Achieving Sustainable Development: the Challenge of Governance Across Social Scales : The Challenge of Governance Across Social Scales 9780313057274, 9780275978020

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Achieving Sustainable Development The Challenge of Governance Across Social Scales EDITED BY HANS TH. A. BRESSERS AND WALTER A. ROSENBAUM

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Achieving sustainable development: the challenge of governance across social scales / edited by Hans Th. A. Bressers and Walter A. Rosenbaum. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-97802-8 (alk. paper) 1. Sustainable development. 2. Sustainable development—International cooperation. 3. Environmental policy. 4. Environmental policy—International cooperation. I. Bressers, Hans. II. Rosenbaum, Walter A. HD75.6.A245 2003 338.9'27—dc21 2003051760 British Library Cataloging in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2003 by Hans Th. A. Bressers and Walter A. Rosenbaum All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003051760 ISBN: 0-275-97802-8 First published in 2003 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10

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Contents

Illustrations

vii

Preface

ix

I.

Introduction

1

1

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction Hans Th. A. Bressers and Walter A. Rosenbaum

3

II.

The Significance of Social Scales: Visions and Concepts

25

2

Globalization and Sustainable Development Jose Luis Toscano

27

3

Governance and Sustainable Livelihoods Parakh Hoon and Goran Hyden

43

4

What Does "Governance" Mean? From Conception to Elaboration Hans Th. A. Bressers and Stefan M.M. Kuks

HI. The Imperative for Multilevel Governance in Sustainable Development 5

6

Sustainable Development, Political Institutions, and Scales: The Management of Pacific Salmon /. Samuel Barkin and Cassandra Moseley Managing Water Resources in Florida and the Netherlands: The Impact of National Orientations on Multiscale Governance Stefan M. M. Kuks and Hans Th. A. Bressers

65

89 91

109

Contents

VI

7

8

Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Resource Management through Institutional Syncretism in Madagascar and Senegal Dennis Galvan and Richard Marcus

135

Building from the Center Out: Decentralizing Environmental Policy Making in Costa Rica John Bolus and Renee J. Johnson

165

Local Autonomy and Environmental Justice: Implementing Distributional Equity across National Scales Trans H.J.M. Coenen and Angela C. Half acre

185

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IV 10

11

12

13

14

The Impact of Multilevel Governance on Policy Making for Sustainability

211

Multilevel Governance and Food Biotechnology in the European Union M. Leann Brown

213

Sustainable Electricity Supply in the European Union: Reconciling Different Scales of Governance Maarten Arentsen and Valentina Dinica

235

Multilevel Governance Networks and the Use of Policy Instruments in the European Union Kenneth I. Hanfand Laurence J. O'Toole, Jr.

257

The Impact of Policy Style on Policy Choice across Scales: The EU Experience Theo de Bruijn

281

Implementing Environmental Regulations across Governance Scales in the EU 307 Kris Lulofs, Alexandra Biiltmann, Malcolm Tames, Simone Schucht, and Trank Watzold

Index

327

About the Contributors

335

Illustrations

FIGURES 1.1 Three Aspects of Sustainable Development that Require Integration 1.2 Dimensions of Scale Development for Sustainability 1.3 Interactions between Governmental Scales in Sustainability Policy Implementation 2.1 How Globalization Encourages and Hinders Sustainable Development 3.1 Current Contending Conservation and Development Paradigms 5.1 Management and Scale 9.1 Site Status by Mean Income in Enschede, the Netherlands 13.1 Adaptive Pressures on EU Member States

6 9 15 36 47 104 200 286

TABLES 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 7.1 9.1

Governance and Its Relation to Related Concepts and Activities Operational Aspects of Governance in the Context of SL Relationships between the Elements of Governance Perspectives of Social Sciences Salmon Freshwater Habitat Nested Subsets for Salmon Management Types of Syncretism Linear Regression Estimates of Number of Contaminated Soil Sites and CBS Neighborhood Income and Ethnicity

51 53 75 78 93 102 140 200

viii

Illustrations

9.2 2 Logistic Regression Estimates of Soil Site Status and

Neighborhood Income and Ethnicity 201 10.1 Some EU Member State Actions Regarding Genetically Modified (GM) Crops 226 13.1 Misfits between Europe and the Member States 299 14.1 Data on Environmental Pressure in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Japan 313

Preface

The chapters in this volume are based on a selection of original papers first presented at a symposium on "The Politics of Sustainable Development" hosted by the University of Florida's Political Science Department during February 17-19, 2000. This symposium continues a productive collaboration involving several colloquia, as well as the exchange of faculty and students from the United States and Europe, initiated by members of the Department of Political Science and the Environmental Institute CSTM at the University of Twente (the Netherlands) sharing an interest in the development of comparative studies of applied environmental policy. We are indebted to the Department of Political Science and the Office of Research and Graduate Programs at the University of Florida for providing the resources to sponsor this meeting. We want to express our appreciation, as well, to the authors of the individual chapters for their diligence and patience while editing and updating their initial contributions. We are especially indebted to Ada Krooshoop and Debbie Wallen for their meticulous editing and preparation of the final book manuscript.

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PART I

Introduction

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CHAPTER 1

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction Hans Th. A. Bressers and Walter A. Rosenbaum

In the middle of Europe, the Alps form an area of awesome beauty. They stretch for more than 500 miles from the shores of the Mediterranean in France to the vicinity of Vienna. They are formidable. But also they are vulnerable to local pressures from building developments and from the construction and exploitation of ski slopes and ski resorts. Caravans of trucks using the few tunnels and passes to transport enormous amounts of goods between Italy and the Balkans and to the rest of Europe cause, among other things, air pollution, offensive noise alongside the roads, and additional road development. Furthermore: the glaciers are receding rapidly (Haeberli & Beniston 1998), threatening the socioeconomic stability of the communities dependent on them; several ski resorts can now survive only by producing much of the snow on the slopes themselves. Clearly, this is an aspect of global warming, even for those who still doubt its manmade character. The same area falls under the jurisdiction of six countries: the European Union (EU) member states of France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, the EU candidate member state Slovenia, and neutral Switzerland. Austria and Germany are federal states. The cantons in Switzerland have an even more autonomous status. The sheer complexity of the ecosystem seems to be reflected in its governance institutions. And what about the activities and people to be targeted by any policy that addresses the ecological stress? How local is tourism? Or how international? And how local is a receding glacier if it's part of a worldwide tendency? How local is transport pressure? Or how national? Or how international? Or even how global, because it is so clearly connected to the globalization of the

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Achieving Sustainable Development

economy? Some Swiss cantons fiercely oppose any extension of heavy transport through their region and compete with the international EU while lobbying for their goal in the Swiss capital. At the same time, they may contain large financial institutions that play key roles in the globalization of the economy and rapidly expanding trade. In recent years, most of these national, state, and local governmental entities have also been increasingly concerned with achieving sustainable development. Among other things, this has implied protecting permanently the vitality of their most important, and often endangered, shared ecosystems. The mission of sustainable development eventually becomes, in good measure, a problem of multiple scales: how to effectively deal with problems of different magnitudes, policies with many diverse objectives, and governmental entities at many levels in a manner that achieves the ultimate goal of sustainability. This book is concerned particularly with the special problem embedded in the sustainability paradigm of organizing governance across scales—that is, across and between geographic, ecological, or other social levels in a sustainable regime. The scale problem has emerged as a major, enlarging concern as international efforts proliferate to implement various sustainability policies. An example is the recent international political controversy ignited by the American refusal to join 178 other nations in supporting the Kyoto Protocol. The acrimonious discourse this provoked with the United States illustrates both the multiscale imperative inherent to creating (in this instance) an international regime for climate sustainability and the practical difficulties involved. Nonetheless, the United States continues to support and to initiate numerous other international, cross-scale treaties to protect endangered species and many other ecological resources. All these treaties, like virtually any policy premised on the goal of ecological sustainability, will inevitably involve the practical problem of multiscale governance. Throughout the book, we are primarily concerned with two issues related to governing across scales: 1. The governance challenge in sustainable development as an issue of multiple levels and integration across scales (the subject of the chapters in Part III); 2. The significance of multilevel governance as a new dimension to political science analysis (the subject of Part IV). To begin, the chapters in Part II discuss some concepts crucial to understanding these issues: globalization, local stakeholders, and governance in relation to sustainable development. In the remainder of this Introduction, we draw attention to the concept of sustainability and some of its important aspects as a multiscale challenge, especially the necessity and

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction

5

difficulty involved in multilevel governance as a consequence of a commitment to sustainability We then provide an overview of the chapters that follow and their position vis a vis the environmental challenges of governance for sustainability. SUSTAINABILITY: CLARIFYING SOME AMBIGUITIES Sustainable development has rapidly acquired such global salience that it is now a strategic concept at virtually every level of international and national government where public policy is discussed. However, what sustainable development implies about the appropriate means to this end, or about what is to be specifically achieved, is a matter of continuing debate. What Is "Sustainability"? The United Nation's World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) propagated and popularized what remains the most common definition of "sustainability" in its well-known 1987 Brundtland Report: sustainable development, it asserted, was meeting 'The needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED 1987: 8). Like most subsequent efforts to characterize the idea of sustainability the implications are conceptually ambiguous. The predictable result has been intense debate whenever the topic of sustainable development is discussed about practically every aspect of its implications for public policies. We understand the meaning of sustainability in the generic sense that Daniel Mazmanian and Michael Kraft describe it. "As a practical matter," they have written, "sustainability can mean any important change values, public policy, and public or private activity that moves communities, and individuals, toward realization of the key tenants of ecological integrity, social harmony, and political participation" (Mazmanian & Kraft 1999:18). We assume that as a matter of public policy, sustainable development embraces public policies, at whatever governmental level, intended to achieve some combination of these general purposes. We are primarily concerned in this book with those development policies incorporating a substantial ecological component—that is, with policies intended to protect and preserve ecological processes and natural resources for future generations—what Mazmanian and Kraft call "strong" sustainability goals (1999:17). We believe that by doing so, we also adhere to the spirit of what is still the most elaborate and operational and internationally agreed upon package of implications of sustainable development principles for action: the Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro conference.

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Achieving Sustainable Development

Figure 1.1 Three Aspects of Sustainable Development that Require Integration

Scales & Levels Time& Learning

Sectors & Aspects

The Importance of Governance The United Nations describes governance as the exercise of political, economic, and administrative authority to manage a nation's affairs, including complex sets of institutions, systems, and processes that engage the state, civil society, and the private sector in a democratic and transparent way. The governance that primarily concerns us is the rules, understandings, and institutions that guide public action, or political action, to implement sustainable public policies. This involves more than formal government institutions. It embraces what Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill have aptly described as "the means for achieving direction, control, and coordination of wholly or partially autonomous individuals or organizations on behalf of interests to which they jointly contribute" (Lynn, Heinrich, & Hill, 2000: 2). This would include, for instance, the implicit "rules of the game" for stakeholder participation in implementing sustainability policies and the norms (formal or informal) accepted by social actors for relating to each other as policies evolve. Governance, in this more comprehensive sense, entails a structure of shared responsibilities among social actors and various instruments to facilitate collaboration. This involves at least three aspects. First, governance of sustainable development involves the integration of sectors. This embraces the three dimensions of sustainable development: ecological, economic, and social equity. Also, the environmental issue itself

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction

7

has many aspects that often need to be viewed more integrally In most actual governance systems, the three sustainability dimensions are represented in many departments of government. For instance, almost all ministries at the national level contain one or more divisions or tasks that make them important for the sustainable development endeavor. Thus, the "interpolicy cooperation" (Knoepfel 1995: 212-221) that sustainable development requires is a difficult but unavoidable challenge for the governance of sustainable development. Second, governance assumes a long time horizon, both of the problems and of the required policy responses, creating great uncertainties, and the necessity of continuous learning. The editors of this volume have placed this aspect of sustainable development on the forefront in another recent collection of articles (Rosenbaum & Bressers 2000). In this volume, we emphasize a third aspect of governance: coordination between social actors involving actors at different levels or scales (see Figure 1.1). The Challenge of Governance However necessary it may be, multilevel governance is highly problematic in policy making for sustainable development. Among the multitude of daunting challenges: 1. Creating new perspectives on governance among the geographic entities, governmental institutions, and publics that must be incorporated in new, crossscale arrangements. 2. Reconciling existing multilevel governance structures, such as the European Union, or various subnational governance arrangements, such as regional energy markets or commodity trading associations, to the imperatives of newer arrangements based on sustainability principles. 3. Creating the scientific, regulatory, and economic infrastructures essential to supporting governance arrangements. We are concerned not only with how societies can organize but also with how they do organize to overcome such daunting obstacles. Thus, we place considerable emphasis upon the history and lessons to be learned from ongoing efforts achieve such governance in several diverse international settings, including the Netherlands, the Northwest United States, Costa Rica, Madagascar, Senegal, and the European Union.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS A MULTISCALE CHALLENGE The multiscale issue was not new to the environmental field when the sustainable development perspective rose. The multiscale issues implicit in the environmental challenge were made more visible and unavoidable

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Achieving Sustainable Development

by their connection with similar multiscale relations in the spheres of the economy and social equity. These fields have involved, for instance, the organization of an increasing proportion of the global production in multinational corporations, increasing international trade dependencies and its relation to poverty in developing countries and their dependency on natural resource extraction and export. Environmental Protection Is Multiscale Many classic environmental protection measures were early recognized as simply raising the scale of environmental problems. Governmental measures to address what might seem primarily national or subnational environmental problems had international consequences. For example, Britain's efforts to control ambient air pollution from fossil fuel combustion by using 'Tall stacks" created destructive acid precipitation. Though these measures were not extraordinary, because of the prevailing winds, they were causing "dead lakes" from acidification in Scandinavia. Similar pollution emission controls prescribed for electric utilities in the Ohio River basin resulted in acid precipitation across the American Northeast and a major regional political conflict. Likewise, instances abound of sewerage causing downstream pollution and irrigation causing depletion of water resources for downstream users. The multiscale challenge to governance is even more apparent in contemporary efforts to implement various national, regional, and even local environmental policies cross-nationally Illustrations abound in both Europe and the United States. For example, the first Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan (Dutch Parliament 1989)—among the most internationally influential national initiatives committed to sustainability planning—assumes that its implementation will mean addressing ecological issues and coordinating governmental institutions on a local, regional, river basin, continental, and even global scale, as Figure 1.2 illustrates. This conception of the multiscale character of the ecological system provided one of the two foundations for the organization of the Dutch environmental policy plan; the other was the "closing of cycles of substances flows in the economical-ecological system" paradigm. Although the term "plan" might have strong "top-down" connotations for many U.S. readers, in a neocorporatist country such as the Netherlands, with its tradition of negotiated consensus building, it should be regarded more as a combination of "management by objectives" and a coordination device. The numbered arrows in the figure point to various observed developments and relations in this multiscale system. 1. Effects tend to occur on increasingly higher scale levels. The distance between the producer of a certain effect and the victim increases, and it often takes longer before the result of measures becomes visible.

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction

Figure 1.2 Dimensions of Scale Development for Sustainability

-

SOURCES •

i

:

. '

2. Sources will often occur all over the world and on different scale levels than the effects and vice versa. 3. Partly through feedback mechanisms and indirect impacts, effects will strike back on scale levels that produce resources, even if they suffer no immediate effects. The carrying capacity of the environment declines, not only for natural ecosystems, but also for various human activities such as agriculture, living conditions, recreation, industry, and water supply. 4. Natural cycles are interrupted, and the increase in energy use and neglect of quality cause roll-off mechanisms or externalities at all scale levels. For instance, production of livestock feed in Thailand for the European or American market creates erosion and depletion of arable land and occupies large spaces (a footprint), while creating eutrophication and acidification by NH4 in the receiving western country (such as the Netherlands). Often actors from one level can be viewed as free riders, rolling off various ecological and financial costs to others at lower or higher levels. The United States was regarded that way in Europe when the Bush administration initially denounced the Kyoto Protocol. 5. and 6. These arrows point to deliberate interventions intended to counter the effects of (3) and (4) by protection of valuable natural resources and ecosystems, preventing unacceptable risks, setting and guarding environmental ambient and emission standards and allocating responsibilities. Here the governance aspect is most clearly involved in the system.

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Achieving Sustainable Development

At a more practical level, the remedial feedback should consist of the closing of cycles of substances flows, the saving of energy, and the improvement of durable quality. It seems axiomatic that policies addressing ecological problems at one scale of governance eventually involve other social, ecological, and governmental scales for at least three reasons. 1. The consequences of ecological policies often occur on lower or higher governmental scale levels and with time lags. 2. The causes of ecological problems may occur on one scale and the effects on another—as, for example, with the common problem of dangerous downstream pollution loadings created by a multitude of upstream sources. 3. Some global problems, such as climate warming, may have highly differentiated local consequences, both desirable and undesirable, requiring complex governance arrangements for management. The most challenging ecological problems now have a global impact (the greenhouse effect and climate change; loss of biodiversity, etc.) with very differentiated local severity. For some areas, better crops are a main effect, whereas the continued existence of other areas (such as island states) is threatened. And, often, local and regional social contexts shape the causes, but through interaction with global socioeconomic developments, such as the so-called globalization of economy and culture. Economic Globalization and Multilevel Governance The globalization of the economy also plays an important role in creating the need for multilevel governance for sustainable development. In the first place, although many of the governance issues are ultimately global, the individual targets of governance—the people and organizations that will have to change their interaction with the environment— are essentially local: industrial plants, farms, and households. Second, these individual targets are themselves part of larger entities, bigger communities or mother companies that might also be subnational, national, or even global multinationals and that will typically exert governance over their local plants, though not necessarily in favor of sustainable development principles. As an example, Toyota Motor Corporation is not only a global multinational, it also operates at continental and national levels, and guides the performance of its associated plants and importers, down to the neighborhood garage. Most of the time, the individual plants have considerable leeway and discretion to deal with the locally operative environmental rules. But more and more, the global companies develop their own strategies and thereby exert environmental governance themselves.

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction

11

Finally, even if the individual targets for governance are not part of a conglomerate, they are deeply embedded in a more and more internationally integrated economic system. Often, governments run the risk of being trapped in a race to the bottom when they believe they must compete as an attractive investment opportunity by relaxing environmental policies compatible with sustainability. Whether a high environmental standard is really a handicap in global economic competition is not as obvious as some may think, as we illustrate in a later section. But "what is believed to be real is real in its consequences," and this belief can erode the determination of separate authorities to push forward on the environmental agenda. This is one of the reasons that governance for sustainable development is often perceived to require consistent agreements on high-scale levels. Under certain institutional conditions, there can even be a race to the top—for instance, when an equal playing field is sought at the high level of the most advanced countries. Organizations such as the OECD can have a positive role in advancing such upward developments. But less organized and more spontaneous international influences can sometimes have such positive effects. It can be observed in Europe, for instance, that U.S. legal conceptions of individual economic liability are becoming more accepted. Some aspects of this are regarded critically, such as the negative aspects of litigation as a political strategy. But at the same time, it can be observed that many companies now take very seriously the possible future legal confrontations over their corporate responsibilities. A possible distortion of economic competitiveness is an often-used argument against unilateral national environmental regulations, that it typically leads to acknowledging the necessity of multiscale arrangements. Sometimes this concern about competitiveness can be genuine, but it can also lead—even deliberately—to a halt to the buildup of further incentives for a more sustainable development. Therefore, consider an empirical study that illustrates that the negative relations embedded in many economic science theories have a far from certain empirical basis (de la Fuente 1994, master's thesis supervised by one of the authors of this chapter; see also Bressers 1995). In fact, the following example shows that strong, ecologically defensive policies are not necessarily detrimental to a competitive position at global markets. What kind of test would one like to have? Assume two countries of similar development, size, and population, both with very open economies and exporting more than half of their production. Further, assume that they are adjacent, so they are in the same international region and share international economic and governance incentives. Further, suppose that one of these countries has a very vigorous policy for a certain environmental objective, whereas the other is completely lacking such policy, and that this situation lasted for 20 years. Additionally, this strong policy by

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the one country also includes the dreaded instrument of pollution charges, often supposed to have a detrimental effect on competitiveness because of the money transfer to government involved. Here, then, is competition hell in one country, and paradise in the other! This would also be an attractive setting for a real-life experiment. This is precisely the situation that existed in the Netherlands and Belgium, concerning their water quality policies from 1970 to 1990. The Netherlands started in 1970 with a very ambitious policy, whereas Belgium during almost this entire period was in the process of federalization, splitting the Flanders and Walloon communities and discussing at what level future water quality policy should be placed. To make the "worst case" character of this comparison even stronger, we can further refine "hell": What would be the most disadvantaged industrial sector? It should be a sector in the regulated country that produces bulk goods, thus unable to defend itself by brand images (e.g., perfumes). It should be a sector that would be even more than usually dependent on exports (some 75 percent). It should be a sector that faces a lot of competition, also from many other countries, to increase its vulnerability. And, of course, it should be a sector with relatively high water pollution per unit of production value, so that the charges and environmental measures would exert maximum pressure on profitability. Following these criteria, the paper industry is the one to pick. At the beginning of the period (1970-1974), the profitability of the Belgian paper industry tended to be somewhat higher than the Dutch counterpart. In the period that followed, when the first energy crisis struck somewhat harder at the Dutch paper industry than at the Belgian one and Dutch effluent charges—by far the highest in the world 1 —came in full operation, this profitability gap widened. At the end of the 1970s, the Dutch sector responded with a very high investment rate (see Porter 1990). After 1980, the gap in profitability closed rapidly and from 1985 on, profits were even somewhat higher in the Netherlands. The relative export position started equal, but declined in both countries. Nevertheless, in Belgium, the decline was greater. Whereas the export quota stabilized from 1980 on in the Netherlands, it kept declining in Belgium until 1986 and remained considerably lower in the Belgian situation at the end of the period. The rate of utilized production capacity was about equal until 1976, led by Belgium from 1977 to 1979, equal again from 1980 to 1985, and then led by the Dutch from 1986 on. The crux of the matter is that although losing competitiveness in an ever more integrated world economy is one of the main incentives to move up the scale of environmental governance, the empirical basis for this is far from self-evident. The Belgian and Dutch water policy example illustrates that even rather extreme differences in the economic burden of environ-

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction

13

mental policy didnT necessarily mean a competitive advantage for the nation with the less rigorous environmental regulations. Nevertheless, an internationally integrated economy plays a large role in the development of multilevel environmental governance. Examples abound of crucial issues currently under discussion. One such issue involves trade of certificates for greenhouse gas reductions. If the United States enters the scheme, it will surely favor unrestricted global trade. The EU, in contrast, prefers that at least 50 percent of the reduction targets that follow from the Kyoto Protocol be achieved not by buying reduction abroad but by domestic achievements. In that way, the technologically advanced and financially stronger countries have an incentive to develop ever more innovative technologies. Another interesting example is the world top-covenant that Dutch large energy users (the oil companies and large combustion plants) have reached with their government (with the silent understanding that they will be exempted from energy charges or absolute reduction requirements). They have promised to always keep their installations within the worldwide top 10 percent of efficiency. The environmentalists are afraid that this will only signal innovative investments leading to an actual growth of absolute energy use, placing the burden of attaining the Kyoto requirement even more on the side of the consumers. On the contrary, the industries see it as a device to force them into a continuous race to the top and claim that the environment would not benefit from less efficient production in other countries. Of course, both could be right. Part of the inclination to emphasize the necessity of global environmental governance rather than walk alone efforts by separate countries stems from the dominance of a free trade ideology (see Chapter 2). The position of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is very strong, maybe stronger than any other world organization; even the U.S. government and the EU Commission can be summoned to clarify and defend their policies as soon as an effect on trade can be expected. It makes one wonder: politicians tend to acknowledge that it is ultimately better for all countries to vest control over decisions relevant for the principle of free trade in an institution outside the realm of day-to-day politics. And they have done so with the decisions on exchange rates (such as the introduction of the Euro currency) and the interest rates (the increasingly worldwide principle of independent central banks), where long-term considerations should prevail over the tendency to boost the national economy before the next election. Much earlier—as a key element of modern democracy—the administration of justice was placed outside the realm of day-to-day politics. In most cases, there was a democratic legitimization for such independent institutions with a longer time perspective. Now how about the sustainable development principle?

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Achieving Sustainable Development

MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE: INEVITABLE BUT PROBLEMATIC FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT The preceding discussion illustrates that the nature of many environmental problems and the nature of the measures to be taken urge a multiscale approach, especially in a sustainable development perspective. Often this leads into discussions about the right scale or level of action. The concept of new federalism in the United States and the concept of subsidiarity in the EU both express the general principle of decentralization, meaning that decisions should be taken at the lowest level that encompasses the people involved. Whereas in the United States, this signaled some roll back of federal involvement, in the EU, it meant a more careful pace of growth in Union involvement at national levels and below. But more important, both approaches support the idea that there is some right level for every issue. However, the strong interlevel dependencies in most sustainable development problems and in many of the remedies suggest something different. The core of the multilevel governance concept is not just the acknowledgment of many governance levels from which to pick the best one, nor recognition of multiple levels of governance that steer separately a certain topic, confronting the target with multiple incentives. The essence of the multilevel governance concept is that there are also many interactions—games, if one wishes—between various levels affecting the overall incentive structure of those affected by the governance. For that reason, separate analysis of policies at certain levels becomes more and more obsolete, if one is to understand the complete context of governance, even if one is concerned only with the environmental governance of a single large industrial plant. See Figure 1.3. This figure shows how a single industrial plant can be confronted with incentives produced from the local level (e.g., building permits, complaining neighbors), the subnational level (e.g., NGOs, environmental permits, nature protection area restrictions), the national or state level (e.g., negotiated agreements, standard setting, laws, subsidies, national mother company's attitude toward environmental objectives), the Federal or Union level (e.g., standard setting, consumer actions, laws and directives, subsidies) and the global level (e.g., treaties, liabilities, trading schemes, multinational companies environmental strategies). Moreover, all levels of governance influence each other, both upward and downward. Indeed, local level organizations were present at the United Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) conference in Rio and the follow-up were also at Johannesburg in 2002. And local governments lobby in Washington and Brussels. Also, the U.S. federal government and the EU both issue policies that directly influence subnational and local authorities. The gigantic money flow of European

Social Scales, Sustainability, and Governance: An Introduction

15

Figure 1.3 Interactions between Governmental Scales in Sustainability Policy Implementation International & Global & Muiti nationals & NGOs US. Federal/ European Union organizations (Member) Statelevel organiza tions Subnational-level organizations

Local-level organizations

Individual targets: Plants, farms households

regional funds is only weakly administered at the member state level; most interactions are directly between Brussels and the subnational implementers and local initiators of initiatives. The Spanish city of Bilbao got its world-famous titanium Guggenheim museum, which boosted its economy, with the financial support of the EU and the administrative help of the Bask regional government. The EU also supports with large sums the so-called "Euregio's": these are cross-border groups of some dozens of local authorities that want to create joint projects and services, often in the field of the environment and nature protection. At an even larger scale, groups of local authorities have joined international cooperative organizations such as the Climate Association of European Municipalities (Klima-Biindnis 1993) and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), which stimulated local Agenda 21 processes (Coenen, Huitema, & O'Toole 1998: 73). And, from the bottom up, individual households express their preferences vividly when a waste facility is sited, and the repercussions not only trouble local communities, but affect waste policies at national levels as well. Such examples of local community action illustrate that the local position regarding sustainable development is Janus faced, like the Greek god

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looking simultaneously in two directions: local responses are simultaneously positive and negative (Bressers, Kuks, & Ligteringen 1998: 47-49). This holds for all governance levels. The study of governance across social scales for sustainable development, therefore, isn't concerned only about empowering one level over others, but also about assessing the cumulative effects of the multilevel governance as a whole. Multiscale governance also involves a lot of what one could label interlevel integration. To study governance on a certain issue, one also has to pay attention to this dimension, like an arts critic who wants to describe a statue but who wouldn't be very clear if he presented only one horizontal cross-section. Integration may sound like a peaceful event, but it can include fierce battles. Like most policy interaction, the linkages between different levels and scales are loaded with political power differentials. Most issues will involve a movement toward dominance at a certain scale and then, most of the time, opposition by other levels. Integration of levels can become a case of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf: until the huntsman came, Little Red Riding Hood was very integrated with the wolf, but not voluntarily. Of course, much depends on how the issues within the sustainable development paradigm are viewed by relevant actors on various levels. Are they hot potatoes that everybody tries to shove off the plate as soon as possible, passing responsibilities up or down? Or are they seen as attractive new domains? Multilayered governance arrangements are by no means new to policy analysis. The societal management of sustainable development may call for new perspectives in governance, overcoming old institutions and experimenting with new institutions. But multilevel governance is already reality in many parts of the world (especially in federal systems and new hybrid institutions such as the EU), and these existing arrangements might affect the governance of sustainable development, even when highly innovative arrangements are especially urged. Also, the policy studies literature has dealt with the multiscale concept before. The extensive literature on public policy implementation, in particular, has a very clear multilevel perspective, albeit a limited one. This literature recognized early both the dependency of lower governmental levels on resources for policy implementation coming from above and the considerable discretion of policy implementers at many lower levels of governance. The modern view on multilevel governance, however, makes clear that these arrangements are more dynamic and show a more organic form of mutual interrelatedness, than earlier (e.g., Pressman & Wildavsky 1973) conceptualized. Rather than primarily an accumulation of veto points, in multilevel governance, each level can produce lots of possibilities to fix deficiencies that are left over when another level doesn't perform well enough. Multiscale collaboration often depends on the strength of preferences among the actors to promote rather than to

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sabotage the mission and on how the balance of power between the levels evolves. One might assume that the existing balance of power between levels will tend to reproduce itself in any new multilevel governance arrangement, but this is not inevitable. Clever actors and changing external circumstances can make a difference. Power relations between levels can be rather dynamic. DEALING WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: THE CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME Governance for sustainable development is likely to entail an imperative to create new, or unfamiliar, modes of formal and informal relationships among the various social levels involved. Many of these innovations are discussed in this book. In Part III, for instance, one chapter reveals how efforts to assure sustainable stocks of Pacific salmon in the northwestern United States required a new governance structure crossing state, regional, and local governmental scales as well as ecological regimes and natural resource management institutions. In another chapter, a comparative study of drinking water policies in Florida and the Netherlands, it is apparent that despite considerable cultural and political differences, both governments had to create unique, new cross-scale governance structures and resolve some common obstacles to achieve their common objectives. The opportunity to explore the emerging issues confronted in institutional design for sustainable development prompted the conference of European (primarily Dutch) and U.S. policy scholars and practitioners from which the chapters in this collection have evolved. The conference focused on three themes: 1. The Concept of Social Scales and Its Significance in Sustainable Development 2. Development of Governance across Social Scales: Contemporary Examples 3. The Impact of Multiscale Governance: The Lessons and Challenges of Experience

The substantial contribution of Dutch scholars and policy practitioners to the conference is especially timely. The Netherlands has become an international leader in initiating and implementing sustainability policies and has acquired considerable practical experience with the resulting governance issues. The United States and the Netherlands can be viewed as illustrating contrasting cases of environmental policy style. The Netherlands emphasizes consensual policy-making arrangements with industries, and finds much of this approach incorporated in the EU's environmental white papers. Relations between government and industry in the United States tend to be considerably more adversarial and legalistic. The United States and the Netherlands also provide an interesting contrast in the scales of governance involved in sustainability. The inclusion

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of the EU in the conference papers offers yet another contrast with the United States. Both are institutionally complex settings where action on different scales has to be linked—by a federal structure in the United States and by national systems in the EU. The broad themes of the conference are reflected in Parts II to IV of this collection. Each part contains relevant chapters derived from the conference presentations, but afterward rewritten—often very substantially—to fit in a coherent treatment of the themes. Part II: "The Significance of Social Scales: Visions and Concepts" This part addresses some key concepts crucial to the understanding of the matter: globalization, local stakeholders, and governance in relation to sustainable development. In Chapter 2, "Globalization and Sustainable Development," Jose Toscano explores the relationship between globalization and sustainable development. In brief, he argues that to achieve sustainable development, governments must strive to correct market failures associated with globalization by creating local state and international institutions to protect the environment. Specifically, he emphasizes the notion that multilevel governance is crucial for balancing the strength and scope of certain globalization forces. In Chapter 3, "Governance and Sustainable Livelihoods," Parakh Hoon and Goran Hyden argue that the concept of sustainable development is especially appealing if translated into a concern with sustainable livelihoods. Local actors need to understand and embrace what is being proposed at higher levels of social and political interaction—national or international—because they will be important beneficiaries. This means that there must be much closer dialogue between actors at different systemic levels. In particular, there must be opportunities for a bottom-up approach to sustainable development that builds on local and contextual opportunities and constraints. Drawing on empirical data from southern Africa (Botswana and Zambia), this chapter illuminates the kind of implementation challenges that arise in an effort to link macro governance concerns with micro realities in striving to achieve more sustainable livelihoods. In Chapter 4, "What Does 'Governance 7 Mean? From Conception to Elaboration," Hans Bressers and Stefan Kuks assert that the notion of governance is receiving increasing attention with good reason. They argue that for comparative studies of sustainable development in different states, countries or periods, it is insufficient to understand it only in terms of the policy content (goals and instruments). And the same applies to understanding the context of policy making and implementation across various scales. Although the governance concept is increasingly used, the elaboration of this concept is vastly varied throughout the literature. On

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the basis of this literature, the authors suggest what should be considered important elements of governance. Looking at different approaches, they propose an inclusive model of governance patterns, based on elements that matter, including the relations between the different administrative, geographical, or social levels involved, in order to facilitate comparative research on governance for sustainable development. Part III: "The Imperative for Multilevel Governance in Sustainable Development" This part addresses from different perspectives the major question: "Why is governance in sustainable development an issue of multiple levels and integration across scales?" In Chapter 5, "Sustainable Development, Political Institutions, and Scales: The Management of Pacific Salmon," Samuel Barkin and Cassandra Moseley illustrate that the effects of natural resource management and economic development often reach across a variety of political and geographic scales, ranging from the local to the international, and that political institutions must address these scales if they are to effectively promote sustainable development. During much of the twentieth century, when U.S. policy makers faced complicated problems with a large-scale dimension, officials often envisioned a single institution that would deal comprehensively with the problem under a single rubric. These efforts have rarely accomplished their goal. Barkin and Moseley maintain that what is necessary for sustainable management is a series of scale-appropriate institutions, distinct yet connected across scales. A network of nested policy-making and implementing institutions could address the regulatory, distributive, and restorative dimensions of environmental management. They illustrate this argument with the case of the Pacific salmon, a case particularly useful for illustrating issues of multiscale management because salmon issues involve the whole range of possible political scales, from the local through the international. In Chapter 6, "Managing Water Resources in Florida and the Netherlands: The Impact of National Orientations on Multiscale Governance," Kuks and Bressers apply a model of governance to compare regulatory systems in Florida and the Netherlands related to groundwater and drinking water policy. They ask to what extent states with similar policy problems develop a similar policy response, to what extent there may be striking differences, and to what extent these differences can be explained by the workings of the governance system. One of the striking features in Florida is that the lower levels of government (both the counties and the water management districts) operate largely autonomously, whereas in the Netherlands, these authorities (municipalities, water boards, and provinces) execute many of their tasks jointly.

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Chapter 7, "Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Resource Management through Institutional Syncretism in Madagascar and Senegal," by Dennis Galvan and Richard Marcus, relies on two divergent case studies. The first concerns the relationship between historically rooted rules for decision making and outside (government and international) reformers seeking alternative resource use and conservation outcomes. The second study involves popular responses in Senegal's Siin region to state-imposed, democratically elected resource management councils. These cases argue for the importance of institutional syncretism in making sense of popular perception and use of seemingly modern institutional arrangements, including natural resource management structures. In Chapter 8, "Building from the Center Out: Decentralizing Environmental Policy Making in Costa Rica," John Bolus and Renee Johnson point out the conceptual and practical relevance of decentralized governance for the management of environmental problems. Further, the chapter examines the dynamics of state and local policy linkages in the United States and environmental policy making in Costa Rica. The obstacles and opportunities for effective environmental policy making are analyzed in light of Costa Rica's decentralization experience. Chapter 9, "Local Autonomy and Environmental Justice: Implementing Distributional Equity across National Scales," concludes Part III. Frans Coenen and Angela Halfacre examine how initiatives at the local and national levels differ with regard to distributional equity. Environmental justice refers to the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental and public health laws and regulations. This principle has received much political and scholarly attention in the United States but relatively little in other countries. The chapter analyzes and compares the sociocultural variables, levels of government, and political hierarchy's effects on the attention for environmental justice in the United States and in the Netherlands. Part IV: "The Impact of Multilevel Governance on Policy Making for Sustainability" These chapters concern the significance of multilevel governance in sustainable development as a new dimension to the political science analysis. In Chapter 10, "Multilevel Governance and Food Biotechnology in the European Union," Leann Brown describes the debate concerning whether the ELI is best characterized as an intergovernmental organization, a federal entity, some hybrid, or an entirely new polity. This governance system is increasingly called upon to deal with novel, complex, and technical environmental issues that must be addressed at the substate, state, EU, and global levels to achieve political and environmental sustainability. She examines this challenge in the case of the EU attempt to regulate the introduction and dissemination of genetically modified foodstuffs. The

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evidence suggests that the scientific uncertainty surrounding this issue area resulted in enhanced influence of societal actors and a revisiting of the value of scientific input into EU governing processes, while the global dissemination of the technology and products led to EU acquiescence to an emerging global biotechnology regime. Chapter 11, "Sustainable Electricity Supply in the European Union: Reconciling Different Scales of Governance," by Maarten Arentsen and Valentina Dinica, deals with EU initiatives on green electricity that have added a fourth layer to the traditional governance structure of electricity industries and new dimensions to the existing tensions emanating from the political ambition of a sustainable electricity supply. The roots of the new tensions are in the EU ambition to harmonize European electricity markets and its impact on the state authority over national electricity industries. The chapter concentrates on the analysis of two sets of tensions emanating from this upscale of regulation from the national to the EU level of governance. The first set of tensions involves incongruent political ambitions between national and EU authorities regarding sustainability of electricity supply. The second set of tensions emanates from the recent liberalization of EU electricity markets and the economic dynamism it launched in and among these markets. Chapter 12, "Multilevel Governance Networks and the Use of Policy Instruments in the European Union," by Kenneth Hanf and Laurence OToole, adopts and extends a theory about how institutional arrangements—including arrangements across social scales—influence policies aimed at sustainability. The chapter concludes that the theory helps to explain the selection of policy instruments in the different phases of the development of EU environmental policy, including the pronounced shift from an emphasis on regulation to a more collaborative approach. An examination of the relationship between conditions under which policies are selected at the EU level and the context within which they are applied in member states sheds light on the reasons why the domestic implementation of EU choices has been replete with gaps in execution. Nevertheless, the complications engendered in the multilevel system have triggered dynamics at the European level that hold prospects for improvement: opportunities for more effective domestic implementation of sustainability policy over the longer run. Chapter 13, "The Impact of Policy Style on Policy Choice across Scales: The EU Experience," by Theo de Bruijn, also deals with the subject of adapting (member) state policies to Union policy innovations. From a rather naive standpoint, one could argue that European integration imposes similar policy integration. However, empirical studies give a mixed picture at best. In some areas, convergence can indeed be found, whereas other areas of policy making seem to be untouched. The national context of policy making proves to be more resistant to change than one would expect. This chapter reviews three specific areas of EU policy

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m a k i n g Integrated Pollution Prevention a n d Control (IPPC) Directive, E c o - M a n a g e m e n t a n d A u d i t Scheme (EMAS) Regulation, a n d the use of negotiated agreements) in an a t t e m p t to u n d e r s t a n d w h y multilevel governance is m u c h m o r e complex t h a n it first seems. In C h a p t e r 14, " I m p l e m e n t i n g E n v i r o n m e n t a l Regulations across Gove r n a n c e Scales in the EU," Kris Lulofs, A l e x a n d r a Biiltmann, Malcolm Eames, Simone Schucht, a n d Frank W a t z o l d a d d r e s s t w o b r o a d issues: h o w the evolution of those initiatives in the E u r o p e a n context can b e u n d e r s t o o d , a n d w h e t h e r recent EU policy a n d the associated empirical data can be linked to the theory of ecological m o d e r n i z a t i o n . This theory h a s arisen in response to d e v e l o p m e n t s in s o m e E u r o p e a n countries, a n d asserts that an ecological sphere of " c o m p a r a b l e " influence h a s e m e r g e d next to the political a n d the economic spheres, especially in n o r t h w e s t E u r o p e a n countries. The a u t h o r s t h e n consider w h e t h e r a claim for a n e w e n v i r o n m e n t a l sphere in EU's decision m a k i n g can be s u p p o r t e d or h a s to b e rejected. NOTE 1. By 1995, some $35 per inhabitant equivalent (136 gr. BOD). During the 1970s and 1980s, however, the exchange rate was very different, and the Dutch currency rated much higher against the dollar. REFERENCES Bressers, Hans Th. A. "Water Management and Global Environmental Change Policies." In Jill Jager et al. (eds.), Global Environmental Change and Sustainable Development in Europe, pp. 77-82. Brussels/Luxembourg: European Commission's Directorate-General for Science, Research and Development, 1995. Bressers, Hans Th. A., Stefan M.M. Kuks, and Josee L. Ligteringen. "Participation at the Local Level in the Context of Environmental Governance." Frans J.J.M. Coenen in David Huitema and Laurence J. O'Toole (eds.), Participation and the quality of Environmental Decision Making, pp. 47-60. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. Coenen, Frans H.J.M., Dave Huitema, and Laurence J. O'Toole, Jr. (eds.). Participation and the Quality of Environmental Decision Making. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998. de la Fuente, Manolo. De Relatie Tussen Waterkosten en Concurrentiepositie. Master's Thesis, University of Twente, 1994. Dutch Parliament (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal). National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP)—1 "To Choose or to Loose" (Nationaal Milieubeleidsplan (NMP)-l "Kiezen of verliezen"). Proceedings 1988-1989, No. 21137, 1989. Haeberli, W., and M. Beniston. "Climate Change and Its Impact on Glaciers and Permafrost in the Alps." Ambio 27, pp. 258-265,1998.

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Klima-Biindnis (Hg.). Klima—lokal geschiitztl: Aktivitaten europdischer Kommunen. Miinchen: Raven Verlag, 1993. Knoepfel, Peter. "New Institutional Arrangements for a New Generation of Environmental Policy Instruments: Intra- and Inter-Policy Cooperation." In Bruno Dente (ed.), Environmental Policy in Search of New Instruments, pp. 197-233. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1995. Lynn, Laurence A., Jr., Carolyn J. Heinrich, and Carolyn J. Hill. "Studying Governance and Public Management: Why? How?" In Laurence E. Heinrich and Carolyn J. Lynn (eds.), Governance and Performance: New Perspectives, pp. 75-123. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000. Mazmanian, Daniel A., and Michael E. Kraft (eds.). Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Porter, Michael E. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press, 1990. Pressman, Jeffrey, and Aaron Wildavsky. Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Rosenbaum, Walter A., and Hans Th. A. Bressers (eds.). "Uncertainty and Environmental Policy." Symposium in Policy Studies Journal 28:2, pp. 523-671, 2000. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Our Common Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

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PART II

The Significance of Social Scales: Visions and Concepts

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CHAPTER 2

Globalization and Sustainable Development Jose Luis Toscano

When there's not a single clean river and all are polluted, when there is not a single tree to cut down, when there's not a single fish alive—only then will people realize that they can not eat money. —Juan Fransisco Asturias, Engineer for Guatemala's National Commission for the Environment (as quoted by Bautista, 1996) One could add to Asturias's statement by suggesting that when the air becomes toxic, people will realize that money is also difficult to breathe, or that when the ice caps melt and the oceans rise, humanity will finally realize that it has designed its own catastrophe. Although these statements are obviously charged with ideology, they reflect a deep conflict at the heart of the global environmental dilemma. Two intertwined and seemingly contradictory norms are at work: the spread of free-market capitalism and government intervention in the economy associated with environmental protection. A complex struggle rages between economic globalization and sustainable development. Divergent forces call simultaneously for protection of the environment and the development of the economy forging a highly dynamic, complex, and potentially volatile sociopolitical reality. The need for development in the poorer countries makes it troublesome to sacrifice economic growth and increased interaction in the global marketplace for environmental protection. For example, it is certainly difficult, and in many ways irrational, to worry about levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while one's children are starving to death. Meanwhile, the wealthier and more powerful actors are unwilling to give up their edge in the competitive global economy. Against this backdrop, forces of

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globalization encourage economic development while simultaneously challenging the sovereignty of states. Although the wealth generated by globalization may improve the ability of present generations to meet their needs, the challenges that globalization poses for state sovereignty may decrease the capacity of governments to strengthen institutions capable of protecting the environment for future generations. The capacity of local, state, and international institutions to use regulatory and market mechanisms to protect the environment while promoting economic development may determine the fate of humanity. For the first time in history, humans can alter the climate and biological composition of the planet. U.S. Vice President Albert Gore equated a slothful human response to this environmental challenge with a classic experiment: "When a frog is dropped into a pot of boiling water it quickly jumps out/ 7 he explained, "but the same frog, put into the water before it is slowly heated, will remain in place until it is boiled" (1989: 177). If we are going to survive our competitive impulses, we must build institutions that have the capacity and the foresight to avoid the dangers and the pitfalls of globalization's darker side. GLOBALIZATION As capitalism spreads throughout the globe and a new world order dictated by the free market takes root, what can governments do to protect their citizens from environmental degradation associated with industrial economic growth, unfettered trade, development, and other aspects of globalization? It is useful to begin with some distinctions. First, although globalization operates in "all realms of human activity," this discussion focuses on its economic and political components while viewing the spread of free markets as the driving force behind globalization (Rosenau 1997: 362). Second, globalization reflects an ongoing "local-global dialectic" or a tension between integrative and disintegrative forces. Third, globalization challenges state sovereignty and implies increasing levels of international interdependence. Globalization itself has been used in a multiplicity of senses (Petras 1999: 1). It has been stretched, squeezed, and subdivided depending on the particular fancy of varying scholars. The ensuing conceptual fuzziness is not surprising, considering that the dynamics of globalization "operate in all realms of human activity, from the cultural and social to the economic and political" (Rosenau 1997: 362). The very scope of globalization accounts for this array of divergent interpretations, yet it is possible to attain focus and clarity. James Rosenau offers a nuanced understanding of globalization. He suggests that in the political realm, "globalizing dynamics underlie any developments that facilitate the expansion of authority, policies, and interests

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beyond existing socially constructed territorial boundaries"; in the economic realm, "globalization encompasses the expansion of production, trade, and investments beyond their prior locales"; and in the social or cultural realm, "globalization operates to extend ideas, norms, and practices beyond the settings in which they originated" (1997: 362). The conception of globalization advanced in this discussion draws in many ways on Rosenau's definition. Globalization is economically driven by the spread of free-market capitalism, its integrative and disintegrative forces politically pose a challenge to sovereignty (as does increasing state interdependence), and it culturally or socially involves the diffusion of Western norms around the world. Although all three components of globalization are significant for sustainability, this analysis focuses on the economic and the political. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in contrast, defines globalization as "the increasingly close international integration of markets both for goods and services, and for capital" (IMF 1997). However, this definition does not do justice to the evolving, highly dynamic, and increasingly globalized system of the 1990s. Ideas and people as well as technology, money, and goods are moving across national borders at an unprecedented rate. Consequently, the World Trade Organization (WTO) acknowledges that "globalization is a multi-faceted concept insofar as it describes both economic phenomena and their social, political, and distributional consequences" (WTO 1998: 33). Globalization reflects the fact that the world is rapidly becoming interconnected on multiple levels. Increasing interdependence, the establishment of global markets, prices, and production, the diffusion of technology and ideas, and rising levels of transboundary interaction in the world economy converge in the sometimes ambiguous and often controversial concept of globalization. James Petras is not alone in his acknowledgment that globalization poses a direct challenge to the sovereignty of states. In his discussion of the dynamics of fragmentation, Rosenau also argues that the "integrative forces" of globalization are "boundary-broadening" (1997: 361). They allow "people, goods information, norms, practices, and institutions to move about oblivious to or despite boundaries" 1 (Rosenau 1997: 361). Rosenau goes so far as to suggest that the "core of world affairs today thus consists of tensions between the dynamics of globalization and localization" (1997: 362). He uses the term "fragmentation" to capture "the pervasive interactions between the fragmenting forces of localization and the integrative forces of globalization" (Rosenau 1997: 362). In other words, globalization simultaneously brings with it forces that demand greater local autonomy from within and forces that cross national borders calling for a unit of governance that transcends the state. In a 1996 interview, Dr. Ismail Serageldin, the World Bank's Vice President for Environmentally Sustainable Development, made some interesting comments about the relationship between globalization, sovereignty,

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and the environment. In response to a question about where the world might be headed in the post-Cold War era, Serageldin explained: On the one hand, globalization is taking place at a furious pace—interdependence of economies, internationalization of capital markets, integration of telecommunications. The political boundaries of nation states have become permeable, whether we are dealing with the commerce of ideas or of capital. Next, we see greater global consciousness about environmental matters and, since the end of the East-West confrontation, greater awareness of human rights. When half of humanity was deprived of human rights, there was a sort of tacit acceptance of a de facto situation. No longer. Now there is a global community of what the human race is entitled to, a sense of common humanity. Against all this is the paradox of the assertion of local specificity— ethnic, cultural, religious, geographic. So while globalization accelerates on one level, local separateness does too. (Serageldin quoted by De Borchgrave 1996:159) Although this is not the place to engage in a debate on the evolution of awareness of human rights, Serageldin's comments are extremely useful because they also highlight the global-local dialectic commonly associated with globalization. At one extreme, Harvey (1989) and others view globalization as the "triumph of unstoppable global capital over local autonomy and identity" (Taylor & Conti 1997: 3). From this perspective, transnational corporations have "slipped the shackles of the nation state" that "has been hollowed out" (Taylor & Conti 1997: 3). Moreover, the world economy has become a dense, highly complex, interconnected web of accelerating flows of finance, goods, materials, information, people, and money. This point of view sees people, places, and communities as "victims on the rack of international capital: they are powerless—as are their governments" (Taylor & Conti 1997: 3). An intermediate position, one advocated by Taylor, Watts, and Johnston (1995), suggests that "globalization is much more benign and involves no more than a blurring of traditional territorial and social values" (Taylor & Conti 1997: 3). Here the internationalization of trade and finance is not seen as anything new. In fact, analysts from this camp argue that trade and finance were as "international before the First World War as they are now" (Taylor & Conti 1997: 3). In addition, they hold that the state must now find a new mode of operation and role because "without the state, capitalism's creative destruction... degenerates into private mafias... and short-term economic destruction" (Taylor, Watts, & Johnston 1995: 383). At the far end of the conceptual spectrum are arguments that the extent of globalization, and its effects, are highly exaggerated. From this skeptical vantage point, "globalization is no more than intensified international exchange between quite separate national and social entities" (Taylor & Conti 1997: 3). Here, the formation of regional trading blocks such as the European Union (EU), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are considered far more significant than globalization.

