| 1. |
- Hedlund, Johanna, 1988-
(author)
-
The environment knows no borders : Investigating the collective challenge of governing policy issue interdependencies
- 2021
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Many of today’s most pressing environmental problems cross-cut jurisdictional, geographical, and administrative boundaries, creating interdependencies between different locations and between policy issues that no single actor can address alone. In practice, however, environmental policy is still often contained within the traditional responsibilities of the public sector and frequently judged ineffective, particularly in the European context. Whether and how interdependencies are actually associated with collaboration between policy actors has remained difficult to establish. This cumulative thesis focuses on interdependent environmental challenges that policy actors need to manage. Specifically, this thesis describes and analyses policy issue interdependencies and how they align with the collaborations of policy actors. In addition, this thesis explores how policy issue interdependencies can be revealed, concretised, and analysed. Interdependencies are effectively represented by networks, both as conceptual models and as analytical methods. Therefore, the studies in this thesis use a multilevel network model to explore the structural alignment between interdependencies and collaboration through the perspective of institutional fit.This thesis reports findings from two research projects. The first project focuses on policy issue interdependencies relating to regional water degradation. This project describes and analyses these interdependencies in relation to collaborative networks across administrative boundaries (Papers I–III). The second project focuses on climate change impacts that propagate through food trade dependencies. This project contributes insights into the effect of climate change on food trade networks that cross national borders, illustrating a need for global climate adaptation (Paper IV).Paper I introduces a methodological procedure for assessing policy issue interdependencies and develops policy issue networks by identifying overlapping causal relationships between policy issues and their environmental targets. By applying the procedure empirically to water governance, the paper shows that policy issue interdependencies vary in degree and type. Paper II combines the policy issue networks from Paper I with collaborative networks of policy actors in a multilevel network to analyse the impact policy issue interdependencies have on who policy actors select for collaborative partners and to clarify if and how patterns of collaboration among actors are formed. Paper III differentiates reinforcing and counteracting policy issue interdependencies and studies how these impact the perceptions and collaborations of the actors. Paper IV, shifting the focus to the global level, analyses climate change impacts related to food trade dependencies across national borders. Specifically, Paper IV investigates the impact of climate change on the structure of global food trade networks and therefore contributes a baseline scenario analysis for future studies that investigate policy issue interdependencies and policy actor collaborations on the global level.
|
|
| 2. |
- Hedlund, Johanna
(author)
-
No environmental problem is an island : Aligning networks of transboundary collaboration to complex policy issue interdependencies
- 2019
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In recent times, societal and environmental problems have been exhibiting a growing interconnectedness and interdependency. Based on the idea of institutional fit, interdependency on a problem level should be preferably matched with governance arrangements for effective problem-solving. Still, we know little about the governance of consequential interdependencies across societal and environmental problems. Moreover, knowledge on how the governance of such interdependencies can be effective is even more limited. In governance contexts, actors break down societal and environmental problems into specific policy issues. When actors engage in policy issues that exhibit interdependency with other policy issues, such as resource extraction and environmental protection, they must seek governance arrangements that go beyond framings of single policy issues as detached from others. Transboundary, collaborative forms of governance are often undertaken by actors as a response to interdependencies between policy issues. This combination of interdependencies and transboundary dimensions consolidates high complexity. Despite extensive literature on collaboration as a governance form and a growing body of research on interdependency between policy issues, few studies integrate these to inform research on the effectiveness of such complex governance systems, where both perspectives are combined. Nor do such studies provide empirical evidence of why the effects of transboundary arrangements for governing interdependencies matter. Without such knowledge, transboundary collaboration can therefore occur without acknowledging which policy issues are interdependent, and in what way. This poses a risk of hampering its effectiveness to solve given policy issues, pertaining to a societal or environmental problem. On that account, this PhD thesis will investigate policy issue interdependencies in the transboundary collaborative governance of the Norrström water basin, situated in the Mideast of Sweden with its outlet in Stockholm. This is a novel approach to understand a key feature of environmental problems that makes them difficult to effectively address, and to further investigate the potential of collaborative governance as way to succeed in such endeavour. This licentiate thesis addresses this current research gap with the two following papers. Paper I introduces a methodological procedure for identifying and measuring interdependencies between policy issues based on their common, causal relationships. It thereby contributes to advancing the description of policy issues as an indicator of actors’ decision-making and governance effectiveness. Paper II places the policy issue interdependency networks developed in Paper I in relation to governance networks using a multilevel network approach. It analyzes the impact of policy issue interdependencies as exogenous drivers of collaborative governance, providing insights about the evolution of complex governance systems. With these papers, this thesis aims at a concretization and application of interdependent structures at the policy issue level and actor level respectively. It thereby meets an objective highlighted by previous research by integrating interdependent policy issues and collaborative governance, contributing to the study of complex governance systems through its formation, development and effectiveness.
|
|
| 3. |
- Wanner, Maximilian S. T.
