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European forests are expanding and becoming denser following the widespread abandonment of farmland and rural areas. Spontaneous forest regrowth provides a cost‐effective opportunity to restore ecosystems, enhance multifunctionality and sustainability and mitigate climate change. Yet, little is known about the goods and services that such forests provide to people. We assessed the changes in nature's contributions to people (NCP) from spontaneous forest regrowth, i.e. forest expansion and densification, in South‐West Europe.We investigated 65 forest plots in four different landscapes with contrasting ecological and societal contexts. Two landscapes are located in rural areas undergoing human exodus and forest expansion and densification; the other two, in peri‐urban areas with intense land use and forest densification but negligible expansion. For each forest plot, we estimated variables related to ten out of the 18 main NCP defined by the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Regulating and material NCP were addressed using variables measured in the field as proxies. Non‐material NCP were studied through stakeholder interviews.Our results show across the cases that forest expansion and densification are generally associated with greater climate regulation and energy provision. Changes in other NCP, especially in non‐material ones, were strongly context‐dependent. The social perception of spontaneous forest regrowth was primarily negative in rural areas and more positive in peri‐urban landscapes.Passive restoration through spontaneous forest expansion and densification can enhance regulating and material NCP, especially when adaptive management is applied. To optimise NCP and to increase the societal awareness of and interest in spontaneous forest regrowth, the effects of this process should be analysed in close coordination with local stakeholders to unveil and quantify the many and complex trade‐offs involved in rural or peri‐urban social perceptions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpretive discourse analysis commonly claims to address the interrelation between actors and discourses. However, the analytical focus of most approaches is on structures (discourses) while much less attention is paid to agency. This paper explicitly addresses discursive agency in two steps. First, we systematically review theoretical and analytical dimensions of agency in existing interpretive discourse analysis approaches. This review reveals a set of shared assumptions; most notably a concept of 'trialectic' agency emphasizing the constitution of agency among the individual, the (discursive) structures, and the researcher's interpretation. Second, we propose an analytical heuristic, the Discursive Agency Approach, which is developed on the basis of the review and own empirical data. The proposed approach consists of four elements: (1) policy discourses, (2) political institutions, (3) agents defined via a set of characteristics, and (4) strategic practices. This approach is meant to facilitate a systematic exploration of agency under a discourse perspective, tackling the question of how a policy is constituted through the agency ascribed to its proponents in dynamic discursive processes, and how actors acquire political relevance through discursive means. To enable this goal, we propose distinct research steps and associated methods that link the approach to existing means of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) is an influential theoretical framework for the analysis of policymaking processes, in particular agenda setting. It has inspired numerous empirical applications, which result in substantially different interpretations, for instance, of what exactly the 'streams' encompass, how policy entrepreneurship is practiced, and how the coupling of distinct streams works. This article undertakes a systematic assessment of the MSF's core elements from the perspective of policy discourse analysis. Through an understanding of 'streams' as discursive patterns, and policy discourses as (historical) couplings of the streams, a new and theoretically consistent interpretation of streams and likely connections between them is offered. One specific focus is on Kingdon's concept of policy entrepreneurship and how it relates to ideas of agency in discourse analysis. Drawing on the recently proposed Discursive Agency Approach, we discuss how concepts such as subject positions in discourses, agent subjectivization via the dialectic interplay of individual characteristics and structural forces, and discursive practices and strategies relate to and can possibly complement the MSF. Particular emphasis is given to the metaphors the MSF provides. In conclusion, the article demonstrates that a post-positivist perspective holds great potential for enriching the MSF theoretically and strengthening it analytically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]