The concepts of knowledge and power in the literature on the governance of climate adaptation

A systematic review of the concepts of knowledge and power in the literature on the governance of climate adaptation has just been published in the on-line open access journal Ecology and Society. The first author is Martijn Vink, who works at our Public Administration and Policy group on a PhD project about framing processes in the governance of climate adaptation, as part of the Knowledge for Climate research programme on the governance of adaptation.

The role of knowledge and power in climate change adaptation governance: a systematic literature review

Martijn Vink, Art Dewulf and Catrien Termeer (Ecology and Society, 18(4): article 46)

The long-term character of climate change and the high costs of adaptation measures, in combination with their uncertain effects, turn climate adaptation governance into a torturous process. We systematically review the literature on climate adaptation governance to analyze the scholarly understanding of these complexities. Building on governance literature about long-term and complex policy problems, we develop a conceptual matrix based on the dimensions knowledge and power to systematically study the peer-reviewed literature on climate adaptation governance. We find that about a quarter of the reviewed journal articles do not address the knowledge or power dimension of the governance of climate change adaptation, about half of the articles discuss either the knowledge or the power dimension, and another quarter discuss both knowledge and power. The articles that do address both knowledge and power (1) conceptualize the governance of climate adaptation mainly as a complex system of regulatory frameworks and technical knowledge, (2) assume that regulatory systems can be easily adapted to new knowledge, (3) pay little attention to fluid or unorganized forms of power, e.g., negotiation, and knowledge, e.g., learning, and (4) largely neglect the interplay between the two. We argue that more research on this interplay is needed, and we discuss how puzzling and powering are a promising pair of concepts to study this.

The article can be read and downloaded at http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-05897-180446

Scale sensitivity: the fifth governance capability?

In a recent article, we identified four governance capabilities (Termeer et al. 2013): (1) reflexivity, or the capability to deal with multiple frames in society and policy; (2) resilience, or the capability to flexibly adapt to frequently occurring and uncertain changes; (3) responsiveness, or the capability to respond wisely to changing agendas and public demands; and (4) revitalisation, or the capability to unblock deadlocks and stagnations in policy processes. These four capabilities are based on different theoretical notions, imply different ways of observing, result in different ways of acting, and require different enabling conditions in the governance institutions

In a chapter for the upcoming book "Scale-sensitive governance of the environment" - resulting from the Scaling and Governance research programme at Wageningen University - we introduce "scale sensitivity" or "rescaling" as a fifth governance capability. We define this as the capability to observe and address cross-scale and cross-level issues. The archetypical cross-scale issue for environmental problems is the mismatch between the scale of a problem and the scale at which it is governed. But understanding and addressing cross-level issues, e.g. vertical interplay between different levels of governance, is also key to scale sensitivity.

The full references is: Termeer, C., & Dewulf, A. (2014). Scale-sensitivity as a governance capability: observing, acting and enabling. In F. Padt, P. F. M. Opdam, C. J. A. M. Termeer, & N. Polman (Eds.), Scale-sensitive governance of the environment. Wiley.

Looking for a postdoc on adaptive governance of mountain ecosystem services

Update 30 Aug: the vacancy is on-line and open for applications at http://www.academictransfer.com/19767

Update 27 Aug: due to technical problems this vacancy wrongly shows up as "expired" on the academictransfer website. The vacancy is still open for applications until 15 Sep, and the website will be corrected soon.

Our Public Administration and Policy group at Wageningen University is looking for a postdoc to carry out research in the ESPA project “Adaptive governance of mountain ecosystem services for poverty alleviation enabled by environmental virtual observatories (MOUNTAIN-EVO)”. We are looking for a social science researcher in this cross-disciplinary project with Imperial College London and the University of Birmingham. This position will involve working with local researchers in mountain regions in Peru, Ethiopia, Kyrgizstan and Nepal and synthesizing the social science insights on the potential of participatory monitoring, knowledge co-generation and environmental virtual observatories for adaptive governance of ecosystem services in these mountain regions. The project will be under supervision of dr. Art Dewulf and prof. Katrien Termeer of the Public Administration and Policy group. For more information on the MOUNTAIN-EVO project, see http://artdewulf.blogspot.nl/2013/04/adaptive-governance-of-mountain.html

We are looking for ambitious and enthusiastic scientist, with a PhD in a relevant social scientific discipline and with cross-disciplinary research skills.

