https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1745-0043
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ABSTRACT
This paper presents a framework for analysing the different ways in which materiality impacts environmental policy and governance. It draws on notions from the wider literature on materiality and integrates relevant insights into a theory on policy and governance. Building on a key distinction between the material and the discursive dimensions of governance, it develops the concepts of material events and material dependencies. Material events bring attention to the linkages between material changes and their observation and interpretation in governance. The concept of material dependencies is useful for analysing the different ways in which materiality structures the evolution of governance systems. The paper ends with some methodological considerations for mapping and analysing material dependencies and suggestions for further research.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kristof Van Assche
Kristof Van Assche, Currently Full Professor (since 2016) in planning, governance and development at the University of Alberta and also affiliated with Bonn University, Center for Development Research (ZEF) as Senior Fellow and with Memorial University, Newfoundland, Harris Centre for Regional Policy, as Research Fellow. Before coming to Alberta (in 2014) he worked at Bonn University (ZEF) as Senior Researcher, Minnesota State University (St Cloud), as Associate Professor, and Wageningen University, as Assistant Professor. He is interested in evolution and innovation in governance, with focus areas in spatial planning and design, development and environmental policy. He has worked in various countries, often combining fieldwork with theoretical reflection: systems theories, interpretive policy analysis, institutional economics, post-structuralism and others. Together with colleagues he has developed Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT), which aims to discern realistic modes of transition and reform, between social engineering and laissez faire.
Martijn Duineveld
Martijn Duineveld is Associate professor at the Cultural Geography Group Wageningen University and co-director of the Centre for Space, Place and Society. His research programme is named Urban Governance and the Politics of Planning and Design. He is co-founder and active contributor to the emerging body of literature on Evolutionary Governance Theory. His research is focused on three themes: 1. Democratic innovation. 2. Conflicts and Power. 3. Materiality and object formation.
Raoul Beunen
Raoul Beunen is an Associate Professor of Environmental Governance at the Open University, The Netherlands. His research explores the potentials and limitations of environmental policy and planning from the perspective of adaptive governance and sustainability. It focuses on innovation and evolution in governance, paying attention to the dynamics of policy implementation and integration, multi-level governance, stakeholder involvement, and the performance of institutional structures.
Vladislav Valentinov
Prof. Dr. Vladislav Valentinov is a research associate at the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), located in Halle, Germany. He joined IAMO in 2003 as a DAAD Fellow. Later, he was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Commission within the 6th Framework Program, and the Schumpeter Fellowship of the Volkswagen Foundation. He raised further third party funding from the DFG and the Wissenschaftscampus Halle. In 2011, he defended a Habilitation thesis that won a Christian Wolff Award of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Germany. Since then, he has lectured on the economics of nonprofit organizations at the Faculty of Law and Economics at the MLU. Presently he is a member of the Editorial Board of several journals, such as the Journal of Economic Issues, Voluntas, and Kybernetes. He was awarded the title of the adjunct professor of the Martin Luther University in 2017.
Monica Gruezmacher
Monica Gruezmacher has a PhD from the Center for Development Studies at the University of Bonn and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Memorial University, Newfoundland, and a Research Associate at the University of Alberta. She has been particularly interested in human-nature interactions; studying ways in which social changes bring about changes in the use and management of natural resources. For the past years she has been exploring the challenges of planning for long-term sustainability in rural communities of Western Canada and Newfoundland but has had also substantial experience in the Amazon and Andes regions (particularly in Colombia where she is originally from).