Oliver Fritsch

Rationales for public participation in environmental policy and governance: practitioners' perspectives

Participation has become a mantra in environmental governance. However, there are signs that the participatory agenda has started to lose its momentum and justification because of disappointments about actual achievements. Rather than focusing on improving participatory processes or articulating best practices, in this paper we seek to understand the more fundamental reasons why difficulties are encountered. In our interviews with professionals involved in participation in environmental governance we found varying and potentially conflicting rationales for participation, with instrumental and legalistic rationales dominating. We contend that the institutional and political context in which this participation takes place is an important explanation of this prevalence. This includes the provisions for participation in EU directives, failing policy integration, institutional and political barriers, and failing political uptake of results from participation. We conclude there is a need for more reflexive awareness of the different ways in which participation is defined and practised in contemporary environmental policy making and for a more realistic assessment of possibilities for changes towards more participatory and deliberative decision making.

Studying the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Europe: a Meta-Analysis of 89 Journal Articles

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is arguably the most ambitious piece of European Union (EU) legislation in the field of water. The directive defines a general framework for integrated river basin management in Europe with a view to achieving “good water status” by 2015. Institutional novelties include, among others, water management at hydrological scales, the involvement of nonstate actors in water planning, and various economic principles, as well as a common strategy to support EU member states during the implementation of the directive. More than 15 years after the adoption of the WFD, and with the passing of an important milestone, 2015, we believe it is time for an interim assessment. This article provides a systematic review of existing scholarship on WFD implementation. We identify well-documented areas of research, describe largely unchartered territories, and suggest avenues for future studies. Methodologically, we relied on a meta-analysis. Based on a codebook of more than 35 items, we analyzed 89 journal articles reporting on the implementation of the directive in EU member states. Our review is organized around three major themes. The first is “who, when, and where”; we explore publication patterns, thereby looking into authors, timelines, and target journals. The second is “what”; we analyze the object of study in our source articles with a particular focus on case study countries, policy levels, the temporal stage of WFD implementation, and if the directive was not studied in its entirety, the aspect of the WFD that received scholarly attention. The third is “how,” i.e., theoretical and methodological choices made when studying the WFD.

Integrating the Principles of Integrated Water Resources Management? River Basin Planning in England and Wales

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is now a globally generic concept encompassing a multitude of environmental governance approaches in different national contexts. However, conspicuous gaps in the IWRM literature concerning the application of this concept in practice are still evident suggesting a need for further theoretically driven comparative research. In view of these gaps, this article examines IWRM in one leading national context with a long established tradition of holistically managing water resources, namely England and Wales.

Mind the Costs: Rescaling and Multi-Level Environmental Governance in Venice Lagoon

Competences over environmental matters are distributed across agencies at different scales on a national-to-local continuum. This article adopts a transaction costs economics perspective in order to explore the question whether, in the light of a particular problem, the scale at which a certain competence is attributed can be reconsidered. Specifically, it tests whether a presumption of least-cost operation concerning an agency at a given scale can hold. By doing so, it investigates whether the rescaling of certain tasks, aiming at solving a scale-related problem, is likely to produce an increase in costs for day-to-day agency operations as compared to the status quo. The article explores such a perspective for the case of Venice Lagoon. The negative aspects of the present arrangement concerning fishery management and morphological remediation are directly linked to the scale of the agencies involved. The analysis suggests that scales have been chosen correctly, at least from the point of view of the costs incurred to the agencies involved. Consequently, a rescaling of those agencies does not represent a viable option.

Der Beitrag zivilgesellschaftlicher Partizipation zur Effektivitätssteigerung von Governance Eine Analyse umweltpolitischer Beteiligungsverfahren im transatlantischen Vergleich

Die besondere Konjunktur des Themas Zivilgesellschaft, so wurde jungst vermutet, kann als Antwort „von oben“ auf die fortwahrenden staatlichen Steuerungsdefizite gesehen werden (Gosewinkel et al. 2004). So erhofft man sich von der Einbindung zivilgesellschaftlicher Akteure in Governance-Prozesse effektivere und effizientere Politiken (Schuppert 2004; Weidner 2004). Diese Entwicklung reflektiert eine qualitative Veranderung auch des Partizipationsdiskurses: Noch in den 1960er und 70er Jahren standen in der bundesdeutschen Debatte emanzipatorische und legitimatorische Motive wie die Moglichkeit zur Mitbestimmung, die Offnung von Entscheidungsprozessen und die Demokratisierung der Gesellschaft im Mittelpunkt (von Alemann 1975). Diese spielen in der jungeren politikwissenschaftlichen Partizipationsdebatte nach wie vor eine wichtige Rolle (Renn et al. 1995; Feindt 2001; Fisahn 2002). Jedoch tritt demgegenuber vor allem im Kontext der jungsten europarechtlichen Verankerung von Offentlichkeitsbeteiligung der instrumentelle Wert von Partizipation in den Vordergrund.

