Does stakeholder participation improve environmental governance? Evidence from a meta-analysis of 305 case studies.

Participation and collaboration of citizens and organized stakeholders in public decision-making is widely believed to improve environmental governance outputs. However, empirical evidence on the benefits of participatory governance is largely scattered across small-N case studies. To synthesize the available case-based evidence, we conducted a broad case-based meta-analysis across 22 Western democracies, including 305 individual cases of public environmental decision-making. We asked: How do 'more' participatory decision-making processes compare against 'less' participatory ones in fostering - or hindering - strong environmental governance outputs, (i.e. environmental provisions in plans, agreements or permits)? Which design features make a difference? What role does the decision-making context play? How do results change if we control for the intentions of the leading governmental agency? To capture the central design features of decision-making processes, we distinguish three dimensions of participation: the intensity of communication among participants and process organizers; the extent to which participants can shape decisions ("power delegation"); and the extent to which different stakeholder groups are represented. Our regression analysis yields robust evidence that these three design features of participation impact upon the environmental standard of governance outputs, even when controlling for the goals of governmental agencies. Power delegation is shown to be the most stable predictor of strong environmental outputs. However, communication intensity only predicts the conservation-related standard of outputs, but not the environmental health-related standard of outputs. Participants' environmental stance was another strong predictor, with considerable variation across different contexts. While our results remain broadly stable across a wide range of contexts, certain contextual conditions stood out in shaping the relation between participation and environmental outputs. Overall, our findings can inform the design of participatory processes that deliver governance outputs of a high environmental standard.

Participation in protected area governance: A systematic case survey of the evidence on ecological and social outcomes.

Protected areas are considered key to conserving ecosystems and safeguarding biodiversity worldwide. Local stakeholders' involvement in decision-making in area-based conservation approaches may help to mitigate environmental inequalities and to improve social and ecological outcomes. However, sound and in-depth evidence on the relationship between participation and protected area outcomes is piecemeal. To synthesize the available knowledge, we provide evidence from a systematic literature review of 52 empirical case studies from the scientific literature examining the social and ecological outcomes of protected-area-related decision-making processes in which local stakeholders participated. In a first step, we defined factors that are linked to social and ecological protected area outcomes as success. Based on these factors, we then categorized success indicators which we quantitatively linked to features of participation. Our review provides evidence of the relationship between protected area successes and the following four features of participation: 1. Genuine devolution of power to the local level; 2. Involvement of diverse actors and multiple perspectives through fair and inclusive processes; 3. Long-term external support; 4. Devolution of rights. Even though the degree and form of participation require adjustment to specific local contexts, this overview of features provides sound evidence based on the relation between participatory decision-making and social and ecological effectiveness in protected areas. These insights can be used to design more effective participatory conservation interventions that meet both biodiversity conservation and human well-being.

Pathways to water sustainability? A global study assessing the benefits of integrated water resources management.

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) has been central to water governance and management worldwide since the 1990s. Recognizing the significance of an integrated approach to water management as a way to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), IWRM was formally incorporated as part of the SDG global indicator framework, thus committing the UN and its Member States to achieving high IWRM implementation by 2030 and measuring progress through SDG indicator 6.5.1. This paper examines the extent to which the implementation of IWRM improves the sustainable management of water and the health of water-related ecosystems-a first-of-its-kind in terms of quantitative analysis on a global scale. To achieve this objective, we conducted regression analyses between SDG 6.5.1 (both IWRM (total score) and the dimensions of SDG 6.5.1) and key water-related environmental sustainability indicators: SDG 6.2.1a (access to basic sanitation), 6.3.1 (treated wastewater), 6.4.1 (water-use efficiency), 6.4.2 (water stress), 6.6.1 (freshwater ecosystems, although here the trophic state and turbidity variables were used) and 6.3.2 (ambient water quality). Our analysis covers 124 countries for all these SDGs, with the exception of SDG 6.3.1 and SDG 6.3.2, which cover 112 and 85 countries, respectively. Results show that IWRM-to different degrees-is mainly associated with the good status of water-related sustainability indicators, with the exception of water stress, water quality, and turbidity. We observe a strong impact of control variables such as governance arrangements, economic situation and environmental and geographical conditions. Lagged effects and the scope of the framework may also explain some observed variations in the degree of association. Our study highlights the importance of further uncovering the interlinkages between IWRM implementation and the achievement of water-related environmental sustainability. Overall, the results suggest that although IWRM implementation is primarily linked to sustainable water management and the health of water systems, context-specific factors should be taken into account when evaluating its effectiveness, to enable policy- and decision-makers to make the necessary adjustments to optimize its outcomes.

How Participatory Should Environmental Governance Be? Testing the Applicability of the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model in Public Environmental Decision-Making.

