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Understanding public trust in water managers

Public trust in water managers is often considered an important precondition for the effective implementation of sustainable water-management practices. Although it is well known that general public trust in government institutions is under pressure, much less is known in the literature on water governance whether such distrust also affects general and task-specific trust of the wider public in water managers. In addition, empirical studies on the determinants of such trust seem to be scarce. To fill those gaps, this study aims to measure general and task-specific public trust in water managers in the Netherlands and to assess how a selected group of potential determinants is related to general- and task-specific trust in water managers. To this end, we employ an original survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 2262). We find that trust in water managers in the Netherlands is generally high, but that it also comes with some task-specific variations. People have more trust in the flood-protection capacities of the water managers than in the capacities to successfully manage surface-water quality, nature conservation, and drought management. Using linear regression models, we subsequently find that individual-level variations in trust in water managers are best explained by one’s general level of political trust. Additionally, we also show that both risk perceptions and self-evaluations of how informed people feel themselves about water management are important factors with (curvilinear) relations with trust in water managers. Overall, we conclude that water managers are under specific conditions able to build themselves well-established reputations and relatively high trust levels based on their performances. Nevertheless, trust development is far from entirely in the hands of the water managers themselves as we also conclude that trust evaluations of water managers are not immune from negative generalized political evaluations and public perceptions on water related risks.

Voogd, R., De Vries, J.R. & Beunen, R. (2021) Understanding public trust in water managers: Findings from the Netherlands. Journal of Environmental Management. Volume 300, 15 December 2021, 113749.

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Adaptive methodology

This paper explores the possibilities and limits of changing the research approach during a project and show how an adaptive research methodology can be useful at project level, but also helps to bridge disciplinary boundaries. The paper is based on our own experiences with research projects throughout the world that often required a fair amount of flexibility due to practical reasons, such as time and budget, and spurring adaptation because new insights emerged from empirical data and inspiring discussions with fellow researchers, not seldom those from other disciplines.

With an adaptive research design, topic, theoretical framing, method, and data are in principle open to adaptation during the research process. The main premise is that adaptations in one element of the research process can trigger changes in other elements. Both positive and negative reasons for adaptivity are discussed along with various valid reasons for limiting adaptivity in particular cases. Grasping the different couplings between concepts, theories and methods is useful to discern the possibilities and limits of adaptive methodology in situ. To deepen the understanding of the adaptive capacity of methodology, we broaden the discussion to look at the embedding of methodology in academia and its disciplines. In our perspective, methods appear as devices structuring thinking and observation and are well used and placed if they enhance and enable the continuation of observation and reflection and if they allow the researcher to remain open for alternative observations and interpretations.

Van Assche, K., Beunen, R., Duineveld, M., & Gruezmacher, M. (2021). Adaptive methodology. Topic, theory, method and data in ongoing conversation. International Journal of Social Research Methdology. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2021.1964858 #openaccess

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Steering in Governance: evolutionary perspectives

Steering has negative connotations nowadays in many discussions on governance, policy, politics and planning. The associations with the modernist state project linger on. At the same time, a rethinking of what is possible by means of policy and planning, what is possible through governance, which forms of change and which pursuits of common goods still make sense, in an era of cynicism about steering yet also high steering expectations, seems eminently useful. Between laissez faire and blue-print planning are many paths which can be walked. In this thematic issue, we highlight the value of evolutionary understandings of governance and of governance in society, in order to grasp which self-transformations of governance systems are more likely than others and which governance tools and ideas stand a better chance than others in a particular context. We pay particular attention to Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT) as a perspective on governance which delineates steering options as stemming from a set of co-evolutions in governance. Understanding steering options requires, for EGT, path mapping of unique governance paths, as well as context mapping, the external contexts relevant for the mode of reproduction of the governance system in case. A rethinking of steering in governance, through the lens of EGT, can shed a light on governance for innovation, sustainability transitions, new forms of participation and self-organization. For EGT, co-evolutions and dependencies, not only limit but also shape possibilities of steering, per path and per domain of governance and policy.

Table of Contents:

Steering in Governance: Evolutionary Perspectives
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4489
By Raoul Beunen and Kristof Van Assche

Steering as Path Creation: Leadership and the Art of Managing Dependencies and Reality Effects
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4027
By Kristof Van Assche, Martijn Duineveld, Monica Gruezmacher and Raoul Beunen

Economic Transitions in South Africa’s Secondary Cities: Governing Mine Closures
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4032
By Lochner Marais, Verna Nel, Kholisa Rani, Deidré van Rooyen, Kentse Sesele, Phia van der Watt and Lyndon du Plessis

Irritation Design: Updating Steering Theory in the Age of Governance
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4075
By Marc Mölders

Social Investment Policies in the EU: Actively Concrete or Passively Abstract?
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4079
By Gaby Umbach and Igor Tkalec

