Author: Jens Newig

Call for abstracts (and papers): Special Issue on Knowledge Cumulation in Environmental Governance Research

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Note: Deadline extended until 10 September!

We (Michael Rose, Jens Newig and Sina Leipold) welcome contributions to a planned Special Issue in the journal Environmental Policy and Governance.

Environmental governance research has generated a vast body of knowledge in recent years, reflecting the immense challenges associated with governing the various sustainability issue confronting humanity. However, scholars are increasingly raising concerns about whether the growing number of publications on environmental governance truly contributes to the urgently needed scientific progress (Newig and Rose 2020). Do the numerous individual scholarly contributions create a cumulative and reliable body of research capable of guiding policy and practice (Pauliuk 2020)?

While there are different perspectives on the drivers of scientific progress, it is widely acknowledged that the cumulation of knowledge plays a significant role (Campbell 2019; Elman et al. 2020; Pauliuk 2020; Park et al. 2023). Google Scholar, the world’s largest academic research engine, alludes to this fact by referencing Isaac Newton’s quote about “standing on the shoulders of giants”. However, in our field, we often find ourselves talking past each other, resulting in fragemented knowledge, rather than building upon the work of our colleagues. It is crucial to acknowledge that the process of cumulating knowledge on a specific research topic is not merely about adding new papers to the stock. Instead, it “occurs when new findings are integrated with existing knowledge to create a more comprehensive understanding of the subject” (Newig et al. 2023: 3).

To be more precise, “knowledge may cumulate on both empirical findings and theory, by

  • adding to existing research in the sense of confirming findings and/or widening their spatial, temporal or topical applicability;
  • challenging existing research in the sense of falsifying or rejecting prior research based on new findings (thus raising questions about either quality or replicability); and
  • refining existing research, by specifying scope conditions, causal mechanisms, amending sets of variables, or generating new hypotheses” (Newig et al. 2023: 3, see also Mahoney 2003, Cairney 2013, and Newig & Rose 2020).

The production of cumulative knowledge is by no means a matter of course. Social sciences and sustainability sciences as well as environmental governance research, which is informed by both, have been criticized to insufficiently cumulate knowledge. Suggestions have been made on how to mitigate this problem for the sake of scientific progress as well as improved relevance for policy and society (Elman et al. 2020; Newig & Rose 2020; Pauliuk 2020). While environmental governance research, in general, benefits from its disciplinary, methodological and epistemic diversity, this also poses challenges to knowledge cumulation. The field seems to lack a shared account of clearly defined and widely used frameworks, theories, concepts, methods and quality criteria, which encourages idiosyncratic or even isolated research activities. This may (unwittingly) produce old wine in new bottles instead of scientifically robust answers to pressing questions (Newig & Rose 2020).

At the same time, while we argue that we need more knowledge cumulation, we would also like to accommodate perspectives that critically engage with this claim, discussing dangers of a possibly hegemonic approach to knowledge cumulation, and the implications of strong knowledge cumulation for marginalised discourses, scholarly communities and forms of knowledge, as well as creativity, innovation, and out-of-the-box thinking.

For the planned special issue, we welcome empirical, theoretical, methodological and critical contributions that explicitly reflect on and advance the debate on knowledge cumulation in environmental governance research (EGR). All contributions need to clearly relate to environmental policy and governance as outlined in the aims and scope of the journal (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/17569338). Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Critical reflections on the epistemological foundations, opportunities and limitations of knowledge cumulation in EGR, as well as the possible disadvantages and risks associated with it;
  • Methodological and empirical accounts of assessing cumulability and cumulation of knowledge in EGR papers, communities and particular research questions;
  • (Applications of) Methods, procedures and standards that can advance knowledge cumulation in EGR, such as meta-analysis, systematic reviews, narrational knowledge integration, archetype analysis, Bayesian inference, modelling, AI applications, comprehensive assessments, and Open Science;
  • Challenges and opportunities of knowledge integration and knowledge cumulation in interdisciplinary research;
  • Challenges and opportunities of knowledge cumulation in transdisciplinary knowledge co-production, invloving experiential, practical, and indigenous knowledge;
  • “Best practice” examples of knowledge cumulation regarding particular EGR research questions that also offer methodological reflections on the extent to which knowledge cumulation was achieved;
  • Conceptual or empirical work exploring the relationshiop between knowledge cumulation and novelty (‘disruptiveness’).