Public participation is potentially useful to improve public environmental decision-making and management processes. In corporate management, the Vroom-Yetton-Jago normative decision-making model has served as a tool to help managers choose appropriate degrees of subordinate participation for effective decision-making given varying decision-making contexts. But does the model recommend participatory mechanisms that would actually benefit environmental management? This study empirically tests the improved Vroom-Jago version of the model in the public environmental decision-making context. To this end, the key variables of the Vroom-Jago model are operationalized and adapted to a public environmental governance context. The model is tested using data from a meta-analysis of 241 published cases of public environmental decision-making, yielding three main sets of findings: (1) The Vroom-Jago model proves limited in its applicability to public environmental governance due to limited variance in its recommendations. We show that adjustments to key model equations make it more likely to produce meaningful recommendations. (2) We find that in most of the studied cases, public environmental managers (implicitly) employ levels of participation close to those that would have been recommended by the model. (3) An ANOVA revealed that such cases, which conform to model recommendations, generally perform better on stakeholder acceptance and environmental standards of outputs than those that diverge from the model. Public environmental management thus benefits from carefully selected and context-sensitive modes of participation.

Does problem complexity matter for environmental policy delivery? How public authorities address problems of water governance.

Problem complexity is often assumed to hamper effective environmental policy delivery. However, this claim is hardly substantiated, given the dominance of qualitative small-n designs in environmental governance research. We studied 37 types of contemporary problems defined by German water governance to assess the impact of problem complexity on policy delivery through public authorities. The analysis is based on a unique data set related to these problems, encompassing both in-depth interview-based data on complexities and independent official data on policy delivery. Our findings show that complexity in fact tends to delay implementation at the stage of planning. However, different dimensions of complexity (goals, variables, dynamics, interconnections, and uncertainty) impact on the different stages of policy delivery (goal formulation, stages and degrees of implementation) in various ways.

Participation for effective environmental governance? Evidence from Water Framework Directive implementation in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Effectiveness of participation in environmental governance is a proliferating assertion in literature that is also reflected in European legislation, such as the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). The Directive mandates participatory river basin management planning across the EU aiming at the delivery of better policy outputs and enhanced implementation. Yet, the impact of this planning mode in WFD implementation remains unclear, though the first planning phase was completed in 2009 and the first implementation cycle by the end of 2015. Notwithstanding the expanding body of literature on WFD implementation, a rather scattered single case study approach seems to predominate. This paper reports on implementation of the WFD in three case studies from Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, reflecting three substantially different approaches to participatory river basin management planning, on the basis of a comparative case study design. We ask if and how participation improved the environmental standard of outputs and the quality of implementation. We found an increasing quality of outputs with increasing intensity of local participation. Further, social outcomes such as learning occurred within dialogical settings, whereas empowerment and network building emerged also in the case characterized mainly by one-way information. Finally, one important finding deviant from the literature is that stakeholder acceptance seems to be more related to processes than to outputs.

Disentangling Puzzles of Spatial Scales and Participation in Environmental Governance-The Case of Governance Re-scaling Through the European Water Framework Directive.

This article attempts to shed new light on prevailing puzzles of spatial scales in multi-level, participatory governance as regards the democratic legitimacy and environmental effectiveness of governance systems. We focus on the governance re-scaling by the European Water Framework Directive, which introduced new governance scales (mandated river basin management) and demands consultation of citizens and encourages 'active involvement' of stakeholders. This allows to examine whether and how re-scaling through deliberate governance interventions impacts on democratic legitimacy and effective environmental policy delivery. To guide the enquiry, this article organizes existing-partly contradictory-claims on the relation of scale, democratic legitimacy, and environmental effectiveness into three clusters of mechanisms, integrating insights from multi-level governance, social-ecological systems, and public participation. We empirically examine Water Framework Directive implementation in a comparative case study of multi-level systems in the light of the suggested mechanisms. We compare two planning areas in Germany: North Rhine Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Findings suggest that the Water Framework Directive did have some impact on institutionalizing hydrological scales and participation. Local participation appears generally both more effective and legitimate than on higher levels, pointing to the need for yet more tailored multi-level governance approaches, depending on whether environmental knowledge or advocacy is sought. We find mixed results regarding the potential of participation to bridge spatial 'misfits' between ecological and administrative scales of governance, depending on the historical institutionalization of governance on ecological scales. Polycentricity, finally, appeared somewhat favorable in effectiveness terms with some distinct differences regarding polycentricity in planning vs. polycentricity in implementation.

Exploring governance learning: How policymakers draw on evidence, experience and intuition in designing participatory flood risk planning.

The importance of designing suitable participatory governance processes is generally acknowledged. However, less emphasis has been put on how decision-makers design such processes, and how they learn about doing so. While the policy learning literature has tended to focus on the substance of policy, little research is available on learning about the design of governance. Here, we explore different approaches to learning among German policymakers engaged in implementing the European Floods Directive. We draw on official planning documents and expert interviews with state-level policymakers to focus on learning about the procedural aspects of designing and conducting participatory flood risk management planning. Drawing on the policy learning and evidence-based governance literatures, we conceptualise six types of instrumental 'governance learning' according to sources of learning (endogenous and exogenous) and modes of learning (serial and parallel). We empirically apply this typology in the context of diverse participatory flood risk management planning processes currently unfolding across the German federal states. We find that during the first Floods Directive planning cycle, policymakers have tended to rely on prior experience in their own federal states with planning under the Water Framework Directive to inform the design and carrying out of participatory processes. In contrast, policymakers only sporadically look to experiences from other jurisdictions as a deliberate learning strategy. We argue that there is scope for more coordinated and systematic learning on designing effective governance, and that the latter might benefit from more openness to experimentation and learning on the part of policymakers.

