Inducing institutional change through projects? Three models of projectified governance

ABSTRACT

The study of short-term projects in policy implementation has lately gained ground among scholars of environmental governance and public administration. The increasing reliance on and prevalence of projects, or ‘projectification’, has spurred critical debates on the ability of projects to contribute to long-term goals, including sustainability, as well as institutional change. Yet, the literature on projectification lacks specificity in terms of how projects are understood, how the relationship between projects and permanent organizations looks like, and how projects can influence institutional orders. The aim of this paper is to systematize the literature in order to uncover the processes of transforming project outputs into institutional change. Three models of projectified governance – mechanistic, organic, and adaptive – is presented, providing a conceptual apparatus that advances the study of projects in environmental policy and governance. The paper argues that the adaptive model, with its reliance on multi-scalar networks for the coordination of project activities and knowledge, shows most promise in achieving institutional change to address complex environmental problems.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance
• project
• projectification
• institutional change
• environment

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers and the editor for constructive feedback on the paper. The paper also benefitted greatly from comments and suggestions by Kjell Andersson, Sebastian Godenhjelm, Eva Heiskanen, Christian Jensen, Stefan Sjöblom, and Steven Wolf.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Johan Munck af Rosenschöld is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His work focuses on projects as an organizational strategy within environmental policy, institutional change, and interdisciplinarity in the context of sustainability. He has studied project-driven public policy programs in Finland, Wales, England, and the United States. Previously he was a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at the Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, USA.

ORCID

Johan Munck af Rosenschöld http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7193-181X

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland [grant number: 298049].