Please submit your abstract (approx. 400 words) for a full paper (7,000-10,000 words, incl. references) or critical comment (3,000-4,000 words) until 15 August 10 September 2023 to michael.rose@leuphana.de. Please make sure that your contribution to the debate on knowledge cumulation and the field of environmental governance research becomes clearly visible throughout your manuscript.

Further timeline (updated):

  • 1 October 2023 preliminary acceptance or rejection as well as feedback on abstracts
  • 31 December 2023 submission of full papers and start of the reviewing period
  • 15 March 2024 first preliminary decision by guest editors and start of first round of revisions
  • 15 April 2024 submission of revised papers (1st round)
  • 15 May 2024 second preliminary decision by guest editors and start of the second round of revisions
  • 15 June 2024 submission of revised papers (2nd round)
  • 30 June 2024 final guest-editorial decision, followed by approval or suggestions for revisions by journal editors
  • Summer 2024 First View (online) publication of the Special Issue as a whole
  • 2024 print publication of the Special Issue.

Cited literature

Cairney, P. (2013) ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How Do We Combine the Insights of Multiple Theories in Public Policy Studies?’ Policy Studies Journal 41: 1-21.

Campbell, C. (2019) Has Sociology Progressed? Reflections of an Accidental Academic (Cham: Palgrave Pivot).

Abbott, A. (2006) ‘Reconceptualizing Knowledge Accumulation in Sociology.’ The American Sociologist 37 (2): 57-66.

Elman, C., J. Gerring and J. Mahoney, eds. (2020) The Production of Knowledge: Enhancing Progress in Social Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Mahoney, J. (2004) ‘Knowledge Accumulation in Comparative Historical Research: The Case of Democracy and Authoritarianism.’ Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, edited by J. Mahoney & D. Rueschemeyer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 131-174.

Newig, J. and M. Rose (2020) ‘Cumulating evidence in environmental governance, policy and planning research: towards a research reform agenda.’ Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 22 (5): 667-81, https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2020.1767551.

Newig, J., M. Rose, Z. Aksoy, S. Beaudoin, T. Bolognesi, O. Fritsch, D. Hegger, B. Hofmann, N. W. Jager, E. Kellner, S. Leipold, Å. Persson, H. Runhaar and R. Webb (2023) ‘To Assess Progress in the Social Sciences, We Should Study Knowledge Cumulation, not Disruptiveness’. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4445549 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4445549

Park, M., E. Leahey and R.J. Funk (2023) ‘Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time.’ Nature 613 (7942): 138-44.

Pauliuk, S. (2020) ‘Making sustainability science a cumulative effort.’ Nature Sustainability 3: 2-4.

“PLUS Change”: New EU-funded project on governing sustainable land use (and open PhD position)

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By Jens Newig

Governance systems are facing challenges to foster land-use strategies that support climate protection, social well-being and biodiversity conservation. The new EU-funded project “PLUS Change” involves 23 partner organizations across the European Union to provide robust evidence on and improve land-use decision-making for addressing climate change and biodiversity conservation. PLUS Change is co-ordinated by the Czech Globe research institute (see here for their introduction to the project). Using a transdisciplinary research approach, the project consortium is working with 11 planning authorities and regional development agencies in twelve case regions to firmly ground our research in the realities of different geographical, historical, cultural and political contexts and hence to produce policy-relevant knowledge on governing land-use towards sustainability.

To do so, the project will (1) bridge across biodiversity and climate, recognising them as problems that share many of the same underlying drivers, and must be solved together; (2) bridge between individual behaviour changes of citizens and broader systems-wide changes in decision-making and policy at levels from local to national to EU; and (3) bridge between different areas of expertise to create a truly transdisciplinary project that includes social sciences, land use modelers and practitioners of land use planning.

The scientific partners in PLUS Change will work on land-use modelling, produce a planning toolkit and test participatory methods in the case regions.

