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This thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of the actual implementation of transdisciplinary research in sustainability science. Following three aims, this work likes to (1) contribute to the measurability of transdisciplinary research processes as well as their societal and academic outputs and impacts, to (2) demarcate transdisciplinary research from other modes of research in sustainability science and to (3) identify and examine the determinants that shape the contribution of transdisciplinary research to societal action for sustainable development and to scientific knowledge production. To serve these aims a mixed methods approach is applied that combines strong quantitative elements with in-depth qualitative analyses that integrate the perspectives of practitioners. This thesis provides a broad set of indicators to describe and assess transdisciplinary research that translate theoretical concepts form transdisciplinarity theory into observable variables. The indicators offer a holistic perspective on transdisciplinary research by representing research mode characteristics, societal as well as scientific outcomes of research projects and their specific context. To theoretically demarcate transdisciplinary research from other forms of research, a narrative literature review first elaborates the differences between "normal science", political use of scientific knowledge and transdisciplinarity in their underlying logics of problem definition, knowledge production and research utilization. Subsequently, these concepts were compared with perspectives and expectations of practitioners in the forest sector on integrative research settings. Moreover, a cluster analysis of data from 59 research projects identified five research modes that empirically demarcate ideal-typical transdisciplinary research from other research modes within sustainability science: (1) purely academic research, (2) practice consultation, (3) selective practitioner involvement, (4) ideal-typical transdisciplinary research and (5) practice-oriented research. Based on this finding, transdisciplinary research can be characterized as an intensive, but balanced involvement of practitioners. It incorporates not only the needs and goals of the practitioners but also their norms and values. Ideal-typical transdisciplinary research goes beyond mere consultatory research approaches and must be distinguished from what is conceptualized as applied research. Regression analysis of 81 research projects and statistical group comparisons of the five research mode clusters show that societal and academic outputs and impacts vary with specific project characteristics and combinations of project characteristics defined as research modes. The findings indicate that more interactive research modes reach more societal impacts. In particular, the involvement of practitioners in early project phases and the targeted dissemination of the research results positively affect societal impacts. This finding also aligns with practitioner expectations on integrative research and research utilization, provided by qualitative analysis. Moreover, the quantitative results show that scientific outputs and impacts decrease with the intensity of interactions, indicating a trade-off between societal and scientific outcomes and impacts. Overall, the empirical results of this thesis support the claimed effectiveness of transdisciplinary research in providing societally relevant, applicable knowledge and encourage further funding of transdisciplinary research by funding agencies.
Environmental governance beyond borders: Governing telecoupled systems towards sustainability
(2023)
This doctoral dissertation analyses the environmental governance of long-distance social-ecological interactions in telecoupled systems in two issue domains: global commodity chains and infrastructure projects as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Although both domains involve different governance actors, institutions and processes, they both concern the question of how the involved actors develop governance structures and institutional responses to telecoupling. This dissertation aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how to govern environmental problems that are associated with global flows. Since many multilateral environmental governance initiatives have not yet produced the desired solutions to global problems, particular attention is directed at unilateral state-led governance approaches. This dissertation addresses the questions of (1) how to achieve a spatial fit between the scale of telecoupled systems and the scale of governance institutions, (2) how governance actors exercise agency in governing telecoupled systems, and (3) how state actors can govern the domestic and foreign environmental effects of telecoupled flows. The results show that creating a spatial fit in the governance of global commodity flows is challenging because boundary and resolution mismatches can emerge. Boundary mismatches denote situations where social-ecological problems transcend established jurisdictional boundaries, whereas resolution mismatches refer to governance institutions that have too coarse a spatial resolution to allow them to address the specific aspects of social-ecological problems effectively. No single governance institution is likely to avoid all mismatches, which highlights the need to align multiple governance approaches to effectively govern telecoupled systems.
This cumulative dissertation investigates food policy councils (FPCs) as potential levers for sustainability transformation. The four research papers included here on this recent phenomenon in Germany present new insights regarding the process of FPCs' emergence (Emergence paper), the legal conditions which affect their establishment (Legal paper), the different roles of FPCs in policy-making processes (Roles paper) and FPCs' potential to democratise the food system (Food democracy paper). Drawing on and contextualizing the results of the four individual studies, the framework paper uses the leverage points concept originally developed by Meadows (1999) and adopted by Abson et al. (2016) as a lens to discuss FPCs’ potential as levers for sustainability transformation. This conceptual background includes three so-called realms of leverage, which are considered to be of particular importance in transformational, solution-oriented sustainability science: first, the change, stability and learning in institutions (re-structure), second, the interactions between people and nature (re-connect) and third, the ways in which knowledge is produced and used (re-think). Framing the findings of the four research papers in terms of these three realms, the framework paper shows that FPCs could serve as cross realm levers, i.e. as interventions that simultaneously address knowledge production, institutional reform and human-nature interactions.
