Environmental governance on the street : towards an expanded research agenda on street-level bureaucrats

Funding: Scottish Government Hydro Nation Scholars Programme (KH).Research on environmental governance would benefit from greater attention to the practices, agency and subjectivities of the frontline civil servants who implement and shape environmental policies and interventions on the ground. These actors conduct the everyday work of bringing global agreements and state policies into being. In doing so, they influence how citizens experience the state and environmental governance. In this review paper, we provide a brief overview of existing literature on ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (SLBs). We then suggest three key research areas through which insights into the role of SLBs in environmental governance could be further developed, including (i) the nature of SLBs agency and practice as they enact global and national environmental agendas, (ii) the subjectivities of SLBs and how they affect environmental governance and (iii) the outcomes of the activities of SLBs on state-citizen relations. This research agenda has explanatory power in understanding existing and desired environmental governance.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Community-led initiatives’ everyday politics for sustainability – Conflicting rationalities and aspirations for change?

This project has received funding from the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration (Grant Agreement no. 603705) through TESS (Towards European Social Sustainability, http://www.tess-transition.eu/).Community-based initiatives are widely seen to play an essential role in a societal move towards a low carbon, sustainable future. As part of this, there is often an assumption that such initiatives share expectations (i.e. a guiding vision) of large-scale change and that their activities contribute to this change. Here, we ask to what extent this assumption reflects members’ own perspectives on and interpretations of the aims and ambitions of their community initiative, and what this implies for a larger vision of sustainability transitions. In doing so, we respond to calls for a better understanding of the ‘everyday politics’ of what could be seen as processes of societal transitions in practice. We conducted qualitative interviews with members of five community initiatives in Italy, Finland and the UK. In each of these initiatives, we found a range of aspirations (i.e. outcome-related aims) and rationalities (i.e. procedural guiding principles). While some of these aims and ways of working were compatible with each other, we identified three major tensions that could be found across our study initiatives. These tensions centred on (i) the degree of politicisation of the initiative, (ii) the extent to which financial aims should take priority and (iii) questions of organisational form. We interpret these tensions as conflicting expressions of larger, societal-level discourses, and argue that this diversity and resulting conflicts need to be acknowledged – both in transition research and at the practical level – to avoid co-optation and disenfranchisement.PostprintPeer reviewe

Resocializing digital water transformations : outlining social science perspectives on the digital water journey

Funding information: National Cyber Security Centre; Scottish Government, Grant/Award Number: Hydro Nation Scholars; University of Manchester, Grant/Award Number: Presidential fellowship; University of Manchester, Grant/Award Number: SEED PGR scholarship (Amankwaa).Digital water transformation is often written about as though universally desirable and inevitable, capable of addressing the multifaceted socioecological challenges that water systems face. However, there is not widespread reflection on the complexities, tensions and unintended consequences of digital transformation, its social and political dimensions are often neglected. This article introduces case studies of digital water development, bringing examples of technological innovation into dialogue with literature and empirical research from across the social sciences. We examine how Big Data affects our observations of water in society to shape water management, how the Internet of Things becomes involved in reproducing unjust water politics, how digital platforms are entangled in the varied sociocultural landscape of everyday water use, and how opensource technologies provide new possibilities for participatory water governance. We also reflect on regulatory developments and the possible trajectories of innovation resulting from public‐private sector interactions. A socially and politically informed view of digital water is essential for just and sustainable development, and the gap between industry visions of digital water and research within the social sciences is inhibitive. Thus, the analysis presented in this article provides a novel, pluralistic perspective on digital water development and outlines what is required for more inclusive future scholarship, policy and practice.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

‘Shift happens’: Co-constructing transition pathways towards the regional sustainability of agriculture in Europe

Farming systems have to face challenges that originate in changes of global dimension in both the bio-physical and the societal sphere, such as Climate change (leading to increasing weather uncertainty and raising average temperatures, thus impacting agro-ecosystems and water supplies); Food safety concerns (spreading in Europe while in other regions food security remains a challenge) and Changing consumption patterns and unequal purchasing power (contributing to the unsustainable use of natural resources in many countries). These changes have manifold implications and raise many questions with regard to agricultural land use

Community water governance in Scotland : exploring meaning, practices, and order

Amidst concerns about the global climate crisis, water allocation, management and governance have risen to the top of national and international agendas, including in countries traditionally viewed as having abundant water resources. Communities may – and some would argue should – be part of responding to these challenges. This research takes an interpretive approach to study how community involvement in water governance is understood and enacted. The research is set in the publicly managed and highly regulated context of water services, i.e., the activities associated with domestic drinking and wastewater provision and the avoidance and mitigation of harmful consequences of flooding in Scotland. This thesis provides a theoretically informed analysis of the role of communities in water governance using the concepts of meaning, practices and ordering derived from Emma Carmel’s Governance Analysis and grounded in wider interpretive policy theory. Building on data gathered from methods including interviews (walking and seated), observations, document analysis and systematic mapping, the study illustrates how governing takes place in real-life settings. The research provides much-needed insight into the practices and interactions of communities and practitioners, in particular, a subset of them called frontline workers. The thesis makes three contributions to scholarship. It deepens understanding of ‘community water governance’ based on multiple conceptual and empirical sources. Second, it presents new empirical insights into water services in Scotland, a setting which has received limited in-depth examination in academic literature. Finally, it enriches understanding of both communities and frontline workers and their contributions to addressing water challenges. The thesis shows that water governance is not solely a technical exercise but a social and political process of navigating social relations. Water governance needs to be understood first, as a contingent and relational practice in which communities and practitioners skilfully negotiate complex and ambiguous goals, and second, as having implications beyond the domain of water."I want to thank the Hydro Nation Scholars Programme. Not only for funding this PhD but for taking a chance to try something different and be open to what comes out in the end."--General acknowledgement

The influence of public funding on community-based sustainability projects in Scotland

Community-based initiatives (CBIs) towards sustainability are increasing. Their activities and impacts have attracted academic interest but little attention has been given to how CBIs engage with policy and institutional spaces. One way in which CBIs engage with these spaces is through receiving public funding. This paper looks at the challenges and opportunities that public funding presents for community groups. Data for this paper were gathered though interviews with CBIs and public funding bodies. The findings show that CBIs experience challenges negotiating technical and procedural, goals and ways of working, affecting their identity and aspirations. In conclusion, we argue that although public funding is crucial for CBIs, it is accompanied by a range of managerial and technical procedures that enrol CBIs in state accountability mechanisms. This may have the effect of favouring a certain type of CBIs or excluding those that cannot or will not accept public funding.</p

The influence of public funding on community-based sustainability projects in Scotland

Community-based initiatives (CBIs) towards sustainability are increasing. Their activities and impacts have attracted academic interest but little attention has been given to how CBIs engage with policy and institutional spaces. One way in which CBIs engage with these spaces is through receiving public funding. This paper looks at the challenges and opportunities that public funding presents for community groups. Data for this paper were gathered though interviews with CBIs and public funding bodies. The findings show that CBIs experience challenges negotiating technical and procedural, goals and ways of working, affecting their identity and aspirations. In conclusion, we argue that although public funding is crucial for CBIs, it is accompanied by a range of managerial and technical procedures that enrol CBIs in state accountability mechanisms. This may have the effect of favouring a certain type of CBIs or excluding those that cannot or will not accept public funding.</p

Living Sustainably with Water: An Interdisciplinary Challenge. Water and Value

No abstract available