Looking for a new colleague!

The Public Administration and Policy Group at Wageningen University is looking for an Assistant Professor.

This is the job description:

"As an Assistant Professor you will participate in the research program “changing governance, governing change”. Within this context you will develop a research line that focuses on international organizations and global/European governance related to the Wageningen research domains. You will lecture courses in public administration and governance to students both in social and natural sciences at Wageningen University and co-supervise PhD’s. In addition, you are expected to contribute actively to the acquisition of research grants, consultancy and research projects."

More information can be found on the Academic Transfer website.

Call for papers on "Interactional framing in policy controversies" at the IPA conference

The 6th International Conference on Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) takes place from Thursday June 23 to Saturday June 25, 2011 at Cardiff University (Wales, UK). The call for papers is open until January 31st.

Together with Maartje van Lieshout we have organised a panel at this conference, on Interactional framing in policy controversies.

An interactional approach to framing focuses on how people react to each other’s on-going framing and the way they use language to frame the issues. Instead of focusing on what’s going on ‘between the ears’, we try to better understand what is going on ‘between the noses’ of people. This draws the attention to the concrete interactions where actors make sense of problems and possible solutions, and how they affect each other's frames in and through a developing interaction.

The papers will address interactional framing by examining questions such as: How does the process of framing in interaction work? Which factors of successful framing can be distinguished? What is the impact of interactional framing processes on the outcomes of policy controversies? While they all focus on processes of framing in interaction, the papers in this panel address different policy themes-environmental problems, social problems, and crisis management- and different policy processes – informal meetings, formal (administrative) meetings, and public deliberation. By examining these different contexts, we hope to deepen our understanding of

interactional framing processes.

Interested? Submit a 300 word abstract to maartje.vanlieshout@wur.nl before January 31st.

Disentangling Scale Approaches in Governance Research

As part of the Scaling and Governance programme of Wageningen University, Katrien Termeer, Maartje van Lieshout and myself have worked on a position paper on different approaches to scale in governance research, particularly monocentric, multilevel and adaptive governance.

The paper has just been published in the open access journal Ecology and Society: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art29/. You can also download the article as pdf.

This is the abstract:

The question of how to govern the multiscale problems in today’s network society is an important topic in the fields of public administration, political sciences, and environmental sciences. How scales are defined, studied, and dealt with varies substantially within and across these fields. This paper aims to reduce the existing conceptual confusion regarding scales by disentangling three representative approaches that address both governance and scaling: monocentric governance, multilevel governance, and adaptive governance. It does so by analyzing the differences in (1) underlying views on governing, (2) assumptions about scales, (3) dominant problem definitions regarding scales, and (4) preferred responses for dealing with multiple scales. Finally, this paper identifies research opportunities within and across these approaches.

The following table gives a summary of the comparison.

Table 1. Comparing scale approaches in governance theories. Monocentric governance Multilevel governance Adaptive governance Governing paradigm Central authority steering society Interactions between public and private actors, from local to global level Complex interplay of social and ecological systems Scale definitions Focus on levels at the jurisdictional scale, especially size (number of inhabitants) and territorial scope of government units Focus on multiple levels at the jurisdictional and spatial scale Focus on spatial, temporal, institutional, knowledge, and other scales, each including different levels Why do scales matter? The ideal scale can provide both governance capacity and citizens’ trust Governance must operate at multiple levels in order to capture variations in the territorial reach of policy externalities Complex interactions across scales and levels are important drivers in social-ecological systems Problem definitions Inappropriate size of governments, regional gap, overlapping jurisdictions Inefficiency, coordination costs, and lack of democratic legitimacy Scale mismatches and unaddressed interdependencies between levels Dominant responses Structural reforms (amalgamation, new authorities) and clarification of responsibilities Designing and implementing coordination procedures and multilevel policy arrangements Enhancing the fit between relevant scales and creating better linkages between levels The reference for the article is: Termeer, C. J. A. M., A. Dewulf, and M. van Lieshout. 2010. Disentangling scale approaches in governance research: comparing monocentric, multilevel, and adaptive governance. Ecology and Society 15(4): 29. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art29/

Talk at the Cradle-to-Cradle Network thematic seminar on Governance

The website of the Interreg project "Cradle-to-Cradle Network" has reported on the thematic seminar on Governance that took place in Leuven in July. Our Cycloop network was contracted by the Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM) for the perspective study on governance for cradle-to-cradle. The presentations of Johan Hovelynck and myself presented at the thematic seminar are available online.

The following was reported on the project website:

“It is clear from conversations during the last two days that ‘governance’ is in some ways less tangible than other C2C areas, such as product design, where one can set clear criteria to decide to what extent a product is C2C. In the C2CN project ‘governance’ was set up next to the other target areas, but it’s really an activity that cuts across the three other target areas.” Johan Hovelynck, Triagram.

Furthermore, Mr. Art Dewulf (Wageningen University) explored different approaches to governing change in a multi-actor perspective and presented a brief overview of corresponding lead-roles. Accordingly, he presented some initial findings on governance practices in domains related to environment and sustainability, close to the target areas in the C2CN project. To conclude, Art looked into organisational conditions for multi-actor governance, strategies of government actors and, finally, at some dilemma’s and tensions that seem implied in a governance approach."

Coping with ambiguity in natural resources management

An article by Marcela Brugnach (now at University of Twente), Hans-Jorgen Hendriksen, Peter van der Keur and myself has just been published on-line in the Journal of Environmental Management. On the basis of existing literature, and illustrated with the Guadiana case, we address the question of how to deal with the ambiguity resulting from the simultaneous presence of multiple frames in natural resources management.

This is the abstract:

Coping with ambiguities in natural resources management has become unavoidable. Ambiguity is a distinct type of uncertainty that results from the simultaneous presence of multiple valid, and sometimes conflicting, ways of framing a problem. As such, it reflects discrepancies in meanings and interpretations. Under the presence of ambiguity it is not clear what problem is to be solved, who should be involved in the decision processes or what is an appropriate course of action. Despite the extensive literature about methodologies and tools to deal with uncertainty, not much has been said about how to handle ambiguities. In this paper, we discuss the notions of framing and ambiguity, and we identify five broad strategies to handle it: rational problem solving, persuasion, dialogical learning, negotiation and opposition. We compare these approaches in terms of their assumptions, mechanisms and outcomes and illustrate each approach with a number of concrete methods.

Brugnach, M., Dewulf, A., Henriksen, H. J., & van der Keur, P. More is not always better: Coping with ambiguity in natural resources management. Journal of Environmental Management, In Press, Corrected Proof.

The Corrected Proof can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.08.029 or here: http://www.box.net/shared/23a9pj6fjx