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Social meta-norms, including human rights, gender equality, equity and environmental justice, are mainstream principles of good environmental governance. The permeation of social meta-norms through global environmental goals, policies and agreements (e.g., the Sustainable Development Goals) is now generally accepted to be critical to the integrity of the Earth's system and to social dignity and opportunities for humanity. Yet, little is known about how globally articulated social meta-norms lead to shifts in action at other scales of governance. Specifically, analysis of the discursive and dynamic nature of social meta-norm diffusion is lacking. To build a better understanding of what shapes the diffusion of social meta-norms across different scales of environmental governance, we provide a synthesis that bridges political and sociological theory and underscores the critical role of agency in the diffusion process. We identify eight drivers of diffusion along a spectrum that ranges from prescriptive drivers, which leave little space for norm negotiation, to discursive drivers, which provide an enabling space for norm interpretation. We hypothesize these drivers intersect with a parallel spectrum of actor responses, ranging from complete resistance to social meta-norms at one end, to complete internalization of social meta-norms at the other. Our diagnostic of integrated drivers and responses is aimed at advancing conventional norm diffusion theory by providing a better account of discursive forces in this process. Applying these diagnostic elements to future empirical research has the potential to improve the rationale, speed, mode and impact of social meta-norm diffusion in multiscale environmental governance.

Vietnamese 'blue boats' - small wooden-hulled fishing boats - are now entering the territorial waters of Pacific Island countries and illegally catching high-value species found on remote coastal reefs. Crossing several international boundaries and traversing a distance of over 5000 km, these intrusions have alarmed Oceanic countries, including Australia. Lacking administrative capacity as well as jurisdictional authority to effectively control the vast stretches of island coastlines individually, governments and intergovernmental bodies in the region have called for strengthened coordination of surveillance efforts while also pressuring Vietnam diplomatically. This paper reviews these latest developments and is the first to provide a focused assessment of the issue. Through the lens of Copenhagen School of securitisation theory, we analyse responses of national and regional actors and their portrayal in online media to understand how blue boats are constructed as a security threat within a narrative of maritime, food and human security. Arguably, Australia together with the Forum Fisheries Agency, who advise on the governance of offshore tuna resources, have so far acted most decisively - in a way that might see them extend their strategic role in the region. We propose a comprehensive empirical research agenda to better understand and manage this nascent, flammable and largely unpredictable inter-regional phenomenon.

We bring new insights to environmental governance research from leadership studies where there is a growing recognition that leadership is a process that is enacted through a "web of interactions incorporating both people and objects" (Hawkins et al. 2015: 953). Leadership is broadly defined as a process of influence resulting in shared direction and commitment (following Bolden et al. 2012 and Haslam et al. 2011). To illustrate what a more nuanced understanding of leadership can look like we employ a deliberately provocative analytical perspective inspired by Actor Network Theory which recognises that societal outcomes are shaped by relations among humans and non-human, including discursive, actants (Latour 2005; Dwiartama and Rosin 2014 and see discussion for detailed examples). We report on an empirical study of Solomon Islands' engagement with the multi-national, multi-objective Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI), an initiative that is labelled as potentially transformative. We aimed to understand how different actors perceive leadership for improved environmental governance in Solomon Islands in practice. First, we determine whether there are sources of leadership in addition to key individuals and organisations. We investigate the potential of organisations, policy and legislative instruments, and ideologies or discourses to enact leadership by influencing governance outcomes. Second, we establish how leadership varies across three different, potentially contested CTI goals – food security, biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation – that in combination are expected to contribute to improved environmental governance. Third, we determine whether leadership can also disrupt or stall progress towards improved environmental governance outcomes. This paper aims to open up a broader debate about leadership research in environmental sciences – the empirical approach and evidence are illustrative rather than definitive.