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Erscheinungsjahr
- 2016 (1) (entfernen)
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Schlagworte
- Environmental governance (1) (entfernen)
Water is an essential natural resource, yet we are experiencing a global water crisis. This crisis is first and foremost a crisis of governance rather than of actual physical resources. Capacities of single, unitary states are severely challenged by the complex, multi-scalar, and dynamic structure of contemporary problems in water resource management. New modes of governance stress the potential of public participation and scalar restructuring for effective and legitimate environmental decision-making. However, a lack evidence on the actual implementation and instrumental value of novel governance modes stands in stark contrast to the strong beliefs and assumptions that often see these being propagated as ´panaceas´ or ´universal remedies´. With this doctoral dissertation I aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the implementation and performance of public participation and scalar restructuring in environmental governance, and particularly to engage in systematic research into the contextual factors that shape the performance of such governance innovations. Based on the conceptual approaches of participatory, multi-level governance and scale, I advance a conceptual framework specifying mechanisms and important contextual factors describing the potential of participation and rescaling to impact on the efficacy of environmental decision-making. Applying this framework, I employ a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative, quantitative, set-theoretic, and review methods, with the aim of maximising the validity of results. Drawing on the institutional frame of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), I first assess the extent and conditions under which participation and rescaling are actually implemented in the European water resource management regime. Subsequent analyses examine whether these governance shifts, where implemented, actually lead to environmentally effective and legitimate political decisions, and foster social outcomes. Results indicate that actual changes in governance structures remain modest, whereas previous institutional structures and experiences prove rather durable. Hence, despite recent shifts distributing authority towards alternative actors and scales, the state has persisted in its role as central authority in the European water resource management regime. To the extent that they were implemented, public participation and rescaling were generally positively related with the environmental effectiveness and legitimacy of political outcomes. The analysis provides a context-sensitive understanding, by unravelling the supposedly linear relationship between governance inputs and outputs to develop a more nuanced picture of the governance process rather as a composition of multiple, interdependent causal mechanisms that, depending on their actual configuration, lead to various outcomes. In this way, particularly the tension between legitimacy and effectiveness of political outcomes is disentangled, with both being seen as the result of distinct but interrelated properties of the governance system and its contextual circumstances. The thesis furthermore provides insights of practical and policy relevance, highlighting the need and potential to take a context-sensitive perspective in policy design and decision-making. The framework paper and the Ph.D. thesis thus together enhance academic understanding of environmental governance and its potential contributions to sustainability transitions.