Suchergebnisse

Sustainable development aims at addressing economic, social, and environmental concerns, but the current lack of responsive environmental governance hinders progress. Short-term economic development has led to limited actions, unsustainable resource management, and degraded ecosystems. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may continue to fall short of achieving significant progress without a better understanding of how ecosystems contribute to achieving sustainability for all people. Ecosystem governance is an approach that integrates the social and ecological components for improved sustainability and includes principles such as adaptive ecosystem co-management, subsidiarity, and telecoupling framework, as well as principles of democracy and accountability. We explain the importance of ecosystem governance in achieving the SDGs, and suggest some ways to ensure that ecosystem services are meaningfully considered. This paper reflects on how integration of these approaches into policies can enhance the current agenda of sustainability.

Time is of crucial importance in the actions of professionals in the public sector. Policy initiatives, processes or initiatives can be early or late, slow or fast, focused on a short or long time horizon, and stable or dynamic over time. The timing, sequence, speed, duration, and time horizons of governance efforts can play an important role in shaping their success and failure in public governance. Studying the temporal dimensions of governance thus makes sense academically. Likewise, enhancing the temporal awareness and action repertoire of public professionals – their ability to understand and use time – is a relevant endeavour for an applied academic field such as public administration. The aim of this study is to explore and develop a viable conceptual approach to time in public governance. This theoretical development starts with an exploration of the meaning of time in the context of public governance. It follows from this that time should not be treated as an object that is 'out there'. In reality, time is an instrument of sensemaking. People actively impose temporal forms on the outside world, in order to be able to make sense of it and navigate in it. Therefore, time in public governance is studied here as a verb instead of a noun: as temporalising, instead of 'time'. In this study, I explore the various forms in which temporalising public governance might be conceptualised, studied and interpreted. I do so by conducting 10 ten cases of strategic governance challenges and processes in the Netherlands. The cases cover a range of policy domains, questions to be resolved and kinds of actors involved. In each case, the research emphasis is on how the perspective of temporalising can be useful as both an analytical tool for scholars and as a reflective practice for public professionals. In a series of five paired cases, five initial sensitizing concepts are developed through action research. Grounded in the work of Argyris, Schön and Rein, I engage in reflective conversations with professionals to explore ...

Sustainable approaches for waste management and sanitation are key to deal with the environmental and health challenges that growing urbanization is creating around the world. Implementing systems that allow to reuse resources contained in the organic waste streams (OWS) is an approach that can bring many benefits, especially in low-medium income areas as the Latin American and Caribbean region, where excreta, wastewater, and waste are not properly managed. The transformation towards these systems requires not only technological changes, but also changes in the way that urban waste and wastewater are governed. The aim of this study was to assess the capacity of the town of Chía (Colombia) to govern the transition towards resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems. The Governance Capacity Framework (GCF) was used as a method to evaluate the governance capacity of the town to implement these systems. The assessment revealed that the capacity of Chía to govern the implementation of resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems was low. Furthermore, governance factors that could be hindering the implementation of these systems were identified. Low level of knowledge of resource recovery from OWS in the public spheres, insufficient collaboration and communication across sectors and institutions that had competences on waste management and sanitation, short-term vision within the local decision-making processes and insufficient incentives to support local entrepreneurship on circular economy. Despite these challenges, analysis also revealed the existence of public-private partnerships and entrepreneurs working in successful initiatives linked with resource-oriented systems in Chía and other towns of Cundinamarca county. The study concluded that in Chía there was a gap between local initiatives of resource recovery from OWS that brought environmental, economic, and social benefits at small scale and its inclusion in the local and regional governance systems. Findings of this study touches upon many governance aspects such as knowledge, legislation, financing and even culture. Further research is needed to look closer to each of those and make concrete, feasible and effective proposals that bring change with a long-term sustainability vision. Finally, when analysing the results of the evaluation and making future proposals, strengths, and shortcomings of applying the GCF as an analytical tool for a specific case study like Chía need to be considered.