Strategy and Steering in Governance: The Changing Fates of the Argentine Planning Council
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4089
By Rodrigo Alves Rolo, Kristof Van Assche and Martijn Duineveld

What Is the Role of the Government in Wildlife Policy? Evolutionary Governance Perspective
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4106
By Krzysztof Niedziałkowski and Renata Putkowska-Smoter

Mitigating Pro-Poor Housing Failures: Access Theory and the Politics of Urban Governance
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4113
By Katja Mielke and Helena Cermeño

Policy Assemblages and Policy Resilience: Lessons for Non-Design from Evolutionary Governance Theory
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4170
By Kris Hartley and Michael Howlett

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Long-term perspectives & strategy

The journal Futures has published a special issue on Long-term perspectives and strategy. This special issue analyses and reflects on relations between long term perspectives and strategies in governance. While dismissing high modernist planning and acknowledging constraints to long-term policies, the different contributions in this volume, each in their own way, contend that strategy is necessary to face the challenges of our times. The fifteen articles highlight different aspects of the possibilities of and limits to strategy in governance, to turn long-term perspectives into strategy and strategy into reality. They all examine how long- term perspectives and issues are constituted by different governance practices and emerge in rather different policy contexts, which points to the need to better understand the diverse interplay between strategy, long-term perspectives and patterns of policy integration. Furthermore, the contributions emphasize how long-range governance requires careful attention to issues of temporality, the management of uncertainty and the interplay between the short term and the long term.

Strategy for collectives and common goods: Coordinating strategy, long-term perspectives and policy domains in governance

Kristof Van Assche, Gert Verschraegen, Monica Gruezmacher

Strategic openings: On the productivity of blended long-term perspectives in spatial strategy. A Dutch case study

Ferry van de Mosselaer, Martijn Duineveld

Strategy’s futures

Liliana Doganova, Martin Kornberger

There is no such thing as a short-term issue

Michael K. MacKenzie

Assessing the options for combatting democratic myopia and safeguarding long-term interests

Jonathan Boston

Breaking through the epistemic impasse: Ending homelessness with the invention of ‘functional zero’ in the Anglo-American world

Joshua Evans, Tom Baker

What makes long-term perspectives endure? Lessons from Dutch nature conservation

Raoul Beunen, Iulian Barba Lata

Governing through strategies: How does Finland sustain a future-oriented environmental policy for the long term?

Vesa Koskimaa, Lauri Rapeli, Juha Hiedanpää

Anticipating and planning for mine closure in South Africa

Lochner Marais, Anri de Lange

Shaping future perspectives in policy advice under deep, long-term uncertainty. The case of the Dutch Delta Committee

S.A. Van ‘t Klooster, S.A. Veenman

Prospects of a transition to the knowledge economy in Saudi Arabia and Qatar: A critical reflection through the lens of spatial embeddedness and evolutionary governance theory

Abbas Ziafati Bafarasat, Eduardo Oliveira

Governing technological zones, making national renewable energy futures

Shana Lee Hirsch

‘Solving for X?’ Towards a problem-finding framework to ground long-term governance strategies for artificial intelligence

Hin-Yan Liu, Matthijs M. Maas

Reinvention paths and reinvention paradox: Strategic change in Western Newfoundland communities

Kristof Van Assche, Monica Gruezmacher, Kelly Vodden, Ryan Gibson, Leith Deacon

Strategic spatial planning through pragmatic blueprints: Forms and levels of adaptivity in modernist planning of the Dutch IJsselmeerpolders

Terry van Dijk

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Institutional innovation in conservation law

In 2016, the Fitness Check of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives concluded that, in order to reach their most important objectives, the implementation of both directives needed to be improved. This paper analyses the institutional changes that characterise the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives in the Netherlands. These institutional changes include revisions of the rules embedded in Dutch nature conservation law, the introduction of new policy instruments, and the emergence of widely shared concepts and additional norms and rules that are used in decision-making procedures. In the first phase of the implementation of these directives, their legal requirements were integrated into national laws. In later years, national aims and rules were gradually removed from conservation law, and new instruments and rules were added. The analysis shows that most important drivers for institutional change were a discourse focusing on ways to stretch the legal requirements of the two directives and the interpretation of key concepts and rules that emerged in assessment and decision-making procedures and court rulings. In sum, these institutional changes have not improved the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives and have made it more difficult to ensure the sustainable conservation of species and their habitats in the Netherlands.

