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Sustainability policymaking presents numerous challenges to local governments. Municipal leaders, especially in smaller cities and towns, report that they lack the fiscal capacity and/or technical expertise to adopt many environmental protection policies. This paper investigates whether the more than 2000 municipally owned utilities in the United States have the potential to mitigate those problems. Data from two surveys of USA local governments (n = 861), modeled in a pair of negative binomial regressions, find a positive correlation between those cities with municipal power companies and those with an increased number of community-wide sustainable energy policies. Follow-up interviews with officials reveal the potential mechanisms driving sustainability by local governments that own power companies. These mechanisms are the increased capacity that publicly owned utilities provide by virtue of income generated and access to energy-specific grants as well as the local nature of their operations, which allows a better fit of sustainable energy measures to local circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses a policy integration (PI) approach to analyse forest sector reforms in tropical countries, using the case of reforms that affected the northern Bolivia forest economy. The paper provides a brief overview of PI and then analyses the various reforms that all contributed to reshaping Bolivia's forest sector. The major related reforms are not only forestland tenure reforms, a new forestry law, but also important public administrative and democratic reforms. The case of democratic reforms linked with land and forestry reforms in northern Bolivia makes it possible to discuss environmental PI in a tropical context, and thus to review some of the key postulates that have been formulated on the topic, but which are to date largely based on empirical experiences from the northern hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether and how frames used within different sectors in Sweden concerned with bioenergy from forest products are driven by environmental objectives. It complements existing research on environmental policy integration (EPI) in bioenergy policies of political-administrative Swedish sectors by conducting a frame analysis of articles published in three journals in Sweden that represent the energy, agricultural and forestry sectors. Ten frames that were used consistently across the three sectors in the time period from 2001 to 2010 were identified. Environmental rhetoric, one of the prerequisites for EPI, was identified; however, it plays only a secondary role given that bioenergy frames focus mainly on economic objectives, presenting bioenergy as a means of increasing profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the rationale for a research focus on how meaning emerges from the interfaces between research, policy, and practice. In exploring where different constructions of risk, resilience, and landscape occur in the policy and practice discourses surrounding current developments in Victorian bushfire policy, this paper goes beyond simply advocating better science–policy–practice relationships by demonstrating the challenges of operationalising adaptive governance principles. Our findings stress that change can arise from interacting discourses on the policy–practice interface. Yet, although this may be the most adaptive moment in the policy process, producing multiple insights and alternative options, it is vulnerable to institutionalised discourses that obstruct flexible practice. Complex socioecological issues such as bushfire, we argue, require more explicit engagement with the processes of practice inherent in policy formulation. The paper offers coproductive research strategies as contributing to more flexible governance arrangements to improve adaptive policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 1000 US municipalities have formally committed to reduce their local greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through participation in one of several climate-protection networks. This has attracted the attention of researchers interested in theories of free riding and local political decision making who question why municipalities become engaged in this global effort. However, whereas joining a climate-protection network or adopting an emissions-reduction goal are relatively low-cost acts, the implementation of such policies entails higher costs. This raises legitimate questions about the extent and type of follow-through made on municipal climate-protection commitments. With this paper I begin to fill in the data gap around municipal climate-protection initiatives and construct an index that quantifies the GHG-reduction policies implemented by local governments. Data informing the index are collected on municipalities in the US state of Indiana and are used to test theories of local political decision making. Findings point to the important role that policy entrepreneurs play in advancing local climate protection as well as to the potential inadequacy of membership in climate-protection organizations as an indicator of increased implementation of GHG-reducing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in environmental policy integration (EPI) has recently been strong, both in the literature and in practice. We explore Dutch initiatives to integrate noise management into spatial planning policy in light of the body of literature on EPI. The main approaches of EPI are translated into a conceptual framework consisting of organizational, procedural, and contextual factors. The objective of this literature review is to relate paradigm shifts and policy innovations regarding noise management and spatial planning to empirical windows of opportunity for and barriers to implementation of EPI. It shows how instruments allowing a flexible approach and deviation from standards at the local level fit in with the discourse on decentralized and area-oriented policy. The analysis suggests that procedural and decision-making rules and organizational arrangements can bridge implementation gaps in local-level planning practice. However, EPI in the Netherlands has not solved the noise problem, and the number of affected inhabitants is increasing. We conclude the paper by examining the conceptual and normative issues affecting the integration and prioritization of noise management policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many