Suchergebnisse

Current international and European Union environmental policies increasingly promote collaborative and participatory decision-making on appropriate and multiple governance levels as a means to attain more sustainable policies and a more effective and lasting policy implementation. The entailed shifts of geographical scale of governance can be exemplified by the EU Water Framework Directive in that higher-level policies are devolved not only to the member states but to local collaborative decision-making bodies on natural as opposed to territorial scales. To date, empirical evidence and theoretical considerations have remained ambiguous about the environmental outcomes of such modes of governance. At the same time, the relationship between multi-level governance and non-state actor involvement remains a largely uncharted terrain. Accordingly, a twofold research agenda is mapped out: How does public participation work in different governance contexts? And what potential do multi-level governance environments have to foster the effectiveness of participatory governance? Drawing on scholarly literature on multi-level governance, policy implementation, public participation and complex systems, we develop five sets of hypotheses on how the number of policy levels and geographical rescaling affect citizen participation, actor interests and policy outcomes. We present empirical results based on a comparative meta-analysis of 47 case studies in environmental governance in North America and the EU, combining qualitative and quantitative methods.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) not only recast water management practices within the European Union (EU); it also opened a new chapter for the EU's external ambitions in the field of water. The central vehicle here is the EU Water Initiative (EUWI), a transnational, multi-actor partnership approach that was established in 2002 to support wider United Nations development goals. The EUWI is underpinned by principles such as river basin planning, resource efficiency, and participation, and the WFD serves as a legal and political template for achieving these aims in interested partner countries. This article analyses the implementation of the Initiative in all five partnerships: Africa, China, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Latin America, and the Mediterranean; it argues that the Initiative's origins in sustainable development related global debates led to selective interpretations of water management principles in these diverse social, political and ecological contexts. In short, these five partnerships emphasise different aspects of the three pillars of sustainable development, and their respective interpretations result in the different WFD variants outside of Europe. These patterns, we argue, not only reflect contextual differences but also strategic EU and member state foreign policy imperatives that have influenced how the WFD has been promoted globally. ; http://www.water-alternatives.org ; am2021 ; Political Sciences

This article examines the activities and achievements of the European Union Water Initiative, a transnational, multi-actor partnership established in 2002 by the European Commission to support water governance reforms around the world. Two regional components of the initiative – (a) Africa and (b) Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia – are studied with a focus on their organizational structures, activities, policies and achievements. The analysis provides evidence for improved regional dialogue and cooperation in the water sector, but also points to persistent weaknesses, in particular a lack of resources, ownership and mutual understanding as to the overall aims of the Initiative. ; The British Council and the Leverhulme Trust ; http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwin20 ; am2017 ; Political Sciences

Bezug nehmend auf eine Analyse politischer Dokumente zeigen die Verfasser, dass die Partizipation zu einem integralen Element der offiziellen Rhetorik von EU-Institutionen geworden ist, die sie 'präventiv' den Vorwürfen bezüglich des Demokratiedefizits entgegensetzen. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Steigerung der Output-Legitimität oder der politischen Effektivität lediglich durch Erhöhung der Input-Legitimität (Inklusion, Verfahrenslegitimität) erreicht werden kann. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass Partizipation die Legitimität und Effektivität der Governance steigert. Die Autoren analysieren einzelne Mechanismen, durch die eine positive Wirkung der Partizipation auf die Qualität der Entscheidungen und deren Implementierung gewährleistet werden kann. Abschließend werden empirische Forschungsergebnisse herangezogen, mit deren Hilfe die Bedeutung von Partizipation im Rahmen ökologiebezogener Entscheidungsprozesse verdeutlicht wird. (ICF)

Résumé Que font exactement les gouvernements, les organisations internationales et d'autres acteurs lorsqu'ils affirment vouloir évaluer de manière systématique tout projet de règlementation ? Les autorités en charge des politiques de régulation utilisent-elles vraiment les résultats produits par les instruments d'analyse fondés sur des données factuelles ? Cet article envisage deux dimensions de l'étude d'impact : le champ et la portée de l'analyse empirique, à la base de toute étude d'impact, et l'utilisation qui en est faite. Celles‑ci servent à dresser une typologie explicative. À partir de ces deux points de vue, nous avons passé systématiquement en revue la littérature existante, pour y repérer les angles morts et en tirer des leçons. Enfin, un tableau retrace les liens entre qualité et utilisation de l'analyse, montrant ainsi la manière dont des recherches ultérieures pourraient devenir moins descriptives.