Beunen, R. & Kole, S. (2021). Institutional innovation in conservation law: experiences from the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives in the Netherlands. Land Use Policy, Volume 108, September 2021, 105566 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105566

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Strategy for the long term

This special issue analyses and reflects on relations between long term perspectives and strategies in governance. While dismissing high modernist planning and acknowledging constraints to long-term policies, the different contributions in this volume, each in their own way, contend that strategy is necessary to face the challenges of our times. The fifteen articles highlight different aspects of the possibilities of and limits to strategy in governance, to turn long-term perspectives into strategy and strategy into reality. They all examine how long- term perspectives and issues are constituted by different governance practices and emerge in rather different policy contexts, which points to the need to better understand the diverse interplay between strategy, long-term perspectives and patterns of policy integration. Furthermore, the contributions emphasize how long-range governance requires careful attention to issues of temporality, the management of uncertainty and the interplay between the short term and the long term.

Van Assche, K., Verschraegen, G., & Gruezmacher, M. (2021). Strategy for the long term: pressures, counter-pressures and mechanisms in governance. Futures.

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What makes long-term perspectives endure? Lessons from Dutch nature conservation

This paper reflects on the performance and endurance of long-term perspectives and their impact on strategies, institutional change and material effects. In the past decades, the long-term perspective of a national ecological network has been a key element of Dutch nature conservation policy. By focusing on the temporal, procedural and discursive dimensions of Dutch nature conservation, the analysis shows that long-term perspectives can function as powerful coordination tools, across government levels and due time. Conversely, their actual realization often proves vulnerable to the multiple dependencies built into governance processes, including competing claims about the future and related strategies. In the context of Dutch nature conservation policy, we witness a growing discrepancy between the long-term perspective on the one hand and strategies, institutional changes and material effects on the other. We subsequently examine the underlying conditions which enabled the long-term perspective of a national ecological network to endure through time and still play an important role in the policies and actions of public and private organisations. The network of actors, institutions and material realities emerging over time provides the long-term perspective with some critical mass, while it also explains its disposition to change over time.

Beunen & Barba Lata (2021). What makes long-term perspectives endure? Lessons from Dutch nature conservation. Futures 126 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102679

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Environmental governance theories: a review

This article synthesizes and compares environmental governance theories. For each theory we outline its main tenets, claims, origin, and supporting literature. We then group the theories into focused versus combinatory frameworks for comparison. The analysis resonates with many types of ecosystems; however, to make it more tangible, we focus on coastal systems. First, we characterize coastal governance challenges and then later link salient research questions arising from these challenges to the theories that may be useful in answering them. Our discussion emphasizes the usefulness of having a diverse theoretical toolbox, and we argue that if governance analysts are more broadly informed about the theories available, they may more easily engage in open-minded interdisciplinary collaboration. The eight theories examined are the following: polycentricity, network governance, multilevel governance, collective action, governmentality (power / knowledge), adaptive governance, interactive governance theory (IGT), and evolutionary governance theory (EGT). Polycentricity and network governance both help examine the links or connections in governance processes. Polycentricity emphasizes structural configurations at a broader level, and network governance highlights agency and information flow within and between individuals or organizations. Collective action theory is helpful for examining community level governance, and helps analyze variables hindering or enabling self-organization and shared resource outcomes. In contrast, multilevel governance helps understand governance integration processes between localities, regions, and states across administrative, policy, or legal dimensions. Governmentality is helpful for understanding the role of discourse, power, knowledge, and narratives in governance, such as who creates them and who becomes governed by them with what effect. Adaptive governance helps analyze the links between context, change, and resilience. IGT helps examine the interdependencies between the systems being governed and the governing systems. EGT is helpful for unpacking how coevolutionary processes shape governance and the options for change.

Partelow, S., A. Schlüter, D. Armitage, M. Bavinck, K. Carlisle, R. Gruby, A.-K. Hornidge, M. Le Tissier, J. Pittman, A. M. Song, L. P. Sousa, N. Văidianu, and K. Van Assche. 2020. Environmental governance theories: a review and application to coastal systems. Ecology and Society 25(4):19.
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12067-250419

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Evolution of place-based governance in the management of development dilemmas

This paper reflects on the evolution of place-based governance from a long-term (15 year) study of rural development initiatives undertaken in a region of Poland as part of its accession to the European Union. It decomposes the recursive process of institutional learning arising from initiatives for heritage preservation and rural economic development. In the analysis, a typology of unavoidable development dilemmas is elaborated that must be explicitly managed in order to allow place-based governance to effectively harness the cultural value, social context, and developmental needs of certain locales or landscapes. Although creating and sustaining local value remain contingent on broader realities of governance, proactive management of these dilemmas can help prevent many of the usual contestations around goals and identity from becoming intractable in later periods. The proposed approach to enabling place-based governance emphasizes conflict recognition and engagement as important complements to more common prescriptive models of governance.

Feuer, H.N., Van Assche, K., Hernik, J., Czesak, B. & Różycka-Czas, R. (2020) Evolution of place-based governance in the management of development dilemmas: long-term learning from Małopolska, Poland, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2020.1820314

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