Reflexive Governance

Tom Dedeurwaerdere (FRS-FNRS/UCL)

Bibliographical reference

Dedeurwaerdere, T. 2015. "Reflexive Governance". In Morin J.-F., Orsini, A. (eds.). Essential Concepts

of Global Environmental Governance. Routledge: 169–170.

Self-archived author copy

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.

For all other uses permission shall be obtained from the copyright owner.

Copyright © 2015 – Routledge

Edited by

Jean-Frédéric Morin and Amandine Orsini

ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS ofGLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE

"This volume provides an essential glossary of critical terms and concepts in the field of international environmental poli tics for d.iplomats, analysts and students. The interdisciplinary array of expert authors provides terse and authoritative overview of the key concepts and debates that have defined the field of international environmental governance over the years. The en tries carefully survey the intellectual ecosystem of the concepts applied to understanding and managing our global environ-mental crisis."

-Peter M. Haas, Profossor qf Political Science, University qf Massachusetts Amherst, USA

"ln a truly unique way, this book helps to conneci the dots and navigate between the concepts, ideas and schools of thought in global environ-mental policy today. As environmental issues climb higher on the global agenda, I would highly recommend this book to ali who wish to better understand the insights of sustainable global governance."

- Connie Hedegaard, European Union Commissioner .for Climate Action

"The global community is at a crossroads in respect to addressing climate change. A solid understanding of global environmental govemance empowers people to better shape positive democracy that determines a safer future. This book makes a valuable contribution to societal under-standing aQd societal change. Those who care about the world we leave to our children should take inspiration from its many and varied con:. tribu tors drawn from so many disparate but interlocking disciplines.,

- Christicma Fzgueres, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chrmge

ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL

. GOVERNANCE

Edited by Jean-Frédéric Morin . and Amandine Orsini

~~ ~~o~;~;n~s~:up mr!lmm~~ LONDON AND NEW YORK from Routledge

First published 2015 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge 711 Thlrd Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint qf the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 20I5Jean-Frédéric Mari? and Amandine Orsini

The right of the editors to be iden4fied as the au thors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,

has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Ali rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any fonn or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, w:ithout pennission in

writing from the publishers.

Trademark rwtice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and

explanation without intent to infringe.

British library Cataloguing-in-PublicatWn Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library qfCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Essential concepts of global environmental governance 1

edited by Jean-Frédéric Morin and Amandine Orsini. pages cm

l. Environmental policy - International cooperation. 2. Environmentalism -International cooperation. 3. Environmental protection- International

cooperation. 4. Environmental responsibility- International cooperation. 5. Global environmental change- International cooperation. I. Morin,Jean-Frédéric, editer. II. Orsini, Amandine, editor.

GE170.E77 2014 363.7'01561-dc23

2014001736

ISBN: 978-0-415-82246-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-82247-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-55356-5 (ebk)

T ypeset in Baskerville by Florence Production Limîted, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK

Printed and bound in the United States of America by Edwards Brothers Malloy on sustainably sourced paper.

1 ~ ~1 J

l ·1

1

l 1

1

1 1

1

To Léa, Julie, Anaïs, and Naomie.

'l! '

CONTENTS

Priface: 101 shades qf green in a pink jacket List qf abbreviations

xi xiü XVI Timeline qf selected international environmental agreements

Adaptation ErU: E Massey

Aid Asa Persson

Antarctic Treaty regime Alan D. Hemmings

Arctic Council Olav Schram Stokke

Assessments Joyeeta Gupta

Audits Olivier Boira[ and Ifiaki Heras-Saizarbitoria

Biodiversity regime G. Kristin Rnsendal

Boundary organizations Maria Carmen Lemos and Christine Kirchhoff

Business and corporations Doris Fuchs and Bastian Knebel

Carrying capacities paradigm Nathan F. Soyre and Adam Romero

CITES 24 Daniel Compagnon

2 Climate change regime 26 Harro van Asselt

5 Commission on Sustainable Development 29

7 Lynn M. Wagner

Common but differentiated 9 responsibility 31

Steve V anderheùkn

11 Common heritage of mankind Scott J. Shackelford

13 Compliance and implementation

16 Sandrine Ma/jean-Dubois

Conservation and preservation

18 Jean-Frédéric Morin and Amandine Orsini

Corporate social 21 responsibility

vn

Jennifer Clapp and lan H. Rnwlands

34

37

40

42

CONTENTS CONTENTS

Critical political economy 45 Global Environment Labeling and certification Ill Policy diffusion !52 Peter Newell Facility 79 Benjamin Cashore, Graerne Kaga Biedenkopf

Deep eçology 47 Benjamin Denis Auld, and Stifim Renckens Polluter pays principle !55 Andrew Dobson Global environmental Law of the Sea Convention 113 Nicolas de Sadeleer Desertification Convention 48 govemance studies 82 ]oye Ellis

Oran R. Young Population sustainability !56 Steffen Bauer Least developed countries 114 Diana Coole Disasters 51 Global public good 84 Alexandra Hoftr Raymond Murphy Sélim li>uaji

