Edward P. Weber

A New Vanguard for the Environment: Grass-Roots Ecosystem Management as a New Environmental Movement

The emergence of hundreds of rural, place-based, grass-roots ecosystem management (GREM) efforts across the United States constitutes a new environmental movement that challenges the fundamental premises of existing natural resources and public lands institutions. This article establishes GREM as qualitatively distinct from prior American environmental movements and as a fundamentally different approach to the environmental problematique, which relies on decentralization, collaboration, citizen participation, and a holistic worldview that seeks to simultaneously promote environment, economy, and community. GREM is compared with the three major American environmental movements preservation, conservation, and contemporary along several dimensions: ideology, movement character, preferred institutions, and approach of each to science, technology, and the question of limits to growth. While not all aspects of GREM are new, it is a grand synthesis that borrows readily from past movements, adds new ideas and approaches to environmental management, and transforms the whole into a distinctive movement worthy of study.

The Question of Accountability in Historical Perspective From Jackson to Contemporary Grassroots Ecosystem Management

Grassroots ecosystem management (GREM), and the reinventing government movement, more generally, suggest that the American polity is on the verge of redefining a broadly acceptable system of democratic accountability. The problem is: What does an effective system of accountability look like in a world of decentralized governance, shared power, collaborative decision processes, results-oriented management, and broad civic participation? This article examines how the theory of accountability has been reconfigured to fit the new paradigm for governance and places accountability in historical context to gain perspective for contemporary discussions of bureaucracy in a democracy. It finds that the conceptualization of democratic accountability varies dramatically over time. The Jacksonian, Progressives/New Deal, public-interest-egalitarian, neoconservative efficiency, and GREM models are all distinct conceptualizations of accountability. Each emphasizes different institutions and locates the authority for accountability in differing combinations and types of sectors (public, private, intermediary), processes, decision rules, knowledge, and values.

Thinking Harder About Outcomes for Collaborative Governance Arrangements

In recent years, a growing number of scholars have urged greater intellectual effort regarding the outcomes, or impacts, being produced, or not produced by collaborative governance arrangements. Some progress has been made with “process” and “social” outcomes, outcomes affecting systemic collaborative capacity, the identification of second- and third-order consequences, and in refining approaches to incorporating and measuring real world environmental improvements. But what about other creative, important, and potentially useful governance outcomes that may well be unique to collaborative governance arrangements? Are we measuring all of the important things? We put this hypothesis to the test by examining four successful cases of collaborative governance in four Western states. The research, by discovering and developing three new types of governance outcomes—enhancing agency resources, developing and transferring technology, and going beyond compliance—suggests that our current frameworks for thinking about and measuring outcomes produced by collaborative governance arrangements are necessarily incomplete.

Managing Collaborative Processes: Common Practices, Uncommon Circumstances

The study of managers in collaborative efforts continues to progress. In this article, the authors investigate the efforts by managers to build and maintain collaborative processes to address complex public problems that vary by policy area (emergency management, environmental regulation, and community renewal), focus on different dimensions of the problem, are prompted by different forms of system breakdown, and generate different collaborative responses. This study investigates whether there are essential characteristics of collaborative capacity building that cut across these three cases, and it is found that the key managers in each case build collaborative problem-solving capacity by adopting a common approach comprising the same six practices.

Ecosystem management, decentralization, and public opinion

Abstract In recent years there has been a movement by administrators and policymakers across the country to reorganize and reinvent government to improve program efficiencies, to harness resources outside government in the service of public policy goals, and to better facilitate the input of affected interests and the general public. Central to this effort are innovative, decentralized institutional arrangements which delegate significant authority either to private citizens, program managers within existing bureaucracy, or market-based mechanisms. Ecosystem- and watershed-based management, which seek to both prevent pollution and sustain development, are in the vanguard of this movement. This paper examines this trend toward decentralizing environmental policy and the use of ecosystem management from the perspective of the public. Planning and implementation of devolved environmental policy will require the support of local stakeholders and citizens. Using data from a national public opinion survey conducted during the summer of 1998, the paper examines factors associated with public acceptability of ecosystem management and the preferred level of government and citizen participation that should be involved in the implementation of such management strategies.