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At the core of all three perspectives, as with Rosenau's concept of fragmentation, is the question of where power lies. States, communities, corporations, trading blocks, and a variety of other actors are struggling for greater influence over one another. Without quibbling about when the world started to shrink, it's important to understand that people, money, goods, and ideas are crossing the borders of countries at an unprecedented rate. From 1950 to 1970, U.S. foreign direct investment increased from $2.18 billion to $9.42 billion (Wilkins 1974: 330). Globally, from 1970 to 1995, the outward flow of foreign direct investment stock has increased from less than $12 billion to an estimated $2.4 trillion (Economist September 20,1997: 29). The industries of travel and the internet have seen record levels of growth in just the past few years. This increasing interdependence operates across political, economic, and cultural realms; it challenges old boundaries and redefines socioeconomic constructs; somewhat counterintuitively, it increases the pressures that people feel to unite and divide simultaneously; it is reshaping the rules of the game in both the arenas of conflict and welfare; and it seems to be globalizing us whether we like it or not. To understand modern world politics, one must grapple with the complexities associated with globalization. A NEW BREED OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Recent protests in Paris and Seattle serve as good illustrations of the local-global dialectic, the inherent tensions that exist between the forces of localization, and the forces of globalization. In May 1995, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreed to negotiate an instrument called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), to liberalize international investment flows. The world's richest countries, in league with transnational corporations, intended to write "the constitution of a single global economy" (Ruggerio, as cited by Staples 1999: 36). The objective of the MAI was to eradicate "all barriers to the free flow of capital between 'Investors' (i.e., corporations) and 'Contracting Parties 7 (i.e., signatory countries)" (Staples 1999: 36). The planned global economic treaty would remove many restraints on trade and investment. Its critics rallied in swarms, arguing that the MAI favored the "right of multinational corporations to invest over the right of governments to determine their own economic and environmental policies" (Taglieri 1999: 4). They feared that the MAI would give corporations equal standing with states, guaranteeing them the right to sue national governments practicing "discriminatory" trade policies such as providing tax incentives for companies that adhere to the norms of sustainable development: Even a lost "opportunity to profit from a planned investment" would be grounds for mandatory compensation. For example, a foreign timber company owning

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land in the pacific northwest could sue the United States for damages if efforts to save the salmon prevented it from logging to the water line. (Rauber 1998: 16) Opponents to the plan argued that this sort of precedent could spawn business strategies specifically designed to increase revenue by suing governments for lost opportunities associated with environmental safeguards. Some contended that the MAI would rob states of the ability to use environmental concerns as a barrier to foreign direct investment. In fact, rather than making the polluter pay, the MATs clause on investment discrimination allegedly provides an opportunity for polluting corporations to make society pay for not letting them pollute. The MAI illustrates how the forces of global economic competition at times directly conflict with efforts to protect the environment. The initial reaction of many protesters in both Paris and Seattle was to reject globalization in favor of increased local control. Douglas Mattern (1998) highlights some of the central propositions of the MAI critiqued by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG): • Under the MAI, corporations gain status equivalent to "most favored nations." This means that no level of government could "discriminate" against foreign investors based on human rights or environmental or political practice. • The MAI says governments cannot expropriate—defined as when investors experience a "lost opportunity to profit from a planned investment"—"directly or indirectly... or take any measures having equivalent effect." This means that if a new public health law is created—against toxic seepage, for example—it could indirectly affect future profits from a planned investment. If so, taxpayers might have to pay a company millions of dollars for an investment never made. • The MAI gives private corporations and investors legal standing to sue sovereign nations. Grievances would not be heard in a nation's domestic courts. Corporations would select their suit from a list of international venues that are secret. (Mattern 1998: 5-6) Members of the IFG argued that the structure of the proposed MAI fosters conditions where economic reward takes precedence over environmental responsibility. They feared that the agreement would scrap the role of elected officials, public accountability, and other democratic processes. Furthermore, some even contended that the "MAI would ban a wide range of regulatory laws now in force around the world and preempt future efforts to hold transnational corporations and investors accountable to the public" (Nova 1997: 5). Opponents to the plan suspected that unprecedented power to influence how the face of human society will look in the future would shift from local governments to the world market. Critics suggested that the proposed MAI would eliminate regulations, policies, and an integral spectrum of legislation designed to protect the public while increasing accountability on environmental matters (Mattern 1998: 5-6).

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In 1998, activists from around the world gathered in Paris to voice opposition to the MAI. Hundreds of participants were drawn to a weekend "teach-in" that concluded with two days of street action. A press conference and mobile action on the Paris subway ended with activists occupying the offices of the International Chamber of Commerce. The following day, "activists floodlit OECD headquarters to symbolize the 'Dracula Strategy'—exposed to the light of day, MAI withers and dies" (Holmes 1999: 12). After France announced its decision to abandon the MAI proceedings, the two planned days of negotiations were reduced to one and then downgraded to consultations. However, some members of the IFG suggested that the MAI agenda was by no means dead. In fact, they feared that several countries supported transferring the talks to the WTO. Consequently, as the forces of globalization continued to gain momentum, the WTO became the new target of the IFG. The WTO, which was founded in 1995, is simply the international organization charged with regulating international trade. However, the IFG portrayed it ominously as one of the most powerful and the most secretive bodies on earth. In the hopes of once again mobilizing opposition to the resurrected MAI agenda, the IFG held another weekend teach-in that began on November 26, 1999. It was scheduled to begin just a few days before the 1999 WTO Ministerial meeting in Seattle. The official intent of the teach-in was to peacefully focus on the negative impacts of economic globalization and specifically on the role of the WTO. However, the ensuing battle in Seattle over globalization was far from peaceful. The protests have been characterized as the largest and the most disruptive since the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s. Demonstrators blocked intersections, assaulted delegates, locked arms in a human chain surrounding the hotels where key delegations were staying, broke windows and committed other acts of vandalism, threw tear gas canisters back at legions of police, chanted phrases such as "the WTO has got to go," and ultimately succeeded in delaying the ministerial meetings, which contributed to the WTO's failure to set an agenda for the upcoming round of trade talks. The failure of the Seattle talks is the most notable setback for the trade group since its inception in 1995. Tensions over globalization were voiced from a wide spectrum of activist groups, ranging from those convinced the WTO and the UN are conspiring to take over the world with a hidden fleet of black helicopters to others concerned with the potential negative effects of free trade on the environment and labor. Yet, all seemed to feel threatened by powerful global forces that, in their view, overwhelm and victimize local authorities. The immediate reaction of many societies, when faced with enormous global forces, is a defense of local institutions at the expense of other levels of governance. Some scholars argue that this common reaction is responsible

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for the forces of disintegration and the desire for specificity associated with globalization. The local feels safe and controllable. Yet, international trade and free markets are important engines for development. In other words, an overzealous call to scrap the WTO and turn our backs on international trade altogether would obviously be a mistake as well. The IFG is clearly an organization driven with an agenda of political activism directed against the WTO's role in globalization. Although some of their claims are perhaps overstated and exaggerated, the IFG's position highlights the central tenets of the local/global discourse. Where should power lie—with local governments or with global corporations? The ideological tug-of-war over this question has by no means ended. A CHALLENGING PROBLEM A N D THE ROLE OF INTERDEPENDENCE Although the dynamics of fragmentation are important when attempting to flesh out the concept of globalization, other approaches to the term are useful as well. Lairson and Skidmore (1997) characterize globalization by the results that it produces and its causes. They suggest that it has been brought on by declines in the cost of transportation and communication, technological advances, and an explosion in international transactions of money (Lairson & Skidmore 1997: 95). In their view, foreign direct investment by transnational companies has played an integral part in driving these trends. In addition, Lairson and Skidmore claim that the results of globalization include shifts in domestic and political conflict, alterations of the terms and stakes associated with international cooperation and competition, new forms of production relationships among transnational firms, and new constraints on the ability of states to manage their economies (1997: 96). From their perspective, globalization is a process of deepening and tightening of the interdependence among actors in the world economy such that the level and character of participation in international economic relations have increased in significant ways. International economic exchange has grown as a proportion of total economic activity, linkages among actors have been intensified and restructured, and new forms of economic relationships have emerged to define a distinctive stage in the development of the world economy. As we shall see, globalization is a process of ongoing change rather than an end state in which borders are meaningless. We do not have a fully globalized world economy, but instead we have experienced new levels and forms of interdependence. (Lairson & Skidmore 1997: 96) In the 1970s, complex interdependence arose, as an explicit analytical perspective, to challenge the essential assumptions of realism. It questioned the contention that states are the only important actors in world politics, and it treated actors including transnational corporations and

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banks as important actors. Keohane and Nye (1977) suggested that the growing ties among transnational actors make them vulnerable to each other's actions and sensitive to each other's needs. Recent discussions of globalization have been highly influenced by the literature on interdependence. In fact, as MacNeil, Winsemius, and Yakushiji point out, "[s]ince World War II, governments have been preoccupied with economic interdependence, the coupling of local and national economies into a global system" (1991: 4). Interdependence is clearly an important aspect of globalization. Curiously, the authors take the traditional interdependence argument a step further, suggesting that economic and ecological interdependence are a single phenomenon. MacNeil, Winsemius, and Yakushiji argue: Global warming is a form of feedback from the earth's ecological system to the world's economic system. So is the ozone hole, acid rain in Europe, soil degradation in Africa and Australia, deforestation and species loss in the Amazon. To ignore one system today is to jeopardize the others. The world's economy and the earth's ecology are now interlocked—"until death do them part," to quote one of Canada's industrial leaders. This is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international. It raises fundamental questions about how economic and political decisions are made, and their implications for sustainability. (1991: 4) Sovereign states are increasingly vulnerable and sensitive to one another, and the world's economic and ecological systems are now deeply linked. The following questions speak directly to a problem that may prove to be one of the most fundamental challenges of our time: How can a society that is increasingly driven by competition and the maximization of selfinterest hope to overcome the negative side effects associated with those basic economic foundations? What can be done to resolve the well-known "tragedy of the commons" when it operates on a global scale beyond the reach of any single government? Scholars have offered an array of regulatory and market mechanisms that could be of use at the local and state levels. However, the scope of globalization and the forces it rallies may call for a solution that operates at multiple levels and that perhaps encompasses and transcends the state itself. EMPOWERING INSTITUTIONS ON MULTIPLE LEVELS Why should local, state, and international institutions be empowered to protect the environment? To answer that question, it is necessary to return to some central features of globalization and sustainable development. Although the conceptual sketch provided here is far from exhaustive, it

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Figure 2.1 How Globalization Encourages and Hinders Sustainable Development

Economic: Spread of FreeMarket Capitalism

Globalization

Political: Challenge to State Sovereignty

Market Failures and Negative Externalities

Economic Growth and Development

— •

Increases Pollution

Increases Wealth

Decreases Capacity of State/Government Institutions to Correct Market Failures Using Regulation or Market Mechanisms

— •

Compromises Ability to Meet Needs of Present Generation

Hinders Sustainable Development

Increases Ability of Future Generations to Meet Needs

Encourages Sustainable Development

Hinders Sustainable Development

highlights the role that governance structures could play in the struggle for sustainable development, and it sparks a preliminary argument for a multilevel approach. The arrows in Figure 2.1 do not represent direct causal pathways. Rather, they illustrate a line of reasoning designed to clarify the relationship between sustainable development and globalization. Sustainable development is roughly defined as an approach to development that strives to improve the ability of present generations to meet their needs, while preserving the ability of future generations to meet their needs as well. In the economic realm, globalization both encourages and hinders sustainable development. The spread of free markets fosters economic growth and development, increases wealth, and therefore improves the ability of present generations to meet their needs. Clearly, one can argue that in the short term, globalization encourages sustainable development. However, unrestrained markets often fail to internalize social costs, resulting in negative externalities or pollution. For example, without specific regulations or market incentives, a firm will produce its goods as cheaply as possible in order to maximize profits; in fact, it is legally required by its shareholders to do so. In an unrestrained competitive market, it may be inclined to dump waste in a nearby stream or emit harmful fumes into the atmosphere rather than paying the price of clean production. In short, our hypothetical firm shifts the burden of its negative side effects onto the public in the form of pollution. Consequently, globalization's promotion of free-market capitalism (which is arguably its driving force) can hinder sustainable development by compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

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The polluted stream and air are examples of negative side-effects that are produced as individuals compete for profits in a free-market economy. In the political realm, much of the literature suggests that globalization challenges state sovereignty, thereby decreasing the capacity of government institutions to correct global market failures. This is not to suggest that the notion of the state is bankrupt; it is possible, however, that a weakened state would have difficulty bolstering institutions at local, state, and international levels to implement effective regulatory and market mechanisms. Again, as markets fail, pollution increases, thus compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Clearly, in both the political and the economic realms, the prospects of achieving sustainable development seem somewhat threatened. Having established the problem, the solution seems within reach: we must build and strengthen political institutions capable of eliminating market failures and negative externalities associated with globalization while encouraging economic development. The question of how to proceed remains. Is it really necessary to erect these institutions at all levels of governance, or would it suffice to rely on a single level, such as the local? To embrace local institutions in the fight against globalization's negative side effects while ignoring the potential for institutional reform at the state and international levels may have disappointing results at best. Although local institutions have an important role to play, they would be unable to remedy single-handedly environmental degradation associated with globalization. Embracing the local alone would omit important aspects of reality from the equation of sustainable development. However, ignoring the local would be an equally deficient strategy. Many scholars argue that local control over natural resources and production is highly correlated with sustainable environmental practices. For example, David Barkin suggests that "we would all be better off" if we were able to find mechanisms that allowed local groups to "design and implement programs for increasing self-sufficiency and local management of their resources and productive systems" (1998: 30). He argues that local programs, unlike the market economy, "ensure the appropriate conservation of natural resources and productive infrastructure" (Barkin 1998: 30). David Korten echoes Barkin's argument; he also believes that "[t]he answer is the opposite of globalization. It lies in promoting greater economic localization—breaking activities down into smaller, more manageable pieces that link the people that make decisions to the consequences of those decisions" (1996:16). Local approaches have the advantage of ensuring a relatively high degree of public accountability. Unfortunately, as the world becomes increasingly complex on other levels, an approach that relies entirely on local control of resources and production would be as ineffective as it would be impossible. For example, the local alone cannot solve problems

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such as global warming, ozone depletion, air pollution, and acid rain; it must be part of a broader effort, because each of these issues involves transboundary pollution problems. Although there are environmental problems that local levels of governance are simply unable to solve alone, local efforts do have an important role to play. For example, local institutions could be integral in achieving greater accountability on environmental matters. Moreover, they could be influential in the construction, monitoring, and enforcement of regulatory and market mechanisms. The fact that states compete with each other both economically and militarily debunks the argument that we should empower institutions only at the state level to protect the environment. Although state level efforts could certainly improve environmental conditions within many countries, competition between states may shift environmental burdens to the world's poor. In fact, a diverse literature addresses this North-South environmental debate. The former East-West divide offers examples as well. There were several catastrophic cases during the Cold War when competition between the United States and the U.S.S.R. fueled environmental degradation. Caroline Thomas maintains: This competition explains the adoption by governments of short-term policies aimed at enhancing the relative power of their respective state. At best, the effect on the natural environment has been disregarded. At worst, the natural environment has been perceived as something to be exploited in this competition; it has been regarded as an expendable resource, and often as an unlimited one. (1992: 4) States have forsaken the environment for competitive reasons in the past, current inequalities between states encourage competition between them now, and states probably will compete in the future. On the other hand, as countries acknowledge that the degradation of the environment is a security risk, they have begun to open a dialogue on collective action. Curiously, although sovereignty has seemingly been compromised, it has also been embraced as the foundation of international policy agreements. States, not banks, corporations, or local institutions, are the signatories of multilateral environmental agreements. Although corporations and other players have started to challenge the state, it is still the most powerful actor in international affairs. Kapstein and others hope to "turn public attention back to the state's role as regulator of the marketplace" (1994: vi). The state has the capability of protecting the environment not only by regulating but also by putting market mechanisms into practice. At the state level, institutions must be empowered to protect the environment from the forces of the market. Of course, empowering international institutions alone would also prove detrimental. First, it would ignore the overwhelming need for some level of local control that accompanies the tide of globalization. Second,

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the states that comprise international institutions must have a solid commitment to the environment before engaging in sustainable international agreements; otherwise, perhaps the best that we could hope for would be another MAI-style initiative. Yet we would be remiss to ignore the notion that reform is needed at the international level. International rules of trade need to be revisited to allow for greater levels of accountability and transparency. Another approach might be to build a World Environment Organization to monitor and regulate international environmental agreements. Perhaps the role of the WTO could be expanded with regulatory and market mechanisms in place as environmental safeguards. Recently, some diverse and innovative approaches have been proposed: Economist Eban Goodstein suggests a modest across-the-board tax on trade, with the revenue used to create a "global environmental compliance fund." Goodstein calculates that a 1 percent tax on imports would generate about $40 billion a year, which could be distributed to developing countries to support environmental protection. Considering that estimates put the tab for providing clean water and sewers around the globe at only $9 billion, such a fund could have a significant impact. (Gersh 1999: 40) Of course, local and state institutions would be incapable of managing solutions of this magnitude. International organizations or supranational institutions that are sensitive to environmental concerns would be required to implement such a plan. Yet, international organizations and supranational institutions could not get the job done alone. There would have to be effective cooperation between local, state, and international levels of governance. Clearly, the first step is to empower institutions at multiple levels to regulate market interactions and implement market mechanisms that are capable of protecting the environment while fostering economic development. The challenge is great; so far, no institution has been able to discipline transnational markets. To correct the negative externalities of globalization, institutions operating on multiple levels must learn to work together to implement regulatory and market tools effectively. Seemingly, the systems that sustain life are under siege by negative externalities associated with globalization. It is crucial that local, state, and international institutions learn to work together, before our "rational" pursuit of selfinterest leaves the planet uninhabitable. CONCLUSION In some ways, this approach is holistic. It appreciates that "no whole, be it a family, a business, a community, or a nation, can be managed without looking inward to the lesser wholes that combine to form it, and outward

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to the greater wholes of which it is a member" (Savory 1999: 17). The greatest whole that characterizes human political interactions operates on the international level. Yet, the international community is composed of states, which, in turn, are composed of varying forms of local government. States are caught in the middle; they must look "inward" to the local structures that combine to form them and "outward" to the international society of which they are members. Holistic perspectives also rely heavily on the notion of interdependence. In short, they suggest that everything is connected to and, therefore, affected by everything else. This discussion has indicated that interdependence is a characteristic of globalization, that economic and environmental systems are interdependent, and that the solution to the puzzle of achieving sustainable development lies in an approach that empowers local, state, and international institutions. The question of how to get to an ecologically sustainable world can also be answered in holistic terms. The route to sustainability requires participation at multiple levels of governance. Surely, the recent tensions in Paris and Seattle suggest that environmental concerns are better addressed when institutions maintain high levels of accountability and transparency. This certainly hints at the role that democratic institutions might play in the struggle for sustainable development. Yet, any viable approach will involve actors from all three levels of governance: local, state, and international. Although the following list is far from exhaustive, political activists, members of grassroots social movements, various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and an assortment of corporate and government officials will emerge among the players as well. This preliminary exploration of the relationship between globalization and sustainable development sparks several directions for future research. First, the role of democracy, and the cultural or social realm of globalization, in empowering institutions on multiple levels to protect the environment could be an interesting direction for further inquiry. Second, what possible forms could or should these multilevel environmental institutions take? How could or should they be designed to work effectively? Clearly, this inquiry is a modest beginning that takes a few small steps toward addressing questions whose answers require incredible depth, insight, rigor, and inspiration. Future generations face incredible challenges; our current task is to build the institutions that will preserve their right to face these formidable tasks, meet their needs, and continue on the hopeful path toward sustainable development. NOTE 1. Amoore et al. (1997) echoes Rosenau's point: The presumed erosion of national economies and societies raises a question mark over the potential political power of the state: Both "inside" and "outside" territorial bor-

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ders, the power of governments and institutions to shape the economic environment in which they find themselves appears to have waned. (Amoore et al. 1997: 132) Again, from this perspective, globalization challenges the state both internally and externally. It is accompanied by forces of disintegration that call for greater control at the local level and forces of integration that demand acknowledgment of the increasingly transnational and interdependent nature of the world. REFERENCES Amoore, Louise, et al. "Overturning Globalization." New Political Economy 2:1, pp. 179-195,1997. Barkin, David. "The Route to Autonomous Development." Latin American Perspectives 25:6, pp. 30-32,1998. Bautista, Giovanni Francisco. "Mayan Biosphere Is the Most Deforested Zone in Central America." Prensa Libre, pp. 16-17, Nov. 23,1996. Foreign Direct Investment Data: Economic Indicators Section. Economist, September 20,1997: 29. Gersh, Jeff. "Seeds of Chaos. (Effects of Globalization on the Environment)." The Amiens Journal 21:2, pp. 36-41,1999. Gore, Albert, Jr. "Global Environment: A National Security Issue." In Ruth DeFries and Thomas Malone (eds.), Global Change and Our Common Future, pp. 177-86. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1989. Harvey, D. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. Holmes, Henry. "Fight Continues against Globalization" in Earth Island Journal 41:2, pp. 12-13,1999. International Monetary Fund (IMF). World Economic Outlook May 1997. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1997. Kapstein, Ethan B. Governing the Global Economy: International Finance and the State. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. Keohane, Robert and Joseph Nye. Power and Interdependence. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977. Korten, David C. "The Limits of the Earth—Paradigms Lost: The Bretton Woods Vision of Endless Growth Is Obsolete." The Nation 263:3, pp. 14-18, 1996. Lairson, Thomas and David Skidmore. International Political Economy: The Struggle for Power and Wealth. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. MacNeill, Jim, Pieter Winsemius, and Taizo Yakushiji. Beyond Interdependence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Mattern, Douglas. "Democracy or Corporate Rule?" The Humanist 58:4, pp. 5-9,1998. Nova, Scott. "Multilateral Agreement on Investment: The Constitution of a Single Global Economy." The Ecologist 27:1, pp. 5-6,1997. Petras, James. "Globalization: A Critical Analysis." Journal of Contemporary Asia 29:1, pp. 3-4,1999. Rauber, Paul. "All Hail the Multinationals!" Sierra 83:4, pp. 16-18,1998. Rosenau, James N. "The Complexities and Contradictions of Globalization." Current History 96:613, pp. 360-365,1997. Savory Allan. Holistic Management. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999.

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Serageldin, Ismail, as interviewed by De Borchgrave. "Globalization—the Bigger Picture." The Washington Quarterly 19:3, pp. 159-179,1996. Staples, Steven. "Militarism and MAI." Earth Island Journal 4:1, pp. 36-37, 1999. Taglieri, Joe. "Pressure from Citizen Group Kills Trade Treaty for Now." National Catholic Reporter 35:13, pp. 4-5,1999. Taylor, Michael and Sergio Conti. Interdependent and Uneven Development: GlobalLocal Perspectives. Brookfield: Ashgate, 1997. Taylor, Peter, Michael Watts, and R. J. Johnston. "Remapping the World: What Sort of Map? What Sort of World?" In R. J. Johnston, Peter Taylor, and Michael Watts (eds.), Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century, pp. 377-385. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995. Thomas, Caroline. The Environment in International Relations. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1992. Wilkins, Mira. The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. World Trade Organization (WTO). Annual Report: 1998—Special Topic: Globalization and Trade. Paris: World Trade Organization, 1998.

CHAPTER 3

Governance and Sustainable Livelihoods Parakh Hoon and Goran Hyden

Development has always been about breaking barriers and cutting across scales. Whether social or technological, the frontiers of development have tenaciously been expanded, typically with more attention to benefits than to costs. It is only now, as we enter the third millennium, that scholars and policy makers alike have come to realize that our Promethean urge has left behind a legacy of questionable value. Sustainable development (SD) is an articulation of this belated concern. This chapter examines how SD can be best conceptualized and operationalized in a context where competing concerns about alleviating poverty at the micro level are given renewed emphasis by the principal international development agencies. It argues that SD becomes meaningful to the poorer segments of the population only if translated into a focus on sustainable livelihoods (SL). The latter may be viewed as the micro equivalent of SD at the national and international levels. It is our argument that the local level is easily overlooked in the multiscalar perspective that SD brings to the most recent phase of development discourse. We believe that special attention needs to be paid to how the livelihood concerns of the poor—the majority of the world's population—can be incorporated into an SD approach. Incorporating the poor into a sustainable development perspective leads us to emphasize the importance of governance. Governance, as used in this chapter, refers to the way rules are formulated and implemented by state or society actors in the public realm. Rules are neither created nor managed in a power vacuum; they reflect the relative power and influence of contending social forces. However, in a world where reducing social inequities is getting

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renewed support by the international community and where regimes around the world are under pressure to become more democratic, there is a window of opportunity to realign the rules guiding state-society relations in ways that may provide the poor with a more enabling and supportive environment. If this opportunity is not seized, we see the danger of a much more confrontational scenario ahead of us—both at international and national levels. We begin by placing the current debate about SD in its historical context and offer a way of thinking about it that relates to practical problems and challenges in a world that is characterized by a growing divide not only in technological but also in socioeconomic terms. We continue by introducing a brief discussion about the governance concept before embarking on a discussion of how sustainable livelihoods at the local level can be more effectively incorporated into the implementation of a multiscalar SD strategy. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF SL In his The Age of Empire, Eric Hobsbawm (1987) states that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, per capita gross national product in what we now call the less developed countries was substantially the same as that of the now developed world. During the nineteenth century, this situation changed, at first slowly but then at an accelerating rate: by 1880, the developed world had twice the per capita of the less developed countries. In 1913, the ratio stood at 3 to 1; by 1950, it was 5 to 1; and by 1970, 7 to 1. And, this massive division of the world into the rich and productive and the poor and struggling has continued. Behind these statistics lies the story of development. The Three Waves of Globalization Development The globalizing consequences of development in terms of greater inequality and nonsustainability can be divided into three waves. Without lengthy discussion, some brief references to the historical context of SD are necessary. The first wave was associated with European colonization in different parts of the world and the creation of neo-Europes in those places. This had already begun before the nineteenth century with the discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, and the papal decree of 1493 that gave all lands not already colonized by Christian monarchs to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. It is significant that these events were independently listed by such different theorists as Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx as epochal events and landmarks in the progress of mankind. Even though these events had taken place long before the theorists reflected upon them in the nineteenth century, it was only in their time that their full consequences were becoming evident, as Hobsbawm's figures suggest. This was the time when the conquest of nature became a sys-

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tematic concern to promote the development interests of metropolitan countries in Europe. It was also the time that analyses of social change began to position modernity opposite to community. For example, as Agrawal (1997) notes, the ghost of traditional community hovered over the positivist sociology of Auguste Comte, and for both Marx and Engels, capitalism was the handmaiden of modernity because it threatened to dissolve all existing social relationships. In this perspective, development became inevitably associated with the destruction of the weaker in both the biological and social sense (consider Darwin's principle of the survival of the fittest and Marx's assumption of historical laws). The second wave coincides with the period after World War II, when colonies were freed in a political sense but investments in science and technology were supposed to help transform the still backward corners of the world. These were the days of the Green Revolution and similar efforts that rested on the premise that science could salvage the world from threats to its survival. The second wave also fostered the notion that all countries were following an identical tack of progress. By transferring capital and technical expertise from the rich and already successful to the poor and still backward, the wheels of progress would begin to spin even there. Development was still located in historical or real time, because by recognizing the responsibility of sovereign states to create better conditions for their people, context mattered. Both modernization and underdevelopment theory, though proposing radically different pathways, emphasized the awkward structural conditions of the less developed countries. The third wave began with economic liberalization in the 1980s and was reinforced by the post-Cold War democratization efforts of the 1990s. It is no longer the visible hand of the Western expert but the invisible hand of the market that is meant to continue modernity's attack on the traditional and the indigenous. The new approach takes little note of history, because in the marketplace, the mind is focused on the immediate condition. Being somewhat reminiscent of the notions that nineteenth-century philosophers had of the progressive role of capitalism, the neoclassical renaissance at the turn of the twenty-first century takes place in a context where the potential consequences of a blind faith in the market are bound to be even more far reaching than those perceived some 150 years ago. What we are witnessing now is not only the privatization of common property and a pauperization of growing numbers of people but also a reduction in biodiversity and the existing gene pool. The reach is not only horizontal but also vertical in the sense of affecting psyches, societies, and biospheres in ways never previously encountered. Development is not only global in reach but also multiscalar in depth. One does not have to be a doomsday prophet to realize that what is happening in the world today is potentially threatening to future generations

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of humankind as well as to existing species with which we have cohabited the earth for a million years. Although no one wishes to deny that we have all learned a lot from previous experiences, we are still struggling to cope with the accumulated legacies of the three waves of globalizing development. Bringing the element of sustainability into the thinking and practice of development remains one of the biggest contemporary challenges facing humankind. Current Competing Paradigms The growing sense that we are at a crossroads has generated different approaches to how we might move ahead. There are at least four paradigms that currently battle for hegemony in the field of development policy. They can be distinguished from each other by their position along two dimensions. The first is the extent to which they perceive resource extraction as dependent on nature, the other the extent to which development is viewed as anthropocentric. As suggested in Figure 3.1, these four approaches include what we call frontier economics. The dominant method for achieving this is the unlimited exploitation of natural resources for the benefit of humankind; hence its strong anthropocentric focus. The neoclassical approach to economic development echoes all its basic canons. Its most extreme opposite is deep ecology, for whose adherents development is constrained by an insistence on harmony with nature. They are ecocentric (even biocentric) in their call for biospecies equality. In this sense, the deep ecology paradigm presupposes that humankind can continue to experience benefits without having to destroy its natural resources. Although this position can hardly be described as mainstream thinking, there are pockets of vocal and articulate representatives of this school in many countries around the world. Sustainable development is not as extensively grounded in an ecocentric perspective but is closer to recognizing the importance of the environment by insisting on ecologizing the economy and the notion that human development is not possible without giving priority to how we exercise the stewardship of our natural resources. In an SD perspective, therefore, we are highly dependent on nature. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, is anthropocentric in that it emphasizes human progress, but does so on the premise that science and technology can make us less dependent on nature through experimentation with and manipulation of genes. Whether in regard to the human species or any other, the idea is that progress knows no limits because of human ingenuity in developing revolutionary scientific methods. Current discourse on international development draws more heavily on frontier economics and SD than the other two paradigms, although genetic engineering has its strong supporters among those concerned with how the world will be able to feed itself in the future and how deep ecology is

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Figure 3.1 Current Contending Conservation and Development Paradigms Dependent

Frontier Economics Anthropocentric Genetic Engineering

|

Sustainable Development

j |

Eco-centric Deep Ecology

Independent embraced, such as by conservationists within the NGO community. International finance institutions have been in the forefront of exhorting frontier economics in the name of the "Washington Consensus," and SD has been embraced by other multilateral agencies, in recent years notably by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). For that organization— and many others sympathetic to the concept—SD refers to expanding choice for all people in society, both rich and poor, while at the same time protecting the life opportunities for future generations and the natural systems on which all life depends (see e.g., UNDP 1994). SD, however, is a lofty concept, and it is easy for it to become just another rhetorical device. Because it is multiscalar and broad in reach, it is difficult to operationalize in ways that will address real problems faced by the majority of the world's population. That is why we believe that a focus on sustainable livelihoods is a necessary component of any effort to make SD a workable approach. THE SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOOD CONCEPT SL is not new. It is a concept introduced by the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development in the mid-1980s as an approach to enhance resource productivity, secure ownership of and access to resources and income-earning activities, as well as ensure adequate stocks and flows of food and cash to meet basic needs. The Commission viewed sustainable livelihood security as a precondition for stable human populations and a prerequisite for good husbandry and sustainable management of natural resources. SL, however, remained in limbo for quite a long time because conservation and development were treated as opposite rather than complementary entities. The conservationist lobby at national as well as international platforms was more concerned about halting

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destruction than about incentives for people to build conservation into their efforts to make progress. Agenda 21—the set of policy strategies that grew out of the Conference of Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992—was the first intergovernmental forum to integrate SL into mainstream development thinking by pointing to its significance in the context of such objectives as poverty alleviation or eradication. Subsequent international meetings, such as the Social Summit in Copenhagen in 1995 and the Beijing Conference on Women the same year, made use of SL in their program statements, and an increasing number of agencies, both multilateral and bilateral have increasingly turned their attention to alleviating poverty. It was at the core of the Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. We believe that there is at present a window of opportunity for problems, policies, and political actors to come together in a garbage can or— better said—catalytic fashion (March & Olsen 1976). To seize the opportunity, however, it is necessary that SL be viewed in a broader political context. What changes in rules are needed to make SL a more reachable objective? Let us first examine the SL concept more closely. At the core of this approach are two broad principles. First and foremost is its integrative potential. The concept allows policies to address simultaneously issues of economic growth, natural resource management, and alleviation of poverty. Second is its emphasis not just on jobs but also on the full complexity of livelihood systems, which need to be understood and addressed in the context of families, households, and communities. The overall policy objective of SL, therefore, as the Social Summit emphasized, is that of "identifying the livelihood systems, survival strategies and self-help organizations of people living in poverty, and working with such organizations to develop programmes for combating poverty that builds on their efforts, ensuring the full participation of the people concerned" (World Summit for Social Development 1995, Programme of Action, paragraph 26). SL has evolved as perhaps the most useful conceptual derivative of SD by identifying the linkages between micro action and macro conditions and policies. It starts from the premise that individuals must empower themselves, but any such effort must take advantage of local assets and strengths (whether entailed in knowledge systems or strategies for coping with or adapting to changing conditions). The capacity to cope with stress and shocks, however, cannot succeed without access to supplementary resources from outside the local context or community. Nor will it succeed without recognition of the cross-sectoral nature of the SD enterprise. Livelihoods, then, are a function of all the varying activities, assets, and entitlements that people use to make a living. Interest in SL within the scholarly community has so far generated two types of principal contributions. The first consists of those such as Cham-

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bers and Conway (1992), Davies (1993), and Singh and Titi (1994), who have focused on developing participatory methodologies that may facilitate the implementation of SL. This bottom-up approach places the individual actor on center stage. The assumption is that empowering the poor through participatory methods is the key to success. Although there is quite a lot to be said for such an approach, it also suffers from an undersocialized interpretation of actors. The institutional or structural constraints, if not overlooked, are nonetheless underestimated. A second approach has focused on the systems level and has pointed to the disjuncture between the way natural and human systems are managed. Edited volumes by Costanza (1991) and by Gundersen, Holling, and Light (1995) advocate a more adaptive approach to the management of natural resources than is implied in the conventional ways that public agencies or private corporations have so far gone about it. People need to be more sensitive to the internal dynamics of these natural systems and build on it rather than blindly interfering in the process. Any attempt at building a "sustainability science" needs to discard the positivist canons that have characterized development studies to date (Kates et al. 2001). These contributions have also been instrumental in changing perceptions in the policy arena. Participatory and stakeholder types of analysis are increasingly being used to decide on policy choices. The same can be said about the idea of a more adaptive approach to interacting with and managing natural resources. What still tends to be missing in the literature—and in the policy analysis—of SD and SL is their political implications. With the exception of a few regional studies, such as Okoth-Ogendo and Tumushabe (1999) on political change and natural resource management in eastern and southern Africa, there is little political science literature to draw upon that discusses the role governance plays in this context. SL and Governance Governance is very commonly used in the current international development discourse, but it is a concept that is much abused. Governance has at best a heuristic value to its proponents. Rarely is it applied with a view to providing analytical value. For example, UNDP has been using a definition that sees governance as "the exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to manage a country's affairs at all levels" (UNDP 1997: 2-3). The World Bank has been ready to distinguish between an analytical and an operational use of governance. Thus, it refers to three aspects of governance: (1) the form of political regime, (2) the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development, and (3) the capacity of governments to design, formulate, and implement policies and discharge functions (World Bank 1992). It is significant that the Bank has opted to focus on the

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latter two of these aspects on the premise that deciding on regime issues is the prerogative of the sovereign state—the member institution of the Bank. The problem with the ways that these organizations, and most others in the international development community, use the concept is that governance becomes everything and, therefore, nothing. Because it is seen as an all-encompassing concept, it permeates all sectors—public, private, and voluntary—and all phases of making public policy. It has taken on the same vague ring that development management had in the 1970s. Some policy specification has evolved through the adoption of the notion of good governance. International development agencies—both multilateral and bilateral—are now trying to give governance a liberal-democratic content, insisting that the adoption of good governance measures by a prospective recipient government is a condition for funding. Thus, these agencies have moved full range, from having operated with a concept that meant everything and nothing to a concept that is heavily loaded with Western normative preferences. Neither of these positions provides much of a foundation for a more analytical approach to governance. There are two aspects of governance that need to be highlighted in the analysis of SL. The first is that governance in the academic literature is associated with regime rather than state or civil society (Hyden 1992; Rosenau 1992; Hewlitt de Alcantara 1998). The concept refers to the alignment of state-society relations or, more specifically, to the constitution or reconstitution of rules that guide public or political action. Governance is one aspect of politics. It focuses on the basic—or constitutional—rules that determine behavioral conduct and choice. The second is that governance is different from policy making, public administration, or project management. As illustrated in Table 3.1, governance, as used here, is seen to take place at an analytical metalevel, meaning that the other activities previously listed are circumscribed by the rules established at the regime or governance level. It is important to emphasize that these different levels are empirically interconnected, but there are good reasons for keeping them analytically apart. Empirically speaking, rules are set at different levels. For example, a community may decide to change the rules by which its members abide in order to improve the prospects of enjoying sustainable livelihoods. Such a revision of rules—the local community regime—has a bearing on how policy is made and implemented or singular activities, such as specific projects, are managed. Governance is also present at higher levels, ultimately in terms of establishing and managing constitutional principles of a given country or the norms guiding the relations among states or the growing number of transnational actors. Governance, then, is multiscalar. Its significance in the context of this chapter is that rules operate at different levels, and the challenge for those concerned with SL is to see how

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Table 3.1 Governance and Its Relation to Related Concepts and Activities Level

Concept

Activity

Meta

Governance

Politics

Macro

Policy Making

Policy

Meso

Public Administration

Program

Micro

Management

Project

local regimes can be nurtured and adapted rather than just overpowered by guardians of rules at higher levels. With this more precise definition of governance, it is possible to distinguish between a distributive and a constitutive side of politics. The former addresses the perennial question of "who gets what, when, and how?" This approach to the study of politics is generally referred to as political economy because it focuses on how public goods are allocated in society. The latter addresses the question of "who sets what rules, when, and how?" Instead of focusing on the state, it centers on regime issues or the rules of the political game. This is what we call governance here. This distinction is particularly important in relation to SL. The conventional needs approach relies primarily on the distributive side and does not require changes in the rules of the game to achieve its objectives. Institutions are taken for granted and are seen only in their functional context. SL, on the other hand, which focuses on empowerment and enhanced access to resources, calls for a change in rules and, by implication, a shift in power relations. SL, as an approach that addresses the concerns of those whose livelihoods are threatened, calls for attention to the constitutive side of politics, that is, governance. In this perspective, it is important that governance be treated not just like a loosely connected set of activities (or a portfolio of programs) but as a tool that analysts can apply in promoting SL. As such, governance can be treated as the equivalent of strategic management in business administration. Governance deals with how actors can cope and adapt in an uncertain and changing environment. In business, these conditions arise first and foremost from changes in the market or in technology (Burns & Stalker 1962). In politics, such changes are caused primarily by the wishes of empowered groups of people to change the conditions under which they are ruled. Governance, then, encourages actors to think beyond business as usual or the need for only incremental changes that do not call for reform of the existing regime. Governance, like strategic management, becomes a

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way of looking at a problem in the context of the big picture, of adapting systems of rule to changes in the environment (political, economic, technological as well as sociocultural), and of encouraging leaders to find consensual—and positive-sum—solutions to problems their constituents or followers encounter. It encourages analysis of the way power relations are—or may be—shifted through institutional means. Operationalizing Governance in an SL Context The demobilization of the state-centered and state-directed approach to development, which has been ongoing for the past two decades, does not end with the liberalization of the economy. That is only a first, albeit an important, step in the direction of an alternative approach that starts with the individual, household, or community. Because actors enter the marketplace differentially endowed, it is not an even playing field. Already wealthy individuals have an initial advantage, and special measures are typically needed to enable the poorer segments of the population to succeed. With a trimmed-down state apparatus, compensatory interventions by government are not likely to play the role in fostering a more even development that they had in the past. That is wTiy the SL approach emphasizes greater reliance on local resources and strategies to cope with social and economic issues, empowerment of local actors, and the need for improving their access to additional resources that can help them make progress on their own. Reducing their sense of vulnerability and powerlessness implies, as suggested here, realigning power relations, and creating an environment that is not only enabling (a concept associated with economic liberalization) but also reassuring (one more closely connected to SL). Governance is one—but by no means the only—tool to accomplish SL. For instance, science and technology are other important factors (Juma 2001). The rest of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of how governance can be operationalized to serve the implementation of SL. We suggest a four-pronged approach that takes into consideration that changes in power relations typically are the result of leadership interventions from above as well as citizen demands from below. The first aspect of changing power relations is articulation, that is, the readiness and ability of individuals to demand the autonomy to make decisions of their own on issues that concern the use of common-pool or public goods. The second aspect is mobilization, that is, the readiness and ability of groups of citizens to work together to maximize gains for themselves without doing so—in a zero-sum fashion—at the expense of others. Like articulation, this aspect refers to the generation of citizen demands from below. The third aspect is distribution of power, which becomes important as more and more groups begin to compete for influence. To accommodate this growth of demand for the right to organize in pursuit of more sustainable livelihoods, it is

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Table 3.2 Operational Aspects of Governance in the Context of SL Governance Aspect

Program Principle

Program Objective

Institutional Issue

Articulation

Ownership

Empowerment

Self-Organization

Mobilization

Capability

Civic Engagement

Social Capital

Distribution

Access

Pluralism

Social Space

Confirmation

Rights

Rule of Law

Strength

important that the political leadership be ready to change the power structures so that the political system becomes more pluralist and groups have access to complementary resources through the market, state, or other relevant institutions. The fourth aspect is confirmation of power. This typically takes place through decisions made by judicial institutions but is also dependent on the readiness of both citizens and organizations—private or public—to respect the principle of rule of law. This aspect is important in an SL context because it points to the importance of a rights-based approach to development. The operationalization of governance is built around the implementation of SL in specific programmatic and institutional contexts where particular principles and objectives become important. Table 3.2 contains a summary of the objectives, principles, and issues that arise in the implementation process. We now discuss how each of these four aspects of governance can be translated into a set of programs that are mutually supportive and that have a direct relationship to how sustainable livelihoods can be developed and enhanced. Articulation For the majority of the poor, the first step on a long path toward realizing SL is being able to articulate an opinion on a public issue. It is when individuals begin to express their own views that meaningful discussion and dialogue with others emerge and the prospects for a spontaneous organization of efforts become real. Because SL, like human development, means expanding the choices for all people in society, it points to the importance of increasing the opportunity of both men and women to participate in and to endorse decisions affecting their own lives. Governance, therefore, means changing the rules so that such self-organization becomes increasingly possible.

