Governance are the actions and processes that arise from interactions between (groups of) people, which give rise to persistent practices such as institutions (including norms and treaties) and organisational structures which in turn affect people’s behavioral patterns. Such practices can be formal institutions, e.g. laws, with formal sanctioning, or informal norms embedded in the community and enforced through social sanctioning (see institutions).

Governance is a process that goes beyond government and involves both state and non-state (or formal vs non-formal) actors. In fact, there are often several “governance systems” at play simultaneously (see multilevel governance section).

Governance is a very broad topic but in the setting of sustainability science we will look at it from the perspective of a process invoked to achieve the goal of sustainability by means of changed practices, such as institutions that affect behavioural patterns. This entails a normative perspective in which we focus on governance as a solution to the problem of achieving a particular goal, i.e. sustainability. But “how to govern”, or in other words, what criteria to use as a decision basis, is also is a very multifaceted concept. Here, we address this by using four general criterias:

• Efficiency: How to achieve the change in practices with least effort or costs
• Effectiveness: How persistent and inclusive are the practices
• Equity: How are the cost and benefits distributed
• Legitimacy: How acceptable are the practices to all affected

These four broad criteria are further discussed e.g. in Adger et al. (2003). But we can make a quick overview of them here.

To achieve efficiency one needs to reduce transactions costs, i.e. the costs that are associated with spreading information, monitoring and sanctioning an institution. Markets are one method that are often used. Transferable licenses, for example, generate persistent value associated with the license, and this value only persists if no one cheats and catches more than their share, as a license for a depleted resource is not worth much. Thus, cheating has a direct effect on every license holder and creates incentives for monitoring and sanctioning within a local community often negating the need for external management of these.

Effectiveness concerns how motivated people are to adjust behavior according to a prescribed practice. Knowledge plays a key role here. Understanding why and how a practice can generate benefits is motivational. Unfortunately, many regulations are made by governing entities who lack local knowledge, and thus perceived benefits are very disparate between local actors and the governing entity often leading to severe lack of compliance.

Equity can be addressed with taxes and subventions. These are checks and balances to transfer external costs and benefits between actors that generate externalities and actors that are affected by these.

Legitimacy is often addressed with inclusiveness in the decision making process, i.e. by stakeholder participation. Often, marginalized groups also lack in resources to make their voice heard. Many NGO’s take the role of amplifying these voices, but in sensible governance systems, procedures may (should) exist to provide a way to become a legitimate actor in decision processes that are affecting one’s livelihood.

Dynamics of governance and institutions

With persistent practices we do not mean that practices are unchangeable either in form or compliance, but that they change on timescales slower than that of the frequency of interactions between groups of people. These practices and institutions are thus aggregate phenomena resulting from repeated interactions (see scale and change in complex adaptive systems) and thus subject to change due to selective processes, e.g. changes in how they are perceived or formulated or to the degree people choose to behaviourally comply to them (conformity). Thus, the result of governance, e.g. institutions, are not necessarily sequentially substituted. Instead, they “live” at different scales, in space, time or organizational level and their effect on people’s behaviour varies over time (Ostrom 2009).

Multilevel Governance Systems

Often, governance takes place through processes and institutions operating at, and between, varieties of geographical and organizational scales involving a range of actors with different forms of authority (Duit & Galaz 2008).

At times you will come across the term collaborative governance in the sustainability literature. This term refers to a process similar to stakeholder participation and co-management but from a different perspective. Often, collaborative governance is initiated by higher level agencies, inviting both private and public stakeholders in a dialog of vision sharing and understanding.

Collective action

Collective action refers to the mobilization of a group of people for a common goal fueled by perceived injustice, sense of identity and a belief that action can provide relief. The creation of a democratic state organization from dictatorships is one example of this. Others are the struggle for recognized rights by indigenous people or the mobilization of local fishermen for regulations to prevent harvests from external actors. Collective action thus is the precursor of governance.

Contributors

Jon Norberg

References

Adger, W., Brown, K., & Fairbrass, J. (2003). Governance for sustainability: towards a thick’analysis of environmental decisionmaking. … and Planning A. Retrieved from http://envplan.com/epa/fulltext/a35/a35289.pdf

Duit, A., & Galaz, V. (2008). Governance and complexity—emerging issues for governance theory. Governance. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2008.00402.x/full

Ostrom, E. (2009). Understanding institutional diversity. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LbeJaji_AfEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=institutional+diversity&ots=kv2DUUmoXO&sig=NcB7WjnoRqVh-G6K9E1xTu08p_s