(author)
-
Change and Progress in Disaster Risk Reduction
- 2022
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Human-induced climate change is projected to increase the frequency and magnitude of natural hazard events, posing a growing global threat to lives, livelihoods, and assets. Much past research on disaster risk reduction (DRR) has focused on failures of disaster management, while less attention has been devoted to how DRR has changed or improved over time.This dissertation advances our understanding by empirically investigating under what conditions countries can achieve progress in DRR, including measures and policies for managing and reducing the risks of disasters. In that way, it contributes to efforts of sustainable development and climate change adaptation.Article I explores the variety of change and progress under the Hyogo Framework for Action, the international regime for DRR from 2005 to 2015. In addition, the article assesses the prospects of the effectiveness of international environmental regimes built on soft law arrangements consisting of voluntary obligations and non-binding provisions while refraining from sanctions. Article II statistically investigates drivers of progress in DRR for understanding why some countries exhibit positive change. Article III complements the large-scale quantitative analyses of the previous studies with an in-depth case study to unveil the development of DRR policy regimes in two vulnerable countries. The article focuses on Fiji and Nepal as two cases of progress to advance our understanding of how changes in DRR materialised over time.The dissertation makes several contributions to disaster research, theories of institutional and policy change, and development studies. First, this dissertation represents one of a few mixed-methods approaches in DRR research, conducting a comprehensive analysis of progress in DRR. Second, the dissertation systematically documents changes in DRR efforts, which confirms a positive global trend, detects countries that deviate from this trend, and identifies cases of outstanding progress. Third, the three studies highlight the importance of continued participation in and compliance with international regimes, governance effectiveness and accountability mechanisms, continuous leadership and knowledge diffusion, as well as large-scale hazard events for the expansion of DRR. Fourth, the findings demonstrate how positive changes were achieved even under adverse circumstances in developing countries.The findings underscore the need for future research on positive change in DRR, particularly on how accountability mechanisms and regime types may shape policies and policy-making.
|
|
| 4. |
- Karlsson Bazarschi, Johanna, 1981-
(author)
-
Mot en beredskap för kriser och krig? : Svenska kommuners prioriteringar och handlingsutrymme under hot i förändring
- 2024
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In recent years, the security structure in Europe has taken a turn for the worse and the threat of inter-state war has moved up on the political agenda. Sweden, for long a neutral and ostensibly peaceful nation, is no exception in this international political trajectory. As a response to changing threat images, both in the face of grey-zone activities and Russian hostility toward Ukraine, the government declared in 2015 that Sweden’s total defence should be (re)built after decades of substantial downscaling. In this process of renewal of the total defence concept, Swedish municipalities find themselves not only as key actors in the crisis preparedness system, but now also as designated novel security actors. Sweden’s 290 municipalities represent a plethora of differences in terms of geography, economy, infrastructure, social and political structures while being responsible for the same essential welfare functions. How do municipalities view the changing national preparedness demands? How are preparedness measures prioritized in relation to everyday welfare needs?The aim of this thesis is to understand and explain Swedish municipalities’ perceptions and priorities in the intersection between peacetime crisis preparedness and civil defence, through a socio-technical systems’ perspective. To that end, an ideational analysis has been conducted on policy documents and interviews with municipal representatives, supplemented by a questionnaire. The study shows that the unclear national guidance and instructions given to municipalities create prioritization challenges at the local level. While no indications of preparedness measures being prioritized at the expense of core municipal welfare tasks have been found in this study, the ever-increasing governmental demands may change this order of priority. The dissertation further shows that local level representatives perceive of a general lack of understanding about municipal realities and conditions from the national government, administrative authorities and county council boards. Despite internal and external obstacles however, Swedish municipalities do accept the system changes, and continuously work toward strengthening their civil preparedness based on local capacities and resources.