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Such new rules may indicate who can participate in community affairs and decide on such matters. For example, in many patriarchal societies, the idea of extending equal opportunities to women—and taking the necessary measures to realize that objective—would be one relevant case in point.. Studies have shown that women in such societies are especially hesitant to voice their opinions in public unless they have been given a chance to learn how to speak and thereby gain confidence to interact with men in public for a (VonDoepp 1999). Another example would be a group of peasants or workers initiating a move to have the rules changed to allow them greater influence over what transpires on their farm or in their factory. Such action would be important to provide them with an opportunity for self-reflection and to feel that they are stakeholders in the exercise. This is usually not merely a matter of enhancing social equality but also of prudent management. A member organization often has an advantage over a regular corporate organization in realizing this first aspect of governance. The important thing for the development policy analyst here is to use governance as a lever. Development is no longer viewed as taking place within finite systems governed by equilibrium dynamics but as coming out of open systems characterized by boundary transgressions and governed more by the logic of self-organization and reflexivity (Hess 1995). The idea that governance is multiscalar and addresses the "big picture" can be used to demonstrate how issues that may have been buried in a local parochial context can be raised to a higher level and thereby open up opportunities for change in the relations between members of a given community or group. Governance, therefore, can serve as a catalyst for organizing efforts at the local level by helping people understand their own position in a broader and comparative perspective. It is important to stress that when dealing with poor people, governance must be seen as complementary to other supportive measures. For example, many people live in such poor circumstances that aspiring for more freedom and control over one's own destiny is overshadowed by more basic concerns, such as "just getting by." Real investments in technological measures may be equally important steps in such circumstances. SL cannot be achieved through governance alone, nor can it be pursued from the bottom up only. What governance may do is to provide a more hospitable environment for innovation and investment in support of more sustainable livelihoods for the poor. Poverty is often the result of exploitation of one social group by another, but it may also stem from an inadequate resource base. It would be a worthwhile research project to examine more systematically which of these two conditions is most likely to generate self-organization. Do the antagonisms caused by a legacy of exploitation crystallize into feelings of solidarity that can form the basis of new group action? If that is the case, one might expect that local actors, regardless of their economic resource

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endowment, would take action together to change the circumstances of their life. In so doing, they would then also contribute to changes in the rules governing relations of power. For example, they may earn respect for human rights—whether civil-political, or social and economic—that have been denied them in the past. These scenarios are discussed here as being potentially interesting and worth the effort of more systematic investigation. The point is that changes in the rules by actors at the local level could have cascading effects on rules also at higher levels of the political system. Mobilization Local initiatives, however, stand the best chance of becoming empowering experiences if they also generate lasting social capital. The latter is a product of social trust and the readiness to engage in reciprocal action. Trust itself is an outcome of reliable social interaction (Fukuyama 1995). Reliable social interaction, in turn, is more likely to be present in smallscale and often primary forms of social organization such as family, clan, or village. The problem is often that local actors are not given the opportunity to choose the organizational formula that suits them best; higherlevel actors determine the rules that apply for those below them. This kind of situation is not congenial to the development of social trust. It must be avoided in an SL strategy. Because the latter implies the use of local knowledge and information, the principal challenge is more often social than technical. People usually have the requisite technical know-how, but are missing the social skills that translate into sustaining local initiative and power. That is why the concept of capability is more appropriate than capacity, which connotes technical or physical ability. By referring to capability, the approach emphasizes the importance of institutional or social dimensions of realizing the objectives of SL. Particularly significant is the readiness and ability of people to engage each other in a civic manner, civic referring to behavior that is consistent with the rule of law and is tolerant of the view of others. Although there has been a good deal written about the need for scaling up successful local development initiatives (e.g., Uvin & Miller 1994), the point here is that equally important—maybe a prerequisite for scaling up—is scaling out, that is, the idea that people can extend their contacts beyond the scope of their primary social organization and work or interact with people whom they may not have known before. Such branching out or networking provides the necessary social learning that in the end may enable local actors to reach for new external resources and challenge monopolies or entrenched social forces that have subverted or held back local initiatives in the past. An interesting governance measure would be to encourage local-local dialogue with a view to improving solutions to grassroots problems and

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creating opportunities for local groups, including women, to participate in public policy making. Learning in such contexts comes at a pace and in a format that are often more in tune with what local actors prefer. This approach avoids creation of large bureaucratic organizations and is typically more cost-effective than measures aimed at instructing local-level actors from above in training institutions. The rules that need to be reformulated, therefore, are political rather than administrative. They aim at making various actors more mindful of the need to respect local ownership while feeding new ideas and other resources into the minds of various stakeholders. This requires more patience than what many actors, especially government departments and international donor agencies, have been ready to give to the exercise in the past. Yet, one of the principal lessons learned from previous attempts to foster development is that accelerating the process in an artificial manner without local understanding and support leaves it untenable. Science and technology cannot succeed where social capital is absent. The point here is that such capital is formed when actors have enough time to get to know each other and to learn from each other's experience. Trust, confidence, and reciprocal action are most likely to emerge in support of civic engagement in conditions where the autonomy of local action is respected and not neglected, and where it is building on local initiatives without being perceived by others first and foremost as a threat to their own livelihoods. SL does not consist only of material improvements that can be measured but also of more diffuse—yet important—process outcomes such as greater trust among the stakeholders and better understanding and appreciation of each other's constraints and opportunities. Seligson (1999) has demonstrated that social capital in developing countries may be particularly strong in community-based organizations. Her study of social capital in Central America indicates that other types of organization manifest less evidence of social capital. This tallies with our argument here that governance measures aimed at strengthening civil society must pay special attention to the needs of local-level organization, because it is often their untapped potential that provides the best hope for making SL a reality. Distribution Although both articulation and mobilization are important aspects of realizing SL, we do not prescribe some form of local autarchy Empowerment at the local level is seen here as an integral part of any effort to let the poor have greater access to complementary external resources, whether found at the national or the international level. The provision of more social and political space at the local level is a means to an end. Governance for SL, then, raises expectations for the political leadership to

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realign the rules. More specifically, governance under this subheading involves two measures of special significance: (1) delegation of power and responsibilities, and (2) the institutionalization of political pluralism. The former must aim at ensuring that locally elected bodies are allowed to play a greater role in administering development. Many acts of decentralization have been pronounced in the past but most of them have amounted only to deconcentration of administrative authority rather than delegation of real political power and responsibility (Rondinelli, Nellis, & Cheema 1984). SL requires a strengthening of intermediary institutions that are accountable to local constituents. These would include elected local government authorities but may take other institutional expressions that allow the poorer segments of the population greater control of their own destiny and a stronger bargaining position in pursuit of external resources. It would be worthwhile, for example, to examine the rapid development of China's rural areas in terms of a flexible—albeit cautious—approach to strengthening organizations at the township and prefectoral levels. In the past, too much power has been concentrated in central government ministries and other state institutions that have been accountable upward to individual ministries rather than to the public. Very few of these institutions have worked in the public interest, leave alone the interest of the poor. The vast majority have been inefficient, and many have been corrupt as well. Delegation of power and responsibility, therefore, has included privatization of many such state bodies. Although privatization is no panacea, because there is always the risk that privatized enterprises and activities will be taken over by individual tycoons with little interest in the public welfare, as long as there is competition, such tendencies might be mitigated. Whatever one thinks of the market, it has at least one quality that is helpful in the SL context: the rules of the market tend to be less restrictive than those found in the political arena. Moreover, in the market, it is easier to arrive at split-the-difference compromises over their content. We believe that in the interest of a more equitable distribution of opportunities and control of resources, a genuine political decentralization and a functioning and strengthened market constitute necessary ingredients in realizing the objectives of SL. For a long time—especially during the 1960s and 1970s—the general assumption among political leaders in developing countries was that concentration of power in a single set of institutions controlled from above was the most appropriate model for accelerated development. As we enter the twenty-first century, there is a growing realization that more rather than fewer institutions are needed to promote development. Especially challenging is the attempt to bring the grass roots closer to the summit of society in new and innovative ways that combine participation with respect for considerations of feasibility.

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One way of building new partnerships and transcending the limits inherent in hierarchical government organization is the public, but politically autonomous, development fund. This model of funding development combines professional and technical criteria in allocating resources with a demand-driven and stakeholder-based approach from the bottom up. The autonomous development fund (ADF) was first explored as an alternative to conventional modes of funding development at an expert consultation in Kampala, Uganda, in 1995 (Dag Hammarskjold Foundation 1995). Such funds would be set up to support development projects in a specific sector or under a particular theme, such as "women and development." They would raise their funds from donors or in other creative ways that are appropriate and possible in any given country. They would be legal entities registered in the country where their funding takes place, and would be administered by a board of trustees drawn from government, civil society, and resource providers, for example, donor agencies. It is this triangular relationship that would make the ADF sufficiently autonomous from executive control by a single agent, such as the head of state or a cabinet minister. The ADF is especially suitable in countries where development efforts to date have been influenced by patron-client relations. It has the potential of ensuring greater impartiality and respect for professional criteria rather than partisanship and personal considerations in allocating funds for development. We see this kind of institutional innovation as more important for the realization of SL than the introduction of multiparty politics. The latter does not always produce results that are congenial to helping the poor, because it encourages short-term rivalries that often undermine the longer-term concerns about improving livelihoods. In such a political dispensation, as experience from Africa shows, it is not unusual for groups of people to be denied access to public resources because governments punish them for having voted for the opposition. The ADF has the potential of transcending such partisan loyalties and perspectives, thereby making resources available to groups, regardless of political stance. This is not to denigrate the assumption that freedom is an important condition for development (Sen 1999). People must feel free to express themselves in public and also organize without fear. A vibrant civil society is necessary to keep governments responding to demands and interest in the public arena. Governance, therefore, must be directed at establishing rules that provide greater freedom for members of the public to associate and act independently. What we are also arguing here, however, is that freedom without responsibility to the public interest is detrimental to the pursuit of sustainable livelihoods and sustainable development. That is why in many countries, ADF-type institutions are needed as important counterweights to partisan, and often parochial, institutions that are associated with the competition for power in multiparty settings.

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Confirmation Confirmation of realigned relations of power is perhaps the most challenging of all governance measures. What is at stake under this heading is the institutionalization of power relations that are meant to give greater social space and strength to groups that previously may have been both ignorant and placid. Most of what has been suggested under the previous subheadings would be to little avail unless the new rules can be assured by society. Such a process takes time and involves finding ways that allow actors to engage each other without making them feel they are losing face or respect. As suggested in Table 3.2, providing greater strength to disadvantaged and poor segments or groups in society centers on the establishment of a human rights regime, in which the rule of law prevails. Because of their comparative weakness, these groups are particularly prone to abuse of power by others in society. The latter often take action as if the poor do not matter. An unregulated market is especially likely to fail the poor, because actors do not start with the same endowment of resources. Marginalization of many is a probable outcome. Similarly, a statecontrolled system where the market has no role in allocating resources also causes skewed distribution of benefits, because those in power have no one to challenge them. What is needed, therefore, is a regime in which the costs of a market or state failure can be reduced to a minimum by virtue of rules that respect each person equally and that are attuned to the conditions of the poor and disadvantaged in society. Governance measures to redress previous imbalances in the social and economic sectors would include ensuring that development in these sectors is being approached, not in a patronizing manner in terms of meeting perceived needs, but in terms of rights activism. The latter would emphasize that states are not solely responsible for the destiny of their people but their people themselves, through their own organizations, share in this effort. Such a redefinition of how to foster development, however, requires a broader understanding and recognition of the rights that go with it. Various social and economic rights that are targeted at improving the living conditions for the disadvantaged in society, not the least women and children, must be elevated to a higher level of political significance. They must be interpreted in the context of the big picture, which means that these rights should be presented as helpful not only to those particular groups but also to society at large. The problem with development efforts so far has been that the longer-term public or national interest has been overlooked in favor of narrow, often special interests that have undermined the prospect for sustainable livelihoods. Social and economic rights constitute a special challenge because they are typically not justiciable, that is, a matter for courts to decide, but rather political in kind. As such they depend for implementation more on the

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predisposition of political leaders. Yet, the experience of a few countries such as India suggests that a progressive judiciary, which sees its role as creating new rules for how society conducts its affairs, can make a difference. Judicial power does not have to contradict popular power. If imbued with the notion of how rights fit into the bigger picture of securing sustainable livelihoods for a larger percentage of people, it can play a very constructive role. Because work on social and economic rights entails both creating and securing rights for the poor, any effort in the domain of civil and political rights would be focused on reassuring people that they apply equally to all. The international community has adopted a multitude of conventions that reaffirm these rights, even though the ratification of these instruments and their incorporation into national legislation still fall far short on expectation. One issue facing those working on SL, therefore, is to ensure that these conventions are part of national laws and are being effectively implemented by court systems. This is not going to be easy, because with a more complex human rights regime in the making at the global level, there is also scope for different interpretations of which particular set of rights applies in a given situation. For example, in recent years—confirmed at the International Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993— there has been an interest in securing the rights of indigenous peoples or minorities. This has been an important step forward in the broader context of development, but it is clear that such a rights regime can also be called upon to challenge the notion that rights are universal. This is what happened, for instance, in Fiji where the indigenous population, a de facto minority but in control of the army and most other instruments of state, has invoked the new rights regime of indigenous peoples to challenge the political powers of the immigrant Indo-Fijian majority. Such contestations notwithstanding, the important point about the emergence of a global rights regime is that state sovereignty is being challenged. In the past 50 years, the international community has moved from a recognition of the rights of all people to enjoy political independence within the context of their own state to one in which notion of sovereignty is shifting away from state and territoriality toward people, or groups within people, that are especially vulnerable. This gradual change in outlook is now being acted upon as both governments and nongovernmental organizations refer to universally adopted declarations on human rights as justifications for getting involved in the plights of people who are being exposed to oppression or exploitation by state machineries or unscrupulous individuals with economic power. The idea of "noninterference in the affairs of another state" is no longer as sacred a principle as it has been in previous years. Governance measures under this heading, however, would not necessarily have to be confined to strengthening state institutions, such as the

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judiciary, that have an official role of adjudicating on how rules apply to specific cases. Equally important is that these confirmatory measures include attention to institutions that can challenge efforts by those in state power—or those with money—to influence court judgments in a particular direction. This means supporting not only human rights organizations that work to educate the public on their civil and political rights but also organizations that can ensure that the market becomes more social, that is, considerate of the interests of the poor and disadvantaged. Such organizations have an important role to play in helping the poor understand that the market is not just an instrument of exploitation, but a potentially helpful institution in which conflicts over resources can be resolved in a positive-sum manner. By institutionalizing rules for how the market operates, considerable gains can be made in ensuring that SL becomes more of a reality for the poor. CONCLUSIONS Recent years have witnessed a growing effort within the international community to overcome the perceived contradiction between conservation and development. Long after the Stockholm Conference on Environment in 1972, conservation in the name of environmentalism was regarded as a separate policy track. Since the Brundtland Commission first attempted it, analysts have tried to combine conservation and development in the notion of sustainable development. With an increased interest in alleviating poverty, there may be concern in conservationist circles that their agenda is losing out to the development people. With this new orientation, however, the significance of approaching SD through a systematic focus on sustainable livelihoods has grown. The pursuit of SL has many dimensions, economic as well as technological, that are important if this new interpretation of development is going to make sense. At the same time, it is clear that little progress, if any, will be made unless attention is paid also to the political—or governance—side of SL. We have provided a sense of how the rules of the political game need to be reconsidered in order to fit an SL approach to development. This implies, most significantly, the attention to multiple levels because ensuring a better life for poor people is not a matter that can be handled at the micro level alone. Through the market and other institutional mechanisms, these people are linked to activities with global reach. Because the pursuit of SL is multiscalar, any governance intervention needs to be considered in such a perspective. We have outlined one way of thinking about how governance can be operationalized to match the challenges of SL. It is clear to us that the set of issues discussed here is worth continued attention by researchers as well as by policy makers for whom sustainability matters.

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REFERENCES Agrawal, Arun. "Community in Conservation: Beyond Enchantment and Disenchantment." Conservation and Development Forum Discussion Paper. Gainesville: University of Florida Conservation and Development Forum, Center for Latin American Studies, 1997. Burns, Tom, and G F. Stalker. The Management of Innovations. London: Tavistock, 1962. Chambers, Robert, and G. Conway "Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practical Concepts for the 21st Century" IDS Discussion Paper No 296. Falmer, Sussex: Institute of Development Studies, 1992. Costanza, Robert (ed.). Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Dag Hammarskjold Foundation. Autonomous Development Funds in Africa: Report of an Expert Consultation in Kampala, Uganda, April 1995. Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in collaboration with the African Association for Public Administration and Management, 1995. Davies, Susanna. "Versatile Livelihoods: Strategic Adaptation to Food Security in the Malian Sahel." IDS Discussion Paper No 304. Falmer, Sussex: Institute of Development Studies, 1993. Fukuyama, Francis. Trust: Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press, 1995. Gundersen, Lance H., C S. Holling, and S. S. Light (eds.). Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Hess, David J. Science and Technology in a Multicultural World. New York: Columbia Lfniversity Press, 1995. Hewlitt de Alcantara, Cynthia. "Uses and Abuses of the Concept of Governance." International Social Science Journal 50:1, pp. 105-113,1998. Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Empire, 1875-1914. New York: Pantheon Books, 1987. Hyden, Goran. "The Concept of Governance." In G. Hyden and M. Bratton (eds.), Governance and Politics in Africa, pp. 1-21. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992. luma, Calestous. "The Global Sustainability Challenge: From Agreement to Action." International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 2: 1/2, pp. 1-14, 2002. Kates, Robert W., W. C. Clark, R. Corell, J. M. Hall, C. C. Jaeger, et al. "Sustainability Science." Science 292, pp. 641-642, 2001. March, James G , and J. P. Olsen. Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1976. Okoth-Ogendo, H. W. O., and G. W. Tumushabe (eds.). Governing the Environment: Political Change and Natural Resource Management in Eastern and Southern Africa. Nairobi: ACTS Press, 1999. Rondinelli, Dennis, J. Nellis, and S. Cheema. Decentralization in Developing Countries: A Review of Recent Experiences. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1984. Rosenau, James. "Governance, Order and Change in World Politics." In J. N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (eds.), Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

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Seligson, Amber. "Civic Associations and Democratic Participation in Central America: A Test of the Putnam Thesis." Comparative Political Studies 32:3, pp. 342-362,1999. Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf, 1999. Singh, Naresh, and V. Titi. "Adaptive Strategies of the Poor in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands: In Search of Sustainable Livelihoods." USD Working Paper. Winnipeg, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1994. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Sustainable Human Development: From Concept to Operation. New York: UNDP, 1994. UNDP. Governance for Sustainable Human Development. New York: UNDP, 1997. Uvin, Peter, and D. Miller. "Scaling Up: Thinking Through the Issues." The Alan Shawn Feinstein Hunger Program Research Report. Providence, RI: Brown University, 1994. VonDoepp, Peter. "Presbyterians, Catholics, and Grassroots Politics: Local Churches in Malawi's Post-Authoritarian Era." Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Florida, 1999. World Bank. Governance and Development. Washington DC: The World Bank, 1992. World Summit for Social Development. Program of Action. New York: United Nations, 1995.

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CHAPTER 4

What Does "Governance" Mean? From Conception to Elaboration Hans Th. A. Bressers and Stefan M. M. Kuks

INTRODUCTION The mission of sustainable development is in several respects an especially demanding form of societal change (Bressers & Rosenbaum 2000: 532-536). This is one reason that in social science studies of sustainable development, the concept of government policy often is replaced by the broader term governance. There is a growing recognition that government alone does not determine the future development of sectors in society; these are shaped through the interaction of many actors. Within such networks of actors, the government can adopt a position that is more or less central and dominant. This change in view represents a shift in accent from government policy, or government, to governance. The governance pattern consists of all the consequences of the interplay among all the actors involved (Kooiman 1993: 258) in interventions to promote sustainability. In addition, recognition is increasing that sectors in society are not governed on one level, or on a number of levels, but through interaction between these levels. These levels often reflect the various tiers of government, but not necessarily; other powerful actors may provide direction at a certain level where no government authority is active. In the same way, actors may also operate on more than one level. Thus, there is a growing recognition as well that policy problems often contain various interacting levels (e.g., environmental problems). This reality poses an issue that has been called "multilevel governance." Yet governance is a broad and often confusing term because it is used in many different ways (Peters & Pierre 1998; Lynn et al. 2000a, 2000b: 234; O'Toole 2000: 276). "There are

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almost as many ideas of governance as there are researchers in the field" (Bjork & Johansson 2000: 1). There is clearly a need for more synthesizing of this concept. This theoretical chapter develops such a synthesis in the form of a governance model to aid in comparing governance structures. In many ways, this is complementary to ongoing comparative studies of government. Various contemporary approaches in policy science already focus on changes in government policy when making comparisons (Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith 1993, 1999; Baumgartner & Jones 1993). In addition to a focus on long-term changes in policy (diachronic study), there are also comparative studies of policies in a certain sector and in different sectors (synchronic study) that should be facilitated by the governance model developed in this chapter. As far as developments in time are concerned, this is primarily intended to provide indications of the relations between the various elements of the governance structure. Additionally, the model is concerned less about the actual interaction processes (activities and interactions between actors) than with the more structural elements of governance, which form both the inputs and outputs of such policy processes. In the context of this volume, we give extra attention to the distribution of governance between the various scales and levels. The central questions of this chapter are: 1. Which elements make up a governance structure? 2. In what ways do changes in these elements influence each other?

In the next section, we develop the model of governance based on various approaches taken in studies of public administration. In developing our vision on the elements of governance, we start with the term policy and expand this, using various components, into a governance pattern. The succeeding section presents a vision of the mutual influences between the elements of governance, including the multiscale issue. Finally, the chapter ends with a short conclusion. The model developed theoretically here is applied to the comparison of water management in Florida and the Netherlands in Chapter 6. ELEMENTS OF GOVERNANCE In the literature that sails under the flag of governance and in the more general policy science literature, there is an overwhelming load of components that can and should be included in a synthesis model of governance. At first glance, this may seem to make the endeavor a mission impossible. However, within policy science literature is considerable old wine in new casks; many new approaches present only one or two new aspects along with what is already known. So it makes sense to state our

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own starting point, and then expand it with specific additions from the literature. Interaction Processes and "Instrumentation Theory" The policy science approach as it developed at the University of Twente emphasizes the policy process as social interaction. Over the years, attention has shifted from viewing policy as a sort of production process with semifinished and final products to a vision in which the actors are the central concern. In this vision, the course and outcomes of the processes depend not only on the inputs to the process but mainly on the characteristics of the actors involved, particularly their objectives, information, and power. All other factors that influence the process do so when they influence the characteristics of the actors involved. This also applies to the influence of policy instruments on behavior. Not all characteristics of actors, however, are determined by policy, and so it is not possible to describe a policy without paying attention to the actors involved in that policy themselves (Bressers 1983). Moreover, the processes in this vision are not confined to a single series or cycle, but are part of a large number of societal processes in which government authorities sometimes participate. All these processes are connected to other processes in a complicated web via their inputs and outputs, and possibly indirectly linked to all other processes. Each definition of a sector of society draws a more or less arbitrary boundary around a cluster of processes in this web. Although the boundaries between policy development and policy implementation often are diffuse, in research practice they are often drawn to coincide with those between higher and lower tiers of government (Bressers & Honigh 1986). What we call an "instrumentation theory" stems from these perspectives. It focuses on the effect of policy instruments on the target groups of policy (Bressers & Klok 1988; Klok 1991; Bressers 2001). It also recognizes that instruments do not influence the characteristics of the actors involved separately but rather collectively as an instrument strategy. Policy instruments and strategies have various properties—for example, a certain relationship between target group behavior and government reaction to this behavior, or giving resources to or taking resources away from the target group. Such properties of instrument strategies affect their applicability in practice. Klok emphasizes that some of the instruments are designed to give those implementing a policy the power to apply other instruments (Klok 1991:176-194), and also that the implementing organizations depend on sufficient capacity and expertise (Klok 1991: 163-164; Bressers 1983: 218-237, 256-274). In his thesis, Arentsen (1991) exhaustively discusses the relationship between policy organization and policy implementation.

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Later publications on this approach (Bressers & Kuks 1992; Bressers, O'Toole, & Richardson 1994; Bressers, Huitema, & Kuks 1994) have paid more attention to the interrelations between the actors, including actors that do not directly participate in the processes under examination. Klok (1995) gives primary importance to the allocation and removal of resources in such relations and in the classification of policy instruments. The relationships between actors within such policy networks are seen as an important factor in the development of the content of policy (Bressers 1998; Bressers & O'Toole 1998; Ligteringen 1999). In addition, the relationship between policy processes at the various administrative levels is explicitly dealt with (Bressers, Kuks, & Ligteringen 1998). During this theoretical development, the approach to policy as an interactive process and the instrumentation theory based on it gradually grew into an integrative policy science approach, uniting elements from a variety of other approaches. This brings us to the provisional elements of governance: (1) administrative and other scale levels; (2) actors in the policy network; (3) policy objectives; (4) strategies and instruments; and (5) organization and resources of implementation. In the next section, we compare these elements with issues emphasized in a part of the literature that deals explicitly with governance and also propose some limitations of our elaborated model. Governance Literature If one examines the literature in which the term governance is prominent, the first impression is diverse definitions and different contexts. We must inevitably make an initial choice among this diversity of approaches. The following discussion introduces the way we use the term "governance" in relation to the conceptual diversity of uses in the literature. Rhodes (1996) lists six categories of publications on governance. Our impression is that two of these differ rather strongly from the other categories, in both interpretation and context (see Bjork & Johansson 2000: 1). Corporate governance comprises a large number of theories and studies on the management of companies, often from a stakeholder perspective. Good governance is often used in development studies to indicate the administrative capacity as the context for sustainable or otherwise successful development. In these two categories, the term is generally used in about the same way as we would use the term administration. The other four categories, in our opinion, are more closely related to each other and to the debate within the policy science community 1 Rhodes (1996) identifies the four categories of literature that are most relevant to our concern with defining governance as the minimal state, new public management, sociocybernetic systems theory, and self-regulating networks. The factor common to all is that they search for forms of coordination that do not fit comfortably with the market-hierarchy distinction

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(compare Arentsen & Kunneke 1996; Rosenau 2000: 11-16) once common to governance theory. At the beginning of the 1980s, there was talk of overloaded polities in which "regime stability is threatened b y . . . the related problems of governmental effectiveness and popular consent" (Rose 1980:107). The reaction to this was advocacy of less state and more market. Thinking in terms of governance is also an answer to the erosion of the state literature during the 1980s. Rhodes (1997:19) writes: "The process of hollowing out... is central to understand the shift from a unitary state to a differentiated polity." Instead of discussing these four categories separately (see Bjork & Johansson 2000: 3-7), we prefer to introduce another distinction. Each of these approaches is built to some degree from empirical observation but, more important, on a normative vision. This normative bias almost always implies that a more limited role or presence of government authorities delivers better governance. This bias is weakest in the sociocybernetic approach (e.g., the work of Kooiman [1994]), which we think is proposed as a rather one-sided exponent of this bias) and most obvious in the idea of the minimal state. However, the normative debate is not our primary interest. Here we investigate the administrative aspects, which are highlighted as governance. 2 Implicitly, our position is that "governance without government" (Peters & Pierre 1998: 223) is not a goal in itself. A further limitation of our treatment is related to this issue. Some authors are looking mainly for a more or less stable institutional arrangement in addition to the market, in which communities of private actors are able, without outside intervention, to promote their collective interests. In contrast, our interest does lie in such outside interventions, irrespective of whether they are intentional or are undertaken by one or more government authorities with horizontal or vertical (hierarchic) relations. In doing this, we concentrate more on change than on stability. It also means that many rules-in-use, customs and traditions, property rights, and so on are seen more as the subject matter of governance to be influenced—and as such, part of the instrumental strategy—than as the main business of the governance system (see Young 1994: ix, 1633). Institutional rules can be considered an arena in which the actors operate, and so can be linked to the modules of instrument theory (Fenger & Klok 2000); we are looking for their context: a broader concept of governance. For example, if research into the implementation of policy shows that many people do not apply for rent rebates because they do not realize that they are entitled to them, because people do not want to ask for money, or because they do not feel they have the right to a rent rebate, these are direct explanations for their behavior. But this raises a further question: is there an explanation-behind-the-explanation? In the next section, therefore, we treat institutional approaches as part of policy science.

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Multilevel Coordination and Multifaceted Problems The term multilevel has become the most common prefix attached to governance. It relates not only to its multiple nature but also particularly to the interdependence between levels (Smith 1997). According to Lundqvist (2001), the challenge of environmental governance is to develop "social choice mechanisms that combine two ostensibly incompatible qualities: authoritative (including the possibility of state intervention) and flexible, self-adjusting and 'reflective' with a considerable influence on those governed." Further, there is a "more encompassing multi-level view of governance needed" for one reason because "problems (like sustainability issues) are multi-faceted." The component problems "require different scales and the interactions between the scales require multi-level coordination." Without such coordination, there may be a race to the bottom with disastrous implications for the social problem. But this does not have to involve a higher authority. In certain circumstances, multilevel or interlevel games can lead to a race to the top (Scharpf 1997b). Blomquist and Schlager (1999: 7,39-43) also emphasize the relationship between the many facets of the problem and the horizontal and vertical coordination this requires. The same is true for Rosenau (2000:10-11). Multiactor Networks Rosenau (2000: 5) also assumes the multilevel character of governance. He talks of "evolution of 'multi-level' governance, a form of rule in which authority is voluntary and legally dispersed among the various levels of community where problems are located and local needs require attention." And he adds a second element, "shifting the balance between hierarchical and network forms of organization, between vertical flows of authority and horizontal flows."4 Multi-Instrumental Steering Mechanisms and Multiresource-Based Implementation O'Toole (2000: 276-279) treats governance in the context of studies of the implementation of policy strategies. He calls governance "difficult to denote with precision," adding to the multilevel and multiactor aspects "the multivariate character of policy action." He refers to Milward and Provan (1999: 3), who state: "The essence of governance is its focus on governing mechanisms—grants, contracts, agreements—that do not rest solely on the authority and sanctions of government." He also points to the work of Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill (2000a, 2000b), who approach governance from the public management perspective. Although they set themselves the task of developing a broad and comprehensive model of governance, their

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background is clearly present in their thinking. They begin by noting that policy programs are implemented in a web of many diverse actors, an assumption that distinguishes it from the rest of the literature. As a consequence, the model of governance they develop concentrates not only on the objectives (including output indicators) and instruments (treatment) of policy, but also the resources and organization of implementation. The model differs from the usual overviews mainly because it clearly shows that these aspects of organization and resources can take a wide variety of forms and have a multifunctional character (2000a, pp. 257-258). Peters and Pierre (1998: 226-227) also consider, besides the emphasis on networks, the blending of public and private resources and the use of multiple instruments to be features of the governance concept. This exploration of governance literature has broadened our definition of the five aspects mentioned at the end of the previous section. In our opinion, the elements of governance are: 1. Levels (not necessarily administrative levels): governance assumes the general multilevel character of policy implementation. 2. Actors and their networks: governance assumes the multiactor character of policy implementation. 3. Perception of the problem and objectives (not just the objectives): governance assumes the multifaceted character of the problems and objectives of policy implementation. 4. Strategies and instruments: governance assumes the multi-instrumental character of policy strategies for policy implementation. 5. Resources and organization of implementation: governance assumes the complex multiresource basis for implementation of policy. We believe that using these five elements, the governance pattern can be described for a certain policy field in a specified place and time. But what should be described within the framework of these five elements? Which questions (or indicators) can operationalize these elements (or dimensions)? The governance literature itself gives no clear answer yet. In the next section, we describe these five elements of governance in more detail. Visions and Synthesis from the Policy Sciences Literature We have developed our five elements further using various policy science approaches. Many of these approaches have purposes other than identifying elements of the content of policy and governance. For example, they can be used to explain long-term policy changes, or the effectiveness of policy instruments. However, these policy science perspectives can also enrich our approach to governance as we have illustrated in the

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extended analysis published separately in Dutch (Bressers & Kuks 2001). Here we report only some especially relevant conclusions. In their classical treatments of decision making, Herbert A. Simon's (1997 [1945]) bounded rationality and Charles E. Lindblom's incrementalism (Lindblom 1959; Braybrooke & Lindblom 1970 [1963]) emphasize the limited human capacity to process information. Opening up the possibilities of nonincremental policy changes has to do with megapolicy changes (Dror 1971), which involve a recognition of new problems, or other ways to frame them, or a new conception of the task of government. Allison's (1971) bureaucracy model specifically addresses the standard approaches and repertoires of organizations, which restrict flexibility in conducting policy. The rule-based institutional rational choice approach (Kiser & Ostrom 1982; Ostrom 1990,1999) draws attention to the way in which actors enter the policy network or are excluded from it. Furthermore, scope rules determine the extent of certain positions, competencies, and other sources of power. Ostrom also distinguishes between different levels of analysis. This layered structure is not the same as a classification of administrative layers. A compromise between both interpretations of the term level is to speak about levels within a concept of multilevel governance. This implies that often the administrative bodies with a larger scaled domain wrill set rules that form a context for more operative decision making in smaller domains, next to some decisions that can be regarded as directly operative. In the advocacy coalition framework (Sabatier 1988, 1991, 1999; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith 1993, 1999), a particularly important idea is that coalitions of actors in the policy network do not merely represent the division between government and other actors, but also contain actors from both of these groups sharing certain beliefs. We can identify various layers. In the deep core are issues relating to fundamental values. The policy core contains positions relating to the perception of problems, the division of the costs of policy implementation, the desirability of contributions from experts, politicians, and the general public and other relevant values and preferences. The derived aspects contain elaborations for each given situation. Besides this layered structure, the importance attached to the perception of the problem is very significant. In addition to advocacy coalitions, there are actors who are more likely to have objectives that relate to policy processes than to the content of policy, and these actors are referred to by Sabatier (1988,1991) as political brokers. The flow model of the policy process (Kingdon 1995 [1984]; Zahariadis 1999) examines how three relatively autonomous flows come together each time a decision has to be made. Political entrepreneurs promote this by making use of windows of opportunity (or creating them). From a multiscale perspective, the convergence of problem perception, policy

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opportunities, and political salience should not take place at different levels (such as when there is concern about a problem at a single state level while solutions are being sought at the federal level). In the actor-centered institutionalism of Scharpf (1997a), explanation takes place primarily in terms of the distribution of preferences for alternatives. Much attention is also paid to information, but only to direct information and not so much to frameworks for interpretation (see the next section). A large number of current theories in policy sciences can be characterized as cognitive approaches: cognitive maps (Axelrod 1976), frames (Schon 1983; Schon & Rein 1994), discourses (Dryzek 1987,1997), argumentation and the social construction of reality (Fischer 1995; Fischer & Forrester 1993; Milbrath 1993) and cultural theory (Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky 1990; Schwarz & Thompson 1990). Characteristic of these theories is that they all emphasize that the behavior of actors rests on their subjective interpretation of reality. Furthermore, this subjective interpretation is formed because observations of actors are given a place in frameworks of interpretation that provide meaning to these observations, but also distort them. From all the preceding theories, aspects have been taken and used to enrich the meaning of the five elements of governance as described next. A Model of Governance in Five Elements Based partly on the previous discussion and on a slightly more detailed representation of the specifications from the previously examined approaches, we arrive at the refined description of the five elements of the governance structure we have identified. In its shortest form, the governance model consists of five questions: Where? Who? What? How? and With what? A characteristic feature of modern governance systems is that they have many aspects: they are multilevel, multiactor, multifaceted, multi-instrumental, and multiresource-based. 1. Levels of g o v e r n a n c e Where?—Multilevel Which levels of governance dominate policy and the debate on conducting policy, and in which relations? What is the relation with the administrative levels of government? Who decides or influences such issues? How is the interaction between the various administrative levels arranged? 2. Actors in the policy n e t w o r k Who?—Multiactor How open is the policy arena in theory and practice, and to whom? Who is actually involved, and with what exactly? What is their position? What is the accepted role for government? Who has relevant ownership and use rights, or who are stakeholders in some other capacity (including policy-implementing organizations)? What is the structural inclination to cooperate among actors in the network?

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Are there actors among them who operate as process brokers or policy entrepreneurs? What is the position of the general public versus experts versus politicians?

3. Problem perception and objectives What?—Multifaceted What are the dominant maps of reality? What is seen as a problem, and how serious is this considered to be? What do people see as the causes of this problem? Is the problem considered to be a problem for individuals or for society as a whole? What values and other preferences are considered to be at stake? Which functions are allocated to the sector? Is the problem seen as a relatively new and challenging topic or as a topic in the management phase without much political salience? To what degree is uncertainty accepted? Where are the recognized points of intervention? What relationships with other policy fields are recognized as coordination topics? Which policy objectives are accepted? What are levels to which policy makers aspire (ambition) in absolute terms (level of standards) and relative terms (required changes in society)? 4. Strategy a n d i n s t r u m e n t s How?—Multi-instrumental Wrhich instruments belong to the policy strategy? What are the characteristics of these instruments? What are the target groups of the policy, and what is the timing of its application? How much flexibility do the instruments provide? To what extent are multiple and indirect routes to action used? Are changes in the ownership and use rights within the sector anticipated? To what extent do they provide incentives to learn? What requirements do they place on the availability of resources for implementation? 5 How are the costs and benefits of the policy distributed? 5. Responsibilities a n d resources for i m p l e m e n t a t i o n With what?—Multiresource-based Which organizations (including government organizations) are responsible for implementing the policy? What is the repertoire of standard reactions to challenges known to these organizations? What authority and other resources are made available to these organizations by the policy? With what restrictions?

In the next section, we examine the types of connections that can be expected between the five elements of the governance structure. CHANGING MODES OF GOVERNANCE In the following discussion, we explain how the multiscale aspect of governance is theoretically related to the other four elements of governance. Governance of sustainability, however, involves more than describing patterns of governance. Often it requires changes of the governance patterns. There is a certain logical relationship between our five elements of governance. It is easy to see why each previous element imposes harder or softer limitations on aspects of the following element. However, there is no a priori reason for thinking that the mutual influences between the elements are

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Table 4.1 Relationships between the Elements of Governance Influence Of:

Level

Network

Level

Continuation

Dominance of Dominant strongest actors paradigm has level implications

Network

Logical sequence

Continuation

Ambition

"Composition" of problems aspects

Logical sequence

Strategies

Mirroring the fragmentation of levels

The "Network Logical Instrumentation sequence model"

Resources

Dominance of strongest level

"Who gets what" games

Ambition

Strategies

Resources

Target group covenants are national

Implementation made (un)attractive

Fragmentation creates openness

Multilateral can lead to corporatism

Resources as motive for cooperation

Continuation

Solutions in search of a problem

Ambitions on the "Procrustus bed"of resources Making them "fit for use" (bottom up argument) Continuation

On:

Symbolic Allocation

Continuation

Logical sequence

restricted to this alone. In principle, the idea of mutual adjustment means that all five elements can influence all others in both directions. Table 4.1 summarizes these relationships. Only short statements or examples are given in the figure. First, we explain the premises behind these expected relationships. Then we elaborate on the influences that the level and scale aspect receives from and exerts on the other four elements of governance. Of course, there are various other theories besides mutual adjustment of elements of governance to explain stability and change (e.g., Lindblom 1959; Wildavsky 1982; Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky 1990; Hogwood & Peters 1983; Kingdon 1995 [1984]; Luhmann 1984; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith 1993, 1999; Baumgartner & Jones 1993). Some emphasize conflict; others, more gentle forms of adjustment. Some emphasize external shocks; others, internal dynamics. Some emphasize interactions between actors; others, confrontations or syntheses of visions. Nevertheless, in all these theories, despite their different emphases, a joint basic conception prevails: a fundamental assumption of more or less vulnerable equilibrium. As a consequence, they all share the idea that there is a tendency that the better a development in one aspect fits with the context of other aspects, the more likely the development is to continue. This doesn't lead to a static situation, however, because numerous external inputs fuel almost continuous change processes that seem so ubiquitous that their character as adaptation processes is almost hid-

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den. External change drivers will first affect one or more of the elements of governance that subsequently will evoke changes in all other elements, partly to encapsulate them and diminish their consequences (see Lindblom 1959). So we take up the familiar idea of mutual adaptation, this time not restricted to the adaptation of actors or interests in Lindblom's sense, but in a broader sense encompassing all the elements of governance we developed in the preceding section. The idea of mutual adjustment also offers the possibility of explaining differences between the situations in two or more countries (see Chapter 6 on the differences in governance in the field of groundwater protection and drinking water policy in Florida and the Netherlands). According to this idea, differences in external factors, for example, in geological and hydrological features, or in solidly grounded aspects of governance, such as the constitutional allocation of competencies to government authorities, will indirectly bring about a series of differences in (other) elements of governance. Premises The premises and mechanisms that lie at the heart of these relationships are as follows. 1. The best predictor of the status of an element in our model at a certain point in time is its status at an earlier moment. Each change takes energy and will not take place if the governance system is in balance. Only changes in other situations (within and outside the governance system and via the efforts of the actors) can bring about changes. This idea forms the basis for the five relationships in which an element influences itself, the so-called continuation relationships. 2. The elements in our earlier model form a limiting or determining context for later elements. Conducting policy between administrative levels activates networks primarily at these levels. Those participating in these policy networks give shape to the perception of the problem and the ambitions in the public debate and subsequently in the policy itself. These, in turn, are the focus of the discussion about policy strategies—because certain actors are considered to be a target group whereas others are not, and because certain intervention points in the policy field are utilized whereas others are not. The selected strategies and the required policy instruments, in turn, require the availability of an implementation structure and resources to make implementation possible (see also note 5). These ideas form the basis for the four logical order relationships. The five elements form a sort of cascade of influence. 3. This logical order of influence, however, is not the only way in which elements of the governance cascade can influence each other. In fact, we believe that all of the other 16 conceivable relations are possible, including the influence of elements mentioned later on earlier mentioned elements. All 25 relations should

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be considered because it is possible that the influence of the network on the instruments and strategy works via the influence of the former on the ambition etc. 4. All these relations promote the mutual adjustment of elements. Such adjustments will always have external sources, which may consist of (a) major social developments, such as demographic, cultural, economic, or physical (technological and spatial) developments, and (b) developments in other policy fields (Ligteringen 1998: 214-215 and following). 5. None of these mutual influences occur in and of themselves but need social interaction to bring them about. This implies that an adjustment may take place along three possible perspectives: objectives (desire, ultimate basis: values), information (knowledge, ultimate basis: cognition), and power (ability, ultimate basis: resources) of the actors involved in the interaction (Bressers 2001). The mechanism of mutual adjustment, distributed over the five elements of the governance system, will tend to make values consistent, to make cognitions fit better into a common framework for interpretation, and to make resources act to mutually facilitate the elements. Before we discuss each hypothesis separately, we examine the three perspectives of values, cognitions, and resources. Values, Cognitions, and Resources Why are objectives, information, and power (with values, cognition, and resources in the background) the useful perspectives when examining the relations between the five elements of the governance model? Because these elements are realized through social interaction. These three perspectives have proven exceptionally useful in explaining the dynamics of such processes. First, look at what is needed to make a simple object: making a chair requires the carpenter to have an object in mind, then expertise and also resources, such as tools and materials. In a multiple-actor process, goals also relate to the position relative to other actors as well as to information and resources (the last providing power). There is also a long tradition of thinking in terms of these perspectives (Bressers 1983: 352-382) and even a connection between the social science disciplines and the three perspectives just mentioned. This connection is partial, though, and relates to the core principles of these disciplines rather than to any details, making a distinction in principle between individual and social methods of considerations. The fundamental concept in economics is scarcity of resources and the decisions and bartering that result from this. In its classical version, the complexities of all other aspects (the social, cognitive, and value aspects) are reduced to assumptions of methodological individualism, complete information, and individual behavior that maximizes benefits. Because benefit cannot simply be equated with money, multiple objectives are

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Table 4.2 Perspectives of the Social Sciences Scientific Perspectives Resources (power)

Individual a. Choosing the greatest benefit

Social ___^ b. Those with most power can choose

Cognitions (information)

c. It is not the facts that are important but how what is observed is interpreted

d. Interpretations of reality are the product of social construction

Values (objectives)

e. People should want what is good

f. The limits to what is good are set by rules

formulated, for example, "bureaucrats strive to obtain as large a budget as possible." This is, in essence, an unethical and pragmatic premise. So, to sum up: "A: That which gives the greatest benefit will be chosen." In political science, the social aspect of the distribution of resources, and so the power of one actor over another, is emphasized. Reasoning, then, is about the question of who is going to dominate the field. To sum up: "B: Whoever has the most power is free to choose." Sociology is partly about understanding social problems, and psychology is partly about human skill in collecting and processing information. To sum up: "C: It is not the facts that are important, but how what is observed is interpreted." (Or: "What is believed to be real is real in its consequences.") Social psychology and communication sciences emphasize the transfer of information in mutual communication processes. Also, the role of information collection and processing is often emphasized in the process of making choices and power relations (and of the development of values). Also the "argumentative turn" in policy sciences (Fischer & Forrester 1993) fits largely into this track. To sum up: "D: Interpretations of reality are the product of a social construction." The value aspect is pivotal in ethics and other areas of philosophy. To sum up: "E: People should want what is good." Regarding normative social aspects, imposing values on others, for example, the whole community, we enter the domain of the law. To sum up: "F: The limits to what is good are set by rules." Of course, this characterization of perspectives (and certainly of associated disciplines) is too rudimentary when forced into a simple matrix like Table 4.2, because each scientific discipline can borrow elements from the other cells. In doing so, it is often clear that they reject some of their own principles and integrate some of the principles of other social sciences into their own set of considerations.

