Combining behavioural and reflective policy tools for the environment:a scoping review of behavioural public policy literature

Recent advances in behavioural and communication sciences generated enthusiasm in public policy for new ways of ‘framing’ messages and ‘nudging’ individual behaviour. Wide research and practice of behavioural interventions that have since ensued triggered the rise of a new sub-field called Behavioural Public Policy (BPP). At the same time, nudges–a part and parcel of BPP, have received criticism for being paternalistic, non-democratic and lacking evidence of long-term effectiveness. More recently, the whole project of BPP has come under criticism as construed too narrowly. Critics have argued for a new approach to BPP that is pluralistic, multi-disciplinary and multi-method. One key pillar of it is a ‘policy mix’–a combined application of behavioural and non-behavioural policy tools. Little is known, however, about ‘policy mixes’ in practice. This paper conducts a scoping non-exhaustive review of the academic and policy literature published between 2008 and 2020 that discusses policy mixes of behavioural policy tools (defined in this paper as ‘nudges’ and ‘frames’) and reflective policy tools (defined in this paper as ‘deliberative’ events and incentives for individuals to ‘think’) employed within environmental policy. Two questions guide this review: (a) what are the characteristics of policy mixes in terms of their types, geography, sectors of application, and empirical detail of exposition?; (b) to what extent do existing policy mixes include broader governance aspects of politics, awareness of contextuality and flexibility? By taking stock of experiences of empirical place-based policy mixes of behavioural and reflective tools, we provide insights into a fast-developing body of scholarship and point to ways forward with policy mixes. The paper is also relevant to policy studies beyond the domain of the environment.</p

Rethinking the Travel of Ideas: Policy Translation in the Water Sector

The travel of policy ideas across countries is a widely acknowledged phenomenon. Conventional approaches to the study of this process hinge on concepts such as ‘policy transfer’, ‘policy diffusion’, ‘lesson-drawing’ and ‘institutional isomorphism’. These approaches are influential in understanding public policy; however, they assume perfect rationality of actors, the stability of governance scales and the immutability of policy ideas in their travel. I propose policy translation as a new approach to counter these shortcomings and study the travel of policy ideas in order to shed light on pertaining policy questions, such as whether the travel of policy ideas may be navigated, and if so, how. I illustrate the relevance and value of policy translation with a case study from the water sector in Turkey

Global IWRM ideas and local context: Studying narratives in rural Cambodia

This article investigates how the "constructivist turn" in public policy and international political economy informs the interaction of global ideas and local practice in water governance. We use the implementation of ideas associated with IntegratedWater Resources Management (IWRM) in the Lower Mekong river basin. This article provides some explanation of the attitudes in the villages in Cambodia due to the Sesan 2 Dam, which would see the relocation of thousands of people, damage fisheries, and inflict high coping costs on villagers. Based on 24 in-depth interviews with villagers, commune heads and local community leaders, we find diverse narratives which transcend the "pro or anti" dam narrative. We find four narrative types-myths, stories, noise and informed opinion, which relate to each other in degrees of social meaning and ideational force. Of these, the first two are more likely to be useful in terms of mobilization and policy-making. This typology provides a framework for analysis of social change in the studied villages and other contexts of policy translation. We should state that these four types are not separate from each other but are linked along two axis which together conscribe the four types of narratives outlined

Purposeful institutional change for Adaptive Governance of Natural Resources

In recent decades, adaptive governance has been advocated for meeting the challenges of unpredictable and uncertain dynamics of Social-ecological Systems (SES) (Folke, 2006; Huitema et al., 2009). Scholars ascribe a multitude of virtues to adaptive governance, such as, for example, the preparedness of populations for disturbances associated with climate change (Pahl-Wostl, 2006). Adaptive governance stands for a set of meta-principles of governance which contribute to making societies less vulnerable to various shocks. What adaptive governance should look like has been discussed at length in the literature on SES (e.g. Huitema et al., 2009; Ostrom, 2010; Pahl-Wostl, 2008). However, little is known about how such adaptive governance emerges and how we need to think about purposeful institutional change in its regard. In this chapter, we want to specifically address these two issues. Hereby we argue that work on adaptive governance should to a greater extent focus on the role of agency in the emergence of adaptive governance in order to derive appropriate ways to bring the institutional dimensions of adaptive governance about. We develop this argument about deeper understanding of agency by discussing the emergence and functioning of polycentric governance, which is commonly seen as an essential part of adaptive governance

Global governance of biofuels: a case for public-private governance?

With this paper, we examine the current state of global governance of biofuels and assess the potential regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms for such governance. We ask two questions: a) what are the current efforts and initiatives towards the global governance of biofuels; and b) which form of global governance is more likely to emerge in the field of bioenergy. We come to the conclusion that institution building through private governance and non-state actor partnerships can offer a viable and effective means of governance. However, the primacy of partnerships and networks in global governance also means a number of pitfalls to avoid, especially with regard to legitimacy and inclusion. Drawing lessons from the fields of forest and marine policy, we close with a number of policy recommendations for better private initiatives and partnerships for global governance of biofuels.