Governing complex environmental policy mixes through institutional bricolage: lessons from the water-forestry-energy-climate nexus

ABSTRACT

Policy mixes come in many shapes and sizes. This poses many challenges to policy design, especially when mixes extend across sectors and have multiple levels. This is the case with the Water-Forest-Energy-Climate (WFEC) nexus, a complex policy mix that involves not only significant cross-sectoral linkages and the potential complementarities and conflicts which are examined in other articles in this special issue, but also deals with sectors which involve significant national and trans-national elements. This complex multi-sector, multi-level policy assemblage also lacks the cohesion provided by a treaty-based international regime which allows multi-level co-ordination and integration of policy designs in areas such as trade or finance. In such policy non-regime or weak regime complexes, regional agreements and the negotiated nature of interactions within such agreements (which we see as a form of ‘policy bricolage’) are critical but overlooked factors affecting policy success.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy nexus
• policy mixes
• governance
• bricolage
• water policy
• forest policy
• energy policy
• climate policy

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ching Leong

Ching Leong is Vice-Provost and Associate Professor in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Her work lies in making sense of apparently irrational environmental behavior, whether in refusal to use recycled water, underinvesting in water utilities, or decision making in building dams and managing rivers. Her field research is focused on water institutions and governance in Asia.

Michael Howlett

Michael Howlett, FRSC is Burnaby Mountain Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He specializes in public policy analysis, political economy, and resource and environmental policy. His most recent books are Dictionary of Public Policy; (2022), Policy Consultancy in Comparative Perspective; (2020) and Designing for Policy Effectiveness: Defining and Understanding a Concept (2018).

Theodore Lai

Theodore Lai is a Doctoral Student pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy in Government at Gerogetown University.