Post-environmentalism !58 Liability 117 Chiara Certomà

Dispute resolution Grass.roots movements 86 Cymie R. Payne mechanisms 53 Brian Doherty Precautionary principle 160

Carrie Menkel-Meadow Liberal environmentalism 119 Aarti Gupta Green democracy 88 Steven Bernstein Dumping 55 Robyn Eckersley Preventive action principle 163 Josué Mathieu Markets 122 Hélène Trudeau Hazardous Chemicals Ecocentrism 57 Convention 90

Matthew Paterson Private regimes 165 Sheryl D. Breen Peter Hough Migrants 125 Jessica F. Green

Ecofeminism 59 Hazardous wastes regime 91 François Gemenne REDD 167 Charlotte Bretherton Henrïk Selin Military conflicts . 128 Heike Schroeder

Ecological moder~ization 61 Human and environmental Maya]egen Reflexive governance 169 Maarten Hojer rights 93 Negotiating coalitions 130 Tom Dedeurwaerdere

Ecosystem services Sophie Lavallée Pamela Chasek Regimes 171 (payments for) 62 Indigenous peoples and Nongovemmental Amandine Or,fini and Stefanie Engel local communities 95 organizations 134 Jean-Frédéric Morin Effectiveness 64 Marc H'!fi.y Michele M. Betsill Regional governance 172 Detlef F. Sprinz lnfluential individuals 98

Nonregimes 137 TomDelreux Emerging countries 67 Bob Reina/da Radoslav S. Dimitrov Reporting 175 Ana Flavia Barros-Platiau and Institutional interactions lOI Klaus Diugwerth Amandine Orsini Sebastian Oberthür and Ozone regime

. 140

Epistemic communities 69 7hijs V an de Graaf David L Downie Risk society 178

Mai'a K Davis Cross Participation 144 Ulrich Beek International Whaling Fisheries governance 72 Commission 104 Philippe Le Prestre Scale 179 Elizabeth R. DeSombre Steinar Andresen Partnerships 146 Kate O'Neill

Gaia theory 74 Justice 107 liliana Andonova and Scarcity and conflicts 181 Karen Li!fot Katia Vladimirova Manoela Assayag Alexis Caries

Global deliberative Kuznets curve Persistent Organic Pollutants Scenarios 184 democracy 76 ( environmental) 109 Convention 150 Stacy D. V anDeveer and ]ohnDryzek David !. Stern Jessica T empleton Simone Pulver

Vlll ix

REDD

The Bali Action Plan took up the idea of creating incentives to keep forests intact by making trees standing more valuable than felled. It launched the designing of a mechanism to compensate tropical forest countries keeping forests standing and thereby to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) as part of the Ongoing

post-2012 climate change negotiations. The 2009 Copenhagen Accord committed to funding activities toward REDD as well as conseiVabon, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+). The 2010 Cancun Agreements include provisional language on social and environmental safeguards and provide guidance on REDD+ reacliness activities. During 2011 and 2012, rouch attention was focused on finance and developing guidelines for measuring, reporting, and verifYing reductions in deforestation (Lyster et al. 20 13).

Meanwhile, market-based schemes have been set up and funds have been flowing to tropical forest countries to develop capacity on the ground, experiment with various schemes, and gain a head start in finding ways to reduce emissions while providing benefits to forest dependent people. In 2008, two programs were set up: UN-REDD to supporting countries in developing and implementing national REDD+ strategies and the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to fund partner countries to get readyfor REDD+. ln addition, several bilateral, transnational and nongovernmental schemes and pilot projects are being carried out (Angelsen et al. 2012).

It has been widely acknowledged that governance issues are the central challenge for REDD+ (Corbera and Schroeder 2011). REDD+ will not be effective in avoiding deforestation without causing social and environmental harm unless a number of crucial governance challenges at both the international design level and the country implementation level are sufliciendy addressed (see Scale). These include the problem of leakage, i.e. forest saved in one location may lead to deforestation else~here if the global and/ or domestic drivers of deforestation are not addressed at the same time; permanence, i.e. how to engage with recipient country stakeholders on donor countries' demands for long-term contracts over avoiding deforestation; and additionality, i.e. how to calculate sufficiently precisely the degree of difference to the business as usual trajectory of deforestation that the international payment has enabled.

References

Angelsen, Arild, Maria Brockhaus, William D. Sunderlin, and Louis V. Verchot (Eds.). 2012. Ana{ysing REDD+: Challenges and Choices. Bogor, CIFOR.

Corbera, Esteve and Heike Schroeder. 20 11. "Governing and Implementing REDD+." Environmental Science and Po licy 14(2): 89-99.

168

REFLEXIVE GOVERNANCE

Lyster, Rosemary, Catherine MacKenzie, and Constance McDermott. 2013. Law, Tropical Forests and Carbon: The Case '![ REDD. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Stern, Nicholas. 2007. The Economies of Climate Change. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Van der Werf, Guido, Douglas C. Morton, Ruth S. DeFries, Jos GJ. Olivier, Prasad S. Kasibhatla, Robert B. Jackson, Jim Collatz, and James T. Ranaderson. 2009. "C02 Emissions from Forest Loss." Nature Geoscience 2: 737-738.