Our research group will use meta-analytical tools to synthesize evidence on how governance and policy impact sustainable land-use change. We aim to identify what governance approaches and interventions (evidence-based? participatory? collaborative? scale-adapted? etc.) have worked in what contexts to achieve a more sustainable land-use. Building on these results, in-depth empirical research (interviews, document analysis) will be conducted in 12 local practice cases in various countries across Europe. We will develop a rich understanding of the historical development of land use, contentious land use issues and conflicts, and the role of policy, tenure and governance arrangements in shaping land use change.

Interested to join the Leuphana PLUS Change team as a PhD researcher? Shortly, we will advertise an open position at https://www.leuphana.de/en/university/open-positions/research-teaching.html.

Introducing ParticipationCaseScout – a tool to explore 305 coded cases of public environmental governance

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By Jens Newig and Michael Rose

We are proud and happy to announce the launch of ParticipationCaseScout: a new web-based tool to explore and analyse a database of public environmental decision processes, with a focus on participatory and collaborative governance in Western democratic states (project ‘EDGE’).

With the goal of integrating and cumulating fragmented case-based knowledge, ‘EDGE’ has produced a database of 305 coded cases of public environmental governance, mainly to test the relationship between different forms of participatory and collaborative decision-making and environmental outcomes (for results, see e.g. Jager et al. 2020 and Newig et al. 2019). Funded by the European Research Council (ERC), ‘EDGE’ was led by Jens Newig, with Ed Challies, Nicolas Jager and Elisa Kochskämper as collaborators. The map below shows all locations of ‘EDGE’ cases.

To facilitate knowledge transfer, we developed the idea for ParticipationCaseScout in two undergraduate research seminars at Leuphana University Lüneburg in 2019 and 2020. When students were conducting expert interviews, they learned that professionals in public administration and consulting would appreciate a web-based tool that allows them to browse case studies in settings similar to their own work.

After two years of work, ParticipationCaseScout (available in English and German) not only serves to browse, explore and compare existing case studies (with many options for searching and filtering). It also allows to calculate governance-related ‘success’ factors for achieving desired environmental or social outcomes via specifically tailored regression analyses.

We are grateful to our many collaborators: our student assistants, Marlene Rimmert, Anita Vollmer, Inga Melchior and Lana Wesemann; the participants of the two undergraduate seminars; the many experts in public administration and consulting who commented on earlier versions of ParticipationCaseScout and to Mathias Jesussek from DataTab for technical implementation of the interactive tool.

We hope that ParticipationCaseScout will inspire practitioners in the evidence-informed design of participatory decision-making processes, and provide researchers an easy access to a cumulative knowledge base for further comparative inquiry – qualitative and quantitative.

Knowledge Cumulation in Environmental Governance Research: Call for Contributions

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By Jens Newig and Michael Rose

For an Innovative Session on 9 September 2021 at the upcoming Earth System Governance Conference (Bratislava / vitual, 7-10 September), we are looking for junior and senior scholars who would like to give short inputs of 5-7 minutes on different aspects of knowledge cumulation in earth system governance research. Inputs may cover topics such as

  • epistemic prerequisites and limits of knowledge cumulation;
  • methods of knowledge cumulation;
  • experiences and best practice examples of knowledge cumulation;
  • policy makers’ perspectives on knowledge cumulation as evidence production;
  • open science for knowledge cumulation;
  • forward-looking perspectives of how to improve knowledge cumulation.

The virtual innovative session will take place on September 9 from 10.30 to 12.00 Central European Time. If you are interested to contribute a short presentation, please send us your abstract (around 250 words) by July 25 (e-mail to newig@uni.leuphana.de and rose@uni.leuphana.de). We will inform you about acceptance in early August.

The innovative session seeks to bring together researchers from the ESG community – and the wider field of environmental governance – who share a common interest in the debate on knowledge cumulation, its prospects, opportunities, current diagnoses, limits and pitfalls, as well as in building institutions that facilitate a more “cumulative research culture” without compromising epistemic diversity.

While this session is linked to an emerging ESG Task Force on Knowledge Cumulation, everyone is invited to participate regardless of your interest in taking part in the Taskforce. (The Taskforce will be launched at the ESG Conference on September 10, at 1.30 p.m. – virtual. Please et us know if you would like to join, independently of the Innovative Session.)

More details on the Innovative Session can be found in this document.

We look forward to receiving interesting proposals!

Assessing ‘success’ of environmental governance: How to define effectiveness, legitimacy and justice?