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All this illustrates the value of following these perspectives when a complete picture is required of the relations between social science concepts, such as the elements of the governance system we have identified. With this account of the power and significance of the three perspectives used in this chapter, we now formulate the assumptions and hypotheses used in this study. The influences that the five elements of governance exert on each other will promote their mutual adjustment in a governance system. Changes within a governance system occur because other "outside" factors, such as pressures to govern for sustainable development, alter characteristic features of one or more of the five elements and the other elements adjust themselves to this. These changes arise partly from the tendency toward mutual consistency of values among these elements if there are no disturbances from outside. Partly, changes arise from the tendency of actors to try to fit the cognitions that play a role into a common framework for interpretation if there are no disturbances from outside. And, partly, changes occur from interdependence on resources among these elements. In the next section, we specify the expected relations between the elements of governance using all three mechanisms at the same time. We limit ourselves to the influences arising from the level and scales aspect of governance. The Interaction between the Level and Scales Aspect and the Other Elements of Governance The influence of governance levels on the relevant actors in the policy network is logical because the relative importance of various levels translates in the multiscale setup into places to seek the relevant policy network^). The other four relations are examined in some more detail here, where the arrows in the headings represent a tendency for the second element named to adjust to the first. Level —> Problem and Ambition We can expect that values characterizing actors at a certain level of governance will influence the perception of a problem and the relevant policy ambition. At each level, most of the relevant values can be found, but the degree to which they are supported varies. So the dominant level influences how equality or balance between values is sought. From the cognitive perspective (interpretation frameworks), a problem will be perceived at the level from which it is viewed. The problem of waste, for example, looks different at the national level (e.g., safe processing) than at the local level (e.g., impact of waste processing plants). From the perspective of resources, the dominant level—as "owner" of the problem—will tend to conduct debate about the problem and policy

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ambition in terms of the relevance to that level. If there are other levels that have a strong position, this may lead to fragmentation of policy perception and ambition. In the end, the composition of aspects that play a role in the perception of the problem and policy ambition will be determined partly by the status of the various levels. For example, when the position of the European Union (EU) strengthened in the domain of energy policy, it became a problem not only of secure delivery and reduced environmental burden, but also of liberalizing domestically restricted markets. Level —» Strategies From the perspective of values, not many are linked to the selection of the administrative level, except the values held at the level at which a balance is desired (equality). The choice of strategy will reflect this. From the cognitive perspective, strategies will be developed primarily for dealing with the problem at the level at which the policy is being developed or at least from which there is a clear view of the problem. If governance is divided between a number of levels, policy strategies will be developed at more than one level. From the resources/dominance perspective, there will be a tendency to select policy strategies that do not threaten the distribution of responsibilities for developing policy at the various levels. In the end, the characteristics of the chosen strategies will to some degree reflect the distribution of responsibilities between the various levels. Negotiations with Dutch importers and producers of white goods failed at first because the sector was afraid that EU guidelines would change the deal. Also, the multinational parent companies were hoping that EU guidelines would be more relaxed than the evolving negotiated agreement and withdrew the sector's associating from the negotiations. When a regulation was installed fixing the (almost) negotiated deal, the sector embraced it nevertheless and thereafter tried to promote the Dutch solution to become the EU standard guideline; so both public and private governance were involved in an intricate multilevel game. Level —> Resources This concerns a big leap over the more step wise relations between these two elements. This means that there may not be much left for a direct influence of one element over the other. From the values perspective, an attempt will be made to create a balance, not only in the way the problem is tackled but also in the allocation of resources between the various subareas of the administrative levels.

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From the cognitive perspective, the allocation of resources will mainly reflect what the problem is perceived to be. From the resources perspective, the resources distributed will mainly be those that are available at the level concerned. When the Dutch government wanted to strengthen the implementation of environmental laws by the local authorities after several other attempts, it turned to providing these with very substantial additional money flows, because other approaches simply didn't work well enough. This was done even though some professional observers labeled it as "the one public authority bribing other authorities into obeying the law." Resources —> Level From a values perspective, we can expect the administrative level that gets the most resources, related to the problem domain, will feel most responsibility for the problem. From a cognitive perspective, we can expect the administrative level that gets the most resources to strengthen its own interpretation of the problem as one belonging primarily to that administrative level. From a resources perspective, we can expect that the administrative level that gets the most resources will, partly as a result of this, retain the strongest position. All in all, taking up responsibilities in the multilevel governance setup depends partially on the possibilities to gather the resources necessary for the action that is perceived as a consequence. Strategies —> Level From a values perspective, we can expect that the division of responsibilities between administrative levels associated with a particular strategy influences what people think about who should have these responsibilities, also concerning administrative level. From a cognitive perspective, we can expect that the strategy raises the level of knowledge of the problem and the possible responses mostly in the administrative level that has most to do. From a resources perspective, we can expect that the position of the administrative levels that have a more important role in the selected strategy will be strengthened relative to other levels. When the national level in Italy proved incapable of concluding negotiated arrangements because of various (self-)restrictions, the regional and local levels jumped into the gap by concluding a wealth of agreements taking over the initiative on various fields of the environmental problematic.

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Problem and Policy Ambition —» Level From a values perspective, we can expect that the way in which the problem is described has implications for the administrative level that ought to feel most responsible for the problem. From a cognitive perspective, we can expect a similar effect to occur regarding the question of what is considered to be the most suitable administrative level in the dominant paradigm, given the scale of the problems. From a resources perspective, we can expect that for a particular problem, a certain paradigm will strengthen or weaken the relative position of administrative levels in relation to the others. All these phenomena appear to be present in the Netherlands because of the rise of the National Environmental Policy Plan and the target group approach. These have strengthened the national level (at which most covenants are agreed) with respect to the provincial and local levels (where most of the licenses are issued and which carry out most of the enforcement duties). Network —> Level From a values perspective, we can expect that the dominant values of the actors in the network (as opposed to their own interests) can be relevant for the distribution of governance over the various levels. From a cognitive perspective, we can expect that the dominant policy vision of the actors in the network can be relevant for the distribution of governance over the various levels. From a resources perspective, we can expect that the dominant actors in the network will also influence the distribution of governance between the administrative levels and that this distribution will be a reflection of the relative position of the dominant actors. Scientific "epistemic" communities that are able to enter the policy network can have a considerable impact on the level where the problems are defined and measures are taken, for instance, to take the Mediterranean as an ecological unity (Haas 1990).

CONCLUSION: THREE MECHANISMS In this chapter, we have developed a model of governance to compare governance systems in different states or countries as they relate to a certain policy arena. We identified five elements of governance, one of which relates to the multilevel aspect. Moreover, we elaborated on change of governance patterns on the assumption that mutual adjustment will take place between the five elements of governance and that this mutual

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adjustment can be traced back to three internal mechanisms in the governance system. Changes in a governance system take place when outside factors intervene in one of the five elements of the governance system and the other elements adjust to this new situation. Differences between times or jurisdictions work consistently through the governance subsystem from one element to another. The first mechanism is that adjustment arises from the tendency of actors to act from a set of constant values. The second mechanism is that adjustment arises from the tendency of actors to use a common reference frame to interpret cognition. The third mechanism is that adjustment arises from the dependence of actors on each other's resources. Such dependence is clearly expressed in the demarcation of powers between administrative levels and between administrative actors. The analysis in this chapter has shown that "governance" involves more elements than policy objectives and the means to implement policy. These elements are not simply the sum of individual aspects but are closely linked. We have illustrated how these interrelations work, especially on the field of governance across social scales for achieving sustainable development. NOTES 1. A seventh school, not mentioned by Rhodes but discussed in numerous publications, is that of international governance. Within the field of international relations, it has long been usual to refer to the administrative relations within and between various international organizations and associations by the term governance. Many of these publications use the term without further explanation, suggesting an implicit meaning much the same as public administration (e.g., Marks et al. 1996; Hovden 2000; Jordan 2000). Other publications do make specific use of the term governance (e.g., Young 1994; Rosenau 2000), and these are assigned to the other categories depending on the meaning given to the concept. The first limitation on the way in which we use the term governance, therefore, is that we ignore its use in business administration, development studies, and international relations in so far as it simply means administration, or in any discussions outside the public administration or policy science disciplines. 2. Thus, the second limitation on the way we use the term governance is that we ignore the normative debate on the role of government authorities. 3. Although Young looks for the substance of governance in institutional arrangements, March and Olson (1995: 11) put thinking in terms of governance opposite the institutional perspective, as a consequence of the exchange perspective. For them, "the core artistry of governance is winning coalitions and policies." Clearly, we do not agree with either. 4. He also draws on Rhodes (2000: 60), citing: "Networks are the analytical heart of the notion of governance in the Study of Public Administration." One of the advantages ascribed to networks is that they are essential for learning processes (Knoepfel & Kissling-Naf 1998). Kickert (1997), in his overview of public

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governance in the Netherlands (and in his other work), pays much attention to network approaches. 5. For example, some systems of emission charges or tradable licenses may require so much information that it makes them almost impossible to apply. The fine-tuning of the instrument is very important in this respect, and can make the difference between an effective intervention and a dead end. 6. Compare, for instance, sustainability and residential environmental quality. 7. Which means both extra openness for some and closedness for others. 8. See Bressers 1998, Bressers & O'Toole 1998, Ligteringen 1999.

REFERENCES Allison, Graham T. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971. Arentsen, M. J. Beleidsorganisatie en beleidsuitvoering. Enschede: University of Twente, 1991. Arentsen, Maarten J., and Rolf W. Kiinneke. "Economic Organization and Liberalization of the Electricity Industry." Energy Policy 24:6, pp. 541-552,1996. Axelrod, Robert (ed.). Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976. Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Bjork, Peder, and Hans Johansson. Towards a Governance Theory: A State-Centric Approach. Paper presented at the annual IPSA Conference, Quebec, August 2000. Blomquist, William, and Edella Schlager. Watershed management from the ground up: Political Science and the explanation of Regional Government. Paper presented at APSA Atlanta, September 1999. Braybrooke, David, and Charles E. Lindblom. A Strategy of Decision. New York: Free Press, 1970 (1st ed. 1963). Bressers, Hans Th. A. "The Choice of Policy Instruments in Policy Networks." In B. Guy Peters and Frans K. M. van Nispen (eds.), Public Policy Instruments: Evaluating the Tools of Public Administration, pp. 85-105. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1998. Bressers, Hans Th. A. Implementation of Instruments for Sustainable Development. Paper presented at a conference on "Sustainable governance," Ronda, Spain, November 8-11, 2001. Bressers, Hans, and Mac Honigh. "A Comparative Approach to the Explanation of Policy Effects." International Social Science Journal 37:2, pp. 267-288, 1986. Bressers, Hans, Dave Huitema, and Stefan M. M. Kuks. "Policy Networks in Dutch Water Policy." Environmental Politics 3:4, pp. 24-51,1994. Bressers, Hans Th. A., and Stefan M. M. Kuks. The Agricultural Policy Network and Environmental Policy. Paper presented at the European Group of Public Administration Conference, Pisa, 1992. Bressers, Hans Th. A., and Stefan M. M. Kuks. "Governance patronen als verbreding van het beleidsbegrip." Beleidswetenschap (Policy Science) 15:1, pp. 76-103,2001.

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Bressers, Hans Th. A., Stefan M. M. Kuks, and Josee J. Ligteringen. "Participation at the Local Level in the Context of Environmental Governance." In Frans H. J. M. Coenen, Dave Huitema, and Laurence J. O'Toole (eds.), Participation and the Quality of Environmental Decision Making, pp. 47-60. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998. Bressers, Hans, Laurence J. OToole, Jr., and Jeremy Richardson. "Networks as Models of Analysis: Water Policy in a Comparative Perspective." Environmental Politics 3:4, pp. 1-23,1994. Bressers, Hans Th. A., and Walter A. Rosenbaum. "Innovation, Learning, and Environmental Policy: Overcoming 'A Plague of Uncertainties/" Policy Studies Journal 28:8, pp. 523-539, 2000. Bressers, J. Th. A. Beleidseffectiviteit en waterkwaliteitsbeleid, Enschede: University of Twente, 1983. Bressers, J. Th. A., and P-J. Klok. "Fundamentals for a Theory of Policy Instruments." International Journal of Social Economics 15:3/4, pp. 22-41,1988. Bressers, J. Th. A., and L. J. OToole, Jr. "The Selection of Policy Instruments: A Network-Based Perspective." Journal of Public Policy 3:3, pp. 213-239, 1998. Dror, Yezekel. Design for Policy Sciences. New York: Elsevier, 1971. Dryzek, John S. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Dryzek, John S. The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Feuger, H.J.M., and P-J. Klok. Policy Implementation and Institutional Rational Choice: Linking Instrumentation Theory and the Institutional Analysis and Design Framework. Paper presented at The Netherlands Institute of Governance (NIG) Conference, Enschede, November 2000. Fischer, Frank. Evaluating Public Policy. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1995. Fischer, Frank, and John Forrester (eds.). The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. Haas, Peter. Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Hogwood, B. W., and B. Guy Peters. Policy Dynamics. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1983. Hovden, Eivind. EU Environmental Governance and the Choice of Legal Base. Paper presented at the annual IPSA Confernence, Quebec, August 2000. Jordan, Andrew. The Politics of Multi-Level Environmental Governance: Subsidiarity and the EU Environmental Policy. Paper presented at the annual IPSA Conference, Quebec, August 2000. Kickert, Walter J. M. "Public Governance in the Netherlands: An Alternative to Anglo-American 'Managerialism.'" Public Administration 75 (Winter), pp. 731-752,1997. Kingdon, John. Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. New York: HarperCollins, 1995 (1st ed. 1984). Kiser, Larry, and Elinor Ostrom. "The Three Worlds of Action." In Elinor Ostrom (ed.), Strategies of Political Inquiry, pp. 179-222. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982. Klock, P-J. "Classification of Instruments for environmental Policy." In B. Dente (ed.), Environmental Policy in Search of New Instruments. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995.

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Klok, P-J. Een instrumententheorie voor milieubeleid. Enschede: University of Twente, 1991. Knoepfel, Peter, and Ingrid Kissling-Naf. "Social Learning in Policy Networks." Policy & Politics 26:3, pp. 343-367,1998. Kooiman, J. (ed.). "Modern Governance." New Governance-Society Interactions. Sage Publications, 1994. Kooiman, Jan. "Findings, Speculations and Recommendations." In Jan Kooiman (ed.), Modern Governance: New Government - Society Interactions, pp. 249-262. London: Sage, 1994. Kuks, Stefan M. M. "Verankering van de waterketen. Een beschouwing van de publieke taak in de watersector en de implicaties van marktwerking en ketengerichte samenwerking." In H. van Duivenboden, M. van Twist, M. Veldhuizen, and R. in 't Veld (eds.), Ketenmanagement in de publieke sector, pp. 71-89. Utrecht: Lemma, 2000. Ligteringen, Josee J. "The Effects of Public Policies on Household Metabolism." In Klaas Jan Noorman and Ton Schoot Uiterkamp (eds.), Green Households?: Domestic Consumers, Environment and Sustainability, pp. 212-235. London: Earthscan, 1998. Ligteringen, Josee J. The Feasibility of Dutch Environmental Policy Instruments. Enschede: Twente University Press, 1999. Lindblom, Charles E. "The Science of 'Muddling Through/" Public Administration Review, pp. 74-88,1959. Luhmann, Niklas. Soziale systeme. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984. Lundqvist, Lennart. "A Green Fist in a Velvet Glove: The Ecological State and Sustainable Development." Environmental Values, pp. 455-472, 2001. Lynn, Laurence E., Jr., Carolyn J. Heinrich, and Carolyn J. Hill. The Empirical Study of Governance: Theories, Models and Methods. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000a. Lynn, Laurence E., Jr., Carolyn J. Heinrich, and Carolyn J. Hill. "Studying Governance and Public Management: Challenges and Prospects." Journal of Public Administration and Theory 10 (April), pp. 233-261, 2000b. March, James G , and Johan P. Olson. Democratic Governance. New York, London: The Free Press, 1995. Marks, Gary, Fritz W. Scharpf, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Wolfgang Streck. Governance in the European Union. London, Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi: Sage, 1996. Milbrath, Lester W. "The World Is Releaming Its Story About How the World Works." In Sheldon Kamieniecki (ed.), Environmental Politics in the International Arena, New York: State University of New York Press: pp. 21-40. Albany. Milward, H. B., and K. G Provan. How Networks are Governed. Paper presented at the workshop on "Models and Methods for the Empirical Study of Governance," University of Arizona, April 29-May 1,1999. Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Ostrom, Elinor. "Institutional Rational Choice: An Assessment of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework." In Paul A. Sabatier (ed.), Theories of the Policy Process, pp. 35-72. Boulder: Westview, 1999.

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Young, Oran R. International Governance: Protecting the Environment in a Stateless Society. Ithaca, NY, London: Cornell University Press, 1994. Zahariadis, Nikolaos. "Ambiguity, Time, and Multiple Streams." In Paul A. Sabatier (ed.), Theories of the Policy Process, pp. 73-93. Boulder: Westview, 1999.

PART III

The Imperative for Multilevel Governance in Sustainable Development

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CHAPTER 5

Sustainable Development, Political Institutions, and Scales: The Management of Pacific Salmon /. Samuel Barkin and Cassandra Moseley

The effects of natural resource management and economic development often reach across a variety of political and geographic scales, ranging from the local to the international. If political institutions are to be effective at promoting sustainable development, they must address these scales. Over much of the twentieth century, U.S. policy makers, when faced with complicated problems of large-scale dimension, often envisioned a single institution that would comprehensively deal with the problem under a single rubric. These efforts have rarely accomplished their goals. Instead of creating clear, hierarchical systems of management, they often sink into a mire of shelved plans and angry citizens. More successful systems, it seems, have a complexity of organizations, agency authorities, and jurisdictions operating roughly in concert. Although inelegant, this sort of system seems to be frequently repeated in natural resource management regimes. Western water management, for example, includes a myriad of state, multistate, federal, and local agencies each playing a different and sometimes overlapping role in water delivery. Although this sort of confusion and failure might be attributed to the limitations of federalism, centralized and even authoritarian governments have often found comprehensive, complex economic development and natural resource management planning extremely challenging (Scott 1998). The key to successfully meeting this challenge is to be found in neither federalism nor centralization per se, but in efforts to get the scale right when undertaking natural resource management. In other words, the key is matching the scale of the political solution to the scale of the environmental problem. Our answer to the question of what sorts of institutions are necessary for sustainable management is a series of scale-appropriate institutions that

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are distinct yet connected across scales. A network of nested policy-making and implementing institutions could address the regulatory, distributive, and restorative dimensions of environmental management. Pacific salmon provide a useful case for illustrating issues of multiscale management because salmon cross local and international boundaries. Their life cycles include migrations of thousands of miles through vastly different habitats that operate at vastly different scales. Global weather patterns and the Pacific current of the El Nino, the conditions of a halfkilometer side channel, and a spawning bed a few meters across affect a salmon's productive and reproductive success. A wide variety of human activities reduce stocks. These include commercial ocean fishing, sport and ceremonial fishing in rivers, dams built for power generation and irrigation in spawning and migration rivers, removal of water from rivers for irrigation and drinking, channelization for housing development, gravel extraction, and forestry and farming that remove streamside vegetation and pollute spawning grounds. Successful salmon management requires that all of these threats be addressed—there is no point in breaching dams to allow salmon to spawn if the river is too polluted to support fish, or if all of the salmon have been harvested at sea. Addressing such a variety of human activities in compatible ways seems to require political institution^) to coordinate management. Our question is, What kind of institution^) will be most effective in doing so? SPATIAL CHALLENGES OF SALMON MANAGEMENT Despite the importance of the spatial attributes of salmon, management has largely been focused topically, on the fish themselves. Interrelations affecting salmon, most notably habitat, have been largely ignored. Whereas Northwesterners used to be able "to walk across the river on the backs of salmon/' present-day wild populations are less than five percent of pre-Columbian runs (Cone 1995). Salmon Life Cycles Salmonidae are a family with freshwater and anadromous fish species. Anadromous salmon spend part of their lives in freshwater and part in salt water.1 Salmon live at northern latitudes in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the streams that feed them. Rivers such as the Thames in Great Britain, the Connecticut in New England, and the Sacramento in California once had salmon populations. Today, salmon are largely restricted to the northern parts of their historical ranges; in the Atlantic, for example, to Ireland, Scotland, northern Europe, the Maritime Provinces of eastern Canada, and northern New England, and in the Pacific to Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, northern Russia, and Japan (Netboy 1974).

Table 5.1 Salmon Freshwater Habitat Water quality Temperature Dissolved oxygen Turbidity Nutrients Environmental contaminants Properties of flow Velocity Turbulence Discharge Geological and topographic features of stream and its valley Width and depth Streambed roughness Particle size composition Riffle and pool frequency Floodplain characteristics Cover Shading Interstitial hiding spaces Undercut banks and ledges Woody debris Aquatic vegetation Source: National Research Council, Upstream: Salmon and Society in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996), 164.

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In the Pacific Northwest (far northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia, for our purposes) and Alaska, seven species of anadromous salmon are prevalent. Each species has a distinct life cycle, spending a different amount of time in freshwater and salt water and making different use of those waters. Taken as a whole, salmon make varied use of the ocean and freshwater rivers and streams, and consequently require a wide variety of habitats over a large range. Some populations travel thousands of miles upstream to inland tributaries, whereas others remain in the lower reaches of rivers. This diversity of productive and reproductive strategies depends on high-quality habitat across a vast territory. Their productive and reproductive success is dependent on a wide range of ecological conditions, including the weather and ocean conditions over which humans have little control, and the inland freshwater river and riparian habitat and water quality /quantity. The freshwater habitat needs of salmon vary with the freshwater reproductive phase. Returning from the ocean, salmon first need to get upstream, which requires clear passage and adequate cool, unpolluted water. When they arrive at their natal spawning grounds, salmon need to find a gravel bed where they can deposit their eggs. This gravel bed must have rocks of appropriate size to protect the eggs through incubation, and later the hatchlings. Newly hatched fish need cool, clean water and places where they can hide out from predators in swift winter currents, as well as adequate food supplies. Juveniles ready to return to the ocean need a clear, rapid current flow that moves them quickly downstream. Estuaries and sloughs provide many species with additional rearing habitat and food before salmon move on to the open ocean. Table 5.1 summarizes generalized freshwater habitat needs. Because of these interrelated factors, even if we are concerned only with the maintenance of wild salmon populations, we must pay attention to a wide variety of natural and anthropogenic factors that affect salmon habitat and reproduction. We argue here that the most effective way to do so is to focus management at the natural scale appropriate to each factor. For example, attempts at managing the ocean fishery have been international and bilateral, between the United States and Canada. Unilateral and national management efforts have been notably less successful. And local or regional management of land-use policy has often been most successful at limiting runoff into rivers while generating both lower costs and less social strife than management by institutions at larger political scales. SCALE-APPROPRIATE INSTITUTIONS Specific aspects of a given environmental issue tend to dictate their own ideal management scale. The ideal scale is the smallest geographical region that encompasses a single management area for the aspect of the

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issue in question. For example, because Pacific salmon pass through the ocean territories of several countries and sometimes into international waters, managing salmon ocean fisheries is an inherently international problem. Many Pacific Northwest salmon stocks migrate a number of times across national jurisdictions, and often into the high seas. As such, purely national or local attempts at controlling the fishery are likely to fail. At the same time, however, salmon depend for reproduction on rivers and lakes that are not easily managed internationally. Managing the river systems in which the salmon spawn, on the other hand, can happen at a smaller scale. National management of individual rivers can be effective; a particular river can be successfully managed even if others in the Pacific Northwest are not. Subbasin management, however, is not likely to be as effective at addressing issues that involve the entire river environment. For example, breaching a dam upriver to allow salmon to swim through will be useless if a downriver dam still blocks fish passage. On the other hand, managing land-use policy, which involves regulating forestry and farming activities to prevent the excessive runoff of soil and pollutants into rivers, can often be quite effectively done locally. Salmon can spawn and hatch in a clear bit of river shallows even if much of the rest of the river is more polluted. There are two reasons why the smallest geographical region that encompasses a single management area for the aspect of the issue in question is the appropriate scale for management. The first is that it is a big enough scale to capture the entire issue in question and thus avoids free rider ship. If management is attempted at too small a scale, it creates classic commons problems. These are situations where the incentives for individual units of governance are to abuse the environment even though everybody knows that they would all be better off if nobody did so. At a larger political scale, national management of the Pacific salmon fishery creates a commons problem because each national authority has an economic incentive to allow overfishing while hoping that the national authority in the other country does not do so. This pattern of behavior has been seen repeatedly in this fishery, because the U.S. and Canadian governments, as well as the relevant state and provincial authorities, have shown more concern for the well-being of their own fishers than for the well-being of the fishery as a whole. At a smaller political scale, keeping rivers relatively clear to allow salmon to spawn requires that forests near their banks be protected. If different authorities reflecting different landuse communities manage the forests on opposite banks, each will have an incentive to leave too few trees and hope that the authority on the other bank will compensate. The way to avoid these sorts of free-rider problems is to keep all of the relevant actors within one management authority Once this free-rider problem has been overcome, there is no longer any benefit to deciding the specifics of regulation at larger scales. The second

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reason that the smallest geographic region that encompasses a single management area is the appropriate scale is that larger areas have negative returns to scale: they lose the advantages of local specificity without gaining comparable advantages in return. To use the same two examples, managing the Pacific and the Atlantic salmon fisheries with the same set of rules would be less effective than managing them individually because they deal with different species, fisheries with different characteristics, and so on, so rules that make sense for one will not necessarily make sense for the other. Similarly, a set of forest-use rules designed to protect the banks of one tributary of a river may be inappropriate to a different tributary with different flow characteristics, or in an area that is geologically different. Keeping management to the smallest scale that minimizes freerider problems is thus likely to yield both the most effective and the most efficient results. The greatest practical political problem that this creates is that existing political jurisdictions are often weakly correlated with the demands of environmental management. The federal government is too small in scale to effectively manage the salmon fishery, or even issues relating to the management of river basins such as the Columbia. In both cases, effective management requires that the U.S. and Canadian governments avoid free-rider logic. At the same time, the U.S. federal government is too large to manage such things as forestry and agriculture policy centrally, because both natural conditions and patterns of economic behavior differ substantially. The same story can be told of state- or provincial-level governments. They face, and have often succumbed to, free-rider logic in dealing with issues that cross their borders, but are too big to efficiently manage local-scale landuse policy. This suggests that effective management of multiscale environmental issues requires a willingness to design new institutions based on the demands of environmental scale, rather than on the scales of existing political institutions. The greatest danger facing this approach is that institutions will be created based on patterns of human usage and of economic activity, rather than on questions of environmental scale. For example, a hypothetical Columbia River Watershed Authority that is responsible for all issues appropriate to the watershed scale would be an institution created around the concept of environmental scale. The primary issues at that scale are river flow, meaning both the volume of water that flows through the river, and obstacles to its flow. The authority would thus be responsible for coordinating policy both on dams that obstruct the flow and on irrigation that diminishes it. This would require the authority to make conscious tradeoffs among various competing demands, both between environmental and economic interests, and among various specific environmental and economic interests. On the other hand, a Columbia River Power Authority (e.g., a Bonneville Power Administration) would be an institution based

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on an economic activity, rather than an environmental scale. It would therefore be much more prone to capture by the economic interests that it represents. This would complicate effective environmental management in two ways: (1) it would tend to dichotomize environmental and economic interests, making environmental management more prone to adversarial than cooperative dynamics, and (2) it would also make coordination of management institutions more difficult by requiring complicated networks of interscale as well as intrascale coordination. The greatest challenge facing this approach is coordinating the decisions and activities of all of these various kinds of institutions. This challenge can be minimized, however, by coordinating only as much as is necessary, and no more; the fewer needless complexities introduced into the coordination process, the more transparent the process of management as a whole. Transparency in turn reduces the costs and increases the functionality of cooperation. The focus of coordination should be on the activities of institutions across scales, not institutions operating at the same scales but in different geographic locations. Moreover, coordination should be as much as possible of ends rather than of means. The challenges of salmon management on the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada and the United States are useful for illustrating these distinctions. INTERSCALE A N D INTRASCALE COORDINATION Coordination across scales is necessary for the effective management of an inherently transscale ecological phenomenon such as the salmon of the Pacific Northwest, but coordination among authorities as the same scale is much less necessary For example, salmon can still spawn in a clean pond, even if the folks downriver have done less to keep their stretch of the river clean. The number of dams on the Columbia River has no effect on the reproduction of the salmon that spawn in the Fraser River. And the presence or absence of effective institutions to manage the Pacific salmon fishery has no bearing on the health of, say, the Atlantic salmon fisheries. Coordination across regions within a scale, therefore, is not particularly useful in and of itself. It is useful only as an aid to management at different ecological and political scales, either those more local or those more global. The key to the successful coordination of management across scales is the realization that what matters are ends, not means. Successful management of an issue at one scale provides the input, the prerequisite, to successful management at another. For example, successful fisheries management over the long term requires as a prerequisite the availability of spawning grounds, and the successful management of spawning grounds requires as a prerequisite that a sufficient number of the breeding stock has made it past the fishery. Because the coordination of management

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at different scales is about ensuring the availability of inputs to successful management at particular scales, what matters to this process of coordination is the output of management, not the process of management. In other words, what matters is the number and genetic diversity of fish that swim across scales, not what particular sets of loggers or fishers do. Furthermore, this coordination of output does not require coordination of process within scales. From the perspective of fisheries management, for example, it matters that the farmers in both the Spokane, Washington, and Kelowna, British Columbia, areas effectively limit the runoff of agricultural chemicals that will inhibit spawning, because both groups can affect the number of fish that make it out to sea. It does not matter, however, how they do it. The local political institutions can be completely different. So, coordination of ends is necessary, but coordination of means is not. But can operating at too large a scale do any harm? Yes, it can. We discussed earlier examples of institutions that failed because they were operating at an inappropriate scale. When the scale of the institution is too small for the issue, this failure results from a standard collective action problem. When the scale is too big, however, institutions often fail because they attempt to impose standardized solutions to problems. The more conditions change from one locality to the next, the more problematic standardized solutions will be. Coordination of means across institutions within a scale will have the same effect—it will impose solutions that may be right for one region on other regions where this may well not be true. A comprehensive forestry plan designed to protect rivers from runoff, for example, will not succeed if it adopts a standardized approach, because of the wide variety of tree and forest types that are logged near salmon habitats. A plan that calls for a set limit to allowable runoff but that allows local decision-making input into the best mechanism for achieving this target will likely be more successful. Intrascale coordination is thus potentially harmful, but intrascale communication can also be useful, and potentially quite important for successful management. Communication across ecologically distinct units at the same scale is not so much about the specifics of management at that particular scale as about providing information both within the scale and, collectively, to broader scales of management. Information sharing among organizations that are operating at roughly the same level of analysis can provide considerable developmental benefit. Although specific conditions will vary a great deal, entities operating at the same scale can benefit from high-quality, specific information about experiments, successes, and failures. These sorts of exchanges can go a long way toward preventing the continual reinvention of the wheel. It might be tempting to leave this sort of information sharing to agencies and institutions one level " u p " because these agencies and organizations tend to be in contact with multiple entities at other scales. For example, a

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state agency that deals with subbasin groups might be responsible for sharing information about how these groups seem to best form. Similarly, international fisheries commissions might provide venues for sharing of information about solving of national-level management dilemmas. The problem, however, is that when information sharing is mediated by institutions at a different scale, the information shared becomes infused with the needs of those institutions rather than the needs of the original scale. Thus, when state agencies provide information about how watershed councils most successfully operate, this information is framed by the interest that the state has in those watershed councils rather than in the particular problems and needs that the watershed groups face. Similarly, data gathering may well require standardization across entities at a particular level. The scale at which information is best gathered will vary considerably with the type of data. Stream temperatures, dissolved oxygen, and other localized river conditions may well be best gathered at the local level, whereas some information may be better gathered at larger scales using satellite information or photo reconnaissance, which is often inefficiently done locally. However, when information is acquired at one scale but used at another, data gathering needs to be coordinated so that the data can be used for planning at larger scales of analysis. Finally, entities at a particular scale also need to coordinate their communications efforts so that they can communicate their needs with broader scales of environmental management. For example, if salmon spawning data are collected and presented by various institutions at the appropriate scale in different ways, the cumulative meaning may be unclear to institutions at the scale at which fishery issues are dealt with. If overfishing is leaving too few fish to spawn, the coordination of communication within the former scale will mean that the point is made much more clearly at the latter scale. PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATION, LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION, A N D SALMON DECLINE To make our argument more concrete, we turn to a discussion of past management regimes for Pacific salmon, in the context of the Endangered Species Act's mandate that the U.S. federal government restore salmon runs. Undoubtedly, the causes of decline were complex, but topically oriented rather than spatially oriented management failed to slow the decline. In pre-Columbian North America, salmon was a central part of the diet of large populations of native peoples and a center of religious ceremonies in the Pacific Northwest. Annual catch fluctuated dramatically, especially for those who lived in the interior on the small tributaries, and people also hunted game and gathered roots and herbs. Early European explorers

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recorded with wonderment the abundance of salmon and the Native Americans who fished them. Quickly, European settlers began fishing salmon as well. Almost as soon as Europeans began to settle in the Northwest, conflicts over fishing rights developed between natives and settlers. Somewhat miraculously, in treaty negotiations between tribes and the United States, many tribes in the Puget Sound and the Columbia River basin managed to reserve their fishing rights and access to their usual and customary hunting and fishing grounds and were guaranteed half of the fish in those areas (Cohen 1986). European settlers quickly realized the commercial potential of the salmon, and the first cannery opened on the Columbia in 1866. By the 1880s, salmon canning had made Astoria, a port town on the mouth of the Columbia, into an international trade center. Chinese immigrants made up much of the cannery workforce, and Scandinavian and Finnish immigrants fished, mostly in the Columbia and close to the coast. Conflicts arose over access as the populations of fishers grew and those of fish declined. The canning boom peaked in 1883 and then began to decline. By 1896, the canning industry was in crisis with labor disputes, strikes, and violence. The boom was soon over, but canning continued on a small scale for decades (Cone 1995). Efforts to restore and maintain salmon populations followed the typical topic-based pattern of Progressive-Era conservationism. 2 That is, fisheries management focused almost exclusively on managing the number of fish in the rivers and ocean through regulating harvest and, later, by reproducing favored fish species artificially. Beginning in the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth, government entities sought to maintain fish populations by regulating access to fisheries. State governments, in particular, limited the types of equipment that fishers could use, where and when they could fish, and sometimes the number of fish they could catch. Regulations tended to favor European fishing methods and technologies over Native American and Asian ones. When those harvest regulations failed, state and federal fish and game agencies began to build hatcheries to supplement populations. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, for example, not only supplemented native populations but also introduced exotic species, often highly prized sport and commercial species from other parts of the country. Its goal was to maximize the available production of species valued for commercial or sport use over the long haul. Fisheries managers focused on fish and ignored habitat. A few people foretold the decline of salmon as a result of habitat destruction, but their voices went unheard as agencies became segmented and topically focused (Moseley 1999, 244-253). At the same time that salmon stocks faced persistent pressures from the commercial fishery, independent economic development and government-

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led, large-scale conservation projects dramatically altered the landscape, particularly in the United States. Livestock transformed rivers by eating and trampling streamside vegetation. Irrigators removed water, creating false current that sent fish into farmers7 fields and heating water to temperatures lethal to the cold-water salmon. Mining dumped sediment and heavy metal into water, clouding the water, smothering redds (gravel beds with salmon eggs in them), and reducing the small hiding spaces behind rocks for hatchlings and fingerlings. Topically organized federal and state government agencies also contributed to salmon decline. The Army Corps of Engineers built irrigation and flood control dams and dikes and channelized rivers all over the West, blocking fish passage and simplifying stream morphology. During the 1930s, the Army Corps began to build huge hydroelectric and irrigation dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. These dams turned the "mighty Columbia" into a series of slack water pools providing inexpensive hydroelectric power and transportation. But for salmon, these dams blocked passage both upstream and down, with some dams killing as many as 10 percent of the fish that passed through them. For salmon that had to pass through 8 or 10 of these dams, survival rates were low indeed. To mitigate fish losses from the dams, the Army Corps began to build fish hatcheries on the Columbia River. Here again, however, a topically based approach prevailed, and failed. Worrying only about numbers of fish, the Corps built most of its dams in the lower Columbia. Wild salmon populations continued to decline until, in 1990, wild salmon were at 3 percent of their historical abundance. As fish continued to decline and river management became more centralized and artificial, chronic conflicts grew between tribal, commercial, and sport fishers, irrigators, ranchers, environmentalists, power generators, and energyintensive industries such as aluminum smelters (Moseley 1999, 242-248). We have treated salmon management using Progressive-Era conservationist principles. We measured the health of salmon populations primarily by counting the number of fish and sought to maintain those populations by restricting harvest. This approach focused management largely at a single scale or at a couple of scales. As important, this approach separated related dynamics operating at different scales. Clearly, traditional conservation has failed, and another approach is necessary. We now turn to the task of outlining a generalized way in which a management system that attends to scale might operate. MULTISCALE NETWORKS A N D PACIFIC SALMON Because topically based Progressive conservation has failed to maintain wild salmon biodiversity, what might a more spatial approach look like? The organization of this management is probably best understood as a network of nested subsets, with the largest being the entire range of

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Table 5.2 Nested Subsets for Salmon Management General Category

Example

Ocean and mainland

Entire range of Pacific Salmon

Coast and watersheds

Eastern Rim of the Pacific Salmon Range

Geologic province or bioregion

Klamath Province Evolutionary Significant Unit

Basin and estuary

Rogue River basin and estuary

Watershed

Applegate River Watershed

Subwatershed

Little Applegate River Watershed

Drainage

Sterling Creek Drainage

Reach

Stream Reach (river miles 7 to 10)

Property

Martha Janowalski property

Pacific salmon and the smallest being a stream reach and individual property owner. 3 In between are ecologically logical sets of basins, then single basins, watersheds, and subwatersheds. Each place will have a different logical set of nestings; some places may have more and some fewer. Table 5.2 lists the components of a logical nesting with the smallest components located in southwest Oregon. An immediate challenge is how these subsets should be divided. Do we use watershed boundaries, ranges for keystone species, climatic zones, human cultural boundaries, or any of a number of different criteria that we can imagine? Although ecologists agree that spatial organization is important, they do not agree about how best to draw boundaries or even if boundaries can be drawn at all. Quite the contrary, many ecologists question the whole notion of boundary drawing, because even if we can find evidence of nested organization, these nested subsets overlap in complicated ways. Instead, all we can hope to do is create boundaries that maximize ecological coherence at each level and minimize collective action problems. But we need to recognize that we will have to pay attention to flows between adjacent patches of ground or water at the same scale. Moreover, we have to acknowledge that patches at every scale (even when we are waving a magic wand) are ultimately determined socially.

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That is, we choose this set of nested patches and not that one because of the predominant current concerns. Yes, we can choose some sets of scales and patches that make more sense than others, but tradeoffs are always being made. It could be argued that in the Pacific Northwest, organizing scales and patches around salmon is relatively sensible because salmon act as a keystone species in the Northwest, and their demand for anthropogenically undisturbed, high-quality habitat means that providing for salmon will lead to the provision of the needs of other difficult-to-satisfy species. Because salmon are waterborne, managing them encourages watershed-based organization. But if the central social issue were saving spotted owls or Pacific salamanders and salmon did not exist, other types of patches might make more sense. Even though watershed organization does make a lot of sense for the Northwest, it will miss some ecologically important dynamics, and sometimes overlapping patches will have to be created. For example, along the California/Oregon border, salmon management is of major concern. Midlevel patches have come to be organized along subwatershed and watershed lines. However, it so happens that the mountain crest just along the border is a biodiversity hot spot. Because of the importance of this region for biodiversity throughout the Northwest, the region requires not only patches that connect uplands and lowlands as salmon-focused patches do, but also additional, overlapping patches that unify the crests of the mountain range. Thus, the size, location, and scaling of patches will be specific to particular regions, and to the challenges and concerns that people have identified for these places. With this caveat about attempts to create perfect patches, let us turn to the example of creating scaled management for salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Natural resource management has a large number of components: goal setting, planning, implementation, data gathering and monitoring, assessment and reevaluation (see Figure 5.1). These components should occur in a circular and continuous fashion. However, they will not be best implemented at a single scale; instead, each cycle requires action at different scales. For example, goal setting will happen at higher scales, whereas implementation will happen at lower scales. In general, higher levels should do more goal setting, whereas middle levels will do more planning, rule creation, and analysis and lower levels will tend to implement and collect data to be passed back up the chain for analysis. This is not to argue, however, that goal setting happens only at the highest level. Instead, each level will have to set goals appropriate for that scale that will be implemented at lower scales. At each level, institutions develop goals related to the issues most appropriately addressed at their level, and implement regulations and projects that stem from goals and decisions created at a higher level. Data should flow in the other direction. They should be collected at the lowest level feasible and then aggregated at a

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Figure 5.1 Management and Scale Goal Setting

/ Planning

Evaluation

t Monitoring

1f

Implementation

higher level to identify larger trends and cumulative effects of lower-level actions. Analyses should be done at higher levels and passed back down to lower levels to influence decisions there. This sort of approach is currently being tried in Oregon. In the mid1990s, when the State of Oregon realized that the federal government was about to list several salmon species as threatened or endangered, the governor and his natural resource policy advisors began to develop a plan to reorganize salmon management spatially. In what came to be known as the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds, the state developed a strategy to organize salmon management through a series of nested evolutionarily significant units and watersheds (State of Oregon 2000). The focus of the plan was the coastal watersheds within the state, a set of biologically and logistically reasonable patches. Oregon could not abolish state boundaries or, really, abolish existing topically based regulatory agencies. Instead, through the Oregon Plan, the state has been reorganizing its agencies to work spatially and to coordinate with other agencies operating within the same geographical unit. Moreover, the project brings local government and private citizens into goal setting, planning, and management, monitoring, and assessment at spatially appropriate levels. Instead of attempting to do everything though state-level agencies, much of the planning, monitoring, and implementation occurs at the local level, in basins, watersheds, and subwatersheds. For example, in the Rogue basin in southwest Oregon, eight watershed councils manage restoration in eight watersheds. Within several of these watersheds, subgroups undertake intensive subwatershed-level planning, and then involve private landowners in implementation and monitoring. State agencies coordinate among themselves at the basin level and

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provide technical assistance and regulatory guidelines to watershed councils operating at the smaller scales level. The Rogue Basin Steering Committee, made up of local government and watershed councils, addresses basinwide issues. Monitoring and data-gathering protocols are developed at the state and basin levels and then implemented by watershed council staff, participant landowners, and volunteers. The data are used at the watershed council level to evaluate the effectiveness of local-level restoration projects and then provided up-scale to evaluate the effectiveness of the Oregon Plan on salmon and watershed health. Spatially, one central challenge for Oregon is the logical geographic province (one level up from the Rogue basin) for the southern Oregon salmon runs; it is split between California and Oregon. Oregon has attempted to coordinate with California, but the institutional cultures and political realities of the two states are quite different. Collective action problems between the two states are serious. Realistically, the Oregon/ California border is not going to disappear. Instead, Oregon, California, and relevant near boundary agencies must coordinate to solve issues that need attention at the level of a transpolitical boundary patch. Oregon can thus be seen as doing a fairly good job of nesting institutions for those scales that can be found within its geographical boundaries. It has improved environmental management by being willing to devolve environmental decision making and policy implementation to those scales where it is most appropriate. Oregon, however, has shown much less willingness to relinquish authority over issues that can be managed successfully only at broader geopolitical scales. For example, salmon fishing quotas, for reasons discussed here, can be set effectively only at the broadest scale, encompassing the entire Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Yet the federal structure of the United States gives authority over coastal fishing quotas to the states, and efforts by the U.S. government to coordinate quotas with the Canadian government have often been undermined by state attempts to get the best deal for their own salmon fisheries (Barkin 1999). Until state governments, including that of Oregon, are willing to relinquish authority, when required, to political institutions of a broader, as well as smaller, scale, local management efforts will be less than entirely successful. CONCLUSIONS If Pacific salmon are a good guide, the appropriate metaphor for the design of political institutions to manage sustainable development is a nested network rather than a hierarchy. The management of specific issues, along with the implementation of management policy, is best done at the smallest scale within which the proximate issues can be contained without creating a collective action problem. The management of broader issues requires leadership and coordination in the setting of targets, prior-

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ities, and so forth. However, it does not require the coordination of specific management mechanisms across management institutions, either within or across scales. In other words, the broader political institutions charged with governing sustainable development need to concern themselves with strategy, but they undermine their own efforts when they concern themselves with tactics. A nested network is one in which vertical links involve the coordination of goals, of outputs, and of information, whereas horizontal links involve the sharing of information about processes, but not the coordination of processes. The example of Oregon and the management of Pacific salmon suggests that the metaphor of nested networks is a difficult one to emulate. In many ways, Oregon is an easy case: It has a political culture conducive to transparency and the devolution of authority and a population more sensitized than most to the demands of environmental management. Yet even there, although devolution where appropriate has often been successful, the state government has been unwilling to relinquish formal authority over issues best managed at scales not geographically encompassed by the state. Successful environmental management requires a greater flexibility in existing political structures, to allow for management at the appropriate scales, without igniting concern by governments that they are undermining their constitutional authority. NOTES 1. The American eel is also anadromous, but it spawns in salt water and lives in freshwater. 2. For conservation, the Progressive Era was the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when people such as Gifford Pinchot fought for government management of natural resources. Conservationists believed that the government was best suited to develop and manage natural resources such as forests and water because it would not be driven by profit motives the way corporations were but rather would be able to focus on the greatest good for the greatest number (Hays 1959; Moseley 1999). 3. A reach is a stretch of stream that has similar characteristics. For example, a reach might be a few kilometers of pool and riffles between two waterfalls. REFERENCES Barkin, J. Samuel. Information, Institutions, and Domestic Politics. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, 1999. Cohen, Fay G. Treaties on Trial: The Continuing Controversy over Northzvest Indian Fishing Rights. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1986. Cone, Joseph. A Common Fate: Endangered Salmon and the People of the Pacific Northwest. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.

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Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959. Moseley, Cassandra. New Ideas, Old Institutions: Environment, Community, and State in the Pacific Northwest. Doctoral Dissertation, Yale University, 1999. Netboy, Anthony The Salmon: Their Fight for Survival. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1974. Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. State of Oregon, Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds. Internet. . Last visited February 1, 2000.