US municipalities are engaged in climate mitigation planning, or efforts to reduce their communities' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through land-use, transportation, and energy planning. However, they face a number of procedural and institutional obstacles that limit the adoption and implementation of those plans. The literature identifies some of the factors that lead municipalities to join relevant policy networks, but provides little guidance for overcoming the aforementioned obstacles and adopting policies to reduce community-wide GHG emissions. With this study I increase the understanding of climate mitigation planning by examining whether the adoption of these plans and policies is driven primarily by local demographic, economic, environmental, or political-institutional characteristics. My research is based upon a survey of 255 US municipalities. I combine the survey responses with secondary data and use multiple regression techniques to estimate the impact of fifteen demographic, political-institutional, economic, and environmental variables on the adoption of climate mitigation plans and policies. The influence of neighboring jurisdictions, the presence of staff members assigned to energy or climate planning, and the level of community environmental activism are found to have the greatest impact on climate mitigation policy adoption. These findings support the conclusion that the extent of climate mitigation planning is driven primarily by internal processes, and municipalities that are successful in this area do not fit any one profile according to their demographic, economic, or environmental characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic chaos, legislative and regulatory turmoil, and institutional upheaval have presented significant challenges for environmental protection implementation during the transition period of the formerly centrally planned economies. Russia's efforts to achieve compliance with Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) environmental guidelines are examined from the perspective of water resources planning in St Petersburg, the largest urban polluting source on the Baltic Sea. I focus on the case of the first private-public partnership at a public water authority in Russia. Water resources planning in St Petersburg is analyzed through the lens of the theoretical framework of systems of implementation review in order to assess how socioeconomic, institutional, and management changes have shaped water resources planning and environmental protection implementation in a transition economy. The broader issue of accumulation of social capital with foreign donors and investors is an important part of the pursuit of HELCOM compliance and environmental protection implementation by St Petersburg's city leaders and managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an exploration of UK municipal waste policy, this paper examines debates on environmental policy integration (EPI) and governance. We argue that this policy arena has been characterised by modes of vertical integration, which have failed to promote the horizontal integration required to move beyond the limits of anachronistic institutional structures and have failed to achieve the paradigm shift needed to make meaningful progress towards sustainability. Through this analysis we develop three critical arguments. First, that the analysis of EPI requires attention to embedded paradigms, structures, and dynamics at all levels of governance, emphasising the importance of incorporating subnational levels of governing to EPI analyses. Second, that both analysis of and arguments for EPI need to engage more fully with broader dynamics of governing and to recognise the coexistence of contradictory processes of integration. Finally, we sound a note of caution in relation to calls for EPI. In the messy, dynamic, and multilevelled reality in which EPI has to be implemented, such calls must recognise both sustainability and policy integration as iterative processes rather than as predetermined blueprints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the implementation of environmental regulation and demonstrate that path dependency, created largely by resource constraints, narrows the range of options for implementing regulation. It also magnifies the impact of the institutional history of the regulatory body and the impact of the disciplinary commitments of those working within the regulatory body on the implementation process. It is shown that the result is that those involved in the implementation process are unable to consider all possible routes to implementation but, rather, only a relatively few 'manageable' options for the regulation of particular activities. The arguments are examined in the context of implementation of the Water Framework Directive 2000 (WFD) in Scotland. In particular the authors focus on the regulation of diffuse pollution under the WFD and on the role played by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in that regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the role of integrated appraisal as a tool for promoting sustainable development and good governance, and the potential tensions that may exist between these two objectives. Drawing upon experience in the United Kingdom, it is argued that an undue emphasis on governance issues may compromise the rigour of integrated-appraisal methodologies and result in a loss of focus upon sustainability concerns, particularly those related to environmental matters. This framework of ideas is explored further with reference to the development of an integrated Appraisal Toolkit for the North West region of England. Ways in which integrated appraisal can retain its place within the suite of environmental assessment tools as a way of supporting more sustainable patterns of development, and at the same time contributing to good governance, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the notion of environmental controversies as frame conflicts through a case study of the waste-policy dialogue in Finland. The argument that intractable policy controversies result from internally consistent but incompatible normative-prescriptive scripts which name and frame problems differently is explored. Different waste-policy frames are identified and it is suggested that these frames do indeed contribute to the stubbornness of on-going debate on incineration versus waste reduction. However, the importance of