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By Jens Newig and Ed Challies

In various projects, we come across the challenge of assessing the ‘success’ of environmental policy and governance. Regularly, we find three main aspects mentioned: effectiveness, legitimacy, and justice (alongside other, mostly related factors such as efficiency, equity, transparency, and accountability). But how can we succinctly define these evaluative criteria? Here’s our attempt, which we have already applied in one project (GOVERNECT). Our definitions are inspired by works of Adger et al. (2003); Fung (2006), and Hogl et al. (2012).

Figure 1: (At least) three dimensions of environmental governance ‘success’?

Environmental effectiveness: Strictly speaking, effectiveness of policy/governance refers to the extent to which a given goal is reached. More specifically, environmental effectiveness refers to the extent to which a policy is likely to achieve environmental improvements in the sense of sustainable use of resources, protection of ecosystems and human health, and prevention of environmental degradation. Aspects of efficiency, delivery, implementation, goal attainment, or improving environmental conditions may all contribute to effectiveness.

Legitimacy: Justified authority. Key questions are: a) Is the policy/governance instrument (likely to be) accepted by the constituency and/or addressees? b) Has it been produced through a fair, transparent process, involving the relevant stakeholder groups and affected parties (procedural fairness) – or is there an imbalanced representation of actor groups and ‘illegitimate’ influence? Legitimacy is culturally specific and may, but need not, be linked to democracy. Note that output-oriented legitimacy is often closely related to (environmental) effectiveness in the sense that a policy may be seen as legitimate if it delivers intended outcomes.

Justice: Environmental justice as a principle embodies the idea that no person or group is systematically deprived or disadvantaged in the distribution of protection from environmental and health risks,  or the enjoyment of environmental quality. Furthermore, environmental justice relates to whether people are given due recognition and treated fairly in public environmental decision-making (an aspect which overlaps with legitimacy). Key questions are: Is the policy/governance instrument likely to create/exacerbate or reduce inequalities or inequity among stakeholders / affected populations – e.g. through spatially or temporally uneven impacts of environmental change, access to resources, or other consequences of the policy/governance instrument?

So, the ‘success’ (or lack thereof) of environmental governance processes may be seen as a three-dimensional concept. There may of course be trade-offs between these dimensions. For example, a process that delivers a high level of environmental protection may be considered a failure by stakeholders who attach a lot of importance to justice, if that process was less than fair. Others, who weigh environmental effectiveness relatively highly, may consider it a success.

To complicate things further, these three dimensions or criteria are not independent, but rather overlapping and related (as mentioned above), so they interconnect in a way that is more complex than depicted in Figure 1. Our contention, though, is that it may be more fruitful to assess environmental governance processes according to these criteria, than to pursue any single definition of ‘success’ for the evaluation of governance processes.

We’d be happy for any comments or discussion on these definitional attempts!

Cited literature

Adger, W.N., K. Brown, J. Fairbrass, A. Jordan, J. Paavola, S. Rosendo and G. Seyfang (2003) ‘Governance for sustainability: Towards a ‘thick’ analysis of environmental decisionmaking.’ Environment and Planning A 35 (6): 1095-110.

Fung, A. (2006) ‘Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance.’ Public Administration Review 66 (Special Issue): 66-75.

Hogl, K., E. Kvarda, R. Nordbeck and M. Pregernig (2012) Legitimacy and effectiveness of environmental governance – concepts and perspectives, in Environmental Governance. The Challenge of Legitimacy and Effectiveness, eds. K. Hogl, E. Kvarda, R. Nordbeck and M. Pregernig. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar: 1-26.

Citizens’ Councils for Promoting the Global Common Good

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By Okka Lou Mathis

Prioritise climate protection, promote sustainable food production, increase funds for development cooperation, and create a sustainability ministry: These are just four of the 32 proposals from the citizens’ council on “Germany’s Role in the World”, consisting of 154 randomly selected citizens. The Bundestag will receive the final report on 19 March. The citizens’ council is an instrument of innovative citizen participation that has been used in many countries and at various political levels.