|
|
| 5. |
- Koivisto, Jenni, 1980-
(author)
-
Navigating in the Midst of Uncertainties : Challenges in Disaster Risk Governance in Mozambique
- 2018
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Disasters cause heavy losses for societies and may quickly erode any development efforts. Consequently, disaster risk reduction (DRR) is an integral part of development work that should be addressed at multiple levels. Global DRR frameworks, scholars and practitioners all advocate disaster risk governance (DRG) strategies that are multi-stakeholder, polycentric and multisectoral. While various substantive knowledge gaps and questions arising from multiple risks and the crosscutting nature of DRR have been relatively well addressed, uncertainties relating to multiple DRR actors operating and collaborating at different scales have gained less attention in previous studies.This thesis investigates the uncertainties in DRG in Mozambique, a low-income country that regularly faces natural hazards. These hazards often cause heavy loss of life and livelihoods and economic damage. The four articles that together constitute this thesis focus on different sets of uncertainties and factors that have constrained or allowed Mozambique to take major steps in this policy area. By exploring strategic and institutional uncertainties related to stakeholder involvement, coordination and policy disputes, this thesis reveals different challenges and opportunities that affect DRR policymaking in Mozambique.This thesis concludes that Mozambique has managed to take important steps in DRR. However, as a consequence of the different challenges to DRR practice in Mozambique, policymaking can be short-sighted and makes slow progress, thus increasing the disconnect between theory, policies and practice. This thesis thus argues that DRG research and practice need to better take into account power-relations; coordination and capacity issues; and responsibilities and transparency across scales, both in Mozambique and elsewhere.
|
|
| 6. |
- Bondesson, Sara, 1981-
(author)
-
Vulnerability and Power : Social Justice Organizing in Rockaway, New York City, after Hurricane Sandy
- 2017
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This is a study about disasters, vulnerability and power. With regards to social justice organizing a particular research problem guides the work, specifically that emancipatory projects are often initiated and steered by privileged actors who do not belong to the marginalized communities they wish to strengthen, yet the work is based on the belief that empowerment requires self-organizing from within. Through an ethnographic field study of social justice organizing in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in Rockaway, New York City, the thesis explores whether and how vulnerable groups were empowered within the Occupy Sandy network. It is a process study that traces outside activists attempts at empowering storm-affected residents over time, from the immediate relief phase to long-term organizing in the recovery phase. The activists aimed to put to practice three organizing ideals: inclusion, flexibility and horizontality, based on a belief that doing so would enhance empowerment. The analysis demonstrates that collaboration functioned better in the relief phase than in the long-term recovery phase. The same organizing ideals that seem to have created an empowering milieu for storm-affected residents in the relief phase became troublesome when relief turned to long-term recovery. The relief phase saw storm-affected people step up and take on leadership roles, whereas empowerment in the recovery phase was conditional on alignment with outside activists’ agendas. Internal tensions, conflicts and resistance from residents toward the outside organizers marked the recovery phase. It seems that length of collaborative projects is not the only factor for developing trust but so is complexity. The more complex the activities over which partners are to collaborate the less easy it is. Based on this we could further theorize that the more complex the work is the more challenging it is for privileged groups to give away control. The internal struggles of the organization partially explain the failures to influence an urban planning process that the organization attempted to impact, which connects the micro-processes with broader change processes toward transformation of vulnerability.
