Sustainability of natural resource governance under interest group competition in policy making

• Non-state actors play an increasingly important role in environmental policy processes. Lobbying activities of interest groups have often been associated with policy stasis and environmental degradation. Little is known, however, about the causal mechanisms through which competition between diverse interest groups can enhance or reduce the adaptive capacity of a governance system. By combining an empirical study with agent-based modelling we explore competing interest group behavior and its implications for responses of the policy system to perceived changes in a fishery. We find that interest group coalition formation as a response to changes in the resource allows the policy system to better respond to resource decline. This mechanism, however, is highly contingent on the distribution of funding among interest groups, issue salience and characteristics of the political system (beliefs of policymakers). Testing the mechanism of interest group influence on policy change allows us to better understand the conditions under which environmental policymaking involving diverse interests and strong (economic/industry) pressure can avoid resource overexploitation.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Sustainability Science

vetenskap om hållbar utveckling

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)