
• Describe how these concepts are related to each other in
the context of governance of dynamic social-ecological
systems
• Apply concepts related to adaptive governance at multiple
levels, on a real-world case
3. How do we govern
complex SES in an era
of rapid global
change?
4. Governance – many definitions!
• “the processes groups of actors adopt to negotiate decisions
and determine a path of action” (Wyborn 2015)
• “the exercise of authority over the environment through the
processes and institutions by which decisions are made”
(Plummer et al. 2013)
• “a social function centered on steering human groups toward
mutually beneficial outcomes and away from mutually
harmful outcomes” (Brondizio et al. 2009)
• Griggs et al. (2014): the popularity of governance owes much
to its ambiguity, it is a useful ‘catch-all’ for the “bewildering
and often contradictory range of strategies and tactics
deployed in regulating, administering and managing
organisations, localities, nation states and international
organizations”
5. What does adaptive governance
add?
• Emphasis on dynamic temporal and spatial
change
• Surprise, shocks, cascading dynamics
• Rapidly evolving knowledge (uncertainty,
incompleteness)
• Ecological change (as well as social, political,
economic, and so on)
6. "Adaptive governance denotes models of
steering, coordination and information
sharing that are able to respond, and
sometimes even transform systems in the
face of uncertainty, change and surprise."
(Folke et al. 2005)
8. … with a ton of concepts
collective action innovation systems
international regimes
Bridging organizations innovation
trust institutions
transitions and transformations
social networks Polycentric systems
adaptation
learning coping with crises
9. But how are these
concepts related?
Time to connect the dots!
10. Intro – AM, ACM, AG?
National actors
International actors
Ecosystem
Local actors
Learning and collaboration
11. Thomas Hahn - Bridging
Organizations
• BOs link diverse actors, organizations and networks at multiple
scales (crucial role in shift from mgm. to governance)
• BOs link both formal and informal actors/networks, and can
themselves be more or less formalized
• They are important because they can facilitate knowledge sharing,
collaboration, reduce the transaction costs of collective action, and
they can enhance the “fit” between ecosystems and governance
• BOs can operate at any scale (ecosystem/watershed scale in Olsson
et al. 2007, Crona and Parker 2012, and Southern Ocean in
Osterblom and Sumaila 2011) - and they provide crucial links
between scales
12. Gunilla Reischl – Global
Environmental Governance
• Global enviro. governance has moved from relatively simple interstate
relations to a complex scene of international regimes, organizations,
institutions, and networks
• Regimes: sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-
making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given
area of international relations (Krasner, 1983, p.2), e.g. ‘the climate
regime’
• Institutions: sets of rules meant to govern international behaviour
(Reischl), e.g. WTO, or the ‘liberal capitalist market’
• Organizations: international bureaucratic structures connected to norm
and rule systems, characterized by permanent headquarters, secretariat,
staff, budget (e.g. UNEP, WTO, FAO)
• Networks: voluntary collaborative relationships between states, regions,
cities, companies, and so on, usually around a particular issue area (e.g.
ICLEI - global cities network)
13. Per Olsson – Innovation and
Transformation
• How do we transform/innovate towards desirable forms of
governance? What forms of governance stimulate transformation
and innovation?
• Transformation: What are the practices of transformation?
Tensions between adaptive and transformative capacity? Move
from ‘windows of opportunity’ to dynamic ‘opportunity contexts’…
• Scaling: all transformations are context-specific – how can we ‘scale
up’ to the global and scale-down to the local? What are the politics
of this? (Who is innovating for who?)
• Agency: Individuals important, but an increasing recognition of
distributed and relational agency
14. Henrik and Andrew – Global
Adaptive Governance
• Changing information, teleconnections, complexity, global problems
– how might the concepts that we have learned so far (knowledge
sharing, bridging orgs, networks, institutions) play out on a global
level?
• Polycentricity – multiple forms, structures, useful to understand
interrelations in governance
• Supernetworks – interaction between networks and traditional
institutions?
• Technology – challenges and opportunities for governance?
• Legitimacy and efficiency – how do we balance and how might
these shift through time?
15. Common themes and tensions
• Formal-informal relationships (individuals, groups,
networks, institutions, organizations) – how to manage?
Bridging orgs?
• Centralized-decentralized governance structures – how to
balance? Polycentricity?
• Temporalities and spatialities of change – how can we be
both reactive and proactive? Adapt and transform?
Interplay between structures and agency?
• Politics, values and visions – how do we conceptualize the
relationships between evolving science, information and
knowledge, with the politics of evolving values, norms and
principles?
16. Emerging Research Areas?
• Biophysical effects of adaptive governance – what benefits/problems does
AG bring compared to other forms of governance? Is it really such a good
thing?
• Are there types of institutional reform that may nurture adaptive
governance across scales? E.g. decentralization? A global environment
organization?
• Agency, practice and AG – what capacities on an individual/group level are
required to actually do adaptive governance?
• Politics and power of AG – who determines the ‘desired state,’ what voices
are (un)heard? Do AG transformations challenge/reify existing power
imbalances?
• Relationships between ‘good governance’ (justice, equity, legitimacy) and
‘adaptive governance’ (information sharing, experimentation, networking)
– related or separate concepts?
21. Q: How do institutions in the GBR
support adaptive governance of
coral reef ecosystems?
A: Institutions matter because they
can help actors adapt to changing
circumstances. They can also help
bring actors together, and help them
solve urgent issues and promote
resilience of coral reefs.
22. Q: How do institutions in the GBR support
adaptive governance of coral reef ecosystems?
A: Institutions (here defined as... (REF YEAR) matter
because they can help actors such as xxxx adapt to
changing circumstances. These entail ecological
changes such as ...., and social changes such as....
(REF YEAR). They can also help bring actors together
as they define rules guiding xxxx. They can help them
solve urgent issues by facilitating communication,
overcome institutional fragmentation xxx, and
promote resilience of coral reefs. For example, Olsson
et al. 200x explore ....
23. Preparation
1. Skim through material
1. Look into the case studies (compare
your results with the other group, but
watch for mistakes)
1. Connect concepts (conceptual
models), think about relationships,
change, cross-scale interplay
(temporal and spatial)
Hinweis der Redaktion
Relationships between ‘good’ governance (i.e. justice, equity, participation and so on) and adaptive governance – are they separate or connected? What are the relationships between them?
The politics of transformations – social transformations are inherently political (social movements have been brought up in class – Occupy, Transition Towns, and so on) – how do we understand these?