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CHAPTER 6

Managing Water Resources in Florida and the Netherlands: The Impact of National Orientations on Multiscale Governance Stefan M. M. Kuks and Hans Th. A. Bressers

INTRODUCTION The notion of governance is receiving increasing attention in public administration and policy sciences. For comparative policy studies in different states, countries, or periods, it is no longer sufficient to understand a policy sector only in terms of the policy content (goals and instruments). The same applies to understanding the context of policy making and implementation. Public authorities and target groups, as well their actions and interactions, are influenced by the administrative capacity available for policy implementation, the different problem perceptions at stake, the positions and links of actors in policy networks or arenas, and the relations between the different administrative levels involved. A Governance Model In Chapter 4, we developed a model of governance to facilitate comparative research on governance systems. We identified five elements of governance: levels of governance, actors in the policy network, problem perception and objectives, strategy and instruments, and responsibilities and resources for implementation. Moreover, we assumed that mutual adjustment will take place between the five elements of governance and that this mutual adjustment can be traced back to three internal mechanisms (secondary assumptions) in the governance system. The first mechanism (secondary assumption) is that adjustment arises from the tendency of actors to act from a set of constant values. The second mechanism (secondary assumption) is that adjustment arises from the tendency of actors

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to use a common frame of reference to interpret cognition. The third mechanism (secondary assumption) is that adjustment arises from the dependence of actors on each other's resources. Changes in a governance system take place when outside factors intervene in one of the five elements of the governance system and the other elements adjust to this new situation. In this chapter, we apply this model to compare the governance systems for groundwater and drinking water protection in Florida and the Netherlands. Specifically, we look at protection against nitrate and pesticides used in agriculture and that, via the groundwater, can cause contamination of the drinking water supply. We ask to what extent different states with similar policy problems develop a similar policy response, to what extent there may be striking differences, and how these differences can be explained by the mechanisms that determine a governance system. 1 Comparing Florida and the Netherlands The problems underlying groundwater and drinking water policies in both states display a number of similarities. First, both Florida and the Netherlands make significant use of groundwater for drinking water. In Florida, groundwater provides about 90 percent of all the drinking water; in the Netherlands, the proportion is about 66 percent, but in the north, east, and south of the country, almost 90 percent of drinking water originates underground. Second, the groundwater systems are vulnerable on a large scale, particularly the shallow groundwater. In Florida, this is because the aquifers are covered by a layer of porous limestone or limestone with faults, fractures, voids, and stream sinks ("karst"), or because the surface strata consist mainly of sandy soils (the Central Ridge, which stretches lengthwise through the middle of Florida). In the Netherlands, the groundwater systems in the east and south are most vulnerable; here the upper layers of groundwater lie under porous sandy soils. In both Florida and the Netherlands, the deeper aquifers are better protected. A third similarity is that the supply of drinking water depends on highly vulnerable groundwater systems threatened to a high degree by diffuse sources of contamination from intensive agricultural systems, in particular the application of nitrates and pesticides for crop protection. In Florida, the nitrates are applied as artificial fertilizers; in the Netherlands, the nitrates originate from animal manure spread on the fields. This manure is mainly a by-product of the intensive livestock farms in these areas, which usually have little arable land. This results in the tendency to spread excessive amounts of manure on the land. The arable crops are mostly animal fodder (such as maize). In Florida, the groundwater systems are threatened not by intensive livestock farming but by intensive fertilization and use of pesticides on citrus fruits, fruit and vegetable crops, and tree

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and fern nurseries. Arable farming is big business in Florida, just as the intensive livestock farms are in the Netherlands. There are more striking similarities between Florida and the Netherlands, too. Although they differ considerably in size (Florida is more than four times bigger than the Netherlands), they have roughly the same number of inhabitants (about 15 million). Although the average population density in Florida is about 100 per km 2 (in the Netherlands, it is more than 400 per km 2 ), the Floridian population is concentrated mainly in the coastal areas, where 70 percent of the people live. This part of the population is highly environmentally aware, which distinguishes Florida within the United States. A comparison of states made in 1987 placed Florida seventh in "commitment to environmental protection"; the state placed eighth in the same survey conducted in 1988 (Ridley 1987; Sapowith & Ridley 1988). In both years, the environmental performance of American states was assessed on the basis of their environmental programs. Florida scored particularly well in the area of groundwater programs but barely passed on reducing pesticide contamination. The Netherlands also has a reputation for a high environmental awareness and for well-developed environmental programs. The Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan of 1988 was the first example in the world of an integrated national environmental plan. In both states, a powerful agricultural policy community is also politically influential. Furthermore, both states have a special relationship with water issues, and groundwater plays a crucial role in the functioning of their ecosystems. The growth of public awareness of groundwater as an issue and the issue's rise on the political agenda took place in both the Netherlands and Florida beginning in the 1980s, and led within a period of 10 years (1985-1995) to the development of detailed policy programs and legislation. At the regional level, water management has been institutionalized and democratized similarly in both states (water management districts in Florida and water boards in the Netherlands) under a form of management (functional democracy) that can be considered quite unique internationally. MULTILEVEL GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT IN FLORIDA A N D THE NETHERLANDS We now use our governance model to analyze our cases and examine the tenability of our assumptions. Specifically, we examine protection against pollution of the groundwater by nitrates and pesticides used in agriculture. This issue can be broken down into a number of linked subproblems, whereby the fourth precedes the third, the third the second, and the second the first—a chain of interlocking problems. The first subproblem is that contaminated drinking water can damage the health of the consumer. The second subproblem, which precedes this, is the entry of contaminated groundwater into the drinking water supply system. The

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third subproblem, which precedes the second, is the contamination of groundwater by a certain form of agricultural land use. And finally, the fourth subproblem, the root cause of all this, is that the type of agricultural production pursued requires certain substances in certain concentrations that become problematic when they leach into the groundwater. In principle, a policy response can be devised to address each of the four subproblems in either country, and each subproblem can be an intervention point for policy. The further down the problem chain a policy is applied, the more effect-oriented (or end-of-pipe) it is considered; policy is more source-oriented the earlier in the problem chain it is applied. The first intervention point revolves around the consumption of drinking water and protecting the consumer using quality standards. The second intervention point revolves around the production and distribution of drinking water, as well as promoting better management of the source and supply of drinking water. The third intervention point revolves around land use (application of pesticides and nitrates), as well as the protection of groundwater against contamination through water quality standards and liability for the type of land use. The fourth intervention point revolves around farm management and promoting better agricultural practices, as well as the production and distribution of pesticides and nitrates. We use these four intervention points as a basis for comparing Florida and the Netherlands as states and also to compare the five elements of governance separately for each intervention point. For each topic, we begin by analyzing the extent to which there is a difference in the distribution of governance between the various scale levels. Taking this difference as our starting point, we examine which differences in other elements of governance are related to this. Quality Standards for Drinking Water and the Purification of Groundwater Regarding quality standards for drinking water and the purification of groundwater, governance over different administrative levels is in many respects the same in both areas. Scale Levels Both the U.S. government and the European Union (EU) impose minimum standards for the quality of drinking water. These standards are comparable, and global experts, particularly from the World Health Organization (WHO), have played an important role in developing them. In translating these standards to the level of the state (Florida and the Netherlands), there have been no great differences either. In both states, the standards are applied to the drinking water companies.

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However, there is a big difference in the way the water companies in each state operate, with important consequences for the pattern of governance. In the Netherlands, all water supply companies have sufficient public support for using a variety of sources of water and, eventually, for making use of advanced water purification techniques so that meeting the standards for drinking water quality is not problematic—at least not in the short term—as long as people are prepared to pay considerably more for their water. In Florida, a distinction has to be made between urban and rural areas. The urban areas are served by large water companies, but in the rural areas, most drinking water is supplied by very small companies, or is entirely decentralized in the hands of small groups of end users; in contrast, the largest water companies in the Netherlands are found in the rural areas. Because of the decentralized production of drinking water in the Florida countryside, it is often impossible to meet stricter quality standards by mixing water from different sources or turning to alternative sources. As a result, the quality standards are not always met. Consequences The consequences of the quality standards not always being met in Florida are not to be found in the first instance in the network of actors. We have already seen that within the relevant network, the same type of key actors, including the global WHO, are playing a dominant role. But there are recognizable, clear consequences for the perception of the problem and policy ambition. Because in Florida, meeting the quality standards cannot be guaranteed in all cases, the public debate has stressed the health risks to consumers. It is also seen as a current issue, not a future threat. This perception has been strengthened by revelations from outside the governance system in the form of incidents of contaminated drinking water that have attracted much media attention. In contrast, in the Netherlands, there is hardly any such concern. The water supply companies do make a case for a preventive approach to dealing with groundwater contamination by predictions that a number of wells will become unsuitable if pollution of the groundwater continues unchanged (Bressers, Huitema, & Kuks 1994: 34). The companies have been successful in getting this problem on the political agenda as one of sustainability rather than of public health. This contrasting perception of the problem has also led to different ambitions regarding policy objectives, which in the Dutch case is no longer targeted at the consumers of groundwater but at the polluters. Of course, the contrasting perception of the problem also had consequences for the strategies followed and the policy instruments used. In the Netherlands, the perception of the problem has led to great emphasis on preventive measures geared toward restricting further contamination of the groundwater. Indirectly, there have also been consequences for the

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network because in a number of cases, their initiative has given the water companies a role in the implementation of this preventive policy. In fact, this policy relates to the next two issues, and is not discussed further here. In Florida, however, part of the strategy has been to fit additional filters at the wells not meeting the quality standards, particularly where pesticides are the main cause of the contamination. Regarding the responsibilities and resources for implementation, based on the information supplied by the counties, Florida's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) itself visits the water supplier to fit the required equipment. The financial and information costs of this strategy are very high; money and time are insufficient for a systematic monitoring of small-scale drinking water supply systems. This issue is not unique to Florida, and has motivated the federal government to establish a subsidy program to encourage improvements in the quality of small-scale drinking water supplies. Although this involves no formal shift in competence between administrative levels, it nevertheless indicates growing activism at the federal level. Background Why have large water companies become established in the rural areas in the Netherlands but not in Florida? We begin with an aspect that lies outside the governance model: the geographical and demographic circumstances. Although Florida is relatively densely populated by U.S. standards, the Florida countryside is considerably more sparsely populated than areas considered rural in the Netherlands. This rural quality is further heightened because a large part of the Florida population lives in the big cities of Miami, Tampa/St. Petersburg, and Jacksonville. As a result, it is much more common for small communities and some individual farms to be so far from water mains that connection would be prohibitively expensive. We return again to the actors in the network. Since 1975, the Dutch provinces have assumed an active role in a series of water company mergers (Bressers, Huitema, & Kuks 1994: 30-31). One reason was the belief that bigger companies would be more able than the many previous small companies to guarantee a high standard of drinking water. The provinces derived their authority to stimulate such mergers partly from private law, as shareholders in the companies. The provinces were also able to influence the water companies in which municipalities held shares through their supervisory role over the municipalities. However, the role of the provinces was mainly to take the initiative and to lead the way in meetings between the parties involved. If a government authority were to assume such a supervisory over a business sector in Florida, it would probably not be readily accepted. In addition to the generally lower level of tolerance toward government authority in the United States than in Europe, and certainly in the Netherlands, perhaps the perception of the problem also plays a role. More

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so than in the Netherlands, many people living in the rural areas of Florida believe that groundwater, by definition, is "purer" than water that has been subjected to all sorts of industrial treatment. Preventing Contaminated Groundwater from Being Used in the Drinking Water Supply Scale Levels In this respect, the federal/EU level hardly plays a role in either state. In both states, there is a system whereby water source protection zones are defined in relation to the supply of drinking water. In the Netherlands, this task is carried out by the provinces, and these protection zones must be reflected in municipal land-use plans. In Florida, the five Water Management Districts (WMDs) are responsible for delineation of vulnerable areas together with the counties, which visit the small supply systems and advise the WMDs. Generally, there appears to be no significant difference between Florida and the Netherlands regarding the division of responsibilities at the various administrative levels. In both cases, the lower level has quite an important but secondary task, and the emphasis lies with the intermediate level between the state and the local community. The consequences of identifying areas, though, are different in the two states: in the Netherlands, this leads to additional restrictions designed to protect the quality of the groundwater; in Florida, this leads to extra restrictions on the use of groundwater. There may be no objective difference in the distribution of multilevel governance between the various administrative levels in both states, but there is a subjective one. In the Netherlands, it is considered quite normal to draw up physical plans and designate special areas for groundwater protection at the national level, in outline at least, and then to specify these further at the provincial level and finally to complete them in detail at the local level. The distribution of multilevel governance regarding the designation of groundwater protection areas fits into this picture. In Florida, however, the more or less equal division of responsibilities between the various administrative levels is seen as a step toward more centralized control. Here, the basic approach is not top down, but bottom up. In principle, all responsibilities lie at the local level, and interference by higher administrative levels is generally considered inappropriate. Background Considering the actors in the network, local administrators have to allow increasing influence from the state and the WMDs. Local administrators and local water suppliers in the countryside may not be happy, but the urban administrations and the large drinking water companies accept it.

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The explanation for this lies in the perception of the problem, particularly the interplay between the water quality and quantity aspects. The enormous growth of the cities, all on the coast, makes the principle untenable that every local community takes care of meeting its own water needs. Withdrawing groundwater to supply drinking water to urban areas along the coast would quickly lead to falling water tables and intrusion of salt water. To prevent salinization of the groundwater, it is important to be able to import water from inland areas to supply the coastal cities. The import of water requires coordination at a level higher than the local administrations (i.e., coordination at state level) and an approach based on water system boundaries (i.e., implementation by the five large WMDs). Coordination at a higher administrative level is in the interests of both the big cities and the continuity of the larger urban water companies. Emissions to the Groundwater and Restrictions Placed on Agricultural Activities Scale Levels Here we focus initially on contamination by nitrates. At the state level, both Florida and the Netherlands have quality standards for groundwater. However, there is an important difference: In the Netherlands, nitrate standards are imposed by the EU and can be enforced by the EU. The Netherlands is obligated to implement these standards and to verify that they are being enforced. In Florida, the drinking water quality standards have been adopted voluntarily. However, the U.S. government is not so silent when it comes to contamination by pesticides. Consequences The difference in setting nitrate standards in the United States and the Netherlands has repercussions for the relations between actors who represent the interests of the environment and those who represent the interests of farmers. In the Netherlands, the environmental movement and other actors who defend environmental interests in the national debate can always fall back on externally fixed standards. Those opposing firm measures are forced to make a strong case that more lenient measures can also achieve the stated goal. It proved almost impossible to depart from the goal itself once European standards had been introduced. In Florida, representatives from the farming community were not bound by such limitations because the standards were set at their "own" state level and so could be relaxed. This brings us to problem perception and policy ambition. Because there is little influence from environmental groups, certainly regarding nitrates in

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groundwater, occasional excessive use of fertilizers in Florida is not seen primarily as a problem of pollution by farmers but rather as a question of sensible business management. As a consequence, restrictions on emissions do not readily spring to mind when setting policy objectives. In terms of strategy and instruments, this has not resulted in the imposition of emission standards on farmers in Florida the way it has in the Netherlands; instead, Florida has a curious instrument called the "curative liability." This means that if it can be proven that the levels of nitrate in the groundwater are too high as a result of the activities of one or more individual farmers, these farmers can be held liable for the damage. However, it is enormously difficult, in many cases impossible, to trace such cause-effect relationships back to individual farmers. In effect, this policy requires such a high level of resources to implement (information a n d / o r money) that it is generally impossible to apply to cases of nitrate pollution in the groundwater. In practice, therefore, it is a very weak instrument for changing farming practices, and is a mere formality. Background If we look into the background for the passive role adopted by U.S. federal administrators regarding the emission of nitrates, we quickly come to the different development stages and metapolicies (transcending the groundwater protection and other policy areas) in the United States and the EU during the 1980s. In the United States, the Reaganite "New Federalism" set out to push back the authority of government, particularly at the federal level; similar developments took place in Europe mainly at the level of the nation-state. At the EU level, there was an expansive European Commission at work under the strong leadership of Jacques Delors, who was quite successful in encouraging further integration within the European Union. Despite similarities of content, the European principle of subsidiarity is not a counterpart to New Federalism. The principle of subsidiarity is less an expression of firm resolve for decentralization by the "federal" level itself than a (soft) brake on the integration process, and it was introduced from the bottom up by the member states. At the EU level, there is still a powerful majority in the European Parliament, the European civil service, and the Commission for further integration. Regarding the network of actors, the environmental movement in most American states is in a structurally weaker position than in the Netherlands, particularly when issues other than nature and human health are at stake. The absence of a federal standard for nitrate concentrations in the groundwater reinforces this inequality in this specific case. A similar situation can also be observed regarding the perception of the problem and the policy ambition. Placing restrictions on the use of private

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property is a much more sensitive issue in the United States than in the Netherlands. In the United States, private property is more than an economic concept that reflects certain benefits and disadvantages; it also has an ideological side. Another aspect that influences perception of the problem within the governance system is that overfertilization with nitrate in the Netherlands is a consequence of the need to get rid of waste (manure). In the United States, at least in Florida, it is the consequence of the overabundant supply of nutrients to plants. This is much less readily regarded as an act of pollution than dumping manure on the land, which, quite apart from the objective environmental consequences, smells more like pollution in the minds of the general public. A D O M I N A N T MULTILEVEL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FLORIDA A N D THE NETHERLANDS If we survey the numerous differences between Florida and the Netherlands in the policy arenas we have investigated, the question arises whether there is a dominant difference between the governance structures of the two states that binds together a number of observed differences. In this section, we examine a cluster of three differences concerning the multilevel aspect. First, we examine the role of central and decentralized government levels in land use decisions, because groundwater protection has to affect farming practices on agricultural land. Second, we examine what kind of intervention strategy is used to regulate farming practices. Finally, we examine the position of the environment department in both states and its control capacity to intervene in the agricultural sector. Regulation of Land Use: Local versus Centralized Decision Making In the United States, protection of groundwater against agricultural pollution is seen primarily as a responsibility of the lower levels of administration. In this respect, great importance is attached to the autonomy of the states and local authorities (Rosenbaum 1995; Cahn 1995). Measures to protect the groundwater often relate directly to the nature of the land use, and because land-use decision making is seen to be the exclusive domain of the lower levels of government, the federal government is reluctant to take any direct action. It is extremely rare for the federal government to directly prohibit the use of a land parcel for a particular purpose; such interference is politically unacceptable to many people (Portney 1992). This reluctance may be explained partly by the philosophy of New Federalism that brought about a decentralization of government tasks under the Reagan administration during the 1980s. In many other countries, it was during the 1980s that national legislation for soil and groundwater protection was

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introduced (a policy field given a basis in law somewhat later than many other environmental sectors), whereas in the United States, the New Federalism was able to hold off similar developments. This reluctance to legislate for groundwater protection can even be found in Florida's state legislation. However, that reluctance may also be partly explained by a lack of state authority to control land use, a topic we return to later. There is no such reluctance in the field of drinking water quality and protection of surface water, but regulations in these areas have far fewer direct consequences for the ownership rights of individual citizens. At the federal level, the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) creates the basis for setting quality standards for drinking water. The Clean Water Act (1977) sets a number of quality standards on discharges to surface waters. Florida has a much longer tradition of legislation to protect water quality.2 Although the Florida legislature has always amended its own water legislation to keep it in agreement with federal legislation, the state has also acted early on its own responsibilities. In an attempt to classify the U.S. states according to their degree of state institutional capacity to absorb decentralized programs and the degree of state dependence on federal grants designed to support environmental programs, Davis and Lester (1989) assigned Florida to the group of states that "have developed strong institutional capabilities and are not heavily dependent upon federal aid for implementing state environmental programs. In this instance, states rely on their own fiscal resources, political institutions and state policy formulation in the environmental area. They have established themselves as leaders in the environmental sphere and have often enacted environmental standards that exceed national standards" (Davis & Lester 1989). If we compare the federal level of government in the United States with that of the EU, one clear difference is that the EU (and its forerunner, the European Economic Commission [EEC]) has issued directives on water policy that the member states are compelled to implement in their own national legislation within a certain period of time. Here, too, these directives are directed primarily at maintaining the quality of drinking and surface water in the Union. 3 However, the EU took a clearly different path from the United States in 1991 when the Nitrate Directive was issued. The purpose of this directive is to reduce water pollution by the application and storage of inorganic fertilizers and manure on farmland. It is aimed at both safeguarding drinking water supplies and preventing wider ecological damage in the form of eutrophication of freshwater and marine waters in general (Haigh 1992). With this directive, the EU not only takes on the regulation of farmland at the supranational level, but adds the argument that such regulation, besides safeguarding the quality of drinking water, also serves wider ecological interests. If we compare the Netherlands as a member of the EU with the position of Florida previously described, we see a clear similarity in that the Nether-

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lands has not waited for European initiatives, but has developed its own legislation on water quality at an early stage. The Netherlands, like Florida, has adopted a proactive stance over the years. 4 But here, too, a substantial difference between the two states arose in 1987, when the Soil Protection Act came into force in the Netherlands. This act regulates the quality of the groundwater, not only to protect water resources used for the supply of drinking water, but also to secure wider ecological protection. Moreover, this act allows restrictions to be placed on the use of farmland in the form of a set of fertilization standards. The intention is to implement the EU Nitrate Directive at the national level through these fertilization standards. And this is the fundamental difference with the situation in Florida, where both the federal and state authorities have no opportunity to regulate the use of farmland in order to protect groundwater quality. In the United States, government decisions that affect farming practices, such as land-use decisions, are by definition sensitive. The Florida legislation contains principles that grant freedom to adopt agricultural practices as long as they do not lead to contamination of the "common waters" beyond the permitted standards. The state can intervene only when agricultural pollution of the "common waters" occurs. Even then, individual farmers can be held liable only if this pollution can be traced back to them. Although there is no right to pollute, farmers may not be hindered in running their farms. As long as farmers adhere to "best management practices" and follow the instructions on the pesticide packaging, they are indemnified against liability for any damage. The Florida Right-To-Farm Act (823.14, Florida Statutes) even restricts nuisance suits against farmers by providing that no farm will constitute a public or private nuisance after one year of operation, if it was not a nuisance when established. 5 Our conclusion is that there is a substantial difference between Florida and the Netherlands regarding the possibilities created for centralized regulation of farmland and farming practices intended to protect groundwater quality. We now examine to what extent evidence supports this conclusion. In doing this, we delve deeper into some of the issues touched upon in the second section of the chapter. Regulation of Target Groups: Specific versus Generic Legislation The main feature of the groundwater protection policy in the Netherlands is that in 1987, generic national legislation was introduced that prescribes the amount of nitrate that may be applied to agricultural land. In 1989, generic national standards on nitrate applications were supplemented by regional generic standards (created by the provinces) that apply to groundwater protection areas. These standards define the maximum amount of manure that may be spread onto agricultural land,

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depending on the type of farmland in question. The standards are expressed in kilograms of phosphate per hectare per year, and different standards apply to three types of land: arable land for maize cultivation, grassland, and other arable land. Initially, the standards covered only phosphate, but in the 1990s, nitrogen standards were also introduced. A feature of the Dutch policy, therefore, is the choice of a generic regulation with limited differentiation according to geographic and hydrological conditions; this is seen to be a way of treating farmers equally in law. This policy takes into account three environmental problems that stem from the same source: (1) the emission of ammonia from manure spread on the land, which contributes to acidification of the environment; (2) leaching of phosphates from manure spread on the land into ditches, which results in the eutrophication of surface waters; and (3) leaching of nitrogen from manure into the groundwater, which leads eventually to nitrate levels in excess of the quality standard. Nitrate standards for drinking water form part of the argument for setting these manure standards. In the Netherlands, therefore, the standard for nitrate in drinking water not only applies to the suppliers of drinking water, but also forms the basis for a set of generic standards that place restrictions on agricultural practices (Kuks 1998a, 1998b). It is characteristic for groundwater protection policy in Florida that no similar generic standards exist. The state of Florida, on its own initiative and without pressure from the federal government, has translated the nitrate standard for drinking water into an equally stringent nitrate standard for groundwater covering the whole state. This is comparable to the EU directive covering nitrate in groundwater, which is applicable to the whole of the Netherlands (and the shallow groundwater zones). But the scope of this standard goes no further than a generic environmental quality standard, with no direct consequences for individual farms. It may appear that Florida has chosen a much more generic policy than the Netherlands, but the Florida standard can be made operational only by legally demonstrating that emissions from an individual farm are responsible for excessive levels of nitrate in the groundwater. Proving a direct link is very difficult, because it is almost impossible to demonstrate that certain concentrations of nitrate in groundwater are due to leaching from specific sources. But a more fundamental feature of the policy is that the standard implicitly differentiates between specific conditions on each individual farm. Nitrate from any one farm becomes a problem only after the local soil and hydrological conditions have done their work. This is not the only example of a regulation in which specific conditions are expressly taken into account; it illustrates a much wider tendency within Florida governance in the field of groundwater protection. This has several significant implications. The first implication concerns the way monitoring data on groundwater quality are used. In an evaluation of the Ground Water Quality Monitoring

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Program, which has been running since 1983, DeHan found: "Since the publication in 1992 of the report on data collected between 1984 and 1988, there has not been a written analysis of data collected since that time. The program currently does not have solid strategies for developing a summary report on each monitoring cycle that would aid, especially the nontechnical users in making decisions" (Dettan 1995:-). It has not been possible, therefore, to draw any policy-relevant conclusions from the data collected. "The 1984-1988 sampling cycle identified 18,861 instances where contaminant levels exceeded water quality standards. Although this figure represents only 2.5 per cent of incidents documented (thus indicating a 'good 7 background water quality), the program does not have the strategies to trace these contaminants to their sources or to track their movement and fate." This means that only the bare facts have been registered, without any conclusions about the source or the effects of the detected contamination. When considering the level of funding, the authority that commissioned the program was not aware of the limited results that could be achieved with the money available. 6 Also, licensing authorities do not make use of the data generated by the monitoring program because the data do not make a sufficient link to the source of the pollution and because the monitoring program focuses primarily on the deep groundwater. 7 The author of the report concludes that "data will have to be extremely site-specific and source specific to be of any use to regulatory (permitting) or policy decisions by local, regional or state agencies" because it would be too easy to mount a legal challenge to a land-use decision. 8 A second implication, concerning pesticide policy, illustrates the tendency in Florida to take more account of specific circumstances in its regulation of policy target groups than the Netherlands. We should first note that the way in which pesticides are approved for use (on the market) in Florida and the Netherlands is roughly the same. However, in the Netherlands, an additional policy was introduced by the Multi-Year Crop Protection Plan in the form of a voluntary agreement, or covenant, with the agricultural sector. The settlement aims at a decrease in the structural dependence on pesticides for crop protection and a general reduction in the use of pesticides. Besides these generic goals, the plan contains more specific objectives for the year 2015. First, the overall use of pesticides has to be reduced by 50 percent by 2000 (compared with the amount used in 1987). Second, harmful pesticides must be removed from use. 9 In fact, pesticides with the potential to leach into the groundwater must be reviewed for reregistration. It has been left to the sector itself to determine how to reach these goals (Kuks 1998a). In Florida, such a generic approach geared to banning pesticides or achieving a general reduction in the use of pesticides does not seem feasible. In an interview by the first author, the senior civil servant responsible for the pesticides policy from the agriculture

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department (DACS) in Florida observed: "We shy away from a percentage in reduction. The numbers don't say something about a reduction in risk. With the variety in commodities you have a big variety in crops. It is more important to work on several risk reductions. There are a lot of variables that we can't control, and that is influencing the effects. There is never one overall best management practice." In short, the pesticide regulations make distinctions according to the crop and type of application. Instead of generic goals for pesticide reduction, a holistic approach has been chosen in the form of integrated pest management geared to safer use, but not a ban on pesticides. A third implication emphasizes Florida's tendency to take more account of specific circumstances than occurs in the Netherlands. This concerns the decision to regulate nitrates in covenants with the agricultural sector that define best management practices (BMPs). These covenants are made with the target groups and signed by the departments involved (DACS for agriculture, DEP for environment, DHRS for public health), the relevant commodity groups (organizations that represent specific agricultural sectors), and the Florida Farm Bureau as general representative of the agricultural sector. The basis for these covenants is the Nitrate Bill, introduced in 1993 (adding Chapter 576 to the Florida Fertilizer Law). When individual farms sign a BMP covenant, they agree to comply with best management practices in exchange for exemption from liability for any groundwater pollution originating from their farm. In effect, the farmers receive a "waiver of liability" in return for a commitment that does not place any firm restrictions on farming practices, but is intended to bring about the most effective possible use of nitrates and pesticides by the farmers. Detailed specifications for achieving this are drawn up first in the form of separate documents for each farm type (citrus growing, fruit and vegetables, ferns, and so on). Within each BMP, there are further opportunities to elaborate to suit individual farms and specific soil conditions. An attempt was also made in the Netherlands to prevent any further tightening of the nutrient standards, which were actually needed in order to meet the requirements of the EU Nitrate Directive. A system of nutrient accounting was introduced in which farms attempt to reduce the application of nutrients through more efficient farming practices, but the EU considered that this system relied too much on intent rather than on results, and consequently found it to be inadequate (Kuks 1998a). The Position of the Environment Department: Weak versus Strong Political Commitment We originally proposed that there is a dominant difference between Florida and the Netherlands regarding centrally regulated agricultural use of the land and farming practices to protect groundwater quality. We

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have made the case that in Florida, there is a greater tendency to draw up regulations for specific conditions than to establish generic measures. The assumption is that centralized regulation goes hand in hand with generic measures. In this section, we expand in a different direction on our original proposition: we argue that environment departments in Florida and the Netherlands have different political positions and, consequently, differ in their ability to control events. In the Netherlands, the environment and agriculture ministries have long operated independently of each other. The environment ministry tried to get the manure problem onto the political agenda in the 1970s, but didn't succeed until 1984. Until then, the agricultural sector, working closely with the agriculture ministry and farmers' representatives in key political positions in an "iron triangle," could ignore the problem. However, the Dutch agriculture ministry had recognized the problem much earlier and had attempted to prepare draft legislation with cooperation from its own natural constituency, while expressly keeping the environment ministry out of the discussions. Meanwhile, the environment ministry was preparing its own manure legislation as part of new integral soil protection act. When both ministries proposed their own draft legislation, political pressure was put on them to work together. In 1982, a strong political figure was appointed as the new environmental minister. He gave his ministry considerable political clout, and from that time, the environmental issue was tackled more as a management issue, and the environment ministry developed a more cooperative attitude toward the target groups in society. Partly because of this, the two ministries were able to reach a compromise in 1984 in which they agreed to continue both legislative processes but to link them together. From that moment, the environment ministry developed the Soil Protection Act, which formed the basis for the standards concerning the application of manure on agricultural land to protect the soil and, indirectly, the air, surface waters, the groundwater, and, ultimately, drinking water. The agriculture ministry developed the Manure Act, which was primarily geared to dealing with the surplus manure that would result from these application standards. The act also contained preventive measures based on innovative agricultural practices designed to reduce the amount of manure produced. Both laws were passed in 1986, and from that moment, the level of cooperation between the two ministries has grown. Both ministries have created departments to further shape cooperation between environment and agriculture through a series of detailed discussions. From 1984, the environment ministry (VROM) has gained and held a position from which it can exert increasing influence over environmental legislation aimed at the agricultural sector. Moreover, agriculture has come under increasing pressure from the environmental legislation. In 1995, this resulted in both the agriculture and the environ-

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ment ministries forcing the livestock farming sector to reduce the volume of manure it produces (Kuks 1998a). Florida in the same period experienced growing cooperation between the environmental department (Department of Environmental Regulation, DER, after 1993 called Department of Environmental Protection, DEP) and the agricultural department (Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, DACS). Like the Netherlands, this cooperation in Florida originates from an authority conflict, in the first instance regarding not the regulation of nitrates but rather the regulation of pesticides. In 1982, officials discovered that drinking water wells had been contaminated by the commonly used pesticide Temik. These discoveries led the state's Commissioner of Agriculture to ban use of the pesticide temporarily. In the summer of 1983, more drinking water wells were discovered to be contaminated by a pesticide called EDB (ethylene dibromide), a substance in common and extensive use for at least 20 years, even by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services itself, as a nematocide in commercial citrus groves. Again, the Commissioner of Agriculture was stirred to action and banned use of the chemical. The Florida legislature addressed many of these pesticide problems in the Water Quality Assurance Act of 1983, which was conceived to assure to the greatest extent possible the future protection of the quality of Florida's water resources. The Water Quality Assurance Act (WQAA) gave the environmental department almost $120 million, principally for the creation of new programs to help preserve the quality of the state's waters. It created within the department more than 100 new positions and the need to promulgate scores of new rules to interpret new statutory language (Fernald & Patton 1985). The WQAA gave DACS primary authority for review and regulation of pesticides, with DEP relegated to a reviewand-comment role. DACS became the state leading agency for pesticide regulation, 10 and a Bureau for Pesticides was established at DACS. Also, a nine-member Pesticide Review Council was created within DACS and charged with reviewing data on restricted-use pesticides that are presently registered in the state, and reviewing all applications for registration of restricted-use pesticides. Procedures were established for requiring field testing of restricted-use pesticides in Florida under criteria developed by the state. The final determination of whether a restricteduse pesticide should be registered in Florida lies with DACS (Olexa & Carricker 1992). In the meantime, DEP reacted to the highly visible issue of pesticide discoveries in groundwater by creating a pesticides section. At that time, questions were asked, by both DACS and the industry, about DEP's jurisdiction on pesticides and agrochemicals in general. DEP countered that it (not DACS) was responsible for water quality deterioration by contaminants, to which DACS responded that pesticides and fertilizers were beneficial products, not contaminants, and that contamination

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results only from misuse for which they were solely responsible. DACS felt that DEP's need for involvement in agricultural issues could be satisfied by DEP membership on the Pesticides Review Council (PRC) (DeHan 1995). In 1985, this provoked both departments to sign a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding on how to deal commonly with pesticide issues, making it possible for DACS to use DEP's authority (DEP is collecting data, and the regulatory part is turned over to DACS).11 The same sort of process happened after discoveries around 1989 of unacceptable levels of nitrates in groundwater. DEP wanted to create a database on nitrate contamination in an effort to prepare regulations to minimize the impact of nitrates on drinking water quality. DEP could use its authority to delineate areas with groundwater contamination where consumptive water use would be subjected to permitting by the five regional water management districts (WMDs). DACS, on the other hand, fearing too much control over the nitrates issue by DEP, wanted to assert its own authority on basis of the existing Fertilizer's Act. However, this act didn't provide a basis for regulation of nitrates. In 1992, an Agriculture Water Policy Group was created within DACS to handle nitrates issues and to establish a focal point for cooperation with DEP and the WMDs. Although DEP remained statutorily responsible for exercising oversight over the WMDs, DACS got unofficially involved in the control over the WMDs from this moment on. A high official of DEP, responsible for dealing with the WMDs, even moved to the office of the Commissioner of Agriculture to continue the same kind of work in another department. In 1993, the Nitrate Bill, added as a new chapter to the Fertilizer's Act, placed the statutory responsibility for fertilizer regulation, like the responsibility for pesticide regulation, in the hands of DACS. So, DACS also became the leading state agency for that. The Nitrate Bill made it possible for farmers to agree on so-called best management practices for their farms in order to get a waiver of liability for unacceptable levels of nitrate emissions (coming from their farming practices) to groundwater. The Nitrate Bill also established more involvement for the WMDs, by creating a participatory role for them in the Pesticides Review Council. In 1994, the Office of Water Policy was established at DACS close to the Commissioner, to have a more formal basis for reviewing the role WMDs are playing in agricultural issues. Also in 1994, the rivalry between DEP and DACS on nitrates issues resulted in another Memorandum of Mutual Understanding on how to deal with nitrate BMPs. Both departments agreed on implementation of the Nitrate Bill through voluntary agreements with farmers (prepared through negotiations with farmer commodity groups and developed on the basis of research), allowing farmers to choose between a liability for groundwater emissions (leaving the burden of proof to DEP) and a waiver of liability together with BMPs; DEP offers the waiver of liability, and DACS implements the BMP-program.

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Comparing the Florida and Dutch cases, there seems to be a remarkable difference of political interest in an effective groundwater protection policy at the state or national level. Especially if we look at the position and control capacity of both environmental departments, it is clear that the Dutch department (VROM) obtained a much stronger position in regulating farming practices for groundwater protection reasons, whereas in Florida, DEP's role is much more restricted. There are at least four explanations for this weaker position. First, the political attention given to pesticides in the early 1980s and the passage of the Water Quality Assurance Act (WQAA) in 1983 was driven by bad publicity about Florida's pollution problems, including embarrassing stories in Time and Sports Illustrated.12 Several politicians saw opportunities in such public attention and quickly associated themselves with the movement for environmental action. In contrast to the legislature's overwhelming support for the WQAA itself, there was deep disagreement over how to fund the law. Although 1983 was "the year of water quality," funding from general revenues could easily be cut back in following years, when the legislature's attention focused on other hot issues. After 1983, there were few dramatic, visible disasters to keep the issue in the spotlight, and other pressing public issues—drugs and crime, for example—drew media attention in subsequent years (Williams & Matheny 1995). Although the WQAA has strengthened DEP's position as the state's leading agency for drinking water issues, the act appeared to be a symbolic gesture by the Florida legislature. Only temporary budgets for monitoring activities were provided, and the WQAA was headed mostly for cleanup activities, not so much for preventive policies and not at all for a prevention-oriented regulatory approach. In the United States, political attention for environmental control is often driven by media attention. Many states lack the technical resources to develop numerical standards for groundwater contaminants and, instead, depend on evidence of environmental damage or public health risks before acting to control these substances (Rosenbaum 1995). Also, Cahn (1995) thinks that as a result of high public anxiety over water pollution, policy elites have marketed water policy as bold regulation, satisfying public demand, though the policies themselves are problematic: enforcement is feeble and discretionary, standards are weak, and only a fraction of waterborne pollutants are monitored.13 In Florida, the creation of a pesticides section in DEP in response to publicity surges caused by aldicarb, and later on by EDB, is regarded as an example of management by crisis abatement instead of planning (DeHan 1995). Second, nitrates didn't get the media attention given to pesticides. Pesticides seem to be more threatening to people, and most of the concern has been about dangerous and badly managed pesticides, whereas nitrates seem relatively innocuous. The nitrates issue also came up in a different

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context (separate statutes, separate programs). For example, there is no federal vehicle for nitrate regulation, like the one for pesticides, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), or the nitrate directive for groundwater in the EU. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, DEP was also struggling with its regulatory image: many people (especially farmers) in Florida were sick of public regulations, the get-off-my-back syndrome. DEP was desperately seeking nonregulatory actions and preferred voluntary programs. Therefore, DEP felt itself dependent on DACS for getting a fertilizer policy accepted by the farming community. 14 Third, even though DEP is statutorily responsible for exercising oversight of the WMDs, the department is faced with the political and financial reality of WMD independence. The WMDs started as early as 1984 on the issue of nutrients as a result of the SWIM Act (Surface Water Improvement and Management Act). Since that time, they have been a principal agency in management of surface water and land use; every agricultural operation that expands has to have a permit from a water management district. Thus, a very clear distribution of authority has grown through the years, in which DEP and the WMDs are both natural-resource oriented, but with DEP's authority restricted to regulating water quality, whereas the WMDs regulate on-site operations, such as water well construction, water use, and land use. Only DACS (because it is industry oriented) is entitled to regulate farming operations. With this distribution of authorities, it is very hard for DEP to prove cases of groundwater contamination caused by farming practices. Even for the delineation of contaminated areas, with the purpose of preventing consumption by residents of contaminated water, DEP is dependent on the WMDs. Centralization of the authorities attributed to the lower administrative levels is still controversial, both in respect to whether the WMDs are taking over authority that has been originally in the hands of the counties and whether the state is taking over authority originally in the hands of the WMDs. 15 A fourth indication of Florida DEP's weaker political position concerns institutional imagery. Although the department is rather proactive in developing environmental policy programs compared to other U.S. states, and has a good record in developing environmental policy programs compared to other U.S. states, DEP's image seems to be that it doesn't believe in cost share or incentive programs; that it strongly prefers regulatory policies, although it lacks the requisite funding sources and staff; that it is occupied with paperwork; and that it is more concerned with domestic and industrial waste. DEP has a bad image, especially among farmers, because it allegedly prefers traditional regulatory and enforcement policies. The lack of financial means for implementation (as we described before) also creates relatively lower salaries and lower status for DEP employees, compared to similar positions in neighboring states (Alabama and Georgia) as well as to similar positions of county or city environmen-

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tal officials. We also noticed already that the department lacks a commissioner or cabinet officer to make it more politically influential. CONCLUSION: THREE METHODS BY WHICH THE DOMINANT METHOD TAKES EFFECT In addition to a number of clear similarities regarding the distribution of governance between the various administrative levels, we have seen dominant differences between Florida and the Netherlands regarding the possibilities for central regulation of agricultural land use and farming practices to protect the quality of the groundwater. In the United States and Florida, land-use decisions are primarily seen as belonging within the competence of the lowest, or most local, tier of government (counties and municipalities). The federal government and the state of Florida have hardly any influence over land-use decisions, but at the regional level, the growing restrictions being placed on land use by the water management districts are controversial. In contrast, we have seen that there is active intervention from the center in groundwater protection issues in the EU and the Netherlands, involving restrictions on the use of agricultural land and on farming practices. In Florida, intervention from the center is permitted only to the agriculture department and then only with incentives, not restrictions (through the use of voluntary agreements on best management practices). The environment department can achieve something in the agricultural sector only if it adheres closely to the structures of the agriculture department. In contrast, over the years, the agriculture ministry in the Netherlands has had to defer to the environment ministry and has gradually accepted restrictive measures imposed on farmers, despite the presence of an influential agriculture lobby in the Netherlands, as in Florida. The Dutch environment ministry receives much more political support and guidance than the environment department in Florida. In Florida, the environment department's powers are limited primarily to setting quality standards for drinking water and, in cooperation with the water management districts, to delineating vulnerable water abstraction areas. The environment department has been able to strengthen its position in this policy arena in relation to the agriculture department mainly because of a number of major incidents of groundwater contamination during the 1980s. These attracted much media attention and threatened the image of Florida's main tourist attraction, its undamaged and exceptionally varied wetland ecosystems. The public demand for action following these incidents, however, resulted in partly symbolic policy: a temporary financial injection for monitoring activities and a curative policy response (cleanup program). Little in the way of preventive policy came out of it. We also saw how the centralized approach in Florida is hampered by a fragmented water supply system, with many individual

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and small-scale drinking water suppliers. This situation has led to a policy in the first instance geared to implementing curative measures to protect public health and much less concerned with preventive measures. Moreover, centralization of water management in Florida, in which the autonomy of the counties is restricted by the water management districts and that of the water management districts by the state, is controversial. Because all the water-supply systems in the Netherlands are large in scale, more attention is paid to safeguarding water resources for the future, and so the policy has a preventive character. We also noticed that in Florida, there is a tendency for regulations to be highly specific to certain conditions and, in contrast with the Netherlands, generic measures are avoided. A tendency toward a centralized approach seems to be a crucial difference between Florida and the Netherlands. This difference manifests consistently not only through the governance subsystem at each of the four intervention points, but also within a governance system from one element to another. This suggests a feature that typically leads to adjustment between elements of a governance system, thus giving that system a genetic imprint. It is also interesting to examine which mechanisms are at work during this process. We stated that our main assumption rested on three secondary assumptions. The first assumption is that adjustment arises from the tendency of actors to act from a set of constant values. In Florida, this mechanism relates primarily to the value placed on freedom; the equivalent in the Netherlands is the value placed on community spirit. Of course, this is a relative difference. For example, in Florida, this value is expressed in the many small-scale water-supply systems and by an aversion to public utilities. It is also expressed as an antigovernment sentiment and a dislike of generic regulations. This weakens the position of the environment department and forces them to take a voluntary incentive-based approach, and it leads at all levels of government to measures geared to specific conditions. It is also expressed in the different meanings attached to the administrative concepts of New Federalism in the United States and subsidiarity in the EU. New Federalism recognizes the autonomy of local politics and believes that centralized levels of government add little value. Subsidiarity, in principle, recognizes collective values and states that collective decisions should be taken at the level at which the common interest is served, and accepts the limitations this view places on individual autonomy. The second assumption is that adjustment arises from the tendency of actors to use a common frame of reference to interpret cognition. In the case study, this mechanism mainly relates to the way the policy problem of "groundwater contamination by pesticides and nitrates" is interpreted. In Florida, this problem is interpreted mainly in terms of public health, which leads to a curative approach involving cleanup measures and defining water-abstraction areas where drinking water consumers can be regu-

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lated. In the Netherlands, the problem is interpreted mainly in terms of long-term sustainability, in which the concern is the need for a lasting, and thus preventive, solution. Water-abstraction areas, for example, are identified for the purpose of ensuring extra regulation of activities that may be a source of pollutants. Preventive measures to control sources of groundwater pollutants are also implemented outside these areas. The third assumption is that adjustment arises from the dependence of actors on each other's resources. Such dependence is clearly expressed in the demarcation of powers between administrative levels and between administrative actors. A striking feature in Florida is that the lower levels of government (both the counties and the water management districts) operate largely autonomously, whereas in the Netherlands, these layers of administration (municipalities, water boards, provinces, and national government) execute many of their tasks jointly. Moreover, in Florida, the ability of the environment department to act remains limited to setting environmental quality standards and their enforcement; there is little support for measures aimed specifically at target groups that go beyond a voluntary, incentive-based approach. The department is totally subordinate to the agriculture department or to the water management districts, certainly as far as agriculture is concerned or where control over land use is involved. In the Netherlands, the environment ministry has been able to break the power monopoly held by the "iron triangle" in the agriculture sector and has been accepted as an influential partner in the administration of agricultural affairs.

