Everybody should contribute, but not too much: Perceptions of local governments on citizen responsibilisation in climate change adaptation in the Netherlands

Arguments for so-called citizen responsibilisation, the transfer of responsibilities for public services to citizens, are increasingly put forward in several Western-European countries. An important domain in which citizen responsibilisation is advocated is that of urban climate change adaptation. However, in practice, the advocated shift is taking place only to a limited extent. This study aims to help explain this by researching Dutch local governments' perceptions on citizens' capabilities as well as these governments' preferences regarding the tasks they want to delegate to citizens in the different stages of adaptation planning. Findings from three workshops with policy practitioners from local governments show that these practitioners have moderate trust in citizens' capabilities, but a low willingness to transfer responsibilities. Concerns of local governments include how to: (i) ensure an equal division of resources between different citizen groups/neighbourhoods; (ii) address citizens who are pursuing their own benefits more than producing a public adaptation good; (iii) address potential externalities for other citizens; (iv) guarantee a certain quality level for the public space. The study shows that local governments have an implicit awareness of different dimensions of responsibility and the tensions between them, including at least: responsibility as a task, as a legal duty, and as something for which one can be held accountable. We recommend a more explicit discussion of these dimensions in practice and a more systematic treatment of them in conceptual and in empirical studies

How mainstream is mainstreaming? : The integration of climate adaptation into urban policy

Cities need to adapt to climate change, as associated risks such as heat stress and flooding can disturb and damage urban systems and services. Since the future costs of this damage are expected to be higher than the estimated investments required, cities would be wise to start to organize climate adaptation today. This dissertation addresses the governance of climate adaptation. Municipalities play an important role in the governance of climate adaptation: they can organize responses to local impacts, set up networks and manage the allocation of resources. Although more and more municipalities are aware of the possible impacts of climate change, and recognize their role in organizing climate adaptation, the planning and implementation of responses have been slow. Various barriers hamper climate adaptation, for example, uncertainty about the risks and impacts, lack of political commitment and limited financial resources. Consequently, municipalities are searching for different approaches to address climate adaptation in urban policy. In academic literature, two distinct governance approaches to climate adaptation have been discussed. Some researchers have argued that a new dedicated policy domain for climate adaptation needs to be developed. However, others have indicated that in practice actors are searching for solutions that not only serve climate adaptation, but integrate the adaptation objective in existing policy domains (e.g., urban planning, water management, public health). The integration of adaptation in other policy domains, also called ’mainstreaming climate adaptation’, can stimulate effective policymaking through establishing synergies in objectives, increasing efficient use of resources and ensuring long-term sustainable investments. While this is considered a promising governance approach, an unequivocal understanding of the mainstreaming approach is lacking. The aim of this dissertation is to develop an in-depth understanding of mainstreaming in relation to climate adaptation and urban policy. This is undertaken in four stages: (I) by characterizing mainstreaming, in particular, by opposing it to a dedicated approach to climate adaptation, (II) by exploring possible barriers to and opportunities for the approach, (III) by identifying strategies to promote mainstreaming, and (IV) by establishing criteria to evaluate mainstreaming in practice. To address these research aims, the research combines multiple perspectives from various research disciplines, amongst others governance, planning, political and organizational science, to establish conceptual and analytical frameworks and apply these to empirical cases. The empirical cases are used to both exemplify and refine the conceptual understanding of mainstreaming. This dissertation consists of five articles

The Blocks at Northgate: NAIOP Real Estate Development Workshop

Students from Portland State University\u27s Center for Real Estate produce a development plan for a property site in Seattle\u27s Northgate District. Their task was to produce an original development plan, including the development concept, market analysis, conceptual design, economic analysis, capital and operations budget, and management plan

Mainstreaming climate adaptation : taking stock about “what works” from empirical research worldwide

Adaptation to a changing climate is unavoidable. Mainstreaming climate adaptation objectives into existing policies, as opposed to developing dedicated adaptation policy, is widely advocated for public action. However, knowledge on what makes mainstreaming effective is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper takes stock of peer-reviewed empirical analyses of climate adaptation mainstreaming, in order to assess current achievements and identify the critical factors that render mainstreaming effective. The results show that although in most cases adaptation policy outputs are identified, only in a minority of cases this translates into policy outcomes. This “implementation gap” is most strongly seen in developing countries. However, when it comes to the effectiveness of outcomes, we found no difference across countries. We conclude that more explicit definitions and unified frameworks for adaptation mainstreaming research are required to allow for future research syntheses and well-informed policy recommendations

From citizen participation to government participation: An exploration of the roles of local governments in community initiatives for climate change adaptation in the Netherlands

Abstract Citizens' initiatives for climate action are actively encouraged by governments to enhance the resilience of communities to climate change. This increased responsibilisation of citizens has implications for the roles of governments. The degree of government involvement does not necessarily decline, but government roles may need to shift: from a regulating and steering government towards a more collaborative and responsive government that enables and facilitates community initiatives that are self-governed by citizens. However, we lack a conceptual understanding of such new government roles, as well as empirical insights into how local governments participate in citizens' initiatives and how they take up such new roles. In this paper, a ?ladder of government participation? is introduced, which is used to explore the roles of local governments in citizens' initiatives for climate change adaptation in the Netherlands. The results show that local governments are slowly but gradually shifting towards more networking, stimulating, and facilitating roles. Key concerns of local practitioners are (a) a lack of flexibility and support of their own municipal organisation to facilitate citizens' initiatives, (b) uncertainty about the continuity of citizens' initiatives over time, and (c) a potential increase of inequity among citizen groups resulting from facilitating citizens' initiatives. An important finding is that the roles of local governments tend to be flexible, in that they can move from one role to the other over time for one and the same citizens' initiative depending on its stage of development, as well as take up several roles simultaneously for different citizens' initiatives