Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries

Many natural resources have degraded and collapsed despite being managed under rigorous institutional frameworks set up to ensure rational exploitation. Path dependency of dysfunction institutions has been suggested as an explanation for such undesired outcomes. We explore the role of path dependenc...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	Jonas Hentati-Sundberg, Katharina Fryers Hellquist, Andreas Duit
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Resilience Alliance 2019
Materias:	fisheries historical ecology path dependence resilience social-ecological systems subsidies sustainability Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/66366a4c3ba9449cbe1612703229db38
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:66366a4c3ba9449cbe1612703229db38
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:66366a4c3ba9449cbe1612703229db382021-12-02T12:01:44ZIron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries1708-308710.5751/ES-11259-240418https://doaj.org/article/66366a4c3ba9449cbe1612703229db382019-12-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol24/iss4/art18/https://doaj.org/toc/1708-3087Many natural resources have degraded and collapsed despite being managed under rigorous institutional frameworks set up to ensure rational exploitation. Path dependency of dysfunction institutions has been suggested as an explanation for such undesired outcomes. We explore the role of path dependency in natural resource management by studying a 100-year evolution of Swedish fisheries. We rely on three main types of original longitudinal data collected for the period 1914-2016: (A) policy documents, (B) government spending on management and subsidies, and (C) catch and fleet data. Our analysis contrasts the periods before and after the Swedish entrance into the European Union (1995) because this marks the year when fisheries policy became beyond the direct influence of the Swedish government. We uncover four pieces of evidence suggesting the existence of a path dependent dynamic in the pre-EU period: (1) despite increasing insights on the vulnerability of fish stocks to overexploitation, national policy goals in relation to fisheries continuously promoted incompatible goals of social and economic growth but without any reference to the sustainability of the biological resources; (2) the same policy instruments were used over long periods; (3) actor constellations within the fisheries policy subsystem were stable over time; (4) neither political regime nor macroeconomic variables and fisheries performance (industry production, oil price, landing values) could explain observed temporal variation in subsidies. We conclude that key policy actors in the pre-EU period formed an "iron triangle" and thereby prevented necessary policy changes. These national reinforcing feedbacks have been weakened since EU entrance, and the indicators for path dependency show broader involvement of stakeholders, a shift in spending, and policy goals that now explicitly address ecological sustainability.Jonas Hentati-SundbergKatharina Fryers HellquistAndreas DuitResilience Alliancearticlefisherieshistorical ecologypath dependenceresiliencesocial-ecological systemssubsidiessustainabilityBiology (General)QH301-705.5EcologyQH540-549.5ENEcology and Society, Vol 24, Iss 4, p 18 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	fisheries historical ecology path dependence resilience social-ecological systems subsidies sustainability Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5
spellingShingle	fisheries historical ecology path dependence resilience social-ecological systems subsidies sustainability Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5 Jonas Hentati-Sundberg Katharina Fryers Hellquist Andreas Duit Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries
description	Many natural resources have degraded and collapsed despite being managed under rigorous institutional frameworks set up to ensure rational exploitation. Path dependency of dysfunction institutions has been suggested as an explanation for such undesired outcomes. We explore the role of path dependency in natural resource management by studying a 100-year evolution of Swedish fisheries. We rely on three main types of original longitudinal data collected for the period 1914-2016: (A) policy documents, (B) government spending on management and subsidies, and (C) catch and fleet data. Our analysis contrasts the periods before and after the Swedish entrance into the European Union (1995) because this marks the year when fisheries policy became beyond the direct influence of the Swedish government. We uncover four pieces of evidence suggesting the existence of a path dependent dynamic in the pre-EU period: (1) despite increasing insights on the vulnerability of fish stocks to overexploitation, national policy goals in relation to fisheries continuously promoted incompatible goals of social and economic growth but without any reference to the sustainability of the biological resources; (2) the same policy instruments were used over long periods; (3) actor constellations within the fisheries policy subsystem were stable over time; (4) neither political regime nor macroeconomic variables and fisheries performance (industry production, oil price, landing values) could explain observed temporal variation in subsidies. We conclude that key policy actors in the pre-EU period formed an "iron triangle" and thereby prevented necessary policy changes. These national reinforcing feedbacks have been weakened since EU entrance, and the indicators for path dependency show broader involvement of stakeholders, a shift in spending, and policy goals that now explicitly address ecological sustainability.
format	article
author	Jonas Hentati-Sundberg Katharina Fryers Hellquist Andreas Duit
author_facet	Jonas Hentati-Sundberg Katharina Fryers Hellquist Andreas Duit
author_sort	Jonas Hentati-Sundberg
title	Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries
title_short	Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries
title_full	Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries
title_fullStr	Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries
title_full_unstemmed	Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries
title_sort	iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on swedish commercial fisheries
publisher	Resilience Alliance
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/66366a4c3ba9449cbe1612703229db38
work_keys_str_mv	AT jonashentatisundberg irontrianglesandsubsidiesunderstandingthelongtermroleofthegovernmentonswedishcommercialfisheries AT katharinafryershellquist irontrianglesandsubsidiesunderstandingthelongtermroleofthegovernmentonswedishcommercialfisheries AT andreasduit irontrianglesandsubsidiesunderstandingthelongtermroleofthegovernmentonswedishcommercialfisheries
_version_	1718394751440388096

Iron triangles and subsidies: understanding the long-term role of the government on Swedish commercial fisheries

Ejemplares similares