Citizens’ councils promise to reduce disenchantment with politics and to promote courageous solutions to socially controversial issues. The trick is that certain people come together by lot, ideally representing the socio-economic composition of society, in a so-called “mini-public”. The council is therefore much more inclusive and diverse than, for example, the Bundestag. Moreover, the councillors have neither voters, nor a party line, or lobby interests breathing down their necks. The idea is that this allows them to discuss political issues more impartially and at eye level. In addition to learning together, an appreciative, personal and yet fact-oriented exchange of experiences and views can take place according to the principle of “deliberation”: In the end, the best argument for the common good should actually be convincing, not just the loudest voice or the best-organised interest. For this reason alone, citizens’ councils are a useful addition to our democracy. In concrete terms, citizens’ councils can provide valuable impulses in terms of content, as the political recommendations on sustainability from the citizens’ council “Germany’s Role in the World” show.

The citizens examined this broad topic from five perspectives in working groups: sustainable development, peace and security, democracy and the rule of law, economy and trade, and the EU. The topics were selected in advance through a participatory process, and it is gratifying that sustainable development was considered very important. A small drop of bitterness, however, is that sustainable development was not, by its very nature, considered as a cross-cutting basic principle everywhere. Be that as it may, both the agreed guidelines and the concrete recommendations of the sustainable development group showed that the randomly chosen citizens were serious about wanting to anchor sustainability as an overarching guiding principle in German politics. For example, at their final meeting on 20 February, they agreed that Germany should “promote sustainability, climate protection, the right to clean water and the fight against world hunger as a global cross-sectional task (…) and place them at the centre of its political action so that future generations can also live well”. They proposed “enshrining sustainability in the Basic Law” and the “establishment of a sustainability ministry that coordinates, controls and monitors other ministries and ensures transparency”. They also found clear words for prioritising climate protection and for Germany to show “courage to embrace a reorientation towards the common good and end the continuous growth paradigm”. In addition, funds for “development aid” should be increased to 2% of gross national income (currently the rate is 0.6%). In addition, food production should become sustainable worldwide – “even if food prices in Germany rise as a result.”

If we think of the international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, sustainability and the reduction of greenhouse gases are central and overarching political goals, and are not exactly new. What is new and encouraging, however, is that the international community’s existing goals, and their consequences for us in Germany seem to enjoy support among the general population, at least when citizens are given the opportunity to discuss them in an informed way. This could increase both the pressure on politicians for the ambitious implementation of these goals and the social legitimacy of sustainability measures in Germany. Despite all the euphoria, however, questions remain about the citizens’ council as an instrument, for example how to strengthen its political weight and how to attract broader public attention to the discussions and conclusions.

The citizens’ council “Germany’s Role in the World” shows the instrument’s potential for searching for solutions oriented towards the common good – both at national and global level. This makes the format directly relevant for international (development) cooperation, because the global common good is the very rationale behind the climate and sustainability agendas. The institutionalisation of citizens’ councils in Germany, especially on sustainability issues, would therefore be a promising way of exerting pressure for the implementation of these international targets. Incidentally, this is also a recommendation of the panel itself: “Germany should (…) use and account for citizen-based, political forums (e.g., citizens’ assemblies) on a permanent basis”. The next citizens’ council that could work for the global common good is already in the starting blocks – the topic: climate.

This post first appeared as The Current Column (2021), Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / German Development Institute (DIE) on 18 March 2021.

What it takes to exercise adaptive planning

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By Shirin Malekpour and Jens Newig

This research was a collaboration between Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), and the Research Group Governance and Sustainability, Leuphana University (Germany). Dr Shirin Malekpour (Monash) is the recipient of the Green Talents award, which enabled her to undertake a research sabbatical at Leuphana in 2019, conducting this study in collaboration with Prof. Jens Newig.

Adaptive planning is an approach to long-term strategic planning when confronted with significant uncertainties that dwarf any seemingly robust forecast (think Covid-19 pandemic). It is a shift from the conventional ‘predict-and-act’ approach, which assumes that we can anticipate the most likely future scenarios, and optimise our strategies accordingly. When uncertainties are profound and we have no good grasp of what can happen in the future, adaptive planning posits that decision makers should not even dream of an optimal strategy that can work in the long term. Instead, they need to adopt strategies that are flexible, and a planning approach that remains open to adaptation over time, in order to proactively respond to changing circumstances.