Naast wetgeving maakt de Europese Unie ook gebruik van een hybride beleidsmethode, genaamd ?economic governance?, om o.a. jaarlijks aanbevelingen te geven aan de lidstaten, waarvan de EU de opvolging monitort via het Europees semester. Deze aanbevelingen hebben betrekking op de begroting en de economie, maar ook op het sociaal en werkgelegenheidsbeleid van de lidstaten. Terwijl de EU geen sterke wetgevingsbevoegdheden heeft inzake de sociale dimensie, maakte het ? zeker tijdens de crisis ? uitvoerig gebruik van EU ?economic governance? om ?soft law?-richtsnoeren uit te delen inzake werkgelegenheid, arbeidsrecht en sociale zekerheid. Een groot aantal aanbevelingen hadden betrekking op de loonvorming of rechtstreeks op een hervorming van het collectieve onderhandelingssysteem.00Een aanvaring met het fundamentele recht op collectief onderhandelen (en sociale dialoog) van de sociale partners was dan ook onvermijdelijk. Dit recht, dat een zekere autonomie aan de sociale partners geeft om met elkaar over sociale aangelegenheden te onderhandelen, is niet alleen beschermd door de EU-rechtsorde zelf, maar ook door de Internationale Arbeidsorganisatie en de Raad van Europa (EVRM en ESH). Het onderzoek heeft nagegaan in welke mate EU ?economic governance? problematisch is in het licht van het recht op collectief onderhandelen, wat tot schendingen van dit recht in de verschillende rechtsorden kan leiden. Uit de evaluatie van de aanbevelingen en de maatregelen trekt het onderzoek lessen voor de EU (en de lidstaten) om EU ?economic governance? beter met het recht op collectief onderhandelen te verzoenen, rekening houdend met het postcrisisklimaat en de hernieuwde aandacht voor de sociale dimensie van de EU

During the 2000s, Sweden has pursued an active foreign and security policy. This has meant participation in several international military operations and has left many Swedish soldiers and officers with combat experience. Thus, the Swedish parliament decided in 2010 on a political reform of the veterans area, with more extensive societal support, war decorations to express the government recognition of personal sacrifices made in the service and a new medal for courage in combat. Considered as a reward system, it functions as an immaterial and emotionally established incentive, in contrast to the financial and bonus reward systems that are otherwise common. From a governance perspective, this setting is fundamentally interesting. The complexity of military operations and the demands for efficiency in armed combat are in contrast with the democratic state's need to guarantee the rule of law, even from a distance and under difficult conditions. Traditional government is not sufficient because the situation is characterized by high contextual uncertainty and therefore requires more situational adaptive control. Organizing in a professional model implies autonomy for military officials, and this means that there is a form of gap in terms of civilian control. In the dissertation, a concept and an analytical model are formulated to understand this phenomenon, entitled soft norm governance, that also form one of the main results. The model combines four levels of analysis to describe the dynamics of the steering mix: organizational metagovernance, rule control, policy work and professional ethics. One conclusion is that professional ethics has a two-way function in the chain of implementation steering, both as a decisive factor for concrete decision-making, but also as an objective for the government's soft norm governance. Thus, this control gap does not mean absence of control, but that other value-based norm systems govern our actions. In this way, soft norm governance also reaches beyond the scope of the law. The theoretical framework is metagovernance, the idea that the modern state is steering at a distance and with subtle methods, such as by organizational measures. It opens for the importance of soft law, social norms and ethics in governmental steering. The case study of the veterans policy and medal of courage contributes empirically to the specification of these theories. Furthermore, new institutionalism adds an explanatory value with a rationality of action for the officials, a so-called logic of appropriateness based on the professional role and on adaptation to the situation at hand and to applicable rules. Theoretically, the thesis contributes by supplementing with a logic of values, which takes into account the profession's ethical and moral rationality of action, which is particularly important in situations such as armed conflict. The methodological approach combines a structural statistical perspective with a qualitative and understanding-oriented perspective and can, with the support of the analytical model, illuminate both pattern and function. The material base is a total selection from the medal preparation of eight contingents in Afghanistan during the years 2008-2012, i.e. FS16-FS23. It consists of the archive material from the nominations as well as in-depth interviews with responsible commanders at the international units and at the national headquarters, including the Commander-in-Chief.

The standard picture of public governance in the Dutch Republic (1579-1795) is one of consultation with multiple stakeholders, peaceful negotiations with representatives from a range of governmental institutions, and agreements and compromise. This picture has been the subject of much debate among historians and other scholars. One question concerns the extent to which this kind of governance evolved from the traditional practices of water authorities, as these institutions emerged very early, at the end of the thirteenth century. A further question is whether it is correct to assume that these peaceful negotiations did in fact involve participation by a wide range of societal stakeholders. This book contributes to this debate by presenting the results of new research into the development of governance by water authorities prior to 1800. In the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period, these institutions changed as a result of ecological, socio-economic and political developments. The central question is how these developments affected the evolution of and governance within the water authorities. The research focuses on two inter-local water authorities: first, the water authority of the Bunschoten Veen and Velden dikes in the Province of Utrecht; and second, the water authority of Mastenbroek polder in the Province of Overijssel. How were landholders represented in such authorities, and what was the relationship between developments in representation and participation in decision-making? The positions and backgrounds of the board members of these two water authorities were investigated, as well as the process of decision-making. The theoretical framework was provided by theories of consociationalism (Lijphart 1968 and Putnam 1993), in which peaceful governance is defined in terms of consensus politics or politics of accommodation. A set of criteria was formulated to assess the occurrence of participative decision-making by stakeholders. These criteria were tested against the discussions and decisions found in ...