The future of forests is closely linked to climate change and energy transition because the preconditions for forest management are changed through climate and energy policies (Beland Lindahl and Westholm 2012). Forest management has multiple objectives, and different stakeholders have competing interests in forests. A strong dichotomy between environmental and economic interests has characterized forest policy and most conflicts about forests in the past (Winkel and Sotirow 2011). Climate change and energy transition modify this established conflict line because new conflicts related to climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and renewable energies have blurred the clear opposition between environmental and economic interest (Mautz 2010). In the context of the new challenges of climate change and energy transition, the need for effective, efficient and legitimate forest governance is gaining a new importance. Based on 86 qualitative interviews about forest conflicts and forest governance in five qualitative case studies, theoretical approaches focusing on multi-level and multi-scale governance are merged with the field of environmental and natural resource conflict research in this thesis. Forest conflicts and their governance are a multi-level and multi-scale issue. However, not so much is known about how collective and individual state and non-state actors act in complex governance systems and how they perceive governance systems. In order to contribute to the understanding of these knowledge gaps, this thesis tests the applicability of three theoretical perspectives on multiple scales and levels of decision-making (multi-level governance, polycentricity, politics of scale) to fruitfully study forest conflicts. Furthermore, the thesis provides empirical insights about forest conflicts in the face of energy transition and climate change. Based on the theoretical and empirical findings, this thesis provides practical recommendations to policy makers and practitioners on how to improve governance in forestry and the management of other natural resources. For example, this thesis shows the importance of considering different actor constellations in participatory processes at different governance levels, and that not every actor will react the same way to a certain method of decision-making. Furthermore, this thesis illustrates how trust building measures, such as enhanced communication between stakeholders, transparency in decision-making and forest education can reduce the risk of destructive conflict escalation. This thesis also demonstrates that energy transition and the discussion about climate change are sources of new conflicts, can change old conflicts, and add new, additional levels to forest governance. Thus, climate change and energy transition cause further fragmentation of forest governance and make forest governance more multi-level, create additional venue-shopping opportunities, and bring new actors into forest governance, causing new power constellations in the policy field. Forest governance is in a reconfiguration process which can be conceptualized as shift towards multi-level governance. Level choice and the relation of state and non-state actors in decision-making are important aspects of governance, thus the theoretical approach has yielded valuable insights in forest conflicts and the importance of scale construction in conflict discourses can be illustrated. Different levels are associated with different functions, strengths, and weaknesses of stakeholders; the perceptions of appropriate scale choice are often based on frames. The empirical findings have shown that level choice is often a normative and/or cultural decision, often no objective ´best´ decision-making level exists. Some actors consider different competing, overlapping, and nested decision-making levels to be an opportunity for interest realization; others feel helpless and overwhelmed in complex, multi-level systems. Different re-scaling strategies (up-scaling, down-scaling, fit re-scaling) are applied by actors to realize their interests. Non-state actors have an important function in linking processes from different levels. However, multi-level governance and related concepts have their limits for the explanation of forest conflict processes because some important factors cannot be captured with this approach. For example, social-psychological factors and conflict frames are important for the understanding of conflict development and governance and at a local level individual action and the relations between individuals crucially set the preconditions for the governance of conflicts.
A central aspect of sustainability governance is collaboration, which has been lauded for its benefits but also criticized for its challenges. The potential benefits of collaboration have apparently been recognized also in the context of EU agriculture. Yet, there has been a lack of holistic consideration of how collaboration can be systematically integrated and promoted in the governance of EU agriculture. Sustainable agriculture cannot only be encouraged through changes in the overall governance system but also through the support of existing and emerging small-scale collaborative initiatives for sustainable agriculture. Indeed, there has been substantial research on the conditions that influence success of similar collaborative initiatives. However, the knowledge resulting from this research remains rather scattered and does not allow for the identification of overall patterns. Additionally, little of this research specifically focuses on sustainable agriculture. What is more, the promotion of collaboration for sustainable agriculture is further complicated by the lack of clarity of the meaning of sustainable agriculture, which is an inherently ambiguous and contested concept. This cumulative dissertation aims to address these gaps by contributing to a better understanding of how collaboration can be facilitated and designed as a means to govern for and advance sustainable agriculture. For this purpose, the dissertation addresses three sub-aims: 1) Advancing the understanding of the concept of sustainable agriculture; 2) scrutinizing the current governance system regarding its potential to facilitate or hamper collaboration; 3) assessing conceptually and empirically how actor collaboration can be facilitated as a means to govern for sustainable agriculture, both from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. In doing so, this dissertation focuses on EU agriculture and applies a mix of methods, ranging from qualitative to quantitative dominant. The findings of this dissertation highlight that collaboration has been underappreciated and even hampered as an approach to governing for sustainable agriculture. In contrast, this dissertation argues that collaboration offers one promising way to promoting and realizing agriculture and emphasizes the need to integrate different approaches to collaboration and to sustainable agriculture.