NOTES 1. The information required for this comparison was obtained as follows. Information for the Netherlands was collected during the course of two international comparative water management studies. The first of these was called "Networks for Water Policy" and was funded partly by a subsidy from the American Council for European Studies. The study was concluded in 1994 with the publication of a special issue of the journal Environmental Politics (Bressers, O'Toole, & Richardson 1994). The second study, "Water Supply Authorities Preventing Agricultural Water Pollution," was funded by the EU's Fourth Framework Program and resulted in the publication of a book (Schrama 1998). The material used in this study is drawn from these publications (Bressers, Huitema, & Kuks 1994; Kuks 1998a, 1998b). For Florida, the information was obtained from 80 interviews with mostly water policy officials across the state of Florida, conducted by one of the authors during the autumn of 1995 while he was a guest researcher at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Additional information was obtained from reports by other researchers, government documents, documents produced by other organizations, and further information obtained from the internet. The comparative analysis is considering the period 1980-1995. Since the early 1980s, both states have recognized the urgency of protecting groundwater against diffuse pollution

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from agricultural sources. In the period up to 1995, this resulted for both states in the adoption of policy programs and legislations to tackle those problems. 2. In 1916, a Pollution of Waters Act was passed in which the state set out its own responsibility for public health, and in consequence for the quality of the drinking water supply and the discharge of sewage and effluents. In 1967, this act was followed by the Florida Air and Water Pollution Control Act. It was supplemented in 1972 by the Florida Water Resources Act and in 1977 by the Florida Safe Drinking Water Act. 3. In general, these directives are of two basic types: either they concern water use and are designed to protect the quality of water intended for particular uses, or they concern water pollutants and are designed to control the emissions of particular pollutants to water (Brand, Hanf, & Lipman 1998). 4. Since 1957, drinking water quality in the Netherlands has been regulated by the Water Supply Act; since 1970, the quality of surface waters and discharges to surface waters has been regulated by the Surface Water Pollution Act; and since 1954, the abstraction of groundwater has been regulated by the Groundwater Act (which was amended and extended in 1984 and is comparable to the "consumptive use permitting" under the Florida Water Resources Act of 1972). 5. Change of ownership does not affect the provisions of the act. However, the act does not extend protection to unsanitary conditions and health hazards or changes of use, either in type or intensity (Olexa & Carricker 1992). 6. "The 1995 audit [of the program] reported that the Department's evaluation of program achievement does not provide any assessment of the effectiveness of the ground water quality monitoring program activities. Consequently, neither the Department nor the Legislature is able to evaluate program accomplishments in relation to the budget request as intended." 7. In interviewing district water facility administrators and their staff about the utility of this program to their daily activities, none of them could recall a case where program data were used to augment their permit evaluation needs. [... ] Those who were familiar with the ground water monitor networks cited the fact that the majority of network wells were deep Floridian wells that did not reflect impacts of permitted facilities on shallow or surficial aquifers water quality. Another reason mentioned for the limited utility of monitoring network data is one of scale. The fact that the network is designed to obtain an idea of the regional impact of land use was described as being of "little use" to the permit writers. 8. According to the report, there appear to be two cases in which groundwater monitoring data have had consequences for the policy pursued. "The GWIS [the database containing all the monitoring data] has contributed to the identification of regional ground water contamination in two areas of the state (Polk County and Suwannee River Basin) for contamination with bromacil and nitrates, respectively. These findings have been useful in generating regulation by DACS (agriculture department) prohibiting bromacil use in certain highly permeable soil types. The nitrate findings have resulted in closer coordination between DEP (environment department), DACS and the Suwannee River Water Management District in developing agricultural and dairy Best Management Practices (BMPs)." The monitoring report, however, puts the value of monitoring data in these types of case into perspective by quoting one frustrated interviewee who complained that "all that resulted from these cases was recommendations for BMPs which must once again

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be site-specific. Did we need to spend millions of dollars to tell us that agriculture generates nitrates and pesticides that demand better management practices that must be site-specific to be effective?" 9. Indicators for the predicate "harmful" are "underground mobility," "persistence" (degradability) and "toxicity" (how harmful they are in an aquatic system). 10. Similarly, DEP had been entitled to be the state leading agency for drinking water regulation since 1977, with the Florida health department (DHRS) relegated to a review-and-comment role. 11. In 1986, discovery of EDB and Aldicarb in groundwater also got the health department (DHRS) involved in the pesticide registration process and the Pesticide Review Council. 12. Williams and Matheny (1995, p. 127) describe how the Time cover story was particularly damaging. Entitled "Paradise Lost," it chronicled not only environmen-tal problems, but ethnic strife and drug and crime problems as well. Sports Illustrated, in analyzing Florida's daunting water problems, suggested that drinking from a tap in the Sunshine State was like hooking up the kitchen faucet to the toilet. 13. Cahn (1995, pp. 75-80) is comparing the symbolic aspects of water policy to those of air policy. "Both followed mass public demand for improved environmental conditions. And both air and water policies were enacted with strong standards and strict deadlines—even though few legislators expected compliance. Clean water policies focus on establishing standards requiring expensive control technologies and then inviting voluntary compliance, resulting in what can only be called regulatory stalemate." 14. In an evaluation of the Ag Source and Water Well Management Section within DEP, it was stated that DEP is playing second fiddle to DACS, which is the department statutorily responsible for pesticide and fertilizer regulation in Florida. The effectiveness of DEP is considered to be limited because of the placement, by the Legislature, of the nitrate BMP research responsibility in the hands of DACS; because the responsibility for drafting, development, and implementation of the Pesticides and Ground Water State Management Plan required by EPA is in the hands of DACS; and because the Pesticides Review Council is only an advisory body to the Commissioner of Agriculture and DEP is only a participating member (DeHan, 1995). 15. On the other hand, both tendencies could be noticed. We have mentioned already that DACS is trying to get more control over the WMDs. DEP is having more problems with that. For example, in 1988, the federal government (EPA) sued the WMD South to better protect the Everglades by regulating agricultural practices in the Everglades Ag Area, south of Lake Okeechobee, which actually should have been done by DEP. This case is referred to as the Everglades Ag Case.

REFERENCES Brand, E. L. M., K. I. Hanf, and J. Lipman. "Policy Framework—European Union." In G. J. I. Schrama (ed.), Drinking Water Supply and Agricultural Pollution: Preventive Action by the Water Supply Sector in the European Union and the United States, pp. 45-72. Dordrecht, Boston, MA, London: Kluwer Academic, 1998.

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Bressers, Hans, Dave Huitema, and Stefan M. M. Kuks. "Policy Networks in Dutch Water Policy." Environmental Politics 3:4, pp. 24-51,1994. Cahn, M. A. Environmental Deceptions: The Tension Between Liberalism and Environmental Policymaking in the United States. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Davis, Charles, and J. P. Lester (eds.). Environmental Politics and Policy: Theories and Evidence. Durham, NC, London: Duke University Press, 1989. DeHan, R. S. Evaluation of Management and Operation of Programs Within the Division of Water Facilities. Tallahassee, FL: Department of Environmental Protection, 1995. Fernald, E. A., and D. J. Patton. Water Resources Atlas of Florida. Tallahassee: Florida State University, 1985. Haigh, N. Manual of Environmental Policy: The EC and Britain. Harlow (Essex, UK): Longman, 1992. Kuks, Stefan M. M. "Control Capacity in the Netherlands." In Geerten J. I. Schrama (ed.), Drinking Water Supply and Agricultural Pollution, pp. 190-230. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1998a. Kuks, Stefan M. M. "Policy Framework in the Netherlands." In Geerten J. I. Schrama (ed.), Drinking Water Supply and Agricultural Pollution, pp. 149-190. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1998b. Olexa, M. T., and R. R. Carricker. Manual of Florida Water Regulations. Circular 1031, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS). Gainesville: University of Florida, 1992. Portney, K. E. Controversial Issues in Environmental Policy: Science vs. Economics vs. Politics. Newbury Park, CA, London, New Delhi: Sage, 1992. Ridley, S. The State of the States 1987: Report of the Renew America Project. Washington, DC: Fund for Renewable Energy and Environment, 1987. Rosenbaum, W. A. Environmental Politics and Policy. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press (3rd ed.), 1995. Sapowith, A., and S. Ridley. The State of the States 1988: Report of the Renew America Project. Washington, DC: Fund for Renewable Energy and Environment, 1988. Schrama, Geerten J. I. (ed.). Drinking Water Supply and Agricultural Pollution. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1998. Williams, B.A., and A. R. Matheny. Democracy, Dialogue, and Environmental Disputes. The Contested Languages of Social Regulation. New Haven, CT, London: Yale University Press, 1995.

CHAPTER 7

Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Resource Management through Institutional Syncretism in Madagascar and Senegal Dennis Galvan and Richard Marcus

Sustainability has become central to the development paradigm du jour, especially in the poorest, most aid-dependent region of the world, subSaharan Africa. The emerging "sustainable development" paradigm promises to fuse, by some unspecified magic, poverty reduction and new livelihood opportunities (the development part), resource conservation for the sake of future generations and macro-ecosystems (the environmental part), as well as decentralization and autonomy (the empowerment part). 1 A crucial coincidence is in play here. Development planners took the amorphous manifesto of the Brundtland Report to heart just as the end of the Cold War induced two other related sea changes: Thatcherite economic policies of small government and private sector empowerment became paradigmatic among aid donors, and Western liberal triumphalism made political pluralism and democratic elections preconditions for aid and investment. Thus, in the developing world, sustainability must be understood as part of a comprehensive, neoliberal latest and greatest development solution, intimately and inextricably tied up with the turn toward free markets and the impulse toward political decentralization and democratization. In this context, the protean notion of sustainable development has naturally tended to emphasize resource conservation alongside local empowerment, decentralization, and community-based initiatives (natural policy concomitants of neoliberal economic and political ideology). The poor are to take control of, or at least participate as partners in, development planning and implementation. Projects should be local and small-scale, tapping community-level dynamics of participation and legitimation. Yet in case

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after case, we find that development goals, and the values behind them, are defined by donor agencies in the United States and Europe, permitting little real input from local actors whose notions of the environment and the appropriate and sustainable use of resources might be rather different from that of the World Wildlife Fund, let alone the World Bank. Even in the most successful illustration of sustainable development in Africa (CAMPFIRE community-based wildlife management schemes in Zimbabwe), the tension between community and project goals and value remains an acute source of disenchantment and disengagement (Matzke & Nabane 1996). The case studies presented here, based on original fieldwork in rural parts of Madagascar and Senegal, clearly identify this same tension. Well-intentioned development planners, both at the national and the international levels, inspired by noble visions of equity, empowerment, and environmentalism, impose solutions and institutional designs that make sense to development professionals in Washington, Antananarivo, or Dakar, but that either make no sense to or directly undermine the institutionalized practices and values associated with resource management in the local communities supposedly being // helped ,/ by development work. Yet these case studies also suggest a grassroots process of institutional and cultural change that offers a way to reconcile the tension between a relentlessly homogeneous global environmental ethic and locally adapted values and ways. The illustrations described in this chapter, drawn from opposite ends of the African continent, focus on what Galvan (2004) refers to as institutional syncretism, the blending of rules, habits, or norms of distinct sociocultural origin to create innovative institutional arrangements. With local empowerment and decentralization comes the potential for syncretic adaptation. We see in the cases presented here that local actors—even illiterate peasants—find ways to adapt the rules and organizational structures associated with sustainable development. They transform these rules and structures in light of their own memories of local systems of resource management and local ontologies about nature and authority. To be sure, these local ways and values are distinctly neotraditional: that is, local institutions of resource management and values regarding nature and work appear rooted in and authenticated by long history, but are themselves subject to ongoing processes of redefinition and renegotiation. The result, as we show in the case studies that follow, is a grassroots process of recombining and fusing values, habits, rules, and organizational structures derived both from the often idealized past and from idealistic, new external models. The syncretic institutions that sometimes emerge from these processes of local sense making and adaptation are especially promising for sustainable development because they combine neotraditional legitimation and authenticity with policy goals and tools associated with modernity. Western environmental values and the institutions that promote them can be

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transformed in this process, and, as a result, will usually not resemble exactly what development planners in Washington, Paris, or national capitals had in mind. Yet this process of syncretism can make the local institutions charged with implementing sustainable development more effective and more mobilizationally compelling, helping to articulate and advance local goals with regard to resource management, empowerment, and development. This chapter proceeds in four steps. First, we present the concept of institutional syncretism and its relevance to questions of sustainability in developing societies. We then explore, first in Madagascar, then in Senegal, attempts, failures, and occasional glimpses of success at syncretically adapting natural resource management institutions borrowed or imposed from outside a locality. Finally, we use the multiple examples of syncretism in each case to draw lessons about forms of syncretism and their implications for more sustainable development in Africa and in the wider ex-colonial world. FRAMING SYNCRETISM Institutional syncretism, as discussed in this chapter, is rooted in a conceptualization of institutions as ordered regimes of coordination made up of formal organizations, embedded in and supported by formal rules, in turn grounded in informal rules, themselves structured by habituated patterns of action and values. Neither a formalist reification of formal rules and organizations (Michels 1949 [1915]; Easton 1965), nor a rational choice reduction of institutions to the epiphenomena of socially aggregated utility calculations (Bates, Greif, Leri, Rosenthal, and Weingast 1998), nor a fetishization of cultural embeddedness (Geertz 1973), this approach widens the optic on institutions to emphasize the importance of structures of coordination that align values, habits, rules, and organizations to pattern social behavior. Bourdieu's (1977 [1972]) habitus and field, in this conceptualization, meets March and Olsen's (1989) organizations and culture, stopping along the way to chat with Peter Hall (1993) and Kathleen Thelen and Sven Steinmo (1992). We conceptualize institutions as ordered regimes of coordination among the layers of elements mentioned above: from the top down, these elements include more formal and visible layers (formal organizations and formal rules) as well as deeper, less visible, informal layers (informal rules, habituated patterns of action, as well as values, attitudes and beliefs). Institutions work to effectively coordinate behavior to the extent that they establish correspondence and synergy among these five layered components. In light of this conceptualization, syncretism is the recombination of institutional elements (the circles in the figure) of diverse sociocultural, geographical, or temporal origin in a coherent manner, yielding

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new patterns of correspondence and supportive articulation among newly reformulated and recombined institutional elements. With this in mind, we can differentiate two subtypes of institutional syncretism: quasisyncretic grafting vs. fully syncretic institutional innovation. More often than not, the general logic of institutional syncretism manifests itself politically as a mechanical sticking together or grafting of modern formal elements with premodern informal elements. This was the classic strategy of developing world dictators from Mobutu Sese Seko of the former Zaire to Indonesia's ex-strongman Suharto. These regimes used pseudosyncretic arguments to try to legitimate one-party rule by describing it as an adaptive combination of Western formal organizations and rules (legislatures, elections, political and civil rights) with non-Western, so-called traditional values, habits, and informal rules (village politics emphasizing consensus, deliberation, and social inclusion). This grafting is a fundamentally static process—neither the Western-derived organizations and formal rules nor the pseudotraditional informal rules, habits, and values are themselves subject to transformation, reformulation, or recombination; instead, both sets of institutional elements are reified and combined by fiat. In practice, pseudosyncretic grafting has thus been more often a process of elite promulgation of new institutional forms, less often a matter of grassroots innovation and change. Grafting, as we see in the cases discussed here, can take different structural forms with distinct policy consequences. Seen from the point of view of local-level, historic institutional structures, grafting can conserve local values, habits, or informal rules but introduce new formal rules and organizations (for the sake of simplicity, we thus call this "grafting the formal" onto the informal elements of institutions). Grafting can also conserve local organizations and formal rules, but introduce new values, habits, and informal rules ("grafting the informal" onto local formal elements). Grafting the formal, as in efforts to justify authoritarian single partyism just discussed, is usually a strategy for generating superficial local stakeholder support and participation. Grafting the informal involves the cooptation of traditional institutional superstructure to perpetuate modern, or postmodern, values, attitudes, and beliefs. When grafting the informal, new ideas—in this case, conservation and resource use—are packaged in local, traditional organizations and formal rules that look familiar. By contrast, full syncretism entails a more profound process of institutional innovation in that it goes well beyond the sticking together of reified institutional elements derived from here and there. Instead, full syncretism "opens the black boxes" of institutional elements, enabling actors at various social levels to combine organizations, formal rules, informal rules, habits, and values of diverse origin to create not simply wholly new institutional structures, but wholly new, creative and recombinant institutional elements, at any of the five levels.

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Because development has turned toward new resource management collaborations between state /international actors and local communities, fully transformative syncretism becomes a crucial building block for success. Syncretism opens the door to the selective incorporation of local organizational structures, rules, habits, and values in the remodeling of resource management regimes championed by the state or by international activists. Like it or not, syncretism may displace Western institutional and environmentalist shibboleths—legal-rational proceduralism, strict banishment of personal interests from official decision making, antihierarchical egalitarianism, gender equity, conservation of nature, indeed, the very ontology of material conservation of a distinct (and dead) nature—with seemingly particularistic, idiosyncratic, illiberal, or anti-environmental beliefs, ways, and rules. Syncretism makes plain that the full price of meaningful local control over the definition and practice of sustainability is the abandonment of universal, ideal, easy-to-transport conceptualizations and prescriptions for sustainable development. At the same time, a process of fully transformative syncretism would not reify or leave untouched local, traditional institutional elements. We might expect customary authorities to make their rules more legalrational. We also might expect codification of the responsibilities of leaders, individuation of notions of rights, cultural transformation whereby animist, supposedly Gaian holistic ontologies of the human place in nature give way to demystification. The possible recombinations of institutional elements are nearly limitless and highly context specific. In this sense, the theory of syncretism, somewhat agnostic with regard to outcome, is a theory about complexity and complex adaptive systems. As Holling (1986) argues for thinking about ecosystems as complex adaptive structures, we cannot necessarily expect to predict outcomes of biospheric transformation. The same is true for institutional syncretism. Rather, we can begin to identify broad outlines or parameters of transformation, the patterns of change that usually apply in instances of full institutional syncretism. Types of syncretism explored fully in the case studies are summarized in Table 7.1 below. It is important to emphasize that full syncretism, as opposed to mere grafting, increases the likelihood of collaboration among local, state, and international actors in resource-use decision making. Both policy statements and scholarly rumination on sustainable development celebrate such collaboration. From Principles 12 and 22 of the Rio Accords to Chapter 26 of Agenda 21 (United Nations 1993), we find an emphasis on multilevel governance and the integration of local actors and interests in decision making. 2 Scholars such as Ostrom (1999) make the point more precise, arguing for the importance of polycentric systems (where citizens are able to organize not just one but multiple governing authorities at differing scales)

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Table 7.1 Types of Syncretism Pseudosyncretic Grafting

Full Syncretic Transformation

Cases

Grafting the Formal

Grafting the Informal

Ranomafana

Andohahela (Madagascar)

Serer zone (Senegal) early peasant response

(Madagascar) Serer zone (Senegal)-final outcome Institutional Structure

Local Infrastructure

New Infrastructure

Renegotiated

(values, habits, informal

(values, habits, informal

Infrastructure and

rules); New

rules); Local

Superstructure (values,

Superstructure (formal

Superstructure (formal

habits, informal rules,

rules and organizations)

rules and organizations)

formal rules and organizations)

Who Controls Decision making

State/International Actors

State/International Actors

Collaboration among Local, State, Int'l Actors

that share rule-making assumptions among levels. Robert Chambers insists that "[r]ural people's knowledge and scientific knowledge are complementary in their strengths and weaknesses. Combined they may achieve what neither would alone" (1983: 75). In another venue, he further argues that capability, equity, and sustainability are linked (Chambers & Conway 1992). Thus not only must local voice be incorporated into the policy process, but meeting expressed local needs must be taken into account in the design of new development schemes. We deploy institutional syncretism to extend this line of thinking. Although Agenda 21, Ostrom, Chambers, and others sensitize us to the multiplicity of stakeholders in sustainable resource use, they don't really tell us what happens once local, nonexpert stakeholders gain voice in and control over resource management institutions. In our cases, state and international elites invite local voice into the policy process, but do so with a given set of predetermined possible outcomes based on growing global norms about conservation and sustainability. These predetermined outcomes may be inconsistent with local views and, in fact, often negate the positive benefits of potentially polycentric institutions. In effect, pseudosyncretic grafting has superceded full syncretism and marginalized the real collaboration between local, state, and international actors necessary for sustainable resource use to become a reality.

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In the case of the dina in Madagascar, the failure to move beyond mere grafting to full syncretism impedes effective resource management. "Traditional" institutional elements—be they informal or formal—are either co-opted by or marginalized from externally induced rule-making processes. In the case of Senegal's Rural Council reform, we find significant and fleeting local efforts to subject a new, elected local resource management council to fully syncretic transformation. The Senegalese case reveals how states can cut short syncretism in an effort to maintain control of formal rules and organizations, thereby rolling back progressive syncretic change into a form of grafting (in this case, grafting new formal rules and organizations onto local values, habits, and informal rules). Both Malagasy and Senegalese peasants in these studies essentially understand the actions of the state. In the Serer case in Senegal, the peasantry has, at the end of the day, come to reject the state's effort to reorganize natural resource management, whereas in the Malagasy cases, state efforts to reorganize natural resource management remain tenuous and ineffective. ADAPTING THE DINA IN MADAGASCAR: EXPERIMENTS IN GRAFTING For more than a decade, Madagascar has been at the forefront of international attempts to integrate multiple levels of stakeholders. In particular, U.S. intellectual capital has been complemented by other bilateral donors, and especially the World Bank, in an attempt to support the 1988 National Environmental Action Plan. This plan, divided into three phases, has sought to empower local communities in the policy process. The first phase focused on the creation of integrated conservation and development projects that were run by international nongovernment organizations and funded by international donors. These international actors were fundamental to the creation of the national parks and protected areas service (ANGAP) as well as localized conservation and development initiatives. They also worked with the community organizations and rule-making authorities on such issues as national park boundary enforcement, agricultural adaptation, and resource-use decision making. In addition, these international actors worked with the Malagasy government to guide the creation of new state-level environmental laws. Meetings were often held at the provincial level with local leaders brought to the provincial capital to express their views of the intended changes. The second phase of the plan changed the macrostructural environment by adopting a broader ecoregional approach. However, although the goal of integrating conservation and development may have been subdued in the process, the emphasis on community participation was in fact increased. In a classic illustration of grafting, international nongovernment organi-

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zations have attempted to borrow the formal rules and organizational structure existing in the dina of the area for use as a conduit of international conservation values. In a similar fashion, the Malagasy state has worked to give definition to local rule-making institutions by incorporating them into national laws for the environment. Specifically, the dina system of community rule making has been lent the potential to become a powerful method for the communication of popular views, and a powerful mechanism for the accountability of leadership. Conservation and resource management law, arguably the most important and dynamic body of laws in the ecologically fragile agricultural regions of this study, are at the forefront of this policy reformation. The two cases employed here, Andohahela National Park and Ranomafana National Park, both demonstrate cases in which pseudosyncretic grafting has led to polycentric institutions void of meaningful local participation. However, they demonstrate two dynamics: Andohahela reflects a case of informal grafting where new infrastructure (values, habits, informal rules) meets local superstructure, and Ranomafana is a case of formal grafting where local infrastructure meets a new superstructure. Although the attempts differed, the result was the same—full syncretic transformation of institutions failed, and power to make decisions about resources defaulted back to state and international actors without meaningful local input into the policy process.

The Dina: Syncretic Associational Life Contemporary resource management at the local level in rural Madagascar is conducted by the fokonolona through their created dina. Although the fokonolona has a long and varied institutional history,3 at root the word refers to a group of people at the community level or the community acting as a whole. However, in recent years, there has been an attempt by the Malagasy government to revive some of the institutional characteristics of the fokonolona for use by the government to help it put laws about resource use into effect. For instance, a 1996 environmental management law (loi 96-025) defined the fokonolona as a "voluntary association of individuals united by their common interests and obeying the rule rules of life of the commune, [which] brings together, depending on the case, the inhabitants of a hamlet, of a village, or of a group of villages." However, this definition has not gained currency with the majority of the population, which continues to view the fokonolona as a sort of "community spirit" (Beaujard 1983), as well as the community itself. The principal institution created by the fokonolona for the purpose of rule making is the dina. The dina can be defined as

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A convention or accord between the members of the population where there is an oath as in the orimbato;4 there are also implications, sanctions or curses for those who do not respect or don't apply the terms of the convention. (Kruze, in Razanabahiny 1995) Like the fokonolona, the dina has a long-standing history 5 In short, the dina can be considered a local, culturally based system of rules. The dina is charged with responding to the needs of the community by providing the social order, the rule-making mechanism, and the enforcement mechanism (which can vary from economic sanctions to ostracism). The members of the dina are everyone in the population of the village or region (with little distinction from the fokonolona). However, there is generally a core group of members that provide the leadership and attend meetings when they are called. It is these people who are (self-)identified in this study as participating in the dina as an associational activity. The dina interacts in different ways with local, state, and international authorities. Often, the degree to which a particular dina interacts with the local authority is determined by the individual leader. The Presidents des Comites Locaux de Securite (PCLS) is often an important dina member. As such, he can act to bring the dina into state legal apparatus through his dual role. However, often he will seek to strengthen his local standing by using his role as PCLS to communicate empty, unidirectional legal mandates while maintaining his own decision-making autonomy when participating in the dina. There have been attempts to use the dina as a mechanism for civic interaction with the state on issues of resource management since Malagasy independence in 1960 (for further discussion, see Kull 2000, Chapter 6). However, recognition of the importance of the dina as a civic organization took a new turn in the 1990s. Whereas in the past, the state used the dina as a unidirectional mechanism for communicating, and sometimes even enforcing, state mandates, the current recognition of the importance of the dina focuses on its value as a mechanism for communicating local views to the state and international actors. In this way, the dina has been lent the potential to become a powerful method for the communication of popular views, and a powerful mechanism for the accountability of leadership. Conservation and resource management law, arguably the most important and dynamic body of laws in the ecologically fragile agricultural regions of this study, are at the forefront of this policy reformation. The official recognition of the dina by the state in the 1990s owes a significant debt to the international community. Individual consultants and activists have worked in their various capacities to influence state institutional shifts, policy reformation, and even, in collaboration with scholars at the University of Fianarantsoa, to help reorient conservation legislation.

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In 1996, Madagascar passed a law (96-025) regarding local management of renewable natural resources that incorporates the dina. In effect, this law recognizes that the relationship between community members is governed by the dina, and that the members of the community are governed on a basis determined by local cultural norms. This is an important attempt by the state to engage the dina in a community-level resource management capacity. Although to date, these efforts seem to exist predominantly on paper, this is an important first step not only in conservation law, but in the state recognition of hitherto unheard local voices. .

The Case of Andohahela: Grafting the Informal In the case of Andohahela, there have been established dina for natural resource use and conservation dating back to at least the colonial era. Dina are extremely localized at the village level, are generally enacted by raymendreny (elders) but requiring the support of the fokonolona. The most common point of conflict is water. Much of southern Madagascar is dry, receiving as little as 11 inches of rain per year. The people of the region have had to adapt to ever-worsening conditions of water-resource scarcity Our problem here in Ankoba [... ] water. Some other villages, they have a dam which we don't have here. We have fields, there are big huge fields, but, we don't have enough water [to irrigate them]. (Male respondent from Ankoba) The primary water source comes from atop the nearby mountains from where two rivers flow. The result is a series of villages up and down the rivers, completely dependent on the river for drinking, bathing, defecation, and irrigation. As a woman in the village of Esomony notes, the water resource problem is a political one. The problem here is with the foods. Here we didn't get a president [PCLS] for the chiefs here, so when the mayor told the fokonolona in the villages here [how it would be], people had met together. [They decided] we need a president, we are going to have a president in the villages here. So, when we got a president he told us what is OK what should we do in our village, and then the president talked to the villages and told us we have to grow maize, so when they grew maize. But the locusts [came]. So now we don't have anything to eat because the crops are destroyed. The community at first ran into difficulties of leadership because the old dina for planting had broken down. People were unsure not only where and when to plant, but what to plant. They thus chose a leader within the new administrative framework, adopting dina to give the new president strong control over decisions about planting. However, the result was devastating because the maize was destroyed. Although locusts caused

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the destruction, it was the responsibility of the president to ensure the planting and survival of crops because he was given such great planting authority. The president was thus blamed, and the dina shifted once again. In 1988, Madagascar signed a National Environmental Action Plan. As part of this plan, the state entered into a relationship with a coalition of donors and international nongovernment organizations to promote international conservation values. As previously stated, the first phase focused on the implementation of integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) funded by donors run by international nongovernment organizations. The ICDP operator in the Andohahela region during the first program for the environment was the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Consistent with the principles of sustainable development set forth in Agenda 21, the mission of the WWF was twofold: to create new economic opportunities for people living in the periphery of the protected area and to help these communities empower themselves to reassess their resource use and embark upon new agricultural practices that will ensure the continuation of the resource for the future. Further, the WWF was charged with increasing the land within the Andohahela Reserve and transforming it into a national park while facilitating the introduction of new conservation laws in the area that would reflect the international conservation values adopted by the Malagasy government in the National Environmental Action Plan. The WWF thus tried to lend legitimacy to new conservation laws through the creation of new dina to implement these laws. It tried to borrow the formal rules and organizational structure existing in the dina of the area for use as a conduit of international conservation values promoted by the state and the ICDP. As a result, the principal promoters of dina of conservation became not only the clan chiefs, but the agents of WWF acting through reluctant clan chiefs. The actions of the WWF at the community level highlight the fact that there are two categories of dina, those with ritual (coming from the fokonolona) and those without (coming from outside the fokonolona). The dina instituted by WWF were considered by the fokonolona to be void of ritual; the ritual dina were considered by WWF to be irrelevant to conservation. Thus whereas the institutional mechanism of the dina was not new to the fokonolona of the region, the values of the conservation rules were. The WWF acted to dress up new conservation rules as traditional dina to make them more palatable. 6 This process of externally creating dina is not unique to the WWF. In fact, it is consistent with the broader, decentralized natural resource management policy gestion locale securisee (GELOSE), in which the Malagasy National Office for the Environment lists dina creation as the 19th of its 22 steps. As a result, there have been other such (mostly failed) attempts in other parts of Madagascar. 7 Today the dina of the WWF have mostly disintegrated, and, in fact, the role of the WWF in Andohahela in the second and third Environmental

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Programs is significantly reduced. However, the dual dina remains as external attempts to use the system of dina have been tried by other international organizations and even the Malagasy state. The goals for the Andohahela ICDP, apparent in proposing the idea of instituting new dina reflecting the international conservation norms, are clear: promote a strong dina that encompasses the different aspects of conservation, in the view of reducing the diverse impacts exerted by the population on the Reserve. These dina, in contrast to existing localized dina, generally apply to all who live in the peripheral zone of the national park, regardless of the ethnicity of those villages. The importance of this illustration lies in the lack of emphasis on negotiated outcomes. Although new dina may in fact be polycentric in the sense that state a n d / o r international actors help form community-level rulemaking authorities, new dina are not formed as a product of local, state, and international interest aggregation. Village chiefs and presidents are left out of the process of dina creation, even though they are the traditional creators of dina. Most important, neither the state nor the WWF entered into the institutional arrangement open to a secondary outcome. They therefore lacked the mechanism to incorporate the views of the local leadership or the fokonolona. If institutional syncretism were fully transformative, then local leaders, community notables who help create dina, state leaders, and international interests would all be seeking the same resource goals and policies, reflecting a negotiated goal meeting long-term resource needs and short-term economic needs. As it stands, the syncretic process is truncated. Consequently, despite communication with community leaders and attempts at actuating indigenous voice, at the policy level, natural resource management change is still imposed from the top down. The Case of Ranomafana: Grafting the Formal In Ranomafana, the dina tends to be more institutionalized than in Andohahela. Whereas the dina in Andohahela is commonly a relatively fluid set of rules governed by village chiefs, community presidents, or extracommunity actors, in Ranomafana, the dina tends to be formed by a group with regularized meetings and structure. This institutionalization of the dina reduces its adaptability, but increases its importance as a system of rules. Sanctions are more recognized and feared, and compliance, although not universal, exceeds that of Andohahela. In few cases are there specific, locally created dina for natural resource management. These issues were generally addressed by land laws that reflect contractual relationships between community members. In contrast to the Andohahela case, in Ranomafana, the ICDP did not attempt to create new dina. Rather, starting in 1996, it began working with community leaders to adapt and change existing dina. Since then, ampanjaka

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(kings) and PCLS presidents have been regularly "invited" to the ANGAP (national park association) headquarters to discuss changes that need to be implemented. These meetings are intended to provide for a community discussion, negotiating policy outcomes and the transformation of dina. This is a positive actualization of the intent of Chapter 26 of Agenda 21. However, they are generally held after the Malagasy Department of Water and Forest (DEF) a n d / o r the ANGAP has set new policy. Even when meetings are held in advance of policy initiation, the policy outcome through land reappropriation is predetermined. 8 The ampanjaka and presidents are generally rewarded for their participation. They then take the resource-use policy changes back to their villages. Because the fokonolona remain in the village while the leadership travels to the national park headquarters in Ranomafana village, questions of legitimacy inevitably arise. Historically, the fokonolona in the Ranomafana region have commonly been at odds with the Malagasy state government, but the government has lacked significant sanctioning capacity. As a result, the dina has gained legitimacy as a set of rules; local law takes legal precedence over state law. This is similar to the institutional bifurcation discussed in the Senegalese Rural Council case that follows. In the end, full syncretism is truncated because there is pseudosyncretic grafting of formal institutions over the informal arrangements. The new use of the dina by the state (ANGAP and DEF) for the legitimation of policy created outside of the community has been met with diverse reactions. Some dina, such as those in the villages of Sahavoemba and Ambalakindresy, have adapted to the new policies with little resistance. Others, such as in the village of Ambinandranofotaka, have strongly resisted the outside intrusion into the rule-making process. Still others, such as Ambohimiera, Ranovao, and part of Ranomafana village itself, have seen the transformation of the dina by the local leadership but without the support of the fokonolona. In the latter two instances, the new intrusion into the local rule-making process has acted to erode the legitimacy of the dina as an institution. In such cases, not only are the new policies for natural resource use jeopardized, but the organization of the community itself has come into question because the leadership is seen as siding with the state at the expense of the community. In extreme cases, the leadership might even become viewed as vazaha gasy (Malagasy foreigner) and politically and socially marginalized. As Henkels (1999) notes from a villager in Ambatovory, "before [this], the mpanjakas were respected and they worked with the local state authorities. Now, the people have forgotten this respect and it is the mpanjakas who are often scared of the people" (Henkels 1999: 41). This crisis of ampanjaka authority is summarized by a case in Ranomafana village. In this case, the ampanjaka has worked closely with the Department of Water and Forest, the national park service, and the international non-

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government organizations. For this reason and others, the ampanjaka has lost respect with most of the village. Because Ranomafana is a large village of approximately 1,000 people, the ampanjaka was able to carve out a niche of supporters in his quartier. Other local leaders (the mayor, the deputy mayor, and the oldest man in the village—unusually, there is no PCLS president) each carved out his own niche of followers in other quartiers. One of the principal gains of accepting the national park and the ICDP has been the fund of money created for redistributing (50 percent of) proceeds of park entrance fees to local communities. Although this fund is innovative in concept, meetings are generally organized and run by the national park service director in Ranomafana, and the funds are generally spent in a way that is seen best by the state and international nongovernment organizations. The Ranomafana case demonstrates the crises that arise as a result of grafting pseudosyncretic institutions rather than aspiring toward creating fully syncretic transformation. Like the Andohahela case just discussed, the policy outcomes of this institutional shift remain tied to international norms of natural resource management. However, rather than creating new parallel institutions, old dina are co-opted to reflect new state and international ideology. Collective agreement and institutional transformation reflecting negotiated outcomes are largely overlooked. In short, the input of local leadership is sought, but where it comes into conflict with state and international norms, it is ignored. Consistent with the Rural Councils in Senegal, discussed in a later section, the leadership is forced to accept the changes or face sanctions, putting him into a potentially perilous position with the fokonolona who remain largely distant from the process. Grafting and the Direction of State-Local Natural Resource Management in Madagascar In 1967, the forest management arm of the state was transferred to the provincial level. However, policy initiation remained with the central government. In 1978, the decentralization program of President Ratsiraka's Second Republic brought land ownership to the communal or village level. However, once again, the Department of Water and Forest of the central government remained in control of technical management (Henkels 1999). 1994 brought further devolution (loi no. 94-007 and 94-008). Although the communal or village level maintained ownership rights, provincial level Department of Water and Forest offices gained the right to manage their territories. They created regional conservation and development plans under the approval of the state, but to be carried out by the decentralized collectivities (the communal mayors, the subprefects, and the prefects). This progressively stronger decentralization is the basis of the 1996 and 1997 revisions of the 1992 Malagasy constitution (loi no. 96-025 and

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97-017) and are consistent with the significant shifts in power to the provinces following the referendum of March 1998 (Marcus 2001). These revisions seek to protect the environment while affirming the rights of the local communities. In effect, the fokonolona are expected to take charge of environmental policy-making through local dina. Through the dina, the fokonolona are given the right to create natural resource management plans, permitting, and land-usage law. This law is then to be codified at the communal level and integrated into provincial law. The text of the 1996 law notes the role of the dina in the community: "the relationship between the members of the local community are regulated by the voice of the 'Dina.' The 'dina' are approved by the members of the local community according to the customary rules governed by the community. In the case of two or several local communities that are in association in the management of resources, the 'Dina' applicable to the members of each group should conform to the appropriate rules governed by each community" (in Henkels 1999: 43). Through this law, the dina have been recognized as the norm for creating local resource-use law. This is a significant recognition that the dina take precedence at the local level over the local and state authorities in the creation of resource-use law. The potential is thus created to shift toward an innovative form of full syncretism that reflects popular voice. There is no question here that the actions of international and state actors in Madagascar have been innovative and consistent with the growing recognition by both the scholarly and the policy-making communities that local participation is pivotal to the creation of strategies for sustainable resource use. International and state actors have eschewed the modernization norms of top-down development, top-down resource-use decision making, and imposed modernist agricultural schemas. The Malagasy state has attempted to bring local communities into the policy process by empowering the dina at the national level. The international community has attempted to bring local communities into the policy process by reconciling culturally relative and global norms through the creation of new dina. We can therefore argue that where the dina is created as part of natural resource management, it is a polycentric institution that marries multiple levels of stakeholders. Yet, it appears that this is not enough. Where syncretic blending is left undone by convoluted attempts at grafting new institutions onto old ones, the result is the delegitimation of the process, the delegitimation of the dina, and often the delegitimation of the local leadership. Disgruntled community-level stakeholders shun changes in resource use in favor of short-term interest maximization. The state, working with the international community, then feels obliged to create policies from the top down and enforce them with force, not opportunities. By determining the outcomes at the state level and abrogating local voice in outcome determina-

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tion, the state significantly limits the potential for full syncretism. 9 Polycentric sustainable development then becomes new wine in old bottles. SYNCRETISM PROMISED A N D TRUNCATED: SENEGAL'S RURAL COUNCILS 10 Beginning in the early 1970s, the Senegalese government sought to decentralize and democratize rural natural resource management. 11 Through centralized agencies in Dakar, the state had long controlled agricultural extension services and the management of public forest, water, and other lands. Seeking to open resource management policy to local actors and local values, the 1972 Rural Council reform established Senegal's first elected councils in the rural sector, largely to manage land tenure relations under a partially implemented 1964 land reform law. In Senegal's Siin region, peasants understood this reform as a way to infuse a newly created institutional space with their vision and historical expectations of natural resource management (Niang 1981). The state did not expect this grassroots response (state elites thought their vision of the politics of natural resource management was the peasants' vision), nor, in the end, did it welcome this intrusion. Faced with syncretic adaptation from the grass roots, the state in effect tried to retreat to pseudosyncretic grafting of organizations and formal rules tightly controlled by central authorities, superficially legitimated by their association with local "traditional" informal rules, habits, and values. The state was willing to imagine Ostrom's (1999) polycentrism, but on its terms. Polycentrism plus real syncretism proved too destabilizing, so the state retreated to that fagade of decentralization and collaboration, polycentrism plus pseudosyncretic grafting. This did not work: local actors simply do not buy the symbolic rhetoric of the graft. As a result, neither the despised state-imposed formal structures nor the vestiges of now-idealized informal elements function; neither "modern" nor "traditional" resource management institutions constrain behavior. The resulting breakdown of a historic common-pool resource management scheme, the failure to build new, authoritative institutions, and the ensuing utilitarian free-for-all have produced, not surprisingly, disintegration of longstanding resource management practices, overtaxing of the limited natural resource base, and ecological collapse. Agricultural yields have plummeted, taking with them the very sustainability of rural livelihoods in this part of Senegal. We follow this process of truncated syncretism in four steps: (1) historical background on tenure and resource management, (2) attempts to syncretically adapt the Rural Councils, (3) the state's truncation of this process, and (4) the resulting ecologically disastrous disjuncture between state-imposed and vestigial local resource management regimes.

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Background Oral historical and colonial-era accounts place the institution of the "master of fire" (yal o naq, also known as laman) at the center of land and resource management among the Serer12 ethnic group, predominant in the Siin region of Senegal (Becker 1981; Dulphy 1936). Masters of fire are the male heads of lineages whose ancestors migrated from the north to establish villages in the Siin roughly from the tenth to sixteenth centuries. The original master of fire of a locale is said to have lit a brush-clearing fire upon arrival in the new place of settlement. The area burned by such village-founding fires became his estate or domain. The title "master of fire," and associated resource management responsibilities, passed to eldest males of the master of fire's lineage over many generations. Masters of fire were holistic custodians of vast areas of land in both the material and spiritual dimensions of land. Masters of fire allocated fields to particular households at each clearing season, set aside fallow space for pasturing animals (permitting soil renewal and the accumulation of natural fertilizer), and controlled access to and use of crucial trees (for animal feed, construction, and, in the case of acacia albida, fixing nitrogen in soil). But master of fire management was holistic in the sense that it combined these material functions with a commanding and indispensable role in maintaining good community relations with spirits thought to inhabit the land (Pelissier 1966). Serer animist cosmology places great importance on these spirits, known as pangool, some of which are believed to have ensured successful migration for the ancestral founder. The lineage of a founding master of fire maintains vital relationships with such spirits, ensuring the fertility of the soil and the well-being of the community (Guigou 1993). Master of fire legitimacy and authority thus rested largely on a cosmology that gave them, in the eyes of the community, a monopoly over these vital linkages to the essential, but "unseen part of the land" (farmer Abdou Sene, village of Tukar, 22 July 1993). This spiritual dimension of the local ontology of land is critical in that it helps us understand Serer resistance to commodification and Serer aspirations for the Rural Council system. Well before independence, Serer peasants in the Siin adapted the master of fire land tenure system in response to integration into the imperial commodity production system. French colonial administrators had hoped to convince the Serer of Siin to grow peanuts as a cash crop and to "standardize" their land tenure arrangements to resemble a European model of individually held, alienable private property (then and now, Western observers see master-of-fire-like communalism as inimical to investments in fertilizer, seed, technology, and other inputs that will increase yield). 13 But a free market in fully alienable land threatened the very ontology of

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land use in this region: alienable land for sale would sunder the crucial link between authoritative resource managers and the spirits that ensured soil fertility. By the 1930s, the Serer had invented their own adaptive, indeed fully syncretic, solution: land pawning. Serer pawning allowed a field "proprietor" (master of fire and a few others to whom master-of-fire-like rights had devolved over time) to grant use rights for a piece of land to another farmer, a field "taker" (usually an individual with more limited access to land, but with access to cash income). Use rights were granted in this way in exchange for a one-time lump sum payment (cash "guarantee" for the pawn) from the taker. When the original field proprietor (or his heir) wanted to reclaim the field, he gave the cash guarantee back to the field taker (no interest charged), after which the field taker would ceremonially return the pawned field, acknowledging that he (field taker) was not its custodian (this means he had no ties to the spirits in the land). Pawning often followed the life cycle of families—give fields in pawn when children were young, labor limited, and food needs reduced, and then reclaim them a decade or so later when kids consumed more and were old enough to help farm. This temporary, revocable usufruct transfer blended the free market's flexibility and on-demand reallocation of the crucial element of agricultural capital (land) with Serer historical memories of traditional property relations rooted in the inalienable holistic custodianship of land by field controllers as a corporate lineage of living farmers and dead ancestors. Pawning worked, permitting the Serer to intensify their agricultural system when they needed to grow peanuts for cash, but ensuring the stability of both the underlying local ontology of property and the political and natural resource management institutions (primarily the masters of fire) that undergirded the local tenure system (Galvan 1997). Postcolonial socialist egalitarianism unintentionally destroyed this local, adaptive system of resource management with a standard, one-size-fits-all land reform. The National Domain Law of 1964 was meant to ensure that "the land belonged to those who farmed it," guaranteeing that any producer who tilled a plot for two consecutive growing seasons would have legal title to it (Abelin 1979). The land reform put the Serer masters of fire out of a job: people no longer needed to respect the old aristocrats' holistic management of agricultural land in all its complexities of competing uses and claims. In a time of dramatically increasing demographic pressure (many more kids were living past age five) and needs for cash, it was sensible for farmers to turn to the new, two-year usufruct law and, in local parlance, "nationalize" a field. With this rule, no one had to sacrifice precious farmland to make room for someone else's cattle. No one had to leave a field fallow and thereby give up the chance to grow peanuts and earn some cash. Trees became a first-come, first-served resource.