The change in regional governance in Sweden is regularly understood in terms of a shift from 'government' to 'governance', from a redistributive policy to a policy that aims to encourage regional innovation, competitiveness and growth. This shift also includes the adoption of global policy models, such as 'clusters'. In the literature on the global spread of policies it has been argued that a market for global policies has developed. This is not least evident through the expansion of global consultancy firms, international policy organisations as well as a cosmopolitan elite of travelling policy technocrats. Theoretically and methodologically this study contributes to scholarly discussions of how new forms of governance can be analysed, and especially how governmentality studies can be utilised and combined with analyses of the messy political practices of specific policies and programs. The study analyses the discursive shift in regional policy in Sweden: contested elements erased, conflicts concealed and the political order produced. By empirically departing from a 'cluster policy network' lodged within a Swedish region, cluster policy is analysed as an assemblage of global circuits of knowledge, expertise and local relations of power. A broad range of materials for analysis have been generated through interviews, participant observations and documents. The production of policy knowledge is an overarching political rationality of contemporary forms of regional governance, translated into technologies such as benchmarking, regional comparisons, competitions, evaluations and best-practice. Based on the empirical analyses it is argued that the lack of power critique and a hyper-rational representation of knowledge produce an international market for legitimacy. It is further argued that five characteristics of the policy regime ('the regional cluster orchestra') contributes to the reproduction of the policy regime, and relations of domination. ; Baksidestext Avhandlingen tar sin utgångspunkt i vad som har beskrivits som en marknad för globala policymodeller. I Sverige har klusterbegreppet, med ursprung i ekonomisk och geografisk teoribildning, fått stort genomslag i regionalpolitiken. I den samtida regionalpolitiken har också produktionen av olika former av policykunskap utvecklats till centrala styrningsteknologier: benchmarking, best practice, utvärderingar, uppföljningar, mätningar och konkurrensutsatta tävlingar om regionala utvecklingsmedel. Genom kunskap och ständigt lärande ska Sveriges regioner frälsas. I avhandlingen studeras den scen där ett regionalt förankrat policynätverk agerar och den kunskap som produceras. Regionalpolitikens rationalitet innebär att det blir centralt för regionerna att agera som enhetliga aktörer och visa upp en lyckad och framgångsrik fasad. Det argumenteras för att bristen på maktanalys, och en hyperrationell syn på kunskap i regionalpolitiken innebär att regionalpolitikens styrningsteknologier producerar en internationell marknad för legitimitet som i sin tur reproducerar ordningen och döljer dominansrelationer.

The view of networks has changed within the field of policy studies. Once they were considered as hampering the policy process, but today they are accepted as a legitimate policy instrument. The Swedish Government, for instance, makes use of networks to steer society. One attempt to do so is the Sustainable Municipality Programme launched by the Swedish Energy Agency in 2003. Five municipalities where selected to participate in this collaborative process to further sustainable energy policies. This thesis explores the potential of network governance theory as a model for describing policy making. A case study addressing three questions was conducted. Firstly, can the Sustainable Munici-pality Programme be described within the framework of network governance theory? Secondly, is this governance network successful in its struggle to achieve its goals? Thirdly, can this example of network governance further a discussion exploring a scenario where inter-municipality network governance might pose a challenge to the principle of local government? The first and second question is answered by focusing on four functions that the governance network should fulfil; to give priority to projects; to mobilize resources, to complete projects and, to evaluate the process. In order to answer the first question the case study focuses on the interaction within the governance network. Is the process organised in a fashion recognisable as network govern-ance, as an ideal type of coordination? The analysis shows that network governance theory provides an analytic framework well suited to shed light on the process. The analysis also shows that the three first functions were achieved. Through negotiations the network gave priority to different projects. The thesis focuses on three of these. The first project includes the education of maintenance person-nel. The second is a research project, investigating different actors' possibilities to plan for a more sustainable use of energy. The third project is a research project carried out within the field of physi-cal planning. The fourth function, evaluation, still poses a problem since the actors themselves are not content with the evaluation model they produced. In order to answer the third question the case study explores the notion of local government and how it can be safeguarded within a governance network. Two indicators are used to analyse this aspect of the process; the democratic anchorage of the governance network and the transparency of the process. The analysis shows that the process has been transparent and that local politicians have had an opportunity to meta govern the process. It is, however, undoubtedly so that the actors, or municipalities, gain influence over each other's policy processes. This causes discontent since local priorities get affected, sometimes negatively. In the end of 2007, four of the five municipalities decided to remain within the programme, or the governance network, for another three years. They are now joined by an additional 60 municipalities. ; Godkänd; 2008; 20080211 (ysko)