In theory we pursue a sustainable development, but in reality we do not. An economy based on continuous growth, which evidently is not sustainable, is however the priority model almost everywhere. If we really aim at implementing sustainability, then we must radically change our economic model. Sufficiency - which calls for individuals mainly from so-called “developed countries” not to consume more than is really needed - may offer a useful alternative. We can still find some - last - examples of indigenous peoples living in a sufficient manner, all of them nowadays in those “developing countries”. We could learn at least from them that it is possible to live differently, i.e., in harmony with ourselves and our environment. This would pave the way for their - and for our all - protection, as well as the manner in which we understand at present development politics.
Existing institutions no longer appear to be sufficiently capable to deal with the complexity and uncertainty associated with the wicked problem of sustainability. Achieving the required sustainability transformation will thus require purposeful reform of existing institutional frameworks. However, existing research on the governance of sustainability of sustainability transformations has strongly focused on innovation and the more "creative" aspects of these processes, blinding our view to the fact that they go hand with the failure, decline or dismantling of institutions that are no longer considered functional or desirable. This doctoral dissertation thus seeks to better understand how institutional failure and decline can contribute productively to sustainability transformations and how such dynamics in institutional arrangements can serve to restructure existing institutional systems. A systematic review of the conceptual literature served to provide a concise synthesis of the research on "failure" and "decline" in the institutional literature, providing important first insights into their potentially productive functions. This was followed up by an archetype analysis of the productive functions of failure and decline, drawing on a wide range of literatures. This research identified five archetypical pathways: (1) crises triggering institutional adaptations toward sustainability, (2) systematic learning from failure and breakdown, (3) the purposeful destabilisation of unsustainable institutions, (4) making a virtue of inevitable decline, and (5) active and reflective decision making in the face of decline instead of leaving it to chance. Empirical case studies looking at the German energy transition and efforts to phase out coal in the Powering Past Coal Alliance served to provide more insights on (a) how to effectively harness "windows of opportunity" for change, and (b) the governance mechanisms used by governments to actively remove institutions. Results indicate that the lock-in of existing technologies, regulations and practices can throw up important obstacles for sustainability transformations. The intentional or unintentional destabilisation of the status quo may thus be required to enable healthy renewal within a system. This process required active and reflective management to avoid the irreversible loss of desirable institutional elements. Instruments such as "sunset clauses" and "experimental legislation" may serve as important tools to learn through "trial and error", whilst limiting the possible damage done by failure. Focusing on the subject of scale, this analysis finds that the level at which failure occurs is likely to determine the degree of change that can be achieved. Failures at the policy-level are most likely to merely lead to changes to the tools and instruments used by policy makers. This research thus suggests that failures on the polity- and political level may be required to achieve transformative changes to existing power structures, belief-systems and paradigms. Finally, this research briefly touches on the role of actor and agency in the governance of sustainabilitytransformations through failure and decline. It finds that actors may play an important role in causing a system or one of its elements to fail and in shaping the way events are come to be perceived.
Collaborative governance is a promising approach to address the difficult challenges of sustainability through global public and private partnerships between diverse actors of state, market and civil society. The textile and clothing industry is an excellent example where a variety of such initiatives have evolved to address the wicked sustainability challenges. However, the question arises whether collaborative governance actually leads to transformation. In this dissertation, the author therefore questions whether and how collaborative governance in the textile sector provides space for, or pathways to, sustainability transformation. In three scientific articles and this framework paper, the author uses a mixed-methods research approach and follows scholars of sustainability science towards transformation research. First, he conducts a systematic literature review on inter-organizational and governance partnerships before diving into a critical case study on an interactive collaborative governance initiative, the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (Textiles Partnership). The multi-stakeholder initiative (MSIs) was initiated by the German government in 2015 and brings together more than 130 organizations and companies from seven stakeholder groups. It aims at improving working conditions and reducing environmental impacts in global textile and clothing supply chains. In two empirical articles, the author then explores learning spaces in the partnership and the ways in which governance actors navigate the complex governance landscape. For the former, he uses a quantitative and qualitative social network analysis based on annual reports and qualitative interviews with diverse actors from the partnership. Then, he uses qualitative content analysis of the interviews, policy documents and conducts a focus group discussion to validate assumptions about the broader empirical governance landscape and the social interactions within. Finally, in this framework paper, he uses theories of transformation to distinguish forms of change and personal, political and practical spheres of transformation, and reflects on the findings of the three articles in this cumulative dissertation.