In today’s world overwhelmed by unprecedented events and profound shocks, adopting an adaptive approach to long-term strategic planning might sound like a no-brainer. There are, in fact, a range of tools for adaptive planning available to decision makers, such as those developed by the Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) community. However, reactive planning and over-reliance on narrow projections still appear to prevail.

Some scholars have argued that the poor usage of adaptive planning is not due to a lack of appreciation of adaptive planning, but because of unfavourable governance processes, institutional frameworks and organisational arrangements within which adaptive planning should take place. Some of these issues impacting adaptive planning have been discussed in individual case studies, but there has been no larger scale comparison across various cases to provide a comprehensive picture of what it takes to put adaptive planning into practice.  

In our recent publication, we present a meta-analysis of 40 cases of adaptive planning applications. The cases were from diverse geographies (i.e. all continents), sectors (e.g. water, transport, etc.) and implementation scales (i.e. local to national). We assessed: 1) to what extent those applications adhered to the principles of adaptive planning – in other words, how adaptive were those adaptive planning applications, and 2) what enablers and barriers they faced in the broader governance and institutional arrangements.

So, what did we find?

Figure 1: Adaptive planning in different geographies. The data has been sorted (left to right) based on the number of reported cases of adaptive planning. Check the publication for further details on how we calculated average adaptiveness.

Figure 2: Adaptive planning in different sectors. The data has been sorted (left to right) based on the reported number of cases of adaptive planning. Check the publication for further details on how we calculated average adaptiveness.

We found that in the studied cases, adaptive planning applications are far from ideal. The main challenge is in setting up a monitoring regime that can identify early signals, and a systematic process that can assist with activating contingency plans when needed. The principal barrier to this is the lack of long-term investment strategies that go beyond short-term budgetary cycles for individual projects. There is a need for a redefinition of planning priorities and success indicators, from efficient delivery and implementation (i.e. a quick fix), to long-term outcomes achieved through experimentation, learning and adaptation.

Another challenge has been in using a wide range of future scenarios as the basis for decision making, which is another principle of adaptive planning, in addition to monitoring and keeping options open. The implicit assumption that future conditions could be estimated from existing trends was identified as a significant barrier to using a wide range of scenarios. This confirms earlier observations in the literature that, despite encountering major uncertainties, decision makers still rely on forecasts and a limited number of future scenarios to plan for the future. Another barrier is decision makers’ risk aversion and reluctance to acknowledging that ‘they do not know’. They prefer to squeeze future scenarios into a manageable set that is easier to grasp and communicate with stakeholders and the broader public.

On the other hand, there are a range of enablers that can facilitate adaptive planning. When strategic planning takes place in a transdisciplinary environment through effective and uninterrupted science-policy exchange, it is easier to avoid a reductionist approach to decision making.

Furthermore, adaptive planning is better enabled when there is a dedicated governance body that takes on the coordination role for adaptive planning activities. This would avoid situations where adaptive planning is taken on as an add-on to ongoing activities of a strategy team, with little to no dedicated resources for effective implementation. A coordinating body is not meant to drive all activities in a top-down approach, but rather to broker and negotiate activities across different stakeholders, and to absorb some of the transaction costs for adaptive planning.

The findings of our study shed light on some of the ingredients of a governance framework for enacting adaptive planning. They indicate what enablers should be harnessed, and what barriers should be overcome in an adaptive planning endeavour. Future research could extend the findings of this study to fully articulate how adaptive planning could be operationalised: who should be involved, what structures should be set up, what resources would be needed, and what practices would need to be put in place to successfully exercise adaptive planning.

Malekpour, S. and J. Newig (2020) ‘Putting adaptive planning into practice: A meta-analysis of current applications.’ Cities 106: 102866.

Critical scholars, transformationists, and cumulators – How the environmental governance research community engages the issue of policy relevance, and why we argue for a stronger role of knowledge cumulation

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By Jens Newig & Michael Rose

Environmental governance research seems to struggle with its own position towards the science-society interface. For example, the issue of policy-relevance was intensively discussed during a panel at the Earth System Governance Conference in November 2018 on “How can the Earth System Governance community effectively contribute to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals?” At the panel, one group of participants – let’s call them the ‘critical scholars’ – suggested that in our diverse community, scholars may reject an instrumental view of science helping to “implement” the SDGs. In contrast, a second group – let’s call them the ‘transformationists’ – supported an activist view in which researchers should become agents of change towards sustainability (which is what has occasionally been termed transformative sustainability science).