REFLEXIVE GOVERNANCE

Tom Dedeurwaerdere Université catholique de I.auvain, Belgium

Reflexive governance denotes a mode of govemance where feedback on multiple regulatory frameworks generates social learning processes that influence actors' core beliefs and norms (DedeUIWaerdere 2005; V oB et al. 2006; Brousseau et al. 2012). These processes complement political-administrative hierarchy and economie incentives as mechanisms for govemance.

Two main models of reflexive governance have been developed to complement conventional state-based and market-based modes of governance, which rely respectively on the seminal works of Jürgen Habermas and Ulrich Beek. The mode! of Habermas ( 1998) was one of the first attempts to justify the participation of cîvil society actors in the govemance of post-conventional societies, where democratie legitimacy is no longer built on the basis of common conventions shared by a group with a common his tory at the level of a nation or the belonging to a social class. Instead, democratie legitimacy is built through social learning processes among state and civil socîety actors based on open particîpation in the debates on new collective values and norms. This theory influenced experimentation with several deliberative processes, such as citizenjuries, consultations with nongovernmental organiza-.;ions (such as stake-holder consultations in the EU prior to the adoption of new regulations) and global deliberative dernocracy (such as stakeholder consultations and international United Nations conferences). A weakness of this first model is that social learning not always leads to the adoption of new policies at the level of the political-administrative hierarchy.

The second model was proposed by Ulrich Beek in the context of his work on the regulation of risk society. According to Beek (1992), the

169

'

REFLEXIVE GOVERNANCE

building of efficient and legitimate rules for dealing with risks that might have important unanticipated side effects should involve so-called sub-politiCs, where nongovernmental actors (including so~ial move~ents) ~e direcdy involved in sociallearning processes for solvmg collecttve act10n problems without relying on the administrative state.

illustrations of sub-politics are direct negociations between environ-mental associations and business and corporations (see Private regimes), to mak.e cmporate activities or products more sustainable, and the participation of representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities in meetings of international research federations (such as the meeting in Belem on ethnobotanical research in 1988 that led to a first formulation of the principles of "prior informed consent" in the biodiversity regime). An important strength of sub-politics is their direct impact on the strategie decisions of collective actors. An important weakness is the possible isolation of sub-politics from more encompassing issues and broader social groups.

The key lesson that can be drawn from this literature is that reflexive govetnance cannot be reduced to the cognitive aspect only (for example values and social identity play an important role in social learning, in addition to purely cognitive aspects such as providing the best argument and transparency of the debate). lnstead, reflexive governance has to be analyzed as a soci:il and political process of reframing our core collective values and nonns when facing unprecedented unsustainability problems.

References

Beek, Ulrich. 1992[!986]. RiskSociety. London, Sage Publications. Brousseau, Eric, Tom Dedeurwaerdere, and Bernd Siebenhüner (Eds.). 2012.

Reflexive Governance awi Global Public Goods. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Dedemwaerdere, Tom. 2005. "From Bioprospecting to Reflexive Governance."

Ecowgical Economies 53(4): 473-491. Habènnas, Jürgen. !998 [!992]. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge, MA, MIT

Press. VoB,Jan-Peter, Dierk Bauknecht, and René Kemp. 2006. Rtfiexive Governancefor

Sustainable Development. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

170

REGIMES

Amandine Orsini Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles, Belgiu:m

Jean-Frédéric Morin Université libre de Bruxelles~ Belgium

REGIMES

The concept of international regimes is not specifie to, but frequendy used in, the study of global environmental governance. Building on the definition by Stephen Krasner, specîalists have defined · environmental regimes as intergovernmental institutions that give rise to social practices, assign roles, and govern interactiOns to address situations of ecosystem degradation through overuse (for instance the fisheries governance) or through pollution (for instance the elima te change regime) (Young et al. 2008). Regimes occupy an intermediary position. They are shaped by structures in place, including power distribution or prevailing ideas, but they also guide and constrain the behavior of actors.

International regimes are not necessarily centered on a formai treaty or an intergovernmental organization. For example, no universal inter-governmental organization and no multilateral treaty is dedicated to fresh water, but there is arguably a transboundary water regime made of a set ofimplicit rules that lay out actors' expectations. However, most regimes are forma)-ized by international treaties. These treaty negotiations tend to evolve in a path dependency manner: from political declarations to framework conventions, to protocols, follow-up annexes and decisions.

Researcb on environmental regimes kicked off at the end of the !98Ùs. Initially, scholars focused on the reasons and the conditions Ieiding to the establishment of such regimes. They found that science and the agency of epistemic communities were instrumental in explaining the adoption of environmental regimes such as the acid rain regime, the ozone regime, or the Mediterranean sea regime.

In the 1990s, while scholars in other fields abandoried the concept of international regimes to its detractors, researchers in environmental governance worked to adapt it in severa! manners (V ogler 2003). First, to answer the critics that viewed regime analysis as functionalist, environ-mental scholars demonstrated that "issue areas," as defining criteria of regimes, depended on social and cognitive constructions. Second, in reaction to the accusation of state centricism, global environmental gbvernance specialists studied in detail the participation of non-state

171