Assessing Collaborative Capacity in a Multidimensional World

Collaborative capacity is central to long-term problem-solving success and poses a challenge for public management scholars—How does one measure collaborative capacity? The authors treat collaborative capacity as an outcome and develop a multidimensional collaborative capacity assessment framework that measures whether capacity is enhanced, stays the same, or is diminished. The framework is applied to two collaborations involving endangered species in the United States. Although traditional measures of compliance show little difference, the full framework finds a stark contrast in long-term problem-solving capacity. One case evinces high overall capacity, whereas the second case registers low, even diminished, capacity.

Collaboration, Enforcement, and Endangered Species: A Framework for Assessing Collaborative Problem-Solving Capacity

ABSTRACT The centrality of collaborative capacity to long-term problem-solving success in natural resource policy poses a critical challenge for social scientists. While the literature on antecedent capacity is relatively rich, there is virtually nothing in the literature related to collaborative capacity as an outcome—the idea of a collaborative capacity assessment framework. What criteria help us understand whether long-term, collaborative problem-solving capacity is enhanced, stays the same, or is diminished? Our framework develops capacity outcomes along multiple dimensions—the vertical, the horizontal, and the partnership linkages between the two—and is applied to collaborations involving endangered species. When the cases are measured along traditional vertical measures there is little difference; both register high rates of compliance. However, when assessed along all three dimensions of the framework, a stark contrast in long-term problem-solving capacity is evident. The Walla Walla case evinces high capacity overall, while the Methow Valley registers low, even diminished capacity.

From Agitation to Collaboration: Clearing the Air through Negotiation

National pollution control policy making has long been defined by conflict and delay. Environmentalists have portrayed their industrial rivals as evil incarnate, while industry has claimed environmentalists are zealots in the thrall of some romantic notion of a pre-industrial society. Amid this conflict, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has tried to draft regulations that are both workable and effective in lengthy processes pitted by legal challenges, and stilted by the difficult search for accurate technical and political information, while state regulators fume waiting for the federal authority to begin enforcing the programs for which Congress holds them accountable (Harter, 1982; McGarity, 1992; Pritzker 1990; Mashaw and Harfst, 1990). Not surprisingly, it is estimated that 80 percent of all major rules issued by the EPA are litigated in lengthy court battles that are the stuff of legend in environmental politics (Council on Environmental Quality, 1985; Ruckelshaus, 1985). Yet in important cases, agitation and delay in environmental policy making is giving way to collaboration and timeliness. While the traditional notice-and-comment rule making procedure is still the dominant method for developing environmental regulations, as early as 1983 the EPA began to experiment with regulatory negotiations (or reg-negs) that bring environmentalists, state officials, and traditional business adversaries together in collaborative efforts to hammer out consensus-based rules. But the reg-neg is only one of several collaborative approaches the EPA is taking to develop regulations. At the invitation of Amoco Oil, EPA spent three years studying an oil refinery to better match rules with pollution problems and to prevent pollution instead of simply regulating its release. The EPA now promotes dozens of public-private partnerships that leverage scarce public resources by tapping private equity and expertise to fulfill environmental protection goals. Market-based incentives are being explored and implemented across the country, and are being promoted, in some cases, by traditional skeptics like environmental advocates and government regulators. The EPA is not alone in its search for and use of alternative means to resolve regulatory disputes. Within the framework established by the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990 and under the guidelines established by the (now defunct) Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), regulatory negotiations are employed by federal agencies such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the Federal Aviation Administration; the Federal Trade Commission; the Departments of Education, Interior, Agriculture and Transportation; and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Conventional wisdom presents the American political system as unable to utilize alternative, consensus-based policy mechanisms, and views policy making, particularly in the highly combative environmental arena, as increasingly conflictual, open, and competitive (Berry, 1989; Heclo, 1978; Wilson, 1981; Wilson, 1980; Rabe, 1988). A growing literature challenges this position by identifying collaborative efforts and the potential gains to be realized through their use, even when bitter adversaries of long standing are involved (Fisher and Ury, 1981; Fiorino and Kirtz, 1985; Susskind and McMahon, 1985; Kerwin and Furlong, 1992). It is argued that regulatory policy can be developed in a more timely fashion, at a lower cost to all participants, and can produce a more robust policy all participants will support, thus making regulation more effective in the long run. More recent research tempers the enthusiasm, suggesting costly barriers to participation in collaborative efforts for consumer and environmental advocacy organizations, in particular, and time demands similar to traditional regulatory proceedings (see Polkinghorn, 1995; Kerwin and Langbein, 1995; Coglianese, forthcoming; but see Weber, forthcoming, for a critique of these findings). …