The ideal candidate:
• has a PhD in the field of public administration, political science, development studies, environmental studies or other relevant social scientific discipline
• is familiar with the literature on ecosystem services, adaptive governance and poverty alleviation
• has experience with doing research in the global South and is prepared to travel to the different case study areas for study visits
• has published internationally in refereed scientific journals Is able to write articles and reports, to which many researchers contribute
• has published internationally in refereed scientific journals
• has excellent communication and writing skills in English (knowledge of Dutch or Spanish is an advantage)

We offer a postdoc position for 36 months with an intended starting date of 1 December 2013. The official job announcement can be found at www.academictransfer.com/19767 and is open for applications until 15 September. For more information contact art . dewulf @ wur . nl (without the spaces).

Contrasting frames in policy debates on climate change adaptation

Just published on-line in WIREs Climate Change: “Contrasting frames in policy debates on climate change adaptation”. I was invited to write this "Focus Article" for one of the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews journals, which means it’s not reporting on original research but reviewing existing studies on framing climate change adaptation, and indicating some avenues for future research.

Contrasting frames in policy debates on climate change adaptation

The process by which issues, decisions, or events acquire different meanings from different perspectives has been studied as framing. In policy debates about climate change adaptation, framing the adaptation issue is a challenge with potentially farreaching implications for the shape and success of adaptation projects. From the

available literature on howthemeaning of climate change adaptation is constructed and debated, three key dimensions of frame differences were identified: (1) the tension between adaptation and mitigation as two contrasting but interrelated perspectives on climate change; (2) the contrast between framing climate change

adaptation as a tame technical problem, and framing climate change as a wicked problem of governance; and (3) the framing of climate change adaptation as a security issue, contrasting state security frames with human security frames. It is argued that the study of how climate change adaptation gets framed could be enriched by connecting these dimensions more closely with the following themes in framing research: (1) how decision-making biases lead to framing issues as structured technical problems; (2) the process of scale framing by which issues are situated at a particular scale level; and (3) the challenge of dealing with the variety of frames in adaptation processes.

The paper can be found http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wcc.227 or downloaded here

Framing scale increase in Dutch agricultural policy 1950–2012

Maartje van Lieshout, who is close to finishing her dissertation at our group, has published an article about scale framing in agricultural policy in NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences. This time, a historical data set of policy documents dating back to 1950 serves as the basis to analyze continuity and change in the framing of scale increase in agriculture.

Framing scale increase in Dutch agricultural policy 1950–2012
M. van Lieshout, A. Dewulf, N. Aarts,  C. Termeer

In this paper, we study how agricultural policy, and particularly how scale increase, has been framed by the responsible ministers over the last six decades. We analyse the different interpretations attached to scale increase and other policy issues, in a longitudinal study of the memoranda accompanying the yearly national budget for the Ministry of Agriculture. Our analysis provides a nuanced explanation for the continuous use of the contested concept of scale increase. We show that the framing of Dutch agricultural policy has undergone considerable changes regarding issues and solutions, the role of international policy and issues from other policy domains. We find that the policy and the policy frames have become more diverse, interdependencies have increased and as a result policy has become more complex and self-referential. Part of our findings can be explained as the occurrence of a paradigm shift. However this does not explain the continuous presence of the logic of scale increase as the way forward for Dutch agriculture. We state that the self-referential agricultural policy system has aimed to continuously improve itself by means of scale increase, without discussing or critically reflecting on the functioning of the system itself. In this process language played a powerful role: changing the language helped to maintain the existing system or paradigm in which scale increase is continuously positively framed as the solution for Dutch agriculture.

The paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2013.02.001 or downloaded below.