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This paper builds on the idea of cross-border regional innovation system (CBRIS) to investigate the implications of global and regional changes in social, political, economic, and ecological systems on cross-border regions. In an era of increasingly abrupt changes in border permeability, CBRIS offers an intriguing context for studying such processes. Our main contribution is to define a resilient CBRIS (R-CBRIS) for sustainability based on careful reading of previous literature on resilience, sustainability, and CBRIS integration. As merging these concepts requires a sound understanding of the factors driving or constraining CBRIS integration, we conduct a systematic review of the literature to answer our main research question: what factors affect the resilience and sustainability of CBRIS? The literature reveals that the studied CBRIS are not particularly sustainable and that their resilience remains a neglected topic. This is a definite cause for concern for everyone interested in the long-term success of cross-border regions. ; Peer reviewed

Competing coalitions can stabilise policymaking and hinder policy changes that are required to address the mounting pressures on land use systems across the globe. Thus, understanding the driving forces of coalition formation is important. This paper builds on the Advocacy Coalition Framework to determine the relative contributions of two sets of beliefs (more general policy core beliefs and more specific beliefs concerning policy instruments) to coalition formation in South African tree plantation politics and to identify coalitions therein. Discourse Network Analysis was used to code 656 statements regarding 40 beliefs to create network data from 55 interviews with organisational elites. Results from a network analysis of the twelve most salient beliefs indicate that dissimilar policy core beliefs about the validity of environmental regulation, social costs of tree plantations, and the conditionality of land reform in South Africa divide actors into two coalitions: the hegemonic "business-as-usual" coalition and the minority "justice and change" coalition. These boundaries were confirmed by comparing the network based on shared policy core beliefs with a co-ordination network. Dissimilar beliefs concerning policy instruments, including eco-certification and an indicative zoning, also divide actors, yet actors' reasoning for or against these instruments differ to the degree that united fronts are unlikely to form. Hegemonic coalitions that combine selected state and business interests with labour arguments and prioritise short-term economic efficiency threaten to delay the necessary changes away from business-as-usual across land use systems in South Africa and beyond. ; Peer reviewed

This paper builds on the idea of cross-border regional innovation system (CBRIS) to investigate the implications of global and regional changes in social, political, economic, and ecological systems on cross-border regions. In an era of increasingly abrupt changes in border permeability, CBRIS offers an intriguing context for studying such processes. Our main contribution is to define a resilient CBRIS (R-CBRIS) for sustainability based on careful reading of previous literature on resilience, sustainability, and CBRIS integration. As merging these concepts requires a sound understanding of the factors driving or constraining CBRIS integration, we conduct a systematic review of the literature to answer our main research question: what factors affect the resilience and sustainability of CBRIS? The literature reveals that the studied CBRIS are not particularly sustainable and that their resilience remains a neglected topic. This is a definite cause for concern for everyone interested in the long-term success of cross-border regions. ; published version ; peerReviewed

Competing coalitions can stabilise policymaking and hinder policy changes that are required to address the mounting pressures on land use systems across the globe. Thus, understanding the driving forces of coalition formation is important. This paper builds on the Advocacy Coalition Framework to determine the relative contributions of two sets of beliefs (more general policy core beliefs and more specific beliefs concerning policy instruments) to coalition formation in South African tree plantation politics and to identify coalitions therein. Discourse Network Analysis was used to code 656 statements regarding 40 beliefs to create network data from 55 interviews with organisational elites. Results from a network analysis of the twelve most salient beliefs indicate that dissimilar policy core beliefs about the validity of environmental regulation, social costs of tree plantations, and the conditionality of land reform in South Africa divide actors into two coalitions: the hegemonic "business-as-usual" coalition and the minority "justice and change" coalition. These boundaries were confirmed by comparing the network based on shared policy core beliefs with a co-ordination network. Dissimilar beliefs concerning policy instruments, including eco-certification and an indicative zoning, also divide actors, yet actors' reasoning for or against these instruments differ to the degree that united fronts are unlikely to form. Hegemonic coalitions that combine selected state and business interests with labour arguments and prioritise short-term economic efficiency threaten to delay the necessary changes away from business-as-usual across land use systems in South Africa and beyond.

