Overlapping Forms of Knowledge in Environmental Governance: Comparing Environmental Policy Workers’ Perceptions

Abstract

Public sector environmental governance involves complex interactions between different forms of knowledge. Public sector reforms have important implications for environmental governance by changing the relationships between knowledge systems. By comparing the views of environmental policy workers the implications of public sector management reform for environmental governance are explored. The analysis presented highlights that environmental policy work is contested in ways that mainstream public sector management and environmental governance literature often overlook. It is concluded that the adequacy of the conceptual frameworks informing public sector environmental reform are unclear, as are the implications of such reforms for effective environmental governance.

Keywords:

• environmental governance
• public management
• interpretive policy analysis
• policy work

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brian Coffey

Brian Coffey has a PhD in policy studies from the University of Queensland in Brisbane (Australia). Since 2010 he has been a Research Fellow in the Alfred Deakin Research Institute at Deakin University in Melbourne (Australia). His research interests focus on environmental policy and governance, and science-policy interfaces.