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More particularly, a strict interpretation of "the land for those who farm it" principle eliminated long-term land pawning. Because two years' use earned one title, the new law made it essential for every farmer to stake recognizable claim to land he was farming. Numerous pawn contracts, some multigenerational, were broken, resulting in a widespread sense of social mistrust. Ecologically, long-term pawning had permitted those who took fields to make possible investments in fallow, natural fertilizer (manure), and tree planting. Although short-term pawns persist under the land reform, these transactions do not give a field taker time to invest in fallow or soil improvements, but instead encourage intensive use, soil depletion, and abandonment. Enter the 1972 Rural Council reform, intended to let elected local representatives interpret land reform principles according to local custom and culture: a perfect recipe for institutional syncretism, polycentrism before the coining of the term. In the Siin, the crucial test was land pawning— over the years, elected rural councillors have tried to permit long-term land pawns. This is syncretism at work. However, within a few years after the reform, central administrative authorities in the capital, Dakar, rebuked Serer Rural Councils for "misunderstanding" the land reform, especially for violating the two-year use rule by allowing long-term pawns. Thus, the Serer had no authority, no right, no opportunity to tinker with the rules, to hybridize the national land reform with their own master-of-fire system. If the Rural Councils were to be syncretic, it would be a simple grafting for legitimation purposes, and no more. Polycentrism, as we saw in Madagascar, is not enough; it describes a structural arrangement but leaves unclear questions of political control and, as we underscore here, the potential for change in institutional structures themselves. The precise way that polycentric institutions change to incorporate local voice and values makes a profound difference in the effectiveness of these institutions at achieving sustainable resource management: grafting looks good on paper, but pales in comparison to full syncretism in the capacity to genuinely constrain and mobilize the behavior of resource users. Syncretic Promise Serer farmers tried to syncretically transform the Rural Council system, even though the broad political reality of institutional design worked against that process. The three illustrations that follow give some sense of these efforts at transformation. Interviews with rural councillors and litigants in land disputes make clear that these adaptations originated in the late 1970s, immediately after the full implementation of the Rural Council reform in the Siin in 1975. They once represented the beginning of a process of grassroots-directed, fully transformative syncretism. Even though

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we still find evidence of these syncretic practices and values in presentday Rural Council activities, the process of syncretic transformation was cut off, today leaving only these illustrations as marginal and incomplete vestiges of what fully syncretic Rural Councils might have looked like. First, at the level of formal rules, the Rural Councils have tried to work with and support, rather than sidestep or demolish, Serer customary law (cosaan) and the institutional infrastructure that supports it. As Rural Councillor Cheikh Ndiaye of the village of Ngangarlame points out, officials see themselves not as the agents of the state who apply state law (the National Domain) in a rational, systematic, and consistent manner. Their role is explicitly syncretic, because they must arrive at decisions that balance two laws: When we deal with a situation, we need to try to take into account the law of the National Domain and the law of cosaan [customary law]. (Rural Councillor Cheikh Ndiaye, village of Bari, September 12,1993) Central to Serer cosaan regarding land and resource management is land pawning. As already noted, rural councillors throughout the Siin have sought ways to safeguard land pawning contracts, in spite of being consistently overruled by their administrative superiors in such matters. Some rural councillors even argue that their colleagues are untrained and unqualified to hold office because they do not protect land pawning: The problem is this: the rural councillors are chosen by election. There is no seminar to train them... the main problem is their lack of training—for example, you have people seizing fields after they've taken the field in loan for two or three years. That is not normal. (Rural Councilor Amaissa Drof, Village of Pullok, 17 August 1993)

It is indeed true that this is not "normal," from a cosaan or Serer customary legal perspective—to seige a field that was loaned to you in pawn, 14 even though it is entirely legal and proper to do so under the land reform law that the rural councillors are supposed to uphold. If there is a lack of training here, it is a lack of training in the syncretic principles and norms of what the Rural Council system might have become. We also find syncretic transformation within the informal elements of "traditional" Serer institutions. For example, at the level of informal rules and values, ideas about "inherent rights" have been pulled out of their Western-liberal social structural context and grafted into the matrix of social relations and values of the Siin. Younger members of Serer society, for example, proclaim a "right" of access to land or a "right" to feed their family. Many litigants invoke the discourse of rights to bolster their claims to subsistence farming space. For example, the village chief of Ndokh

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posits a very common notion that the state and the law exist to protect a community's "right" to enough land for millet and cattle. He asserts: We from Ndokh will do the absolute maximum possible to keep this space for our animals. We will go as far as we can, even all the way to Dakar, to assert our "rights" to have a place to keep our beasts, (farmer Matiasse Diouf, village of Ndokh, June 13,1993) Neither the National Domain law nor the Rural Council law envisions any kind of right for a herder to have room to keep his beasts. Yet rights are so much the currency of relations with the colonial and postcolonial states that they have been transposed onto matters of the greatest economic importance in Serer communities—subsistence farming and cattle raising. Finally, we see evidence of Western-derived organizational procedures contributing to new understandings of traditional habits and values. Although training for rural councillors covers many other topics (procedures for voting, keeping records, rudimentary principles of the 1964 land reform law, special circumstances and methods for applying the law), very few of these elements of Rural Council training seem to be remembered, and none holds the position of prominence of the concept of korom, a Serer pronunciation of "quorum." 15 When asked about the basic procedures to which Rural Councillors must adhere, Rural Councillors such as Boure Diop begin right away with korom: For example, we know that we need to have a korom, that a majority of the members need to be present before we can begin to conduct any business, and that the majority makes decisions, and that goes in the proces verbal [official record of the judgment in French-style legal systems]. The Sub-Prefect and the Rural Council President must be present in order to have a korom. (Rural Councillor Mamadou Thiao, Njafaj region, October 23,1993) Why should Serer officials latch onto the concept of korom as the most prominent element of official procedure? Korom is significant because it is a formalized element of "modern" institutional bureaucracy that dovetails extremely well with existing emphases in the Serer traditional law of cosaan on publicness, oration, testimony, and witnessing in decision making. Something very much like korom has long been an element of what most Serer now remember as the traditional decision-making mode—the council meeting under the talking tree, in which the entire community gathers together, under the supervision of elders. Such a meeting necessarily involves the entire community, all the parties concerned, everyone brought together. The notion that there is a modern institutional rule that in essence demands that meetings cannot be held unless everyone is present fits quite nicely with an underlying local emphasis on gathering the com-

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munity together, for the sake of oration, listening, and consensual decision making. Institutional Syncretism Truncated The Rural Councils held open the door for the takeover of low-level state offices by ordinary Serer agriculturists who would carry into office their distinctive worldview and transform the Rural Council system to make sense with and work within Serer notions of appropriate resource management strategies. The Serer have tried to walk through that door: they have tried to make the Rural Council system into neomasters of fire and, in fact, do so on the margins. But then the rural councillors are tutored by the Subprefects and Prefects, reminded of their duty to uphold the law, sternly rebuked as their judgments are revoked by their administrative superiors, warned once again that as illiterate, untrained peasants, they should not deviate too far from the guidelines and advice given by state officials. Polycentrism has a hierarchy, and the illiterate peasants—even dressed up as rural councilors—are at the bottom, as usual. Serer farmers know what is going on with the Rural Councils. They recognize the chain, they see when it is pulled from above, and they can feel when the tenuous bonds of syncretism through which they have tried to transform the Rural Councils (and be represented by them) are sundered. In those moments, the Rural Councils lose their credibility, cease to represent, and start to command. The notion that the Rural Councils might be the new masters of fire evaporates. Two parallel land management disputes in the Siin region reveal both the possibilities of syncretic adaptation of the Rural Councils and the results of truncating that process of syncretism. First, in the village of Puday, farmers had for many years extended their millet fields into a seasonal pond. When rains are poor, the pond is very small, leaving plenty of room for farmers to grow their crops and for animals to graze and enjoy access to the waters of the pond. But in a year of abundant rainfall, as was the case in 1993, the pond fills, flooding the farmers' millet fields and leaving no grazing space and no way for animals to drink from the pond without trampling young millet plants. In Puday, the village chief took it upon himself to ask farmers who had planted in the pond space to each give up about a few meters of their field adjacent to the pond, to create a buffer for cattle and other animals to get to the water. At first, there was much dissent and opposition from the farmers, who complained about the immorality of destroying already-planted millet, the staple crop. The village chief of Puday used public meetings and private conversations to emphasize that the pangool (ancestral spirits) of the pond had long been unhappy with the way farmers had encroached on

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the perimeter of the body of water. He raised the widely held belief that some ill will on the part of the pangool was the cause of many years of poor rains. In the end, all of the farmers around the pond voluntarily ceded parts of their already-planted fields to make room for livestock. That same year, similar tensions between farming and herding arose betwreen the Njujuf neighborhood of the very large and old village of Tukar, and a recently settled satellite village (colony of Tukar), Ndokh. In the days of the masters of fire, farmers from both Njujuf and Ndokh used land managed by the master of fire of Njujuf, one of the oldest and most powerful such leaders in the area. With the land reform and the Rural Council system, the master of fire no longer managed fields, so each year, farmers from the two communities had to make provisional, ad hoc arrangements for who would farm and pasture where. Sometimes this worked; sometimes, as in 1993, it did not. That year, the more numerous and higher status farmers from Njujuf had lost access to well-fertilized fields shared with another neighboring community. So they insisted on planting millet throughout the area once shared with their neighbors in Ndokh. The farmers from Ndokh were counting on using some of that land as pasture for their cattle, as had historically been the practice. Negotiations failed to achieve a compromise. Njujuf farmers seeded their millet throughout the historical joint-use area. They came armed with hoes and machetes to keep their Ndokh neighbors out. The people of Ndokh asked for help from the Rural Council, which called in the gendarmes to quiet the agitated Njujuf farmers. Many were arrested throughout that summer. Rural councillors were not allowed to reestablish a new, comprehensive allocation of fields for fallow, pasture, and subsistence cropping: this was clearly not the responsibility of the Rural Council, especially in the eyes of the immediate supervisor of the Rural Council, the subprefect (Rural Councillor Amaissa Diouf, Njafaj region, August 27, 1993; Rural Councillor Mahecor Ndong, Njafaj region, July 26,1993). Instead, the Rural Council worked with a local agricultural extension agent (Chief of the Rural Expansion Center) to stake out a network of meter-wide alleyways connecting tiny microplots of pasture space controlled by individuals from Ndokh, cutting awkwardly across millet fields controlled by Njujuf farmers. The alleys were never wide enough for cattle; the pasture plots were too small. Njujuf farmers grew incensed when a cow's hoof landed on a young millet plant. Dating back to 1993, Njujuf farmers have been tearing out the stakes marking the cattle pathways and coming to blows with their Ndokh neighbors. The gendarmes have grown frustrated and tired of coming out to this remote area to separate the combatants. Both in Puday and in Njujuf-Ndokh, those who needed space to plant the subsistence crop were in potential conflict with others who needed room for their livestock to graze. In the past, resource management

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authority over such issues was clearly in the hands of the master of fire. Prevented from treating the joint-use area as a common pool resource, as the masters of fire did, the Rural Councils were forced to employ a private property optic, in which individuals from Njujuf and Ndokh held individualized rights in distinct and clear, yet distinctly unviable, microplots. As a result, the Rural Councils could neither address the direct resource management conflict, nor garner sufficient legitimacy to command voluntary sacrifice from farmers in Njujuf or herders in Ndokh. By contrast, in Puday, the village chief, an official entirely disconnected from the Rural Council, followed the logic of syncretism and reconstituted a functional equivalent of both the resource management and spiritual legitimation dimensions of the masters of fire. The village chief of Puday not only demanded voluntary economic sacrifice, he also provided a locally meaningful, clear and comprehensible, morally acceptable rationale for this sacrifice. His rationale echoed the old masters of fire, and provided a logic of justification for those forced to accept unacceptable material sacrifices. Strikingly, the state officials who advise and, to a great extent, control the Rural Councillors (subprefects, as well as state extension agents) saw these two conflicts strictly as contrasts in personality types: [I]n Puday, they gave up parts of their field because they all knew that they had encroached. They themselves showed us the boundaries of the fields, they were fully aware of where the boundary should have been. This problem in Puday, this was a problem that was handled in very good circumstances. It was quite different than Ndokh—there were not recalcitrants at Puday. (Water and Forest Service Agent Baba Diara Koban, village of Ngayokheme, August 23,1993) Yet when asked about the role of the pangool in the more positive outcome in Puday, the two extension agents who were directly involved in both cases, providing crucial guidance to the Rural Councils, 16 not only indicated that they had no idea the pangool were involved, but also noted that they had never before heard the term pangool. The Rural Councils are integrated in a centralized administrative structure that retains real control over organizational operations and formal rules, and that at the same time is strikingly disconnected from the most critical features of the informal institutional infrastructure of land and land management in the Siin. As syncretic institutions, the Rural Councils might have intertwined the law of the National Domain and customary Serer law or cosaan. This is what the village chief of Puday did, and this is what rural councillors and litigants interviewed for this study envisioned. Yet this is not what the Rural Councils have become: they are instead one functionally specific cog in a wider mechanism of land and resource management whose goals and procedures are set in Dakar with little reference to—indeed, with total lack

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of awareness of—the informal rules, habits, and values that have historically made the institutionalization of authoritative resource management possible in this region, and that still have the potential, if carefully evoked, to constrain behavior today. The tragedy of the Rural Council system, the essence of its failure to promote fully transformative institutional syncretism and sustainable development, lies in an all too common farce in rural institutional reform: these are not autonomous local resource managers who enjoy real leeway in determining policy, but simple administrative agents of a central government. At best, the Rural Councils might suggest an effort to graft new formal rules and organizations onto local, traditional informal rules, habits, and values. We get the formalities of Ostrom's (1999) polycentrism, but in substantive institutional essence, pseudosyncretic grafting. When faced with the real test of representation and autonomy in rural Africa, the institutionalization of syncretic local values and practices, they are reminded that their job is to enforce the law, and if they don't seem to understand the law, the subprefect and the prefect will be glad to educate them, and, when needed, overrule the adjudicatory decisions of "illiterate peasants."

CONCLUSION Our case illustrations from Madagascar and Senegal underscore the importance of local participation, local sense of ownership, and local legitimation in building effective natural resource management partnerships with centralized state and international actors in the developing world. The distinctive feature of much of the rural developing world, we argue, is that its localities, communities, and provinces are home to locally distinct institutional legacies, worldviews, and patterns of expectation with regard to the moral and legitimate management of resources and exercise of authority. The dina and master-of-fire land management systems are just two such examples. We must recognize that when resource conservation emphasizes local participation and meaningful polycentrism, we are crossing not just geographical boundaries but often boundaries formed by divergent institutional patterns and moral expectations. We must therefore prepare new theoretical tools to make sense of a dynamic process of institutional and cultural transformation. We need to know how to understand what happens when organizations, rules, habits, and values largely designed or cherished in the West (or among Western-educated elites in developing countries) interact with the legacies of (often idealized) local organizations. We see the general model of institutional syncretism as a useful theoretical starting point. It helps us make sense of the sustainable development

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rhetoric in the Senegal and Madagascar cases. In Senegal, it opens the door to a creative recombination of institutional elements from local Serer history and the Weberian state. Syncretism might have made the Rural Councils into neomasters of fire, locally legitimate and trusted through their interpretation of tenure and resource law, yet accountable to broad national principles of conservation and equitable access. When the Rural Councils were reigned in and forced to interpret and apply the law as understood in Dakar, the result was, at best, mere grafting; at worst, ecologically devastating institutional bifurcation and vilification. In the Madagascar case, a history of grafting has robbed local communities of a voice and marginalized them from the state decision-making apparatus. Unlike the Serer Rural Councils, the few attempts of the Malagasy state to work with the dina to come up with innovative institutional outcomes are generally ill-conceived. The attempts by international actors were consistent with the logic of Agenda 21 and undertaken with what were no doubt the best of intention; yet, they met with no greater success at empowering local voice. Local leaders either remain outside of the decision-making process or are in jeopardy with their own community. In recent years, the state has done more to recognize that decentralization ultimately means working with the dina toward effective resource-use management. However, in the same laws recognizing the importance of the dina, the state has inserted its own, internationally influenced, values. As a result, little transformative syncretism is possible, and the legitimacy of the dina will likely be eroded by its own communities. Meaningful participation by local communities in the formulation of natural resource-use policy will thus be subverted rather than enhanced. As we have seen in the cases presented here, an analysis that sees syncretism (especially syncretism in response to sustainable development) sees the real and interesting political tension in present-day development. Development planners impose new institutions, practices, and values to promote goals such as sustainability, marketization, and democratization. Syncretism is the process by which local actors transform these institutions, rendering them locally meaningful and useful for local objectives. Most of the time, policy makers ignore or seek to dispense with local syncretic institutions—this has been the norm in 50 years of development work. Failure, we should note, has also been the normal result of these 50 years of development work. By contrast, policies that recognize and make use of syncretic institutions open the door for new forms of success rooted in a greater degree of voluntary compliance with authoritative institutions designed to pattern and manage resource use. Institutional syncretism of the kind described here is a fulfillment of the promise of polycentrism and collaboration envisioned by Ostrom (1999), Chambers (1983), the architects of Agenda 21

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(United Nations 1992), and others. Lessons from our casework at opposite ends of the African continent make clear, we should underscore, that polycentrism and the promise of collaboration are simply not enough to get us anywhere near sustainability. Polycentrism that does not make room for full syncretism denies meaningful local participation and sets the stage for the fig-leaf, often authoritarian apologetic version of syncretism that we call "grafting." To genuinely marry sustainability to deep collaboration, local empowerment, and the promulgation of environmental values however understood, fully transformative institutional syncretism is an ideal, perhaps essential, matchmaker. But syncretism also raises new questions and concerns. Most critically, syncretism yields extremely heterogeneous practices and forms of development, in which definitions of sustainability, and outcomes with regard to natural resources and the environment, will vary considerably across localities. These numerous, disparate, and messy definitions of sustainability promise to open a genuinely pluralistic global conversation about the great variety of environmental values and visions of natural resource management found across cultures and regions. Only by actively sharing our disparate notions of sustainability and empathetically listening across cultural, class, and historical divides to the conceptualizations of others can we hope to escape the cul-de-sac of Northern progressive environmental pontification and Southern reactive recourse to poverty reduction as priority one. This will take time, and will require real resources to promote participatory and democratic dialogue and decision making. Because the alternative, a la Brundtland (1987), is elite-defined and amorphous platitudes announced everywhere but implementable nowhere, the developing world seems faced with no better option than syncretic adaptation and ensuing participatory deliberation about the meaning and direction of sustainability. NOTES 1. For the classic and, in some ways, unavoidable, formulation of sustainable development, see Brundtland 1987. For a critical overview to efforts to apply, concretize, and disentangle the Brundtland formulation, see Holland 2000. 2. Principle 12 of the Rio Accords stresses the necessary bilateral and multilateral linkages between states, and Principle 22 adds that "indigenous people and their communities and other local communities have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognize and duly support their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development" (United Nations 1992). This intent is furthered articulated in Chapter 26 of Agenda 21, which argues that without this multilevel cooperation, sustainable development is unobtainable (United Nations 1993). 3. For an exploration of the term's 500-year history, see Lejamble, Georges 1963.

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4. The orimbato was originally a stone erected to remember an event or convention, or to delineate a piece of land; it has also come to mean the money that is given in witness to confirm a contract (Abinal & Malzac 1993). 5. For a more complete exploration, see Marcus 2000 and Henkels 1999. 6. For a more detailed discussion of the WWF's introduction of dina in southern Madagascar, see Razanabahiny 1995. 7. For another case, see Kull 2002. 8. For similar findings, see Muttenzer 2001. 9. A similar point is made by economist Michel Langlois (2001:1), who argues that the success of environmental control by rural communities rests on the transparency of the choices of valorization of the resources and on coordination between actors. "Methods of allowance and assignment in accordance with sustainability will have to respect the dynamics of natural man relations and social relations." 10. This section distills and extends a more detailed analysis of institutional syncretism in response to the Rural Council reform found in Chapter 6 of Galvan 2004. This section is based on ethnographic interviews, oral histories, surveys, and archival research conducted by Galvan in the rural Siin region of Senegal over 16 months in 1992-93, as well as during more brief visits in 1995 and 2002. 11. For a thorough overview, see Vengroff 1989. 12. The Serer-Siin are one among seven distinct ethnolinguistic groups that together form the ethnic umbrella category "Serer." Like so many other ethnic designations in the developing world, the term "Serer" masks a colonial-era lumping together of heterogeneous populations more than it designates a deeply rooted, extant or self-conscious ethnolinguistic group or "tribe." For more detailed reflection on the distinctions among Serer subgroups and on choice of terminology, see Galvan 2002, 89-102. 13. For historic and contemporary versions of this freehold property evangelism, see, respectively, Abelin 1979 and Bassett 1993. 14. Only 19.4 percent of 727 respondents in a randomized sample opinion survey conducted with this study agreed that pawning should be restricted in this way. Moreover, the discourse of those who favor the state restriction is constructed around special cases and excuses, avoiding an overt critique of the trust and reciprocity relations tightly associated in this society with unlimited land pawning. 15. Korom is a transliteration of the term "quorum" as it has been incorporated into Serer structures of pronunciation (KOR-om) and grammar ("o korom ke" for "the quorom"). 16. Chief of the Rural Expansion Center, an agricultural technology and land management specialist, and the Water and Forest Service Agent, responsible for ponds, rivers, trees, shrubs, and related matters. See Ba 1985. REFERENCES Abelin, Philippe. "Domaine national et developpement au Senegal." bulletin de /7E4N4L.3, pp. 508-38,1979. Ba, Thierno Aliou. "Les centres d'expansion rurale du Senegal entre la dynamique paysanne et les structures d'Etat. Mediation ou frein pour un developpement autogestionnaire?" Mondes et Developpement 13:52, pp. 621-31, 1985.

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Bassett, Thomas J. "Introduction: The Land Question and Agricultural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa." In Thomas J. Bassett and Donald E. Crummey (eds.), Land in African Agrarian Systems, pp. 1-31. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. Bates, Robert, Arner Greif, Margaret Levi, lean Laurent Rosenthal, and Barry Weingast (eds.). 1998. Analytic Narratives. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Becker, Charles. 1981. Traditions Villageois du Siin. Dakar: CNRS-LA, 1998. Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977 [1972]. Brundtland, Gro Harlem (ed.). Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Chambers, Robert. Rural Development: Putting the Last First. Essex, UK: Intermediate Technology Development Group Publishing, 1983. Chambers, Robert, and Gordon R. Conway. "Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practical Concepts for the 21st Century." Discussion Paper 286. Brighton, UK: University of Sussex of Development Studies, 1992. Dulphy, M. "Coutume des Sereres de la Petite Cote (Cercle de Thies)." In Comite d'Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de TAfrique Occidentale Francaise. Coutumiers Juridiques de VAfrique Occidentale Frangaise, Tome 1: Senegal. Paris: Librairie Larose, 1936. Easton, David. A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York: Wiley, 1965. Galvan, Dennis. "Institutional Syncretism and the Articulation of Modes of Production in Rural Senegalese Land Tenure Relations." African Rural and Urban Studies 4:2-3, pp. 59-98,1997. Galvan, Dennis. The State Must Be Our Master: How Peasants Craft Culturally Sustainable Development in Senegal. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Guigou, Brigitte. "Les Changements du Systeme Familial et Matrimonial: Les Sereres du Sine (Senegal) (La Souplesse du Systeme Patrimonial Lignager)." Doctorat Nouveau regime. Universite de Lille III, 1993. Hall, Peter. "Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State." Comparative Politics (April), pp. 275-296,1993. Henkels, Diane M. "Une vue de pres du droit de renvironnement Malgache." African Studies Quarterly. 3:2, pp. 30-46,1999. Holland, Alan. "Introduction—Sustainable Development: The Contested Vision." In Keekok Lee, et al. (eds.), Global Sustainable Development in the Twenty-First Century, pp. 1-8. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000. Holling, C S. "The Resilience of Terrestrial Ecosystems: Local Surprise and Global Change." In W. C. Clark and R. E. Munn (eds.), Sustainable Development of the Biosphere, pp. 292-317. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Kull, Christian. Isle of Fire: The Political Ecology of Grassland and Woodland Burning in Highland Madagascar. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, 2000. Kull, Christian. "Empowering Pyromaniacs in Madagascar: Ideology and Legitimacy in Community-Based Natural Resource Management." Development and Change 33:1 (January), pp. 57-78, 2002.

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Langlois, Michel. "Maitrise de l'espace et gestion des ressources Elements d'une approche sur la gestion locale des ressources naturelles a Madagascar." Montpellier : Institut de recherche pour le developpement (IRD), 2001. Lejamble, Georges. Le Fokonolona et le pouvoir. Tananarive: Centre de droit public et de science politique, Antananarivo, 1963. March, James, and Johan Olsen. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. Marcus, Richard R. Cultivating Democracy on Fragile Grounds: Environmental Institutions and Non-Elite Perceptions of Democracy in Madagascar and Uganda. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Florida, Department of Political Science, 2000. Marcus, Richard R. "Madagascar: Legitimizing Autocracy?" Current History (May), pp. 226-231,2001. Matzke, Gordon Edwin, and Nontokozo Nabane. "Outcomes of a Community Controlled Wildlife Utilization (CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe)." Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary journal 24:1 (March), pp. 65-85,1996. Michels, Robert. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1949 [1915]. Muttenzer, Frank. "La mise en ceuvre de l'amenagement forestier negocie, ou l'introuvable gouvernance de la biodiversite a Madagascar." Reseau Europeen Droit et Societe. URL ,2001. Niang, Mamadou M. "La Reforme de Tadministration territoriale et locale au Senegal." Notes Africaines 172, pp. 103-109,1981. Ostrom, Elinor. "Coping with Tragedies of the Commons." Annual Review of Political Science 2, pp. 493-535,1999. Pelissier, Paul. Les paysans du Senegal: Les civilizations agraires du Cayor a la Casamance. Paris: Imprimerie Fabregue, 1966. Razanabahiny. V. Le Dina (Convention entre Membres de Communautes Villageoises): Son Opportunity Ou Non Dans La Conservation De La Nature. Cas de la Reserve Naturelle Integrale d'Andohahela—Tolagnaro. Antananarivo: Universite D'Antananarivo, Ecole Normale Superieure, Filiere Lettres Malgaches (Anthropologie). Memoire de CA.P.E.N, 1995. Thelen, Kathleen, and Sven Steinmo. "Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics." In Steinmo, Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, eds. Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, pp. 1-32. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. United Nations. Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June, 1992. United Nations. Earth Summit Agenda 21: The United Nations Programme for Sustainable Development. New York: Division for Sustainable Development, United Nations, 1993. Vengroff, Richard. Decentralization and the Implementation of Rural Development in Senegal: The View from Below. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1989.

CHAPTER 8

Building from the Center Out: Decentralizing Environmental Policy Making in Costa Rica John Bolus and Renee J. Johnson

INTRODUCTION The concept of sustainable development is multidimensional. It emerged from a generation of making environmental policy on an ad hoc basis, responding to threats to air, water, and other natural resources. Environmentalism in the developed countries established conservation goals that reflected a preference for a healthier environment as compared to maximum development. Developing countries diagnosed environmental problems as a symptom of Western overconsumption and their own underdevelopment. Sustainable development, conceptually at least, is a means for tying together these disparate perceptions. The recent fascination with the idea of "sustainable development" has not streamlined its usage or meaning. Even before the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development conference (the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, sustainable development had encompassed meeting human needs, maintaining economic growth, and conserving natural capital (Redclift 1990). In the short to medium term, developing countries need economic growth in order to meet human needs. Likewise, the conservation of natural resources and the maintenance of a healthy environment are necessary for long-term survival as well as for continued human development. The consequence of pursuing these multiple objectives simultaneously as well as over time is the necessity for coordination across social scales. In this chapter, sustainability refers to maintaining utility over the very long run (Pezzey 1992). Meeting human needs, maintaining economic growth, and conserving natural capital imply public and private interventions in a range of social processes. Sustainable development is a context

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for integrated policy making across sectors and scales. In this chapter, we focus on the environmental policy making and management dimensions of public and private interventions in the case of Costa Rica. The Ministry of Environment in Costa Rica embarked on a significant process of decentralization to better integrate its program with various domestic and international stakeholders. Despite Costa Rica's well-deserved reputation as a pro-environment country, the situation in Costa Rica is nevertheless complicated (not unlike sustainable development). Our preliminary research suggests that Costa Rica's decentralization process is having a net positive impact on the multiple objectives of sustainable development. However, we make the case that sustainable development is not yet a realistic policy-making framework for most developing countries. For this reason, the first and second sections in the chapter focus on the concepts of market and government failure, which remain central because policy making is frequently a response to these failures. Given the currency of this framework for policy makers and analysts, it is helpful to be familiar with government-, market-, and institution-based approaches to environmental questions. The point is to provide a conceptual understanding of market failures that helps clarify the rationale for the establishment, maintenance, and evolution of environmental oversight entities and policies. The third section explores emergent dimensions of decentralization in environmental policy making. To this end, we synthesize different perspectives on the usefulness of this shift in public policy. It is proposed that decentralization often represents a reasonable alternative in dynamic, complex, and contentious situations. Among the issues discussed are budgetary and structural constraints, the macroeconomic environment, external influences, governmental accountability and responsiveness, and the role of stakeholders in the policy process. In this regard, it is necessary to clarify the potential impact of decentralization on the integration of policies that promote sustainable development. The final portion of this chapter concentrates on the obstacles and opportunities for effective environmental policy making in Costa Rica. Here, we bring to the fore both the aspects that make the Costa Rican experience unique and those that may have wider lessons for sustainable development in developing countries. MARKET FAILURES A N D POLICY RESPONSES Market failures are circumstances where the pursuit of private interest does not lead to an efficient use of society's resources (Weimer & Vining 1999). The idea of market failure has been recognized since the time of Adam Smith when classical economists identified the public nature of goods such as national defense and courts (Caporaso & Levine 1992:

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34-35). Among the standard market failures—public goods, externalities, natural monopolies, and information asymmetries—the growth of industrial society brought the latter three into prominence. Taken together, the four market failures provide a significant portion of the rationale for the growth of the public sector in this century (Andersson, Harsman, & Quigley 1997: 2). There are, of course, distributional goals and historicalcultural factors that explain the scope and breadth of public sector activity. For the time being, however, our concern is with the inefficient outcomes associated with market failures. Nonexclusion and rivalrous consumption characterize natural or manmade common property resources (CPRs) (McGinnis & Ostrom 1993: 20). Natural CPRs such as fisheries, forests, and atmosphere are of particular interest in the overall analysis of decentralized environmental policy making. When natural resources are congested, consumption decisions are based on marginal private cost rather than on marginal social cost (Weimer & Vining 1999: 88-89). Open access to diminishable resources poses problems that have captured the attention of scholars, concerned people, and policy makers. The question of how to promote environmentally sustainable practices is central to the institutional side of sustainable development. Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" (1968) is perhaps the most famous description of the CPR dilemma. The strength of the narrative lies in its simplicity. The tragedy may lead us to bring moral weight to bear on the issue, but Hardin does not explicitly do so. Instead, the way out of the dilemma is the instrumental use of policy. Either the commons must be privatized or else it falls on the government to administer the resource. For Hardin, property rights are the cornerstone of any solution; but he says almost nothing about how these rights are to be derived (Vandermeer 1996: 291). In terms of environmental policy making, individual or government ownership offers a mechanism for making the resource excludable. On the one hand, the assignment of private property rights minimizes the need for environmental policy making and public stewardship. Excludability is thought to lead to efficient consumption levels (Weimer & Vining 1999: 89-90). Privatization is a policy prescription that emphasizes efficiency (Campbell 1997: 11-12). The idea is to make the resource more like a private good, which the market produces and allocates without substantial government intervention. Conceptualizations of sustainable development have to pay attention to a problem's position in the institutional framework. In other words, problems typically have to be defined beneath the international level so that concrete steps can be taken to solve them. But there are limits to the efficiency and effectiveness of privatization plans. First, private ownership does not preclude the depletion of a natural resource; it simply removes the prisoner's dilemma from the situation.

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Second, the public may want access to natural places that are beautiful and unique (Leopold 1949). Finally, the privatization solution underestimates the possibility of local institutions designing and implementing arrangements for sustainable resource use (Ostrom 1990: 13-14). Thus there is recognition that the public management of CPRs remains a legitimate and potentially efficient product of environmental policy making. On the other hand, a wide range of policy responses becomes available when responsibility for CPRs reverts to the public sector. In the twentieth century, there were many examples of public ownership and management of CPRs. It is important to appreciate the social and political dimensions of natural resource management. Indeed, sustainable development has political content because it directly relates to the distribution of resources in society. Whenever governments become involved in determining how scarce resources should be distributed, political battles often ensue and social patterns may be disturbed. Thus, the manner in which governments intervene in the marketplace becomes significant. For instance, environmental regulation may emphasize performance standards or design standards (Bonser, McGregor, & Oster 1996: 282). To the extent that efficiency remains a primary goal, these standards should weigh the economic tradeoffs of either means- or ends-based approaches to regulation. Public sector solutions to CPR and externality problems may either be control and enforcement intensive or incentive driven. In the past, governments have generally relied on supply-side taxes to compensate society for environmental damage and resource depletion (Bonser et al. 1996: 281). However, governments have also utilized demand-side taxes when resource users could be identified (Weimer & Vining 1999: 207). Taxes are normally part of a legal and regulatory framework. This framework provides, for example, punishments for violators and quantitative limits on harmful activities (Weimer & Vining 1999: 223). Some policy frameworks are primarily rule based and formal whereas others are standard based and informal. Examining the balance between rule-based and standardbased frameworks helps us understand environmental policy making. The question of how well an institutional framework enables effective environmental management depends on fiscal and economic constraints, the structure and human capital of the regulatory entity, and the relationship between regulators and private stakeholders. Public sector responses to environmental problems are increasingly taking account of market mechanisms for creating incentives to curb inefficient and harmful behavior (World Bank 1999; OECD 1998). Facilitating markets includes the allocation of existing goods, the creation of new marketable goods, and auctions for resource rights (Weimer & Vining 1999: 202-204). In fact, the dichotomy between market- and state-based approaches to CPR externality dilemmas and sustainable development is an oversimplification of reality.

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Institutional approaches to these problems reassess the environmental management alternatives. The new institutionalist approach recognizes that environmental governance entails a blending of ideal types. Institutioncentered analysis represents a middle ground between market and state. There is an overriding recognition that communities of individuals rely on formal and informal institutions to manage CPRs (Ostrom 1990; Berkes 1991; Taylor & Singleton 1993; Ostrom, Schroeder, & Wynne 1993; UNDP 1997). In this way, groups of people can sometimes overcome the prisoner's dilemma because they have long-term incentives to do so. People are not fixed in their ability to deal with the constraints inherent in CPR dilemmas (Ostrom 1990: 6). The key is that rights and obligations are formulated on the local level. Analyzing micro-level incentives and extending the strategic time horizon are important steps for correcting market failures. Later, our analysis links decentralized environmental policy making to sustainable local institutions. The point is that local institutions can better adapt to economic and demographic factors when policy makers understand the bases for micro-level decisions. Environmental management has to proceed without overdependence on the establishment of private property rights because in some cases, such as air or water, it is entirely unclear what private property means (Ostrom 1990: 13). But the institutionalist approach to environmental management is not wholly governmental either. For institutionalists, the free-rider problem assumes that economic rationality lies at the heart of individual or collective experience. Thus, getting the institutions right is central to achieving productive outcomes and increasing the costs of free riding (Ostrom 1990: 15, Taylor & Singleton 1993: 67-70).

GOVERNMENT FAILURES A N D POLICY RESPONSES Government failures are also part of the public policy landscape that affects the design and coordination of sustainable development efforts. Weimer and Vining (1999) define government failure as a circumstance where the social costs of government intervention are greater than the social benefits. There are four types of government failures: problems inherent in direct democracy, representative government, bureaucratic supply, and decentralization (Weimer & Vining 1999: 159-160). Our focus rests on the latter two, but it is important to acknowledge that issues such as agenda setting and political incentives have an impact on environmental policy making. However, fixing the political system is a different matter from analyzing the policy environment. Questions of bureaucratic supply and decentralization are more easily related to the structures and processes in environmental policy making.

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Bureaucratic Supply Regulating the environment can be expensive, in part, because government oversight adds transaction costs. For example, environmental agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States or Ministry of the Environment in Costa Rica are complex organizations that deliberate and execute various policies (P^hoads 1985: 40). Consequently, regulators are not always efficient in delivering environmental protection. Planning, implementing, and monitoring programs can be time-consuming and expensive processes. In addition to structural and process-related problems, environmental bureaucracies often have multiple and conflicting goals. Goal diversity is problematic because seemingly inconsistent decision-making criteria hurt the responsiveness and predictability of regulating entities. The next section develops the argument that decentralized environmental policy making is less susceptible to bureaucratic supply problems. High levels of legislative, executive, and judicial oversight may contribute to goal diversity and the problems just discussed. However, bureaucratic independence is also a potential supply problem. The scientific nature of environmental decision making, for instance, contributes to principal-agent problems (Sanchez Gonzalez 1998: 35-38). Although lower levels of oversight reduce transaction costs, inadequate accountability may lead to cost overruns and arbitrary behavior. This is an issue of considerable concern for decentralized policy making. Another problem to which we draw our attention is the general lack of competition in bureaucratic supply. Economic theorists contend that because government bureaucracies do not face competitive market pressures and are often monopoly suppliers, inefficiency ensues. Nevertheless, as the Costa Rican case demonstrates, competition may also create problems. Rules and regulations are essential for the functioning of complex capitalist societies (North 1990: 25-28). Yet it is often hard to say how effective an agency or ministry really is. In terms of the environment, placing a dollar value on the benefits of conservation and remediation is difficult (Rhoads 1985: 21-22). Environmental legislation and policy making often seek to provide a diffuse and multidimensional good. For instance, what is the Clean Air Act worth? However, even "what if" or counterfactual arguments typically fail to provide a dollar figure that stakeholders can agree on (Roe 1994). Although valuing public sector outputs is problematic, organizational structures that emphasize marginal costs and benefits as well as accountability are worth a closer look.

Decentralization Decentralized systems of government divide responsibilities between different levels of government, and thus policies may not be implemented

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uniformly (Weimer & Vining 1999: 190-192). For environmental policy making, this is sometimes a drawback because state and local governments may ignore important market failures or fail to coordinate policies across sectors. Different standards in different states or regions have the potential to export negative externalities. This represents the extreme manifestation of what is a general lack of communication and coordination between levels of government. In addition, fiscal externalities are a serious problem when standards do not take into account local revenue capacities (Peterson 1997: 5-8). Responses to government failures may either increase command and control tendencies in regulation or loosen the scope and degree of governmental oversight. In the former case, supply failures invite the public sector to increase its capacity through consolidating resources and decision making (Grindle 1996: 5-8). Although a strong national-level commitment to sustainable development is arguably a necessary condition for environmentally sustainable policy making, it is not sufficient. In the latter case, policy makers choose to contract out certain tasks (World Bank 1999; Weimer & Vining 1999: 238; Sanchez Gonzalez 1998). For instance, environmental policy makers have the option of sharing work with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and quasi-governmental entities. These approaches attempt to solve bureaucratic supply problems by giving control to better-equipped people in less cumbersome organizations. To be sure, horizontal institutional linkages have been popularized since sustainable development became an important organizing principle. Outright privatization is generally not consistent with the threefold goal of efficiency, public access, and local institutions. THE DECENTRALIZATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY MAKING At this point, it is useful to explore the emergent dimensions of decentralization in environmental policy making. Decentralization is a policy framework, and movement toward decentralized policy making is a process. The process of decentralization has an effect on budgetary and structural constraints, the reality of international pressures, the macroeconomic environment, governmental accountability and responsiveness, and the role of stakeholders in the policy process. The management of integrated environmental policies remains the principle concern. At the end of this section, we argue that governments can complement and reinforce the benefits of decentralization by balancing economic and interpretive techniques. Decentralization entered the development vernacular of international organizations in the 1980s. In Latin America, the state ceased to be identified as a primary catalyst for economic development (Kodras 1997: 80-81; Peterson 1997; Grindle 1996: 9-11). Decentralization experiences in Western Europe and North America served as a demonstration effect for coun-

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tries such as Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Argentina (OECD 1998: 9). Likewise, environmental policy making came under scrutiny from domestic and international NGOs, the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) (World Bank 1999; Hopkins 1995; Keck 1994). Decentralization took on new currency in the realm of environmental management. This is not to say that the impetus for decentralization was either imported or homegrown, merely that the process shows signs of outside encouragement, domestic deliberation, and joint innovation. The goals of meeting human needs, restarting economic growth, and conserving natural resources reflect domestic and international pressures. For Latin America, the difficult economic period in the 1980s meant that each level of government had to accept the financial and human resource limitations of the other levels. Stakeholders across a range of policy sectors recognized that the state and its bureaucracy could not have a precise and unchanging role (Bonvin 1994). One might note that the reform of the public sector is composed of two stages. The first, short-term economic stabilization, involves outside actors such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United States. This stage is largely apolitical in the sense that prescriptions are imposed and inflexible. Long-term structural adjustment, the second stage, includes such issues as deciding on priorities and investment, (re)organizing ministries, and developing institutional capacity. The point is that these aspects of structural adjustment are subject to domestic political deliberation. In this way, decentralization may be understood as a process that is undertaken by domestic actors. It is important to realize that decentralizing environmental policy making is not a one-step or even a unidirectional process. For example, in Costa Rica, the first step was to form a central environmental ministry by combining responsibility for various natural resources under one roof (Cambronero 1999). In Latin America, it is still typical to find the management of forests, water, and other natural resources under the jurisdiction of scattered ministries or secretariats. Therefore, in environmental policy making, decentralization is facilitated by the formation of an environmental ministry with a coherent set of objectives and policies. It is, subsequently, the coherent structure and policies that can be decentralized (Cambronero 1999). The dynamic of the process described here is analogous to the struggle to make sustainable development concrete and influential in policy making. In Costa Rica, the first step toward decentralized management of natural resources was the acknowledgement that natural resource management requires a unified understanding of nature's different components. Likewise, sustainable development needs to be made a priority by a broad range of national politicians and institutions. The first step is one of ideational consolidation. In other words, actors on the national level have to take the initiative to make sustainable development an integrating

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force across policy sectors and social scales. The realization of a unified structure and the subsequent dispersal of resources and responsibilities to regional and local substructures make decentralized policy making possible. In the same way, realizing sustainable development requires thousands of localities implementing environmentally accountable policies. Sustainable development cannot be centrally managed. Sustainable development and effective environmental policy making both involve passing the initiative outward and downward through society. Budgetary and structural constraints are conceptually important to our inquiry into decentralization. There were signals by the early 1980s that many Latin American states were overextended (Grindle 1996: 18-22; OECD 1998; World Bank 1999). This recognition occupied two dimensions. First, financial strains appeared on the project and program levels; on the macro level, reduced economic growth eroded confidence in the state's capacity to solve socioeconomic problems. The funds available for environmentally sensitive market failures were severely limited (Hopkins 1995). Budget deficits had to be controlled, which meant that the public sector was downsized (Sanchez Gonzalez 1998). For environmental policy makers, this ushered in a new era of trying to get the most out of the resources that remained. It is not surprising, then, that international sources of funding and ideas became more important. Second, the crisis of the state was also a motivational one. Setting aside the budgetary problems, the distance between state and society seemed to preclude the sort of cooperation and coordination necessary for solving complicated problems. Decentralization represents one way to narrow the space between bureaucrats and citizens. Organizational structure matters because people want public and environmental policy that is accountable and effective. Centralized environmental policy making has a hard time understanding the contextual issues and, therefore, implementing good policies (Martin 1993: 148-153; OECD 1998; Peterson 1997: 25). For instance, program and project implementation is typically enhanced by personnel with a hands-on understanding of the people and ecology in a locality. Reforming public sector management means not only living with reduced budgets and workforces, but also considering alternative organizational structures. Later, we analyze Costa Rica's Ministerio del Ambiente y Energia's (MINAE) evolving organizational structure so that policy making for sustainable development is understood as a question of institutional linkages. The conceptual territory of budgetary and structural constraints relates to the public policy field's concern with institutional capacity (World Bank 1999; Peterson 1997; OECD 1994). As noted earlier, institutionalist approaches to CPR market failures emphasize the role of economic incentives and transaction costs in formal and informal institutions (North 1990; Ostrom 1990; Berkes 1991; Taylor & Singleton 1993). Environmental

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policy making takes place within an institutional framework. Indeed, the combination of formal and informal institutions can be thought of as the overarching rules of the game or norms of interaction. The literature on transaction costs and institutions notes that it is costly to change the rules of the game (North 1990: 33). But shifting the locus of environmental management decisions outward is not necessarily a radical departure from the existing rules of the game. Decentralization in Costa Rica does not alter the political consensus for social democracy, capitalism, and sustainable development. Costa Ricans have carefully arrived at the importance of those things. Decentralizing the environmental ministry leaves the fundamentals of the political system intact. Borrowing Goran Hyden's (1992) governance analogy, decentralization can be likened to remodeling the existing house rather than building a new one. This is not to say that making sustainable development a national priority is easy. Environmentalists in the United States, though a diverse and substantial force, have been unable to place sustainable development on the national political agenda. Forging stronger linkages between the national and regional or local levels builds institutional and environmental capacity (Quesada 1994). In terms of the policy process, program implementation is more likely when formal institutions understand and enhance informal ones (Kooiman 1993). This has the effect of improving policy design and implementation. On a more intangible level, these stronger linkages build stakeholders' trust in the formal institutions. The point is to build institutions that have the authority to govern (Hyden 1992:10). Clearly, it is hard to measure the benefits of increased trust. But we can speculate that trust and legitimacy make the public sector's remedies for market failures more efficient. The next two conceptual pieces for decentralization are the macroeconomic policy environment and governmental accountability and responsiveness. The reality of budgetary constraints leads us to develop a wider awareness of macroeconomic conditions. In Latin America, the economic crisis of the 1980s undermined the public sector's institutional capacity (Grindle 1996: 25-27; Campbell 1997; Bradford 1994). In other words, the rules of the game or the institutional matrix provided lower returns for many stakeholders. If this occurs, governmental interventions are likely to produce higher social costs. Environmental management is jeopardized by reduced institutional capacity. A successful regulatory framework depends on stable rules that are effectively enforced. The danger is that the loss of institutional capacity may lead to an inability to regulate property rights, enforce contracts, and cope with market failures (Grindle 1996: 31). Institutionalists are aware of economic issues such as incentives, growth, and development (North 1990; Ostrom, Schroeder, & Wynne 1993). However, the institutional approach to CPR problems and sustainable development has not yet found a way to incorporate the macroeco-

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nomic environment into the picture. This is why the institutional approach is not yet applicable to large-scale CPR problems such as air or ocean pollution. Understanding environmental policy making requires that an external factor such as the macroeconomy cease being treated as neutral or static. The decentralization process ought to make us sensitive to how inefficiencies in local resource use are part of regional or national economic inefficiencies. The structural elements of decentralization are related to the premise that accountability and responsiveness in government are desirable. Decentralization is part of a larger political framework. Politics and decision making in the public realm ought to be reconceptualized as a means problem (Lindblom 1990: 12-13). In other words, stakeholders support political processes when policy makers are accountable and responsive. Accountability and responsiveness provide latent support for institutions that weather short-term resource constraints and policy setbacks. If policy making lacks accountability and responsiveness, then the remedies for market failure cannot be effectively authorized and implemented. Secretive or one-way governing may conceivably work if there are clear, objective answers to problems. In the absence of wholly discoverable solutions, the processes that produce public decisions are, in effect, the backbone for subsequent authorization and implementation (Lindblom 1990: 225). In Latin America, the economic reform process is increasingly dependent on democratic politics (World Bank 1997; Sanchez Gonzalez 1998). The relationship between state and society has moved from insulation to engagement (Bradford 1994: 21). This shift implies that accountability and responsiveness in policy making are important. Of course, policy practitioners know that excessive oversight and political or social instability can harm the implementation of policies. Decentralization may increase the likelihood that engagement will become the norm of institutional interactions between state and society. Furthermore, sufficient levels of accountability and responsiveness in environmental policy making can be maintained while engagement leads to convergence or consensus (temporary or strategic insulation). In this environment, successful policy implementation has improved odds. Yet policy actors need to remain engaged so that policies for sustainable development evolve and adapt to their local circumstances. The effectiveness of governing processes depends on shared values and perceptions. Hyden (1992: 9) refers to political development as an increasing range of opportunities for reciprocal relationships. Reciprocity is fundamentally a relational conception of human interaction. It can be thought of as patterns of behavior that are recurrent over time. Governmental accountability and responsiveness, likewise, make stakeholders more willing to cooperate with public sector responses to market failures. Accountability and responsiveness are potential products of decentralized decision-making structures (Peterson 1997:15-20).

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The structural dimensions of decentralized environmental policy making offer local people a greater opportunity to participate in design, implementation, and evaluation-enforcement functions. Development literature speaks a great deal about participation in the policy process (World Bank 1999; Peterson 1997; UNDP 1997; Bonvin 1994). Meaningful public participation may or may not materialize in decentralization, but, all things being equal, it seems more likely when regulators and local stakeholders establish enduring face-to-face relationships (McGinnis & Ostrom 1993; Weimer & Vining 1999: 191). Although this aspect is critical, we take a slightly different tack here and argue that decentralization promotes and manages participation through its balance of competing interests. To a large extent, capitalist societies rely on the propensity for most socioeconomic activities to exist independent of or even in spite of government. Decentralization has been at the center of debates on what type of public sector planning and oversight is necessary to manage the environment. The conceptual dimensions of decentralization assessed thus far reflect a willingness to allow stakeholders to devise less state-centered arrangements to solve CPR or externality problems. Once safe and efficient environmental standards are set and enforced, the interactive potential of decentralized policy making may prove suitable for communities that are, after all, largely self-regulating. In this conceptualization, environmental regulation receives high levels of citizen input and sustains competing interests until a consensus or at least a convergence of interests emerges (Stone 1988: 241-243; Lindblom 1990: 71; Roe 1994: 74-75; Dryzek 1993: 216). It is important to emphasize that decentralization does not guarantee the efficient use of resources, governmental accountability and responsiveness, meaningful public participation, or a silver bullet against macroeconomic problems. In fact, when costs and benefits of environmental issues are truly national in scope, federal agenda setting and decision making are appropriate (Waterstone 1997: 235). Nonetheless, regulatory structures and processes may implement and monitor policy from a decentralized stance. The last part of this section reviews the professional techniques and sensibilities that, in our opinion, best fulfill the potential of decentralized environmental policy making. On the one hand, policy practitioners have to utilize economic techniques in order to understand the tradeoffs between alternative policies and goals (Fvhoads 1985:12-14). Furthermore, environmental questions are inherently scientific. Thus, environmental policy making cannot be faulted for working toward a common language and standardized methods; shared methods, techniques, and understandings help make environmental problems more manageable and, hopefully, comparable. Moreover, market failures involve efficiency issues. Environmental policy analysis, then, cannot avoid employing the language and insights of economics.