A third group – let’s call them the ‘cumulators’ – argued that it is mainly through providing robust evidence on “what works where and how” that social-science research can support change towards sustainability. According to this view, environmental governance scholars should hold up their high (inner-)scientific standards but at the same time build knowledge that can inform policymaking and thereby facilitate sustainability. Some in the room voiced their frustration that policymakers hardly listen to environmental governance research, but rather to natural science research – even though the latter might be less policy-relevant. It was found that while policymakers are looking for evidence, social scientists are often either reluctant to even speak of evidence, or unable to produce it.

The panel in Utrecht seemed like a microcosm of environmental social-science research, with critical researchers, transformationists and cumulators voicing reasonable and legitimate positions and arguments. While we acknowledge and appreciate the community’s diversity of approaches and methods, we also see the fragmentation and incoherence of the field being a barrier when it comes to producing cumulative knowledge. Any scientific field that shows ‘progress’ in the sense of becoming better and better at understanding and explaining natural or social dynamics needs to be cumulative: new theories and empirical findings need to build on existing ones – either by challenging (‘falsifying’) existing research, by confirming it, or by adding nuances. By and large, environmental governance research appears to be hardly cumulating. And therefore, it seems to produce little reliable and knowledge on how and why what forms of governance help to achieve environmental sustainability.

And indeed, quite recently in the broader community of sustainability research, there appears a renewed, growing interest into how science and scholarship can produce cumulative knowledge (Pauliuk 2020); how research results – including qualitative data – can be synthesized to contribute to sustainability policy (Alexander et al. 2020); and how cumulative knowledge production in the field of environmental governance can be fostered through common research protocols (Cox et al. 2020).

In a new paper, we join these voices and venture to suggest a research reform agenda for environmental governance research (Newig and Rose 2020, open access). We discuss what knowledge cumulation means for environmental governance research, and what challenges it faces. We propose three concrete areas for reform:

  • First, we make a case for an agreed canon of concepts and definitions shared within the community, while being open to reinterpretations and novel concepts. This could ideally be realized, among others, through wiki-supported common dictionaries.
  • Second, we advocate the stronger use of comparative research approaches and meta-analytical methods such as the case survey methodology, or systematic reviews, to cumulate (published) case-based evidence – drawing on both ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ cases.
  • Third, we argue for a systematic recognition of the institutional, political, and social context of governance interventions. This becomes increasingly important to the extent that meta-analyses reveal general patterns and trends that nonetheless vary with context. Here, we elaborate on what constitutes a ‘case’ of a governance intervention as opposed to its ‘context’, and discuss challenges and opportunities of integrating published case-based insights with knowledge on the respective context (which is currently seldom done).

However, this seems only the beginning of what could be a decade-long journey which may take many different paths. We would therefore love to see a broad discussion on the ideas put forward here. Whether from critical scholars, transformationists, cumulators or any other colleagues in the field – any comments, critique and ideas on how to move forward are more than appreciated!

Cited literature

New European research network on sustainable water governance

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*** Deadline for applications to PhD positions has been extended to May 24 ***

By Jens Newig

Ensuring access to clean water and the protection of healthy water ecosystems remain among the greatest challenges humankind is facing. The United Nation’s (2006) dictum that “the world water crisis is a crisis of governance – not one of scarcity” has become a modern proverb. Countless paradigms and approaches to water governance have been developed and (more or less fully) implemented across the globe (Huitema et al. 2009; Biswas and Tortajada 2010; Newig and Challies 2014). But have “Adaptive Water Governance”, “Integrated Water Resources Management” (IWRM) or “River Basin Governance” in fact been instrumental in furthering sustainable water management? Will we need new paradigms or merely better implementation of those existing ones? Or will water governance approaches just have to be better tailored to their respective biogeophysical, cultural and institutional contexts?

Such questions, among others, are at the heart of the European research network ‘NEWAVE (Next Water Governance)’ that has been launched early this year. NEWAVE is funded as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research programme and brings together around a dozen European research groups plus international partners, together hosting 15 PhD projects that are to start later this year. The NEWAVE project, which is co-ordinated by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Prof. Jampel Dell’Angelo and Prof. Dave Huitema) “aims to point the way forward in the global debate about water governance. It does so by developing research and training for a new generation of future water governance leaders, and by equipping them with the transdisciplinary skills to better tackle water challenges” (NEWAVE website).