Undertaking local actions, such as implementing public (sustainability) policy, plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable development (SD) at the municipal level. In this regard, indicator-based assessment supports effective implementation by measuring the SD process, based upon evidence-based outcomes that indicators produce. Over the last decade, using subjective indicators, which rely on an individual's self-perception to measure subjects, has gained its significance in sustainability assessment, in line with the increasing importance of signifying individual's and community's well-being (WB) in the context of SD. This study aims to discuss and clarify the scope and functions of subjective sustainable development indicators (SDIs) conceptually and theoretically while examining the usability of such indicators employed in the practice of assessing sustainability policy and action process in a Japanese municipality. Furthermore, the potential usability of using subjective SDIs in monitoring a municipal initiative of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is also explanatorily examined. The present paper consists of a framework paper and three individual studies. In the framework paper, Section 1 introduces the global transition of SD discourse and the role that local authorities and implementing public policy play in achieving SD while outlining how WB positions in the SD context. Section 2 provides a brief overview of the major scope of overall SDIs at the conceptual and theoretical levels. Section 3 defines WB in the study's own right while exploring the scope of indicators measuring WB. In addition, this study strives to further clarify the peculiar scope of SDIs, measuring WB by synthesising the findings. Section 4 overviews how SD at the municipal level in Japan is practiced while acknowledging the extent to which residents perceive WB and SDGs in policymaking. Section 5 provides a brief yet extensive summary of the three individual studies. Section 6 discusses the findings while presenting implications for further study and practices of subjective SDIs. Furthermore, the three individual studies provide a thorough and in-depth discussion of the study subject. Study 1 illustrates the SD trend at the municipal level in Japan and the growing recognition of using subjective SDIs in public (sustainability) policy assessment in exploring comparative SDI systems to municipality groups. The findings, in turn, raise the need for a further study on subjective SDIs. Study 2 extensively discusses the concept of WB as the overarching subject to be measured while examining varying approaches and scopes of SDIs. It identifies three differentiated WB (i.e., material and social objective WB as well as subjective WB) and distinctive approaches of subjective SDIs (i.e., expert-led and citizen-based approaches) alongside objective SDIs. The findings suggest that these SDIs identified are, conceptually, most capable of measuring associated WB; for instance, citizen-based subjective SDIs can most optimally measure subjective WB. Finally, Study 3 examines the usability of (citizen-based) subjective SDIs in a practice of assessing public policy, aiming at municipal SD, and the potential usability of using such indicators in monitoring a municipal SDG initiative. The findings highlight the determinants and obstacles of using subjective SDIs as well as signifying WB in measuring progress of a municipal SD practice.
The research aims to assess the sustainability of rural electrification efforts based on off-grid photovoltaic (PV) systems in three Andean countries: Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Although deployment of off-grid PV solutions for rural electrification began in the early 1990s in the Andean region, most of the projects turned out to be unsustainable and did not last. Prior efforts have addressed the different issues and barriers that plagued these projects and inhibited their sustainability. However, these prior analyses were mostly quantitative; systematic qualitative evaluations have been scarce. In this thesis, the researcher addresses the following research question: "Are the rural electrification programs (based on off-grid PV Systems) in the Andean countries sustainable?" In order to answer this research question, he conducted an exhaustive qualitative document analysis complemented by semi-structured expert interviews. The interviewees included experts from different ministries, project managers from leading Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), public and private companies ' representatives, supervisors, and researchers. Although the author also describes several relevant PV-based electrification efforts in the Andean countries, the research was aimed at providing an overall picture of the rural electrification efforts in these countries, rather than measuring the success or failure of specific projects. The gathered information allowed me to assess the sustainability of rural electrification efforts in the Andean countries. This assessment was based on a set of indicators corresponding to the four dimensions of sustainability considered in this thesis: institutional, economical, environmental, and socio-cultural. It was found that Ecuador and Chile have consistently failed to ensure mechanisms for the operation and maintenance of the deployed off-grid systems, which has made these solutions in poor Chilean and Ecuadorian communities inevitably unsustainable. Although Peru has adopted a cross-tariff scheme, the Peruvian case shows that ensuring the funding of off-grid PV solutions is not enough. Peruvian officials appear to be unaware of the importance of local participation (local values and lifestyles are constantly disregarded) and most of the projects have been designed without the participation and engagement of the communities, which has often led to project failures and payment defaults. Although each country has its particular challenges, it was found that the three Andean countries have consistently neglected the importance of strong formal institutions with a flexible and decentralized structure, which in turn significantly compromised the rural electrification effort in these countries.