Choosing what to believe about forests: differences between professional and non-professional evaluative criteria.

This study examined the process of information exchange between natural resource management professionals and forest owners to determine whether and how professionals could improve their ability to persuade forest owners to adopt recommended stewardship practices. Using the inductive ‘grounded theory’ method of qualitative research, 109 stakeholders throughout the State of Washington, USA were interviewed and asked to discuss their information sources and preferences. The study findings reveal that many natural resource management professionals may not correctly anticipate how forest owners evaluate new forest management information. Professionals in the study typically chose and evaluated new information on the basis of established standards of scientific credibility, including peer review or the professional reputation of the individuals and institutions conducting the research or publishing the information. Most professionals expected forest owners would do the same. Forest owners with non-professional backgrounds, however, were often unfamiliar with or unimpressed by such credentials, and often used a very different evaluative screen. Willingness to adopt information was greatly influenced by their social impressions of the individuals delivering it. When a professional pressed for an ‘expert to non-expert’ relationship or did not establish a mutually respectful interpersonal learning atmosphere, non-professional forest owners frequently resisted not only that individual, but also the information they provided. This paper links these findings to androgogy (adult learning theory), and demonstrates that the natural resource professionals most effective with forest owners are those providing what the established literature describes as classic elements of a good adult learning environment. These elements include empathy, mutual respect, non-hierarchical information exchange, praxis, emphasis on experiential rather than passive learning, and evidence that tangible results may be expected. An improved understanding of the fundamentals of the adult learning process can be expected to enhance the effectiveness of natural resource professionals in information exchange with forest owners.

Science, Society, and Water Resources in New Zealand: Recognizing and Overcoming a Societal Impasse

The Canterbury Regional Council, which manages 70% of New Zealands irrigated land, has struggled to control the burgeoning demand for water resources as more land is converted to highly profitable, water-intensive dairy farms relying on groundwater. At the centre of Canterburys struggle over water resources and their effective management are two competing groundwater science models. The different approaches and their implications for water management have led to a situation commonly described as a ‘science impasse’, with scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders increasingly focused on ‘how to break the gridlock over science’, particularly in one of the regions major watersheds, the Selwyn. In keeping with the traditional logical positivist, linear approach to science, the expectation is that if the scientists can get the science right, then the ultimate goal of water sustainability will be made more likely, since the ‘facts’ will guide policymakers towards proper decisions. Yet, our research found that while stakeholders do focus tightly on the dominant role of science and scientists when discussing solutions to the impasse, the underlying reality is a societal impasse grounded in the overarching adversarial setting, the logic of the wicked problem set, and the ultimate goal of sustainability. Seeing the ‘impasse problem’ from this new perspective means that getting only the physical science right addresses the symptoms, not the underlying causes of the impasse. This article develops why the traditional instrumental, linear approach to science is unlikely to work in this case, and why an alternative approach to science—civic science—offers promise as a way forward. A final section turns to the kind of steps most likely required for transition of the Selwyn watersheds ‘societal impasse’ dynamic from an adversarial setting to an effective collaborative governance arrangement conducive to the civic science enterprise.