While the project will address a variety of different perspectives on water governance – such as water scarcity, the management of urban water demand, European water policy, participatory water governance, or the role of consultancy firms – it introduces a common heuristic framework, following the “3 Ps” logic of problématiques, paradigms and patterns of governance.

Problématiques: Rather than starting out with what governance does (or doesn’t), NEWAVE pursues a problem-oriented logic and begins by diagnosing and assessing the nature of existing and emerging water-related problems. This serves “to develop an understanding of the socio-hydrological conditions in which paradigms are diffused and governance approaches are tried out” (NEWAVE website). Water-related problématiques range from unresolved local pollution to globalized and “telecoupled” issues (which we address in the project GOVERNECT) such as virtual water trade. Here, governance has to cope with spatially and socially distant causes of local problems, for which there are often no governance approaches, let alone concrete rules and measures, available.

Paradigms: Given the current and emerging water-related problématiques, NEWAVE will study the grand discourses on how water governance should be designed, as manifested in certain water governance paradigms. This “allows to engage with the ideational underpinnings of water governance, making it possible to understand why proponents of certain approaches have come to accept and embrace them, why they propagate them, and how the global circulation of ideas about governance works” (NEWAVE website). The project will assess whether and to what extent paradigms (such as the ones listed above) have shaped concrete water governance arrangements, or whether they have remained largely symbolic.

Patterns of water governance: Ultimately, it is the governance arrangements, the concrete institutionalization of governance in its instruments and measures that is expected to yield more sustainable water management outcomes, addressing lurking, acute and imminent problems of scarcity and health of ecosystems. NEWAVE studies such patterns of governance to understand how they emerge and whether and how they deliver in terms of social and ecological sustainability. Which modes of governance have proven most effective in what contexts?

Through this common framework, NEWAVE aims at cumulative knowledge development. “NEWAVE will consistently advance state of the art procedures, produce actionable water governance science for sustainable development, and contribute to scientific excellence.” (NEWAVE website).

One PhD researcher (“ESR = early-stage researcher”) will be hosted by our research group at Leuphana University (see the job description here). She or he will contribute to generating both conceptual advances and robust empirical evidence on which approaches work in which contexts towards achieving sustainable water governance. To this end, the project will first review the literature on existing empirical studies on ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of water governance approaches (objective 1). Building on this, the project will seek to analytically dissect existing water governance institutions into ‘building blocks’ (objective 2). Ideally, all water governance institutions can be split up into a finite number of such building blocks. The further empirical analysis (objective 3) will then assess the performance of water governance institutions in selected countries by drawing on existing academic literature, document analysis and key expert interviews. Governance institutions will be analysed according to the building blocks they consist of, allowing to assess which combination of building blocks leads to sustainable outcomes (or not). Results will be discussed with leading experts and practitioners in the field in order to enhance usability and robustness of the research (objective 4).

Cited literature

Biswas, A.K. and C. Tortajada (2010) ‘Future Water Governance: Problems and Perspectives.’ International Journal of Water Resources Development 26 (2): 129-39.

Huitema, D., E. Mostert, W. Egas, S. Moellenkamp, C. Pahl-Wostl and R. Yalcin (2009) ‘Adaptive water governance: Assessing the institutional prescriptions of adaptive (co-)management from a governance perspective and defining a research agenda.’ Ecology and Society 14 (1).

Newig, J. and E. Challies (2014) Water, rivers and wetlands, in Routledge Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, ed. P.G. Harris. London, New York: Routledge: 439-52.

 

Fully-funded PhD position on comparative water governance

~ Jens Newig ~ Leave a comment

We are now seeking to fill a 100% PhD position on “Assessing the sustainability of water governance systems in global comparison” within the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie ETN Graduate School ‘NEWAVE – New Water Governance’, starting between 1 May and 1 September 2020, for a duration of 36 months.

Deadline for applications (which originally was April 5) has been extended due to COVID-19 related delays to 24 May 2020!

Further information here, or visit the NEWAVE website.