We welcome you to issue 19 (2) of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning. This edition contains eight articles that represent the broad range of pressing environmental problems that have attracted the attention of planners and policy-makers: from biodiversity loss and water scarcity to wilderness and wildlife management as well as energy-related issues such as smart grids and hydraulic fracturing. In line with the mission of this journal, the papers contribute to a critical understanding of environmental policy and planning by analysing, inter alia, the institutional framing of environmental issues in terms of priorities, scales and participants; science–policy interactions and the design and use of policy indicators; communication about ‘new’ nature and the construction of planning story lines. Together the papers in this issue demonstrate that environmental policy and planning – or its failure – significantly affect communities, livelihoods and industries and that the political construction of environmental issues, from public and scientific communication to the institutional framework and the monitoring of policy effects, is anything but neutral.
Michael Howlett and Janet Cuenca discuss the development and use of indicators in environmental policy appraisal, taking water security policy as a case. Providing a critical overview of the origins and use of water security indicators, the authors conclude that indicator use is explained by data availability and ease of use and interpretation rather than by technical precision or capability to guide policy design in detail.
Focusing on climate policy, Andrea Hermann, Karl Hogl and Michael Pregernig compare the science–policy interactions in three traditionally neo-corporatist countries: Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Based on document analysis, expert interviews and a review of existing literature, they find that in all three countries, scientist were entangled in neo-corporatist patterns of interaction with some country specific variation. However, all countries also showed trends towards a pluralization of knowledge actors, novel forms of cooperation between scientists and less organized interests and enhanced transparency and visibility.
After the recent special issue (19(1)) on hydraulic fracturing as an interpretive policy problem, Christopher Weible, Tanya Heikkila and David Carter focus on policy design in this contested policy area. Their Institutional Analysis of Colorado’s Hydraulic Fracturing Disclosure Policy exposes the legal allocation of choice options and restrictions to a range of actors addressed in the law. An accompanying opinion survey finds that dis/satisfaction with the law is highly correlated with the position towards this contested technology. The fact that few respondents agree that the new policy builds public trust of the hydraulic fracturing process underscores the need for more deliberative forms of policy-making.
Thomas Berker and William Throndsen analyse the discourses and story lines in 13 smart grid road maps from North America, Europe and Asia, using a mixture of quantitative content analysis and qualitative story line analysis. Against the expectation that technology road maps serve as anticipatory coordination devices, the analysed documents followed three more narrow while distinct approaches: priority for market coordination as in the UK, a focus on procedural coordination of technological standards as in the US, or emphasis on technology-driven development and sound standards as in China. The findings suggest that road maps construct development pathways that reflect the needs of their authors in different political environments.
Matthew Hoffman and Bjørn Egil Flø analyse how human interests and ecological processes at various spatial and temporal scales can be reconciled in wildlife. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, they find that the Norwegian system of moose management combines local ownership and management with landscape-level planning. The paper suggests that a nesting of management institutions, where decentral government facilitates cooperation while the central state secures regulatory functions, is successful if supported by informal institutions such as trust relationships and social control.
Arvid Strand and Petter Næss provide a more sceptical view on environmental policy in Norway in their account of the side-lining of environmental concerns in the Norwegian planning system after the arrival of a new, centre-right government. Environmentally based objections by regional agencies against municipal plans have now been routinely overruled by reference to local self-determination. Beyond the case, the paper demonstrates how inter-municipal competition for taxpaying residents and business in connection with a laisser-faire handling of externalities tends to undermine the capability of planning systems to effectively address environmental concerns.
Two papers engage with the emerging discussions about ‘new’ and ‘hybrid nature’, which challenge traditional assumptions in conservation policy and landscape management. Peter Jansen, Jan van der Stoep, Jozef Keulartz and Henk Jochemsen explore the discourses around the creation of ‘new’ nature in the Netherlands. Based on document analysis and in-depth interviews, they find a disconnect between the ‘value-laden phraseology’ of official communication and the experiences if visitors, which might discredit restoration ecology projects in the long run.
Sarah Clement, Susan Moore, Michael Lockwood and Michael Mitchell combine the concepts of institutional fits and adaptive governance to evaluate the institutional framework for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes, using the grasslands of the Tasmanian Midlands as their case. The analysis, which included in-depth interviews with 49 stakeholders, reveals major weaknesses in the governance framework arising from an overly narrow and backward-oriented framing of objectives, the interplay of conflicting regimes, power asymmetries that favour large land-owners and the hesitancy of government to devolve authority to self-organizing networks. Consequently the authors call for more emphasis on the maintenance of landscape multifunctionality and ecosystem services, the consideration of novel and hybrid ecosystems and a rebalancing of public duties and landholder rights.
Overall, the papers in this issue provide rich analysis and critical insights into the evolving practices of environmental policy and planning from several continents. They underscore the importance of, inter alia, discursive issue construction and indicator formation, the structuring of the science–policy interface, institutional and policy design, informal processes in the planning system, trust and collaboration among stakeholders, and not least power and politics. Together, they contribute to a better understanding of current issues, concepts and practices in environmental policy and planning.
Peter H. Feindt, Carsten Daugbjerg, Geraint Ellis and Andrea K. Gerlak
6th June 2017