Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations

Flood risk is a complex and transboundary issue that is expected to escalate with climate change and requires to be governed by collaborative networks of actors. Municipal administrations have been suggested to have a particularly important and challenging role in such governance. Although collabora...

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Autor principal:	Per Becker
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Resilience Alliance 2021
Materias:	flood risk governance institutional fit institutionalism Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/322ced468a1e468180cfc0d36f341283
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:322ced468a1e468180cfc0d36f3412832021-11-15T16:40:18ZTightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations1708-308710.5751/ES-12441-260234https://doaj.org/article/322ced468a1e468180cfc0d36f3412832021-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art34/https://doaj.org/toc/1708-3087Flood risk is a complex and transboundary issue that is expected to escalate with climate change and requires to be governed by collaborative networks of actors. Municipal administrations have been suggested to have a particularly important and challenging role in such governance. Although collaborative governance has attracted intense scientific attention, empirical studies generally focus either on the macro-level institutions per se, or on the meso-level interaction between organizations, without corresponding attention to the micro-level interactions between the individual actors constituting the organizations and reproducing the institutions. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how flood risk is governed within municipal administrations, by studying how actors interact within them when implementing tightly coupled policies. The paper draws on comparative case study research of three Swedish municipal administrations (Lomma, Lund, and Staffanstorp). Data were collected through interviews with all 143 actors actively contributing to mitigating flood risk within the municipal administrations, and analyzed structurally and interpretatively using social network analysis and qualitative analysis. Although the Swedish legal framework consists of tightly coupled policies demanding coordination between the actors implementing them, there is a recurrent pattern of relative integration between actors implementing policies for planning and water and sewage, and substantial separation between them and actors implementing policy for risk and vulnerability. This cinderellic fragmentation generates a "problem of fit" between the legal framework and the collaborative networks implementing it, which undermines the effectiveness of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations. It is not accidental but a consequence of a directional separation of institutionalization, where the more bottom-up and problem-oriented institutionalization of practices in planning and water and sewage, and the more top-down and compliance-oriented institutionalization of practices in risk and vulnerability pull the network of actors apart. I demonstrate how the mechanisms of increasing returns, commitments, and objectification may all operate simultaneously but to various degrees in different practices across any collaborative governance network. Hence, potentially undermining policy coherence, policy integration, and collaborative governance.Per BeckerResilience Alliancearticleflood riskgovernanceinstitutional fitinstitutionalismBiology (General)QH301-705.5EcologyQH540-549.5ENEcology and Society, Vol 26, Iss 2, p 34 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	flood risk governance institutional fit institutionalism Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5
spellingShingle	flood risk governance institutional fit institutionalism Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5 Per Becker Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
description	Flood risk is a complex and transboundary issue that is expected to escalate with climate change and requires to be governed by collaborative networks of actors. Municipal administrations have been suggested to have a particularly important and challenging role in such governance. Although collaborative governance has attracted intense scientific attention, empirical studies generally focus either on the macro-level institutions per se, or on the meso-level interaction between organizations, without corresponding attention to the micro-level interactions between the individual actors constituting the organizations and reproducing the institutions. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how flood risk is governed within municipal administrations, by studying how actors interact within them when implementing tightly coupled policies. The paper draws on comparative case study research of three Swedish municipal administrations (Lomma, Lund, and Staffanstorp). Data were collected through interviews with all 143 actors actively contributing to mitigating flood risk within the municipal administrations, and analyzed structurally and interpretatively using social network analysis and qualitative analysis. Although the Swedish legal framework consists of tightly coupled policies demanding coordination between the actors implementing them, there is a recurrent pattern of relative integration between actors implementing policies for planning and water and sewage, and substantial separation between them and actors implementing policy for risk and vulnerability. This cinderellic fragmentation generates a "problem of fit" between the legal framework and the collaborative networks implementing it, which undermines the effectiveness of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations. It is not accidental but a consequence of a directional separation of institutionalization, where the more bottom-up and problem-oriented institutionalization of practices in planning and water and sewage, and the more top-down and compliance-oriented institutionalization of practices in risk and vulnerability pull the network of actors apart. I demonstrate how the mechanisms of increasing returns, commitments, and objectification may all operate simultaneously but to various degrees in different practices across any collaborative governance network. Hence, potentially undermining policy coherence, policy integration, and collaborative governance.
format	article
author	Per Becker
author_facet	Per Becker
author_sort	Per Becker
title	Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
title_short	Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
title_full	Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
title_fullStr	Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
title_full_unstemmed	Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
title_sort	tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
publisher	Resilience Alliance
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/322ced468a1e468180cfc0d36f341283
work_keys_str_mv	AT perbecker tightlycoupledpoliciesandlooselycouplednetworksinthegoverningoffloodriskmitigationinmunicipaladministrations
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Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations

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