Case study meta-analysis in the social sciences. Insights on data quality and reliability from a large-N case survey.

Meta-analytical methods face particular challenges in research fields such as social and political research, where studies often rest primarily on qualitative and case study research. In such contexts, where research findings are less standardized and amenable to structured synthesis, the case survey method has been proposed as a means of data generation and analysis. The method offers a meta-analytical tool to synthesize larger numbers of qualitative case studies, yielding data amenable to large-N analysis. However, resulting data is prone to specific threats to validity, including biases due to publication type, rater behaviour, and variable characteristics, which researchers need to be aware of. While these biases are well known in theory, and typically explored for primary research, their prevalence in case survey meta-analyses remains relatively unexplored. We draw on a case survey of 305 published qualitative case studies of public environmental decision-making, and systematically analyze these biases in the resultant data. Our findings indicate that case surveys can deliver high-quality and reliable results. However, we also find that these biases do indeed occur, albeit to a small degree or under specific conditions of complexity. We identify a number of design choices to mitigate biases that may threaten validity in case survey meta-analysis. Our findings are of importance to those using the case survey method - and to those who might apply insights derived by this method to inform policy and practice.

Multilevel water governance and problems of scale: setting the stage for a broader debate.

Environmental governance and management are facing a multiplicity of challenges related to spatial scales and multiple levels of governance. Water management is a field particularly sensitive to issues of scale because the hydrological system with its different scalar levels from small catchments to large river basins plays such a prominent role. It thus exemplifies fundamental issues and dilemmas of scale in modern environmental management and governance. In this introductory article to an Environmental Management special feature on "Multilevel Water Governance: Coping with Problems of Scale," we delineate our understanding of problems of scale and the dimensions of scalar politics that are central to water resource management. We provide an overview of the contributions to this special feature, concluding with a discussion of how scalar research can usefully challenge conventional wisdom on water resource management. We hope that this discussion of water governance stimulates a broader debate and inquiry relating to the scalar dimensions of environmental governance and management in general.

The Environmental Performance of Participatory and Collaborative Governance: A Framework of Causal Mechanisms.

Many have advocated for collaborative governance and the participation of citizens and stakeholders on the basis that it can improve the environmental outcomes of public decision making, as compared to traditional, top-down decision making. Others, however, point to the potential negative effects of participation and collaboration on environmental outcomes. This article draws on several literatures to identify five clusters of causal mechanisms describing the relationship between participation and environmental outcomes. We distinguish (i) mechanisms that describe how participation impacts on the environmental standard of outputs, from (ii) mechanisms relating to the implementation of outputs. Three mechanism clusters focus on the role of representation of environmental concerns, participants' environmental knowledge, and dialogical interaction in decision making. Two further clusters elaborate on the role of acceptance, conflict resolution, and collaborative networks for the implementation of decisions. In addition to the mechanisms, linking independent with dependent variables, we identify the conditions under which participation may lead to better (or worse) environmental outcomes. This helps to resolve apparent contradictions in the literature. We conclude by outlining avenues for research that builds on this framework for analysis.

Leverage points for sustainability transformation.

Despite substantial focus on sustainability issues in both science and politics, humanity remains on largely unsustainable development trajectories. Partly, this is due to the failure of sustainability science to engage with the root causes of unsustainability. Drawing on ideas by Donella Meadows, we argue that many sustainability interventions target highly tangible, but essentially weak, leverage points (i.e. using interventions that are easy, but have limited potential for transformational change). Thus, there is an urgent need to focus on less obvious but potentially far more powerful areas of intervention. We propose a research agenda inspired by systems thinking that focuses on transformational 'sustainability interventions', centred on three realms of leverage: reconnecting people to nature, restructuring institutions and rethinking how knowledge is created and used in pursuit of sustainability. The notion of leverage points has the potential to act as a boundary object for genuinely transformational sustainability science.

Reviving wood-pastures for biodiversity and people: A case study from western Estonia.

Wood-pastures are associated with high cultural and biodiversity values in Europe. However, due to their relatively low productivity, large areas of wood-pastures have been lost over the last century. In some areas, incentive schemes have been developed to revive wood-pastures. We investigated the effects of one such scheme in western Estonia. We compared the structure of grazed wood-pastures (old and restored) to those of abandoned wood-pastures and ungrazed forest stands to explore the effects of management, and conducted interviews with 24 farmers to investigate their motivations to carry out the management. We found a positive influence of active management on the semi-open structure of wood-pastures. Financial support was vital for management, but personal values related to tradition also played an important role. The interviewees differed widely in their range of motivations, suggesting that other strategies in addition to financial incentives would further improve the management of wood-pastures in the region.