Overcoming common‐pool resource dilemmas requires learning across different sectors of society. However, policy actors frequently entrench themselves in so‐called echo chambers by preferring to rely on information from those whose policy beliefs resemble their own. Policy forums can reduce the limiting effects of echo chambers by encouraging actors with diverse knowledge bases to exchange information and learn from one another. This paper applies exponential random graph models to network data from the South African tree plantation policy domain to investigate how belief homophily, reputational influence, and forum co‐participation shape information exchange behavior. Results show that echo chambers are important determinants of information exchange ties and that reputational influence is likely to "deepen" the echo. Results also show that the more forums that a pair of actors co‐participate in, the more likely they are to exchange information. This applies to information exchange generally, as well as information exchange with trusted partners. Findings indicate that forums enable both cognitive learning (as knowledge gains) and relational learning (as improved relations). Nonetheless, when echo chambers are strong, and many forums are polarized, then forum co‐participation may not break up echo chambers.

Background. To meet increasing demand for forest products and services, the global area of planted forests has increased dramatically over the past 25 years. Further increases in large-scale tree plantations are expected due to their high productivity, economic profitability and contribution to climate change mitigation targets. This raises questions about their long-term sustainability, as well as their impacts on forest ecosystem services and local livelihoods, particularly in countries characterized by rural poverty and insecure property rights. Previous studies have revealed mixed impacts, but there is a lack of research on the contexts and practices that can contribute to positive and/or negative socioeconomic impacts. This protocol provides guidelines for a systematic review that synthesizes the current literature on the direct and indirect impacts of large-scale plantations on local communities, and which will also identify trends, bias and gaps in the empirical evidence base. Methods. The primary research question of the systematic review asks "What are the direct and indirect socioeconomic impacts of large-scale tree plantations on local human populations?" We apply a Population-Exposure-Comparator-Outcome-Context (PECOC) framework to structure each stage of the systematic review, which comprises a comprehensive literature search, screening, quality assessment, data extraction and analysis.We define the exposure of interest to be the establishment or management of a large-scale tree plantation by external actors, population of interest as households and communities living in close proximity to plantation sites, comparators as other communities who have not experienced the same exposure as well as the same communities prior to plantation establishment, outcomes as the direct or indirect socioeconomic impacts felt by the population as a result of plantation establishment, and context as the social, political and environmental factors that may have led to differences in experienced impacts. We will search multiple bibliographic databases and organizational websites for relevant studies in both the published and grey literatures. These results will be screened by their titles and abstracts followed by their full texts based on predetermined eligibility criteria. To ensure that selected studies have controlled for potential biases, quality assessment will then take place alongside data extraction. Finally, the results of quantitative and qualitative analyses will be reported in a narrative synthesis.

While climate change and biodiversity loss have exposed humanity to major systemic risks, policymakers in more than 40 countries have proposed the transition from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy as a solution to curb the risks. In the boreal region, forests have a prominent role in contributing to bioeconomy development; however, forest-based bioeconomy transition pathways towards sustainability and the required actions have not yet been identified. Participatory backcasting was employed in this study to 'negotiate' such pathways among Finnish stakeholders by 2060 in three forest-based value networks: forest biorefineries, fibre-based packaging and wooden multistorey construction. There are many alternative pathways, ranging from incremental to more radical, to a forest-based bioeconomy within a framework of ambitious climate and biodiversity targets. Path dependence can support incremental development on bioeconomy transition pathways, and this should be considered when planning transition towards sustainability. Orchestration of the more radical changes requires actions from legislators, raw material producers, consumers and researchers, because the possibilities for business development vary between different companies and value networks. The envisioned actions between the pathways in and across the networks, such as forest diversification and diverse wood utilisation, can offer cobenefits in climate change mitigation and biodiversity protection. ; Peer reviewed

The political project on bioeconomy strives to address multiple societal aspirations, namely combine economic growth with environmental sustainability in some socially acceptable manner. The contradictions between the goals and the concrete plans to increase production, processing, and consumption of forest biomass in Europe have however raised sustainability concerns within and beyond its borders. While political actors articulate such contradictions differently and compete for traction for their viewpoints in the public discourse, little is known about how citizens of urban areas perceive this discourse. Conceptualising perception as a multidimensional construct, data from eight European university cities (Bordeaux, Bratislava, Freiburg, Helsinki, Padua, St. Petersburg, Uppsala, Vienna) are statistically analysed to explore its dimensions, the communities of like-minded citizens forming across those dimensions, and the traits associating with membership in each such community. Five communities across six dimensions from biocentrism through distributional aspects to adherence to political goals are identified: adherent-environmentalist, adherent-governmentalist, critical-reformist, critical-agriculturalist, and indifferent. City of residence and perceived familiarity with bioeconomy clearly interact with perception. There is however considerable variation in communities within and across the eight cities, suggesting deeper social tension beyond the public discourse. Much of the within-community variation remains unexplained, though, calling for more work locally. Implications for forest policy are derived. ; Peer reviewed