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In the collaborative natural resource governance literature, stakeholder participation is most often treated as instrumental to the normative legitimacy and, thus, effectiveness of the environmental state. This study adds a perspective of stakeholder legitimacy as the outcome of competition among groups with differential power operating under the influence of powerful systemic forces. Stakeholders with differential capacities engage in a politics of visibility to determine what is and is not made transparent. What remains invisible is the result of privileged accounts, supported by broader societal values regarding economic development. The research for this paper stems from ethnographic field work of a campaign by conservation and recreational fishing interests to ban the use of commercial gill nets in North Carolina. Conservation and recreational fishing interests gained a greater degree of legitimacy in fishery decision making processes by utilizing a politics of visibility that reinforced destructive patterns of environmental rights and resource use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Empowerment' is a term much used by policy makers with an interest in improving service delivery and promoting different forms of neighbourhood governance. But the term is ambiguous and has no generally accepted definition. Indeed, there is a growing paradox between the rhetoric of community empowerment and an apparent shift towards increased centralisation of power away from the neighbourhood in developed economies. In this paper we explore the literature relating to empowerment and identify two broad conceptions which reflect different emphases on neoliberalism. We go on to discuss two models illustrating different levels of state intervention at the neighbourhood level and set out evidence from two neighbourhood councils in Milton Keynes in central England. In conclusion, it is argued that those initiatives which are top-down, state-led policy initiatives tend to result in the least empowerment (as defined by government), whereas the bottom-up, self-help projects, which may be partly state enabled, at least provide an opportunity to create the spaces where there is some potential for varying degrees of transformation. Further empirical research is needed to test how far localist responses can challenge constraints on empowerment imposed by neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequent adjustments of environmental regulations usually cause business and investment risks, resulting in significant challenges for policy effectiveness. This paper examines how regulatory uncertainty affects decision making through an empirical study of the 'Pay for Permit' policy in the Tai Lake Basin in China. The results show that firms' willingness to decrease pollution is positively influenced by their perceived attitudes, social pressure, and perceived behavioural control. In addition, perceived regulatory uncertainty has significant impacts on social pressure and attitudes toward pollution control. Firms that perceive less regulatory uncertainty are more inclined to adopt antipollution strategies under the Pay for Permit policy. To reduce regulatory uncertainty, China's policy makers should maintain a consistent level of environmental regulations, set clear and reliable long-term policy targets, and strengthen policy enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of a group of developing countries with shared characteristics, challenges, and needs, distinct from those of developed countries, has been central to sustainable development discourse and policy for decades. However, in the years since the original Rio conference it has become increasingly apparent that it is difficult to sustain this notion of a single developing world. Within the context of unfolding diversity, a central claim of the present paper is that lumping all countries together under the expansive category of 'developing' risks obfuscating the complex challenges, solutions, and fragmented geopolitics of sustainable development. Instead, it is necessary to use the terms developing country, countries, or world far more selectively, mindful that they may conceal just about as much as they reveal. In the paper I proceed to consider a number of alternative national, subnational, and transnational spatial categorisations which might be deployed to better describe and/or analyse the evolving nature, effective governance, and politics of sustainable development challenges across space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the links between environmental change, human migration, and adaptation in the relatively mature governance system of the European Union (EU). It is shown that these connections are limited and, when made, tend to be security focused. This situation inhibits scope for migration (both internally within states and internationally between states) to be understood as a form of adaptation to economic, social, political, demographic, and environmental change. We assess the underlying dynamics of EU environmental policy, note the main modes and instruments used, and identify some of the chief dynamics in this policy field. Finally, conclusions are drawn with respect to how, in future, the EU might interact with nonmember states on environment and migration-related issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is widely acknowledged as a key business risk. Companies around the globe are taking action to mitigate their carbon emissions, develop climate-friendly products and services, and prepare for the negative impacts of climate change for their operations. Financial investors, on their part, are becoming more concerned about business responses to climate change and begin to demand concrete risk management strategies. In this context an increasing number of private initiatives are seeking to change business behaviour in a more sustainable direction. Key instruments used are governance by disclosure. This paper explores the agency of nonstate actors in manufacturing climate change into a key business risk, a development that enabled the use of disclosure-based governance mechanisms in global climate politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With this paper we depict a typology of regions, capturing the diversity of regional innovation systems (RISs) across the EU-25. Following the RIS literature, we select twenty-one variables related to the ability of a region to generate and absorb knowledge, and its capacity to transform research and development into innovation and economic growth. On the basis of the results of principal components and cluster analyses, we identify seven types of RIS where the 186 regions group together according to their sectoral specialisation, technological and economic capacity, and performance. By allowing us to identify similar and more advanced regions, the paper facilitates comparisons and benchmarking between similar regions, thus enabling more accurate policy learning. For each group a number of policy recommendations are suggested, contingent on their local specific characteristics. In short, the contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it provides the first RIS typology for the EU-25 regions completed using a large number of variables. Secondly, the conclusions obtained from the analysis may be used to lead policy makers' actions in the field of regional innovation policy in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors explore the relationship between land-use, or spatial, planning and the environmental sustainability of major areas of public policy. First, the planning - public policy relationship is conceptualised within a framework that challenges narrowly instrumental accounts of the role of planning in the promotion of environmental sustainability, emphasising instead how the exploitation of opportunity structures in planning has impinged over time on dominant sectoral objectives. This framework is then used to analyse reformist pressures on planning, with particular reference to England's ‘modernising planning’ agenda. The argument is developed through a critical analysis of how, in the light of key components of this agenda—rescaling, streamlining, and the introduction of a statutory purpose—planning, public policy, and environmental sustainability might be expected to interact in future. Early signs suggest that the initial reform proposals—to accelerate the delivery of development by restructuring opportunities for participation—were diluted (but not displaced) by strong opposition. Tracing the long-term impacts of the reforms will require research into the relations between the reconstituted tiers of planning and the ability of interest groups to use the new opportunity structures effectively—tasks that should interest analysts of the greening of the state as much as planning researchers. [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]

The author adopts a regional innovation systems approach to examine how subnational governance is implicated in the promotion of multifunctional agricultural strategies in England. Multi-functionality has been advocated as a pivotal concept for orchestrating the promotion of so-called ‘postproductivist’ agricultural policies, with researchers identifying different interpretations in European states based upon national political priorities and production structures. However, to date no attempt has been made to conceptualise the institutional capacities required to deliver this innovative policy mandate, or to assess the challenges confronting regional governance in the translation of opaque multifunctional discourses into concrete, implementable, policies. These critically important research issues are examined with the aid of primary and secondary datasets derived from the English East Midlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]