interest, identities, and ineffectual communication in these controversies is also highlighted, and it is suggested that consensus building can result in practical agreements even in the face of seemingly incompatible frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of devolution have argued that devolved governing leads to enhanced democratisation. This democratisation process is argued to be the result both of new governance structures and of new practices of governing which produce a new, more democratic, politics. The case of Scottish devolution is one example of where constitutional change was constructed as heralding a ‘new politics’. This proposition is analysed through a specific policy intervention in the devolved Scotland—the designation of a national park in the Cairngorms. This designation is traced from the instigation of national parks legislation to the formal creation of the park. The claim that devolution can bring about a more open and participatory approach to governing is critiqued. It is proposed that, although democratisation has a formed a political rationality of devolution, the actual practices of governing owe more to traditional rationalities of managerialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In water management and in spatial planning there is a debate on the fundamental underlying discourses of the policy domains. In Dutch water management an emergent discourse of ‘accommodating water’, which is competing with the traditional ‘battle against water’ discourse, can be seen. In Dutch spatial planning there is a debate on new practices of area-specific development planning, which are considered to reflect new ideas on spatiality better than the traditional Dutch planning doctrine. The authors discuss these recent developments, and attempt to analyse institutional changes with the help of the perspective of policy arrangements. The analysis is focused on the interrelations between the two policy arrangements, and both new ‘rules of the game’ and new policy practices are considered. The question is posed as to whether these practices are forerunners of new arrangements or do they merely reflect a revised policy and planning agenda of the existing institutional order? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite lengthy debates about planning versus incrementalism, there is still no consensus on what strategy processes should look like in the public sector. In the environmental policy field, the decline of formal policy planning was nonetheless followed by a surge of national strategies for sustainable development (NSSDs). After summarizing this development, we highlight some key characteristics, good practices, and weaknesses of NSSDs with regard to participation, horizontal and vertical policy integration, policy implementation, and monitoring. It is shown that NSSDs go well beyond former environmental policy plans, not just in terms of their thematic scope, but foremost because they resemble evolving rather than static strategy processes. Finally, we explore what model of strategy formation may be adequate for the public sector in general. Based on the empirical evidence presented here and by drawing on strategic management theory, strategic public management is proposed as an ideal pattern for strategy formation, which reconciles planning and incremental learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological modernisation is a normative theory that explains why society's institutions and practices change in response to environmental consequences of industrial economies. It is also a term used to describe broader processes of change in environmental governance. In this paper, we use the second concept to explore the development of Brazil's governance of genetically modified (GM) or transgenic crops. We discuss three major shifts in GM-crop governance and regulatory institutions during the past decade. We focus on how nongovernmental organisations, local governments, and farmers challenged the federal government's biotechnology regulatory institution. The analysis of Brazil's GM debate offers important insights into the process of ecological modernisation in the global South. The case represents a key example of how ecological modernisation may proceed in countries facing neoliberalism and export-oriented economic policies paralleled by increasing democratisation. In Brazil, these seemingly contradictory forces have led to innovative, market-based paths of institutional change in environmental governance. Our study also offers an instructive example of how ecological modernisation processes in the global South intersect with broader dynamics of globalisation to shape potentially diverse environmental policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiated agreements are relatively new in the field of energy and environmental policies. In order to support the design of future negotiated agreements it is useful to discuss how environmentally effective negotiated agreements can be designed. Based on rational decisionmaking and economic theory, the OECD has put forward eight recommendations for designing pollution abatement schemes through negotiated agreements that set ambitious targets, ensure target achievement, and reach targets in an efficient way. Based on three cases of negotiated agreements regulating industrial energy consumption in Denmark, the Netherlands, and France, the adequacy of the OECD recommendations will be discussed. It is found that the recommendations should pay more attention to the question of efficiency of agreements and to the difficulties in defining unambiguous targets. Apart from these deficiencies it is concluded that the recommendations cover all phases, are soundly based in theory, and give a meaningful evaluation of negotiated agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the political dynamics underlying the British land-use planning policy of urban containment. Electoral shifts in favor of environmental protection; Regulation of other areas of environmental concern; Power exerted by a coalition of special interests and bureaucrats who benefit most from containment.

Assesses state strategies for siting hazardous-waste (HW) facilities in the United States. Variables affecting the siting of noxious facilities; Comparison of the responses of the successful and unsuccessful states by the level of state activism in the siting attempts; Effectiveness of compensation to host communities as a strategy for siting HW facilities.