The contributions to this issue of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning coalesce around three struggles in contemporary constellations of fragmented environmental governance: (a) the translation of novel concepts such as ecosystem services and resilience in decision-making and practitioner discourse, (b) the establishment of varied co-governance arrangements that promise increased legitimacy, inclusiveness and environmental performance, and (c) the strategies of citizen and environmental groups in political mobilisation, evidence creation and legal challenges.
The adoption of novel concepts that aim to operationalise the value of functioning ecological systems is far from straightforward, as Janne Rinne and Eeva Primmer find in their case studies of two urban planning processes in Finland. While the underlying intuition that ecosystems provide benefits and constitute public goods that deserve and require protection by public bodies was widely accepted, they found that institutional barriers and long-standing practices were not conducive to the adoption of the concept of ecosystem services. It is clear that a more rigorous and ecologically grounded conceptualisation of a public good does not overcome the basic interest asymmetries in planning and policy processes.
The paper by Jesse M. Keenan, David A. King and Derek Willis looks at the uptake of key concepts of climate adaptation among professional climate policy leaders in New York. Based on a survey, they assess the meaning and preferences given to the concepts of adaptation, resilience, mitigation and coping. The authors find neither a coherent attribution of meanings nor a significant preference for resilience applications. They call for the development of ‘consistent meanings [ … ]which bridge the scientific, policy and popular domains’. The results resonate with the findings from Rinne and Primmer and confirm that key concepts for the integration of ecological concerns in policy and planning have not yet been absorbed by practitioners or adequately translated into planning practice.
Starting from the call for a sustainability transition as a normative point of reference, Nina Vogel analyses municipal planning practices in the Danish city of Fredericia. Her case study builds on an analysis of planning documents and interviews and uses ‘hypocrisy as a theoretical-analytical perspective to dispute actual sustainability practices’ to ‘shed light on an implementation gap’. While the author finds ample sustainability attempts at the project level, these are clearly guided by an ecological modernisation paradigm and constrained by inter-municipal competition and a broader economic and social context that encourages the continuation of unsustainable patterns of consumption, production and mobility. Consequently, the city does not succeed in creating sustainability niches that would be fit for upscaling. Effectively, ‘the pursuit of green growth and the predominant ecological modernization paradigm are translated into structures and practices on the municipal level that are used as legitimate arguments and goals for rather unsustainable development’. The critical point is that the ‘hypocritical transition’ ignores the inherent ambivalence of sustainability and growth.
Lack of compliance is a frequent symptom of environmental regulation giving rise to apprehensions that environmental concerns are not being seriously adopted by relevant stakeholders more broadly. Co-governance arrangements that include stakeholders in policy deliberation have been widely hailed as a remedy that would also generate increased legitimacy of governance arrangements. Simon Birnbaum develops a conceptual framework to assess whether co-governance delivers on its promises. Drawing on literature on the fisheries sector, he finds that more intense forms of co-governance are not necessarily related to higher compliance or legitimacy, and concludes that justification of co-governance arrangements should build on their instrumental value rather than any intrinsic democratic promise.
Ecological and economic failures of modernist development models have motivated a rising interest in decentralised modes of environmental governance. Faith-based organisations (FBOs) are widely hailed as playing an important role in the development of community-led approaches to environmental management. Based on extensive fieldwork in the Solomon Islands, the case study by Kristen Lyons, Peter Walters and Erin Riddell suggests a more cautionary assessment. The authors found little evidence for community development or sustainability gains for villagers from an FBO-led community plantation project. Rather, ‘a centralized and gendered decision-making structure’ appeared to have imposed plantation forestry on village members whose ‘opportunities […] to negotiate the terms and conditions of their work and income appear highly constrained’. The findings urge a more critical look at the decision-making processes and outcomes of seemingly community-based approaches to environmental governance.
Based on rich empirical material, Julie Guthmann and Sandy Brown present the fight against regulatory approval of a soil fumigant for the US strawberry sector. Their argument stresses the role of strategic action and contingency in explaining why environmental movement actors could exploit the weaknesses of industry and lenient regulators. The detailed account also highlights the micro-politics between industry, state scientists and top decision-makers during the regulatory process, as well as the potential impact of public resistance and legal action on the uptake of agro-chemicals by farmers and on the commercial viability of toxic substances used in the food industry. In contrast to the co-governance perspective, this paper presents the interplay of scientific, legal, political and commercial reasoning as a fundamentally contested arrangement.
The paper by Kirk Jalbert and Abby J. Kinchy also discusses strategic choices by activist groups, here those opposing hydraulic fracturing. Based on several cases from Pennsylvania, the authors analyse how the adoption of automated devices for monitoring water quality affects relationships between concerned citizens, environmental activists and public authorities. While environmental sensors meet demands for ‘more and better data’, community groups often lack the skills to interpret such data or to use them in public debates. The authors observe that ‘professional watershed protection organizations tend to become the gatekeepers for how data from loggers will be interpreted and used to make claims’ and conclude that ‘automated sensing technologies in their current applications are reducing, or at the least neutralizing, capacities for local empowerment and influence, as compared to programmes that encourage nonprofessionals to get involved in all levels of water monitoring study designs’.
Overall, the seven contributions in this issue provide deep insights into the struggles and contingencies within environmental governance arrangements. They challenge common and popular wisdom among practitioners and analysts about suitable ways forward. As such, they contribute to the mission of this journal to provide a forum for the critical analysis of environmental policy and planning.
Last but not least, we want to take the opportunity and thank the 264 colleagues who have acted as reviewers to this journal between November 2014 and December 2015 – their list is included in this issue. They have devoted much time, consideration and often passion to providing critical and constructive feedback to our authors. We know that thoughtful reviewer contributions are indispensable for ensuring the academic quality of the papers published in our journal, and we are most grateful for the continued support of the academic community in this regard.