|
|
| 7. |
- Hermansson, Helena, 1980-
(author)
-
Centralized Disaster Management Collaboration in Turkey
- 2017
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Following unprecedented earthquakes in 1999, highly centralized Turkey initiated reforms that aimed to improve disaster management collaboration and to empower local authorities. In 2011, two earthquakes hit the country anew affecting the city of Van and town of Erciş in Turkey’s southeast.In attempts to reduce disaster risk, global disaster risk reduction frameworks and disaster scholars and practitioners advocate collaborative and decentralized disaster management strategies. This thesis investigates how such strategies are received in a centralized and hierarchical national political-administrative system that largely is the anti-thesis of the prescribed solutions. More specifically, this research investigates the barriers and prerequisites for disaster management collaboration between both public and civil society actors in Turkey (during preparedness, response, and recovery) as well as how Turkey’s political-administrative system affects disaster management collaboration and its outcomes. The challenges to decentralization of disaster management are also investigated.Based on forty-four interviews with actors ranging from national to village level and NGOs, the findings suggest that the political-administrative system can alter the relative importance, validity, and applicability of previously established enabling or constraining conditions for collaboration. This may in turn challenge previous theoretical assumptions regarding collaboration.By adopting a mode of collaboration that fit the wider political-administrative system, collaborative disaster management progress was achieved in Turkey’s national level activities. Although there were exceptions, collaboration spanning sectors and/or administrative levels were generally less forthcoming, partly due to the disjoint character of the political-administrative system. Political divergence between local and central actors made central-local collaboration difficult but these barriers were partly trumped by other prerequisites enabling collaboration like interdependence and pre-existing relations. The findings suggest that the specific attributes of disasters may both help and hinder disaster management collaboration. Such collaboration generally improved disaster response. The findings also indicate that the decentralization attempts may have been premature as the conditions for ensuring a functional decentralization of disaster management are presently lacking. Decentralization attempts are commonly suggested to increase local capacity and local participation but the findings of this dissertation suggest that in Turkey, these commodities may currently have better chances of being increased by refraining from decentralization.
|
|
| 8. |
- Nilsson, Jens, Doktor, 1982-, et al.
(author)
-
Beliefs, social identity, and the view of opponents in Swedish carnivore management policy
- 2020
-
In: Policy sciences. - : Springer. - 0032-2687 .- 1573-0891. ; 53:3, s. 453-472
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In the policy sciences, the intractability of disputes in natural resource governance is commonly explained in terms of a “devil shift” between rival policy coalitions. In a devil shift, policy actors overestimate the power of their opponents and exaggerate the differences between their own and their opponents’ policy beliefs. While the devil shift is widely recognized in policy research, knowledge of its causes and solutions remains limited. Drawing insights from the advocacy coalition framework and social identity theory, we empirically explore beliefs and social identity as two potential drivers of the devil shift. Next, we investigate the potential of collaborative venues to decrease the devil shift over time. These assumptions are tested through statistical analyses of longitudinal survey data targeting actors involved in three policy subsystems within Swedish large carnivore management. Our evidence shows, first, that the devil shift is more pronounced if coalitions are defined by shared beliefs rather than by shared identity. Second, our study shows that participation in collaborative venues does not reduce the devil shift over time. We end by proposing methodological and theoretical steps to advance knowledge of the devil shift in contested policy subsystems.
|
|
| 9. |
- Nohrstedt, Daniel, 1974-
(author)
-
Crisis and Policy Reformcraft : Advocacy Coalitions and Crisis-induced Change in Swedish Nuclear Energy Policy
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation consists of three interrelated essays examining the role of crisis events in Swedish nuclear energy policymaking. The study takes stock of the idea of ‘crisis exceptionalism’ raised in the literature, which postulates that crisis events provide openings for major policy change. In an effort to explain crisis-induced outcomes in Swedish nuclear energy policy, each essay explores and develops theoretical assumptions derived from the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The introduction discusses the ACF and other theoretical perspectives accentuating the role of crisis in policymaking and identifies three explanations for crisis-induced policy outcomes: minority coalition mobilization, learning, and strategic action. Essay I analyzes the nature and development of the Swedish nuclear energy subsystem. The results contradict the ACF assumption that corporatist systems nurture narrow subsystems and small advocacy coalitions, but corroborate the assumption that advocacy coalitions remain stable over time. While this analysis identifies temporary openings in policymaking venues and in the advocacy coalition structure, it is argued that these developments did not affect crisis policymaking. Essay II seeks to explain the decision to initiate a referendum on nuclear power following the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Internal government documents and other historical records indicate that strategic considerations superseded learning as the primary explanation in this case. Essay III conducts an in-depth examination of Swedish policymaking in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl accident in an effort to explain the government’s decision not to accelerate the nuclear power phaseout. Recently disclosed government documents show that minority coalition mobilization was insufficient to explain this decision. In this case, rational learning and strategic action provided a better explanation. The main theoretical contribution derived from the three essays is to posit the intensity and breadth of political conflict, strategic action, and analogical reasoning as key factors affecting the propensity for crisis-induced policy change.
|
|