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Policy analysts, on the other hand, benefit from sensitivity to variables and interactions that are difficult to quantify. Decentralization seeks to efficiently disperse resources and responsibilities across a political system. Likewise, decentralization reduces the distance between the locus of decision making and that of policy implementation. In these ways, decentralization departs from development and regulatory paradigms that emphasize detached, scientific management at the expense of experience and intersubjective understanding (Dryzek 1993: 219-223). Solving policy problems is not a scientific activity, but rather a social activity (Lindblom & Cohen 1979: 15). Bringing policy and politics together is important because sustainable development cannot be approached through scientific answers alone. It has been noted that rationalism in policy analysis is limited by its overriding preoccupation with outcomes (Majone 1989: 18). Of course, outcomes do matter, and accountability is important. But regardless of the issue area, the question of by what criteria we judge policy remains thorny. If a diversity of interests matters, then selection and evaluation criteria cannot be set solely by science. It seems policy makers can better approximate the consequences of policy if varied criteria are built into its formulation. The refusal to make policy design more open-ended and flexible invites unwanted surprises for an organization. In a social world, technical considerations are insufficient as criteria for choices (Majone 1989:118). In the context of environmental problems, where policy implementation is difficult, a competition of ideas and methods is a form of insurance. Things may go awry, but at least the approach is adaptable, treating the policy process as open-ended and nonlinear. Indeed, sensitivity to policy feedback has to be stressed in a balanced approach for environmentally sustainable policies. In summary, the approach proposed here accepts the precision and clarity of economic analysis. It is hoped, though, that decentralized environmental policy making can also validate the importance of experience and context. Lay knowledge is accumulated through experience (Ostrom 1990; Lindblom 1990), which implies the importance of continuity and ongoing processes. Environmental policy makers have to acknowledge that the de facto decision maker is far less decisive to the unfolding chain of events than the average respondents to the policy. In the context of development, the policy analyst is not performing an exercise in analytical problem solving as much as participating in an experience of political and social problem solving (Lindblom & Cohen 1979: 11-12). In conclusion, these suggestions for getting the most out of decentralization point to the need for flexibility in policy analysis. At this juncture, it is worth noting that both decentralization and governance gained currency as a result of the crisis of the welfare state. The public sector faced problems that required its reform. Often, reform has meant

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exploring new modes of governing. Decentralization involves structuring organizations across social scales so they can interact while using resources efficiently and meeting responsibilities effectively. But it is foremost a process-oriented variable in this analysis. Therefore, governance seems like a compatible foundation for understanding and evaluating decentralization. For our purposes, governance is the negotiating and structuring of processes through which state and society manage the social, natural, and physical capital that are essential for development. Decentralization is one of the available modes of governing. In this sense, researching the effectiveness of decentralized environmental policy making is potentially aided by utilizing governance as a theoretical base. DECENTRALIZATION A N D ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY MAKING IN COSTA RICA Costa Rica is well known for its ecological diversity and its commitment to an extensive system of national parks and nature reserves. Costa Rica has been involved in conservation planning for over 25 years. As a result, it has a relatively strong institutional capacity for environmental policy making. In fact, Costa Rica established a fully functioning environmental ministry before other countries in the region. However, the economic crisis in the 1980s made policy makers question their narrow preservationist goals as well as the centralized management structure (Cambronero 1999). The subsequent reorganization of the environmental ministry created 11 regional units capable of managing policies and interacting with local stakeholders. Thus, we concentrate on how Costa Rica's decentralized Ministry of the Environment relates to sustainable environmental policies. The fact that sustainable development means different things to different people complicates its movement from a broad concept to a viable and tangible policy. In the same way, the norms and aspirations associated with sustainable development offer us valuable statements of intent. However, our efforts to explore institutional linkages place the focus on development strategy and project planning and management. Spreading organizational capacity through regional and local levels is not a novel idea, but this process is a means for adapting environmental management to the standards of sustainable development. In 1986, Costa Rica centralized control over natural resources within the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mines (MIRENEM) (Hopkins 1995: 56). MIRENEM faced serious obstacles—demographic, legal, organizational, human-resource, budgetary, macroeconomic—to making and implementing comprehensive environmental policy. Working groups were organized along issue or technical lines, which meant that the overall objective of a particular policy or project was often misunderstood (Villegas 1998). Yet the existence of technical and organizational competence

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cannot be underestimated. Costa Rica continues to be exceptional in this regard. But there are other Latin American countries—Panama, Argentina, and Brazil—that have sufficient environmental capacity to move resources and responsibilities outward (Peterson 1997). For better or worse, the state is the primary instrument for hearing and responding to environmental concerns. Stakeholders rarely interact with legislators, political parties, or the judicial system (Keck 1994: 102). The state's institutions are the focus for public-directed solutions, yet the state faces obstacles in reducing the social costs of environmental problems. John Sloan describes the policy challenge as follows. Formulating public policy in Latin America is choice-taking in a situation usually characterized by multiple and conflicting goals, scarce resources, escalating demands, limited information, and uncertain outcomes. (1984: 21) This underscores why sustainable development is unrealistic without a strong state making it a national priority. If the environment is on the agenda, the prospects for sustainable development policies improve. Costa Rica's political commitment and economic dependence on tourism are evidenced in its National Strategy for Sustainable Development (Quesada 1994: 30). This framework for policy making is being applied within a changing institutional matrix. Colin Bradford notes this trend in Latin America. The integration into policymaking of environmental issues—which are horizontal in nature and cut across various policy instruments and government agencies— also requires institutional change. (1994: 18) The effort to adapt environmental policy making to the context of sustainable development ushered in a significant decentralization process less than 10 years after MIRENEM was founded. Resources and responsibilities shifted outward from San Jose with the creation of 11 Areas de Conservacion (ACs) (Cambronero 1999). Costa Rica's reorganized environmental ministry, El Ministerio del Ambiente y Energia (MINAE), provides conservation planning, personnel development programs, and intra- and interministerial coordination (MINAE 2000). The point is that MINAE's institutional capacity offers a single organizational culture with technical diffusion and clear channels of accountability. ACs have to manage scientific uncertainty, popular participation, and budgetary scarcity—the likely conservation paradigm for the next decade. To meet this challenge, ACs have to negotiate resources and roles with external actors. It is fair to say that MINAE's regional units compete for donor aid with each other and similar entities from all over Latin America (Cambronero

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1999). Mutually beneficial partnerships have proved durable and sensitive to local interests. For example, Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG) continues the region's recent history of successful habitat restoration programs (Hopkins 1995: 97-102). Private Costa Rican conservation organizations such as Fundacion Neotropica (FN) are another common link in the environmental policy chain that stretches from the political system, through MINAE, to the outside world. Competition means, on the one hand, increased resources and innovations. On the other hand, this feature of decentralization means an internationalization and privatization of conservation in Costa Rica. Borrowing from John Kline's (1984) criticism of U.S. states competing for investment dollars, one worries that competition is wasteful because it influences only a choice between competing Costa Rican locations rather than the basic investment decision itself. Decentralization is an attempt to establish sustainability links between macro and micro levels. ACs are linked to local communities' education, employment, and natural resource management programs. The point is to invest in local environmental capacity by providing sustainable income opportunities. ACs liken their role to Albert O. Hirschman's (1984: 79) concept of promocion social, which implies that an AC belongs to the community rather than operating as a technical broker (Cambronero 1999). In fact, decentralization has reinvigorated the Central American tradition of cabildos abiertos or local councils that act on issues of local concern (World Bank 1999). Organizational adaptations, descentralizacion and desconcentracion in the case of MINAE, are one way to broaden and deepen partnerships for productive conservation. Investment in green tourism and the protection of natural areas has been solid even though Costa Rica went through a long period of economic crisis during the 1980s and early 1990s (CEPAL1998). Although the infusion of foreign capital has to be studied more systematically, decentralization is perhaps a key factor in the resiliency and adaptation of natural resource management. However, there are legitimate questions about the process of decentralization and the premises underlying it. Decentralization has been condemned for being emblematic of a development paradigm that ignores social problems (Schmitz 1995: 55-57). The turn to the private sector and foreign actors jeopardizes the accountability of sustainable development in Costa Rica. Detractors charge that competition between ACs creates conservation enclaves where little domestic capital is generated (Villegas 1998). Middle-class entrepreneurial development through tourism appears to be the exception, and nonownership employment opportunities are the norm (CEPAL 1998). The fear is that competition reinforces this trend. Margaret Keck describes the emergent linkages in environmental policy making as a type of privatization of the social realm (1994: 102).

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It is absolutely imperative that social problems be elevated in the context of sustainable development. Indeed, we argue that sustainable development ought to be operationalized in the market failure framework that explicitly values the role of public entities and actors in reducing the social costs of environmental problems. From there, a process-related variable such as decentralization merits consideration. National-level oversight keeps U.S. states from breaking environmental standards in an effort to attract jobs and investment (Scheberle 1997). Competition in Costa Rica has to conform to a healthy regulatory framework, or else environmental capacity will be reduced. On the whole, MINAE has been successful integrating portions of the sustainable development agenda across social scales. Before turning to regional conservation units, the international and preservationist dimensions of sustainable development took precedence over local ones. The decentralization process has helped close this gap, but this does not mean Costa Rica has met the challenge of governance across social scales. In part, the relative newness of MINAE's decentralized approach makes it premature to conclude that the shift has been an outright success. Success, moreover, has to be crafted within a context that is presently defined by popular participation and market forces. CONCLUSION Sustainable development is much more than the capacity of one single institution. Policy making for sustainable development has to do with coherence in rules, how institutions accomplish cooperation across sectors and scales, how divergent interests are negotiated and disputes settled, and how individual and organizational behavior changes. Critics of decentralization charge that it puts a rosy face on the demise of state capacity to handle socioeconomic and environmental problems. Other skeptics say that although devolution in the United States has historical roots, decentralization in Latin America is nothing more than putting old wine in new bottles. Granted, decentralization is a malleable concept that can be attached to a wide range of state policies and political objectives. However, our preliminary assessment of the key dimensions of decentralized environmental policy making suggests that it is a viable option for natural resource management. Political commitment to sustainable development presents a window of opportunity for environmental organizations. Decentralization is a potential means for fitting through that window. Decentralization has characteristics that make it an attractive option for environmentally sensitive market failures. In this sense, decentralization is more than a mirage or myth. We contend that its structural and process-related elements are important to understanding effective environmental policy making.

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REFERENCES Andersson, Ake E., Bjorn Harsman, and John Quigley. 'The Future of Government." In Ake E. Andersson, Bjorn Harsman, and John Quigley (eds.), Government for the Future: Unification, Fragmentation and Regionalism, pp. 1-24. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1997. Berkes, Fikret. Common Property Resources: Ecology and Community-Based Sustainable Development. London: Belhaven Press, 1991. Bonser, Charles R, Eugene B. McGregor, Jr., and Clinton V. Oster, Jr. Policy Choices and Public Action. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. Bonvin, Jean. "Some Initial Thoughts." In Colin I. Bradford, Jr. (ed.), Redefining the State in Latin America. Paris: OECD, 1994. Bradford, Colin I. "Redefining the Role of the State: Political Processes, State Capacity and the New Agenda in Latin America." In Colin I. Bradford, Jr. (ed.), Redefining the State in Latin America. Paris: OECD, 1994. Cambronero, Victor J. Subsecretario, MINAE. Personal Interview. San Jose, Costa Rica, July 8,1999. Campbell, Tim. Innovations and Risk Taking: The Engine of Reform in Local Government in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1997. Caporaso, James A., and David P. Levine. Theories of Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. CEPAL (Comision Economica para America Latina y el Caribe). Indicadores Economicos. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL, 1998. Dryzek, John S. "From Science to Argument." In Frank Fischer and John Forrester (eds.), The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, pp. 213-32. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. Grindle, Merilee S. Challenging the State: Crisis and Innovation in Latin America and Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Hardin, Garrett. "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science 162 (December), pp. 1243-1248, 1968. Hirschman, Albert O. Getting Ahead Collectively: Grassroots Experiences in Latin America. New York: Pergamon Press, 1984. Hopkins, Jack W. Policymaking for Conservation in Latin America: National Parks, Reserves and the Environment. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995. Hyden, Goran. "Governance and the Study of Politics." In Goran Hyden and Michael Bratton (eds.), Governance and Politics in Africa, pp. 1-26. London: Lynne Rienner, 1992. Keck, Margaret E. "Sustainable Development and Environmental Politics in Latin America." In Colin I. Bradford, Jr. (ed.), Redefining the State in Latin America, pp. 91-110. Paris: OECD, 1994. Kline, John M. "The International Economic Interests of U.S. States." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 14, pp. 81-94,1984. Kodras, Janet E. "Restructuring the State: Devolution, Privatization, and the Geographic Redistribution of Power and Capacity in Governance." In Lynn A. Staeheli, Janet E. Kodras, and Colin Flint (eds.), State Devolution in America: Implications for a Diverse Society. London: Sage, 1997. Kooiman, Jan. Modern Governance: New Government-Society Interactions. London: Sage, 1993.

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Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949. Lindblom, Charles E. Inquiry and Change. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. Lindblom, Charles E., and David K. Cohen. Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979. Majone, Giandomenico. Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989. Martin, Lisa L. "Common Dilemmas: Research Programs in Common-Pool Resources and International Cooperation." In Robert Keohane, Michael McGinnis, and Elinor Ostrom (eds.), Proceedings of a Conference on Linking Local and Global Commons, pp. 147-70. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. McGinnis, Michael, and Elinor Ostrom. "Design Principles for Local and Global Commons." In Robert Keohane, Michael McGinnis, and Elinor Ostrom (eds.), Proceedings of a Conference on Linking Local and Global Commons, pp. 16-65. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Ministerio del Ambiente y Energia (MINAE). El Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion: evolucion y perspectiuas. San Jose, Costa Rica: MINAE, 2000. North, Douglass C. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Decentralization and Local Infrastructure in Mexico: A New Public Policy for Development. Paris: OECD, 1998. Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Ostrom, Elinor, Larry Schroeder, and Susan Wynne. Institutional Incentives and Sustainable Development: Infrastructural Policies in Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993. Peterson, George E. Decentralization in Latin America: Learning through Experience. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1997. Pezzey, John. "Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Guide." Environmental Values 1:4, pp. 321-62,1992. Quesada, Carlos A. "Capacity Development as Seen from the Experience of the Costa Rican Sustainable Development Strategy." In Capacity Development in Environment, pp. 28-39. Paris: OECD, 1994. Redclift, M. "The Role of Agricultural Technology in Sustainable Development." In P. Low, T. Marsden, and S. Whatmore (eds.), Technological Change and the Rural Environment. London: David Fulton, 1990. Rhoads, Steven E. The Economist's View of the World: Government, Markets & Public Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Roe, Emery. Narrative Policy Analysis: Theory and Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. Sanchez Gonzalez, Jose Juan. Administracion Publica y Reforma del Estado en Mexico. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Administracion Publica, 1998. Scheberle, Denise. Federalism and Environmental Policy: Trust and the Politics of Implementation. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1997.

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Schmitz, Gerald J. "Democratization and Demystification: Deconstructing 'Governance' as Development Paradigm." In David B. Moore and Gerald J. Schmitz (eds.), Debating Development Discourse: Institutional and Popular Perspectives, pp. 54-90. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. Sloan, John. Public Policy in Latin America: A Comparative Survey. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984. Stone, Deborah. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: Norton, 1988. Taylor, Michael, and Sara Singleton. "The Communal Resource: Transaction Costs and the Solution of Collective Action Problems." In Robert Keohane, Michael McGinnis, and Elinor Ostrom (eds.), Proceedings of a Conference on Linking Local and Global Commons, pp. 66-94. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Governance for Sustainable Growth and Equity. New York: United Nations, 1997. Vandermeer, John. "Tragedy of the Commons: The Meaning of the Metaphor." Science in Society 60:3, pp. 290-306,1996. Villegas, Alex. Director, Asociacion de Bienestar Ambiental de Sarapiqui (ABAS). Personal Interview. Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, February 11-12, 1998. Waterstone, Marvin. "Environmental Policy and Government Restructuring." In Lynn A. Staeheli, Janet E. Kodras, and Colin Flint (eds.), State Devolution in America: Implications for a Diverse Society. London: Sage, 1997. Weimer, David L., and Aidan R. Vining. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. World Bank. Beyond the Center: Decentralizing the State. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1999.

CHAPTER 9

Local Autonomy and Environmental Justice: Implementing Distributional Equity across National Scales Frans H.J.M. Coenen and Angela C. Half acre

The ability to choose policy paths that are sustainable requires that the ecological dimension of policy can be considered at the same time as economic and other dimensions—on the same agendas and in the same institutions. —World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987 Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED] 1987). Currently, reports created by the WCED are called Brundtland Reports, named for the Commission's chair. According to the Brundtland report, sustainable development has three key objectives (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987): a socially and environmentally innovative, resourceefficient economy in the developed world; an improvement in economic welfare and quality of life in the developing countries; and a healthy natural environment with resources used and conserved wisely. Sustainable development policies go beyond traditional environmental policies, which are primarily designed to conserve nature or improve the environment. Sustainable development demands a broader perspective on the impacts of decisions over time (future generations), on scale (global impacts), and on other people (equity). EQUITY A N D ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Equity is a central goal of sustainable development. Equity can be considered social, geographic, and procedural, all relevant to environmental justice. Social equity involves decisions that do not reflect racial, economic, age, or occupational biases. Geographic equity means that the location, spatial

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configuration, and general proximity of communities to environmental threats is similar across populations. Procedural equity implies that governing rules and regulations, evaluation criteria and enforcement are applied in a nondiscriminatory manner (Bullard, 1994a, 1994). Environmental justice focuses on distributional inequities in risk exposures. Since the 1980s, environmental justice has received much political and scholarly attention in the United States. The definitions given in literature for environmental justice depend on the adopted definition of equity. Robert Bullard defines environmental justice as "the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental and public health laws and regulations" (Bullard, 1996: 493). The EPA defines environmental justice as the fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, and incomes with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies (EPA, 1992). Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) define environmental justice as "environmental protection aimed at equalizing social opportunity" (p. 20). Others also consider equity between private individuals and industry. Cable and Cable (1995) define environmental justice as "the belief that both environmental benefits and environmental costs should be equally distributed in society and that corporations should be obligated to obey existing laws the same as individuals are so obliged" (p. 124). Many studies view equity strictly in terms of the disproportionate effects of pollution on minorities. A broader definition in this context would be based on social equity, which addresses the impact of social, political, and demographic factors on environmental policy making and therefore includes racial and income equity. Although several scholars have examined the distribution of environmental risk in the United States, few, if any, have explored how environmental justice issues are conceptualized in other countries. Interestingly, similar dialogues in other countries have not been as widespread. In Europe, interest in environmental equity issues is slowly growing (Weale 1992) because of a renewed interest in inequities between developing and industrialized nations. An environmental justice problem in this context is the willingness of industrialized nations to "dump" their waste on developing countries having less strict or nonexistent regulations governing these activities (Foster 1993). Further, the European Union has paid attention to potential inequities in environmental quality in highly urbanized areas in Europe. Specifically, the European Union Expert Group on the Urban Environment included a section entitled "Environmental Quality in Cities Is Unequally Distributed" in their 1996 report entitled "European Sustainable Cities." In this report, the expert group maintained that "high [population] density... accentuates negative social and welfare effects of economic activities, such as pollution and transport. The poorest and most disadvantaged residents of cities often also live in the worst local environmental conditions, while those who can afford to will buy a better local

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environment elsewhere" (Chapter 5, Section 20). Also important is the growing attention to broadening environmental policy to other policy fields, creating interest in the relationship between social policy in all its aspects and environmental policy. There are still striking differences between the United States and these countries in Europe. In the United States, debates over environmental justice originated as local problems that were constructed from the "bottom up" as a civil rights issue in the early 1980s. In Europe, and in particular in the Netherlands, the more recent attention for environmental justice issues stems from national and international policy and is linked with the concept of sustainable development. In the rest of Western Europe, environmental justice is seldom discussed in the literature or in policy dialogue. Because examinations of how environmental justice is characterized in countries in Western Europe are not common, in this chapter, we analyze how environmental justice is conceptualized in one of these countries. The Netherlands is an ideal first examination of one of these countries because of its reputation for having a socially conscious society (Hajer 1995). RESEARCH QUESTIONS In this chapter, we address three research questions. First, what factors are important in explaining the limited attention and lack of mobilization regarding environmental justice in the Netherlands as compared to the United States? Second, what importances do perceptions of equity in general, and ideas about sustainability, assume in the conceptualization of environmental justice in the Netherlands? Third, how do differences in scale and multilevel governance explain the limited attention regarding environmental justice in the Netherlands? We explore three possible explanations for the absence of an environmental justice debate (similar to that in the United States) in the Netherlands: (1) the well-known American manifestations of environmental injustice are absent or irrelevant in the Netherlands; (2) the possible causes for environmental injustice as defined in the United States are absent or irrelevant in the Netherlands; and (3) although manifestations and causes of environmental injustice are present, they are conceptualized differently, thus inhibiting mobilization around the issue of environmental justice. These three possible explanations involve multilevel governance and scale. Manifestations of environmental injustices found in the United States could be absent because of differences of scale related to country size, population density, and the proportion of ethnic minorities. For instance, the Netherlands has only 12 solid municipal waste incinerators, whereas the United States has hundreds. Another example of the how these differences may affect conceptualization of environmental justice is each country's experience with waste facility siting. Waste facility siting could have totally different impacts on environmental inequities in each

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country because of different institutional and decision-making processes. The causes of environmental inequities with waste facility siting suggested in the U.S. literature include market dynamics, institutional processes, and a lack of political representation of the weaker segments of society, as well as intentional discrimination. In the European and global context, the Netherlands is viewed as more socially conscious than many other industrialized nations. Many could argue that from political, cultural, and economic standpoints, the Netherlands emphasizes equity and successfully provides a safety net for many of its citizens. Moreover, the Netherlands emphasizes not only equity in political, cultural, and economic standpoints, but also political institutions and policy making based on consensus and dialogue (Hajer 1995). The lack of scholarly and political attention to environmental justice in the Netherlands could occur because this issue is incompatible with the culture or because the Netherlands 7 consensus culture precludes the problem. Each culture's approach to agenda setting and political issue construction is likely instrumental in explaining a country's approach to environmental justice. How a society deals with injustice and environment determines the conceptualization of environmental justice. As discussed earlier, equity is a major component in reaching sustainability. In traditional environmental policy these environmental inequities were accepted or neglected as unavoidable, but in sustainable development policies, equity is a crucial goal. Development cannot be "sustainable" if it imposes the costs of development on other individuals or on future generations. The Netherlands is regarded as one of the forerunners in the world in setting national sustainable strategies (OECD 1995b). Further, a vitally important factor that influences market dynamics and institutional processes, particularly in environmental policy making and spatial planning, is local government. If local autonomy is large, this may create possible environmental justice problems because local authorities may have to balance economic development with maintaining environmental quality. MANIFESTATIONS A N D CAUSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN THE UNITED STATES In this section, we examine the manifestations of environmental injustice, its empirical evidence, and its sources as discussed in the U.S. literature. We review four specific manifestations of environmental injustice: (1) inequitable siting decisions; (2) inequitable risks among subpopulations (minorities, farm workers, etc.); (3) procedural inequity; and (4) unequal distribution of environmental costs and benefits. Many environmental justice studies examine the location of landfills or hazardous waste sites. A number of these studies indicate a significant rela-

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tionship between the location of solid waste landfills (Bullard 1996, 1994, 1983), (commercial) hazardous waste sites (U.S. General Accounting Office 1983; Ringquist 1995), or commercial Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDF) (United Church of Christ, Commission for Racial Justice, 1987) and low-income or minority neighborhoods. Other studies find no statistically significant relationship between race, income, and location (Anderson, Anderson, Oates, & Fraser 1994; Greenberg 1994; Zimmerman 1994). Methodological approaches such as how the researchers utilize census information could explain these substantially different conclusions. Other scholars have also found significant statistical relationships between toxic releases and race (Ringquist 1997) and both race and income (Timney 1998). Research also identifies subpopulations more likely to be exposed to environmental risk. For instance, farm workers, who tend to come from minority and low-income backgrounds, face extremely high exposure to pesticides. Many minority ethnic groups face high exposure to toxins in foods, because their diet is rich in fish (United States Environmental Protection Agency 1992). Furthermore, African American children have been found to suffer from higher exposure to lead poisoning from deteriorating paint indoors, as well as from contaminated soil in neighborhoods and playgrounds. As discussed earlier, procedural equity is the extent to which governing rules and regulations, evaluation criteria, and enforcement are applied in a nondiscriminatory manner (Bullard 1994a, 1994). Apart from unequal exposure to pollution due to facility locations, scholars and activists have charged that environmental injustice also arises because minority and lower-income individuals have unequal access to environmental remediation, enforcement of environmental regulations, and the courts. Differences are found in the nature of official responses to the pollution problem once it is brought into the open (Clarke & Gerlak 1998). Other scholars assert that differences in exposure to environmental risk also come from inequity in the provision of basic services to neighborhoods and communities by government (Bath, Tanski, & Villarreal 1998). Researchers have found procedural equity through studies examining the location of Superfund sites, the placement of sites on the National Priority List (NPL), and the subsequent cleanup of Superfund sites (in addition to issues of financial equity). According to Kamieniecki and Steckenrider (1997), location of these sites is largely a function of longterm historical developments. The placement of sites on the NPL and differences in the cleanup of Superfund sites (containment instead of permanent treatment of sites) appear between minority and white areas (Lavelle & Coyle 1992). Researchers have also found differences in penalties between minority and white areas (Lavelle & Coyle 1992) for violating the law at Superfund sites. Other authors believe that environmental

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justice also concerns the distribution of benefits from the use of environmental resources (Wackernagel & Rees 1996; Jacobs 1997, 1991; Durning 1992). This focus on resource use originates in the literature on sustainable development and global environmental/social justice. According to this literature, the poorest segments of the global population use the smallest amount of environmental resources while carrying the largest share of the burden resulting from global resource use (i.e., from the resource consumption of the developed world). From this perspective, global environmental justice is not just a function of industrial pollution in developing countries, but also of who benefits from consuming environmental resources. These issues are also relevant at the national level, but are only recently being discussed. Although quantitative data on the distribution of resource consumption among developed and developing countries exist, similar accounting at the national level has yet to take place. In sum, scholars in the United States have identified a range of causes for the existence of unequal exposure to environmental risk in society. These causes include intentional discrimination, the underrepresentation of people of color and low-income groups in the policy-making process, and the lack of public advocates to oppose environmental injustice. This underrepresentation is a function of the political alignment of groups within the larger political environment. Further, it often results from poorer organization within the affected population. As scholars point out, limited resources impede organizing, a lack of easily accessible information blocks mobilization, and uncertainty about responsibility and accountability for environmental hazards frustrates remediation. Mobilization efforts are further hampered by frequently widespread pessimism about the prospects for successful insurgency. Finally, other researchers maintain that longterm historical developments, market rationality, and associated neighborhood transitions explain to some extent the disparities in exposure. BOTTOM-UP CONSTRUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AS A POLITICAL ISSUE IN THE UNITED STATES The environmental justice debate originated at the local level in the United States, then it rose to national attention. The nationwide movement for environmental justice lay in the construction of environmental justice as a civil rights issue, and the mobilization of racial minorities around it (Camacho 1998). The original rallying call of the environmental justice movement was "environmental racism." The political struggle surrounding the siting of a large hazardous waste landfill in Warren County, North Carolina, in 1982, which was to be built in the poorest county in the state with a 65-percent African American population, suggested to many protesters that discriminatory considerations had influenced the siting

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decision. In the eyes of many concerned individuals, the incinerator represented not only an additional threat to public health and environmental quality, but also, more fundamentally, a civil rights violation. The Warren County case is often seen as the beginning of the environmental justice movement (Ringquist 1997). The galvanization of forces ranging from grassroots groups to religious and civil rights groups in Warren County made environmental justice a political issue. Initially, residents had received little information about the planned location of the incinerator in the already environmentally burdened neighborhood. When they learned the nature of the facility, large demonstrations ensued, leading to thousands of arrests. Warren County became the prototype for similar action in other cities and regions all over the United States. Next, groups that had mobilized around a single facility began to maintain a permanent presence in local politics. Finally, contacts between the local groups led to the development of region- and nationwide movements for environmental justice. The subsequent involvement of the United Church of Christ and the Congressional Black Caucus drew national attention to the question of environmental justice. Scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including political science, sociology, urban planning, law, medicine, and economics, started to explore the issue. The political response has been substantial: Policy changes have taken place at the national, state, and local levels. President Clinton made environmental justice part of his formal policy agenda. Congress has debated the issue. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created an Office of Environmental Justice. The first People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 developed principles of environmental justice declaring clean air, land, water, and food to be a fundamental human right. TOP-DOWN CONSTRUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AS A POLITICAL ISSUE IN THE NETHERLANDS In the Netherlands, to date, there has not been bottom-up construction of environmental justice as a local or civil rights issue as has occurred in the United States. There are many examples of Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) regarding siting and other decisions, but equity is not a key issue. The cases that most strongly resemble environmental justice mobilization in the United States are community actions against soil pollution (Aarts 1997). Although environmental justice has largely been a nonissue in Dutch society, in the process of formulating national strategies for sustainable development, the issue is gaining some attention. Almost immediately after the publication of Our Common Future (WCED 1987), the Dutch government designated sustainable development as its general guideline.

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Specifically, the Dutch government outlined and elaborated the goals of the Brundtland Report (WCED 1987) in a key document ("A provisional standpoint," TK, 1987-1988, 20298) and then translated this into the first National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP1), entitled "To choose or to lose" (States General 1989). An update to previous mandates, the current (third) National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP3) sets forth the broad policy to be pursued for the period 1999 to 2002. The plan takes into account actions that will have effects until 2010. According to the NEPP3, the Dutch environment will depend heavily on policy developments in Europe and the rest of the world. Further, the dependence on international environmental policy developments will also increase. At the Rio conference, it was concluded that sustainable development demands a new and more comprehensive approach to environmental policy, with an emphasis on the integration of environmental policy objectives into other policy areas (interpolicy cooperation and integration). The overall goal of Chapter 8 of Agenda 21 is to integrate socioeconomic and environmental concerns in the decisionmaking process with a broad range of public participation. Agenda 21 is a document from the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992. The European Union has committed its founding legislation to integrate environmental issues into its other policies in the fifth Environmental Action Programme and in the Maastricht Treaty (the Treaty on European Union 1992). The Treaty of Amsterdam not only makes sustainable development one of the explicit objectives of the European Union, but also highlights the need to integrate environmental protection requirements into the definition and implementation of all European Community policies. Inspired by international policy developments on sustainable development and external integration of environmental policy, the Dutch Ministry of Environment now identifies the relationship between environment and social welfare as one of the challenges of broadening the environmental policy in the next decade. Further, the fourth National Environmental Policy Plan, released in 2001, and the National Strategy for Sustainable Development prepared for the Johannesburg Rio Plus 10 Summit in 2002 place more attention on the social dimension of sustainable development. Conceptualizing the environmental and economic dimension of sustainable development is relatively straightforward; the elements to be included in the social dimension of sustainable development are less clear. Through an analysis of elite interview data, policy documents analyses, and literature review (Coenen, van de Peppel, & Fuchs 2000; Van der Wal & Moning 1999), the following elements of the social dimension of sustainable development were identified: Prosperity (level of income), Employment (job security), Well-being (freedom in behavior, lifestyle), Housing (quantity and quality of residences), Health and Safety (public health, working conditions), Democracy (participation in decision making), Liv-

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ability (quality of domestic surroundings), and Education (quantity and quality of provisions). For the social dimension goals of sustainable development to be met, these elements should be addressed in a just and equitable manner. Historically, those conceptualizing sustainable development emphasized the physical (biotic and abiotic) environment because of Dutch concern about disasters and natural resources. The concept of eco-space underlines this attitude (Van der Wal & Moning 1999). The economic dimension became an important issue because of its strong relationship to environmental quality. Increasingly, scholars, citizens, and policy makers are discussing the social dimension of sustainable development. The relationship between economy and social welfare is well studied, but the relationship between environmental policy and social welfare has received less attention to date. GEOGRAPHIC A N D SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS IN THE NETHERLANDS A N D THE UNITED STATES Differences between the United States and the Netherlands in the manifestation and conceptualization of environmental justice could relate to geography and demography. The Netherlands has the highest population density among Western countries, with 419 people per square kilometer compared to 28 people per square kilometer in the United States. The Netherlands' land area is 37,000 square kilometers (excluding water); only 0.4 percent of the United States land area. Nearly 16 million people live in Holland as compared with approximately 280 million in the United States (Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics 1999; United States Census Bureau 1999). Further, all land in the Netherlands is actively managed, developed, or cultivated (Lucardie 1997); this differs substantially from the United States. The high Dutch population density, with its consequences for land use, influences environmental protection, planning, and social justice. In the Netherlands, geographical equity is most relevant between neighborhoods. Research shows that the areas with the most decline in social status are located in large and medium-sized urban areas (50,000 inhabitants or more). They have the lower-income housing and are considered relatively unsafe, and residents have few ties within their neighborhood. In general, these urban areas are characterized by high unemployment, a large number of low-income groups, and a large proportion of ethnic minority households. Between 1971 and 1997, the total number of ethnic minorities 1 in the Netherlands grew from 200,000 to 1.5 million, or from 1.6 percent to 9.4 percent of the total population. Ethnic minorities in the Netherlands reside primarily in the largest urban areas and are strongly overrepresented among the underprivileged of society. People of foreign origin, for example, make up around 20 percent of the unemployed but constitute only 5 percent of the total workforce. Migration has principally

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brought people with a poor educational background to the Netherlands, where they struggle to find economic opportunity in a technologically advanced society. Most research in the United States has found that lowincome, racial, or ethnic minorities bear a disproportionate burden of that society's risk. In the Netherlands, similar patterns may occur. DIFFERENCES IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY STYLES Environmental policy styles are also vitally important in explaining how the United States and the Netherlands differ in the conceptualization of environmental justice. The political system, political institutions, and the position of local authorities in these countries affect how environmental justice is understood. Attempts at coordinated legislative efforts regarding environmental protection in both the Netherlands and the United States began in the 1970s. In both countries, public outcry led legislators and policy makers to enact environmental protection and cleanup legislation. Many scholars characterize the Dutch policy style as being accommodationist (e.g., Lijphart 1971; Hajer 1995), whereas the American policy style can be characterized as pluralist (e.g., Dahl 1989). The Netherlands has a highly consensus-based social structure. It has a long tradition of government consultation with various social groups, institutionalized in tripartite forums such as the Social Economic Council (Sociaal Economische Raad, SER) in which environmental questions are incorporated into social and economic issues. The political system in the Netherlands is characterized as the clearest example of the consensus model of democracy (Lijphart 1984; Anderson & Guilory 1997). This is based not only on the way formal institutions express democratic relation but even more through informal institutions. The Dutch (neo)corporatist economic system based on formal cooperation between employers, employees, and government is a well-known example. Through its formal institutions, the Dutch system is organized in a largely consensual manner (Hendriks 1999). Informally, consultation and compromise dominate the political and administrative culture. The philosophy that environmental problems are best solved through consultations with the polluters has been utilized in the Netherlands since the late 1980s. On the local level in recent years, a "crisis in local democracy" has been pinpointed. In particular, the low turnout at the 1990 local elections (62 percent) led to many activities in the field of "political renewal." One aspect of this apparent crisis of local democracy is the nationalization of local elections. Research (Depla & Tops 1998) showed that only one-fifth of the voters support a different party at the local level than at the national level, and that national issues determine the party choice of two-thirds of the voters. There is a relatively favorable "political-opportunity" structure for new social movements in the Netherlands (Kriesi et al. 1992). Research

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(SCP 1996) shows that acceptance of political protest has increased considerably over the last 10 years. The public desire for more voice in subnational government has constantly been between 60 and 70 percent in the last 20 years (SCP 1996). Denters and Geurts (1998) showed that satisfaction with local services is high; this could mean that potential environmental conflicts on the local level are no issue, but it could also follow from the weak autonomy of Dutch municipalities especially in environmental policy in the last ten years. Local authorities are the government units that can express the local society's common interests, and thus depend on the local citizens. However, local authorities are instigated and regulated by the national state. The legitimacy of local authorities thus depends on its citizens, but their legality depends on the state. According to Lidstrom (1996: 14-ff), local authorities are geographically bounded within a nation, or within a federal state, have a certain degree of autonomy, exert some authority toward their citizens, and are ruled by representatives elected by the local citizens. These criteria distinguish local authorities from other types of local governance. Local authorities must also have some power to make decisions not directly set by the state. Further, they must be able to make binding commitments toward their citizens. Their legitimacy in this respect is secured through local elections. The Netherlands is a decentralized unitary state. The administrative structure comprises three layers of government: (1) municipalities and water boards, (2) provinces, and (3) national government. Local government within this state is organized in about 500 municipalities. Municipalities have two functions: the implementation of national government policies in certain policy spheres, and the initiation of policy in other spheres where autonomous decision making is permitted. These functions and the relationship between provincial and central government are laid down in the Municipal Law. The Netherlands is part of what could be called the Napoleon system (Lidstrom 19962) with countries such as France, Spain, and Italy. These countries share a history of design with a high degree of state control. The mayor supervised local authorities, who were in turn appointed by the state. There are more levels of government (three or four), in which the middle levels (provinces in the Netherlands) play an important role of coordination. Local autonomy is relatively low compared to other European countries 3 partly because of low local tax revenues. To understand the position of Dutch municipalities, one must recognize constitutional constraints on the activity of local authorities. The mayor is centrally appointed, the budgets and other important financial and planning decisions must be referred for higher approval, and central government can overrule any act of local government considered against the general interest or illegal.

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There are also financial constraints on the activities of municipalities because over 90 percent of their income is provided by national government. This can be in the form of an overall grant or specific payments for the provision of specific services or projects. As of 1990, the municipalities and the provinces received extra funds (BUGM, FUN) for constructing and extending the municipal and provincial apparatus. All in all, the funding period can be characterized as a period of controlled further development of local environmental policy working from the principal of "value of money," strict tasks and budgets, control, and even sanctioning of municipalities. MANIFESTATION A N D CAUSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN THE NETHERLANDS Discussions regarding environmental justice are almost absent in Dutch literature. For instance, there are studies about the siting of waste facilities (Driessen et al. 1990; Houben & Leroy 1993; Dente, Fareri, & Ligteringen 1997) that show attention to the environmental aspects in public resistance and worries, but distributive questions play no role in these NIMBY-type discussions. There are only a few of these facilities in the Netherlands. Because of the high population density, facilities are more likely to affect urban areas with neighborhoods of mixed income and ethnicity. A good example is the main Dutch airport (Schiphol), which has severe environmental impacts but is surrounded by a diversity of economic, ethnic, and racial communities. Health research shows that certain groups are more exposed to environmental impacts and effects than others—for instance, tenants or homeowners (housing conditions, contaminated land) and occupational groups such as farmers (pesticides), clerical workers (office environment), and the military. Although there is a likely correlation with socioeconomic class and these disproportionally affected groups, these inequities are seldom translated into the terms of environmental injustice. The National Institute for Public Health and Environmental Hygiene (RIVM 1998) recognizes the geographically unequal distribution of environmental effects over the country. A large part of the severe burden of noise and odor pollution affects mainly the Randstad area in the western part of the country, and there is in general a strong correlation between environmental burden and urbanization. In strongly urbanized areas, the percentage of low-income groups is higher than in nonurbanized or less urbanized areas. Given the unequal distribution of environmental effects and the unequal distribution of the population, there is a potential relationship between income and environmental quality (Coenen & Halfacre 2000). The Dutch ministry of environment conducted several surveys into the problems citizens experience in their living environment. After con-

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trolling for age, sex, and education, people below a certain income level have significantly more burden from several forms of traffic noise (SCP 1999). Recent RIVM research analyzed the relationship between physical quality and environmental pressure on the one hand and social structure of neighborhoods on the other. It found a positive correlation between high building intensity and local air pollution with average high concentration of individuals identified as low-income, unemployed, single, and/or undereducated (Bouwman 2001). Because comparative empirical literature about environmental justice in the Netherlands and the United States is scarce, the authors initiated an ongoing collaborative research project between the University of Twente and the College of Charleston (Coenen & Halfacre 1999, 2000) to study awareness of environmental justice issues in the Netherlands. The research consists of three stages: (1) interviews with elites (e.g., university professors, governmental agency representatives, etc. across the Netherlands), (2) an analysis of 21 major towns and cities (the so-called G21 municipalities), and (3) a soil-contamination case study of the town of Enschede in the province Overijssel. In the Netherlands, we conducted several interviews 4 with both academics and practitioners. The main purpose of the interviews, conducted throughout the country, was to determine what evidence is available to assess if there is an environmental injustice problem in the Netherlands. The majority of interviewees did not believe there was an environmental justice problem in the Netherlands, although throughout the interviews, several respondents, perhaps unwittingly, mentioned some possible cases of environmental injustice. We were interested in the respondents' answer to three main questions: (1) Are there higher levels of pollution in areas or neighborhoods where minority or low-income groups reside more often than in areas where other groups reside? The majority of respondents contended that pollution was generally distributed equally across all income and ethnic groups. Some interviewees argued that if such inequities existed, it related to historical patterns of city development rather than to any discriminatory practices of the government. (2) Do concerns about environmental justice or equity influence these land-use conflicts or decision making about the cleanup of pollution or in land-use designations (for example, in the siting of industry or waste facilities)? The majority of respondents maintained that the concept of environmental justice or equity—especially the way these terms are conceptualized in the United States—were not issues in the Dutch context. (3) Are Dutch regulatory agencies equally responsive to concerns about the environment of all of its citizens, including lower-income and/or ethnic and racial minorities? The majority of interviewees contended that the Dutch regulatory agencies were equally responsive to all citizens' concerns about environmental quality.

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Complementing our results, the Dutch Ministry of the Environment conducted a series of interviews with key actors from social organizations and government ministries at the end of 1998. Some questions in these interviews asked respondents about their views on state equity and/or justice in the Netherlands. Across several dimensions (including the environmental dimension), the respondents did not view any significant levels of injustice in the design or implementation of environmental policy. Further, these key actors did not pinpoint any environmental protection inequities across income groups (Van der Wal 1999). Given the specific characteristics of the Netherlands, especially the high population density, it was logical to think of pollution in urban areas where decisions to locate, remove, clean up, or leave it might be affecting certain groups in an unjust way. Because of the scarcity of land in the Netherlands, industrial sites still exist in residential areas. Further, this is an interesting case to illuminate the conceptualization of environmental justice in the Netherlands because it is a local planning problem. Affected municipalities define by local land-use plans the kind of activities that are allowed in the different parts of the planning area through (a) a list of types and numbers of companies allowed and (b) zoning ordinances. Through the combination of company list and zoning ordinance, the landuse plan specifies whether a certain type of business activity is allowed in the plan area. Further, this plan regulates how close each type of industry can be to other land uses (e.g., residential). Data on the location of industry with negative side affects had to be gathered from the municipalities. 5 In the research project, we limited ourselves to the larger municipalities. Most municipalities rank businesses by category, with higher number categories providing the most environmental risk.6 The sociodemographic measures of income and ethnicity were obtained from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) that compiled sociodemographic data on the neighborhood level. The neighborhood boundaries are designed to be more homogeneous types of areas in housing and sociodemographic data 7 than the postal zip code data (which tend to be larger areas than the neighborhood designation). The CBS data provide us with income level (we use average individual income) and percentage of individuals from abroad or from non-Western ethnic minority 8 Or initial analyses based on data taken from 13 municipalities 9 show that neither the CBS measure of income, average income per individual, nor the percentage of non-Western ethnic minority has any predictive power in explaining the variation in the number of high pollutant industries 10 (Coenen & Halfacre 1999). Our second case of a possible Dutch environmental justice issue is noise pollution along roads caused by urban traffic. High population density makes it difficult to avoid crossing residential areas when developing new flight patterns or building new railway tracks or roads. Noise problems

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can be solved by reducing traffic (for instance, by redirecting traffic into other streets), through traffic plans, and by outfitting houses with doublepane windows. In the Netherlands, local planners are largely responsible for designing the traffic routes (and thus in some ways control the levels of noise pollution in a city). Our measure of noise pollution, neighborhoods with a noise level greater than 67 decibels, reflects this local-level decision making. From 1987 on, all cities had to make an inventory of neighborhoods with noise levels above 60 decibels (a so-called "A List"). The idea that people from lower income groups cannot afford to move away from noise pollution or may even decide to move toward noise pollution because of the lower rents raises an environmental justice issue. We obtained data on the number of households in the municipalities from the Ministry of Environment. The variation in our measure of noise pollution could not be statistically explained by our measures of income and ethnicity (Coenen & Halfacre 1999). Some U.S. studies have found that Superfund hazardous waste sites are cleaned up more quickly in white, higher-income neighborhoods than in minority or low-income neighborhoods (Lavelle & Coyle 1992; Heiman 1996). We concluded that in the Dutch case, areas with soil contamination or other types of pollution might be cleaned up more quickly in higherincome a n d / o r higher-education areas or areas with fewer minorities. If so, this could indicate a significant environment inequity. In the Netherlands, sites must be cleaned up according to priorities given by national soil contamination standards. Current estimates of the number of these sites in the Netherlands as a whole is 500,000, but approximately 20 to 30 percent of those sites require cleanup (Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, 1997). In practice, environmental standards are not the only determinants of priority for cleanup operations. Provinces have discretion in decision making. This can be influenced by the collective action of citizens living in certain areas or by economic considerations regarding the possibilities to redevelop residential areas. An indicator that could be important in determining if there are higher levels of pollution in areas or neighborhoods where minority or lowincome groups reside is the presence of soil contamination in residential areas. Soil-contamination standards in Dutch national law are based on accumulation of toxic substances in the soil that limit the multifunctional use of land and threaten groundwater quality or human health. Since the end of the 1970s, enormous effort has been made to inventory and clean up contaminated land. We explored the distribution of soil contamination sites in Enschede, located in the province of Overijssel, the Netherlands. Enschede is not only one of the G21 municipalities (the 21 largest and most heavily populated municipalities in the country), but also one of the poorest, with a relatively low average household income and some of the most deteriorated neigh-

Table 9.1 Linear Regression Estimates of Number of Contaminated Soil Sites and CBS Neighborhood Income and Ethnicity

Average Income per Individual

Dependent Variable: Number of Contaminated Soil Sites -2.431E-04 (.000)

Percentage Non-Western Ethnic Minority

-.275 (.205)

Constant

11.963 (5.325)**

N of Neighborhoods

63

Note: Cell Entries are OLS Regression Coefficients, with Standard Errors in Parentheses. * Adjusted R2: .005 **P