Water quality is a poor predictor of recreational hotspots in England

Maintaining and improving water quality is key to the protection and restoration of aquatic ecosystems, which provide important benefits to society. In Europe, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) defines water quality based on a set of biological, hydro-morphological and chemical targets, and aims to reach good quality conditions in all river bodies by the year 2027. While recently it has been argued that achieving these goals will deliver and enhance ecosystem services, in particular recreational services, there is little empirical evidence demonstrating so. Here we test the hypothesis that good water quality is associated with increased utilization of recreational services, combining four surveys covering walking, boating, fishing and swimming visits, together with water quality data for all water bodies in eight River Basin Districts (RBDs) in England. We compared the percentage of visits in areas of good water quality to a set of null models accounting for population density, income, age distribution, travel distance, public access, and substitutability. We expect such association to be positive, at least for fishing (which relies on fish stocks) and swimming (with direct contact to water). We also test if these services have stronger association with water quality relative to boating and walking alongside rivers, canals or lakeshores. In only two of eight RBDs (Northumbria and Anglian) were both criteria met (positive association, strongest for fishing and swimming) when comparing to at least one of the null models. This conclusion is robust to variations in dataset size. Our study suggests that achieving the WFD water quality goals may not enhance recreational ecosystem services, and calls for further empirical research on the connection between water quality and ecosystem services.

Regulatory Quality in the European Commission and the UK: Old Questions and New Findings

This paper examines the quality of impact assessments in the European Commission and the United Kingdom for the period 2005-2010. We coded 477 impact assessments for the UK and 251 for the European Commission, using a detailed scorecard - adjusted to reduce the bias evidenced by previous usages of this instrument. The findings suggest that impact assessment is not merely a perfunctory activity in the European Union and the UK. Quality has improved steadily over the years, arguably as a result of learning and regulatory oversight. The UK and the European Commission are strikingly similar on a number of impact assessment dimensions (such as economic analysis and identification of costs and benefits). The impact assessments of the European Commission seem to pay more attention to social and environmental aspects, however. The conclusions reflect on the implications of our findings for current policy discussions on regulatory quality and the role of regulatory oversight bodies.

Local flood risk management strategies in England: patterns of application

In England, the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 provides specific roles for Lead Local Flood Authorities in flood and coastal erosion risk management. Under Section 9 of the Act, authorities are responsible for preparing, applying and monitoring a local flood risk management strategy that balances community input into flood management with national policy objectives. Authorities are legally obliged to consider specified requirements in strategy production, including consultation with the public. Using an evaluative framework based on legal requirements and local government guidelines, this article assesses the extent to which these requirements have been met in a sample of 43 strategies. Our findings suggest that strategies generally meet minimal legal requirements, although variance exists in approaches adopted, particularly in respect of consultation and links to other environmental management aspects. Recommendations for enhancing future practice are provided.

The EU Water Initiative at 15 : origins, processes and assessment

ABSTRACT This article examines the activities and achievements of the European Union Water Initiative, a transnational, multi-actor partnership established in 2002 by the European Commission to support water governance reforms around the world. Two regional components of the initiative – (a) Africa and (b) Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia – are studied with a focus on their organizational structures, activities, policies and achievements. The analysis provides evidence for improved regional dialogue and cooperation in the water sector, but also points to persistent weaknesses, in particular a lack of resources, ownership and mutual understanding as to the overall aims of the Initiative.

Implementing in the laboratory: scorecards for appraising regulatory impact assessment

During the last 20 years political scientists, economists and lawyers have analysed impact assessments (IAs) from diverse methodological perspectives. These have included single case studies, within-case comparisons, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), large-N statistical approaches and narrative analysis. However, scorecards are the most popular approach, both as an instrument in its own right as well as a step towards further qualitative and quantitative analyses. Scholars employ scorecards to examine the contents of IA documents, and they do so in particular if they study medium to large numbers of documents. The chapter takes a closer look at the application of scorecard approaches in policy and academia. In doing so, the authors’ ambition is threefold. First, they review scorecard approaches in regulatory oversight. To this end, they examine the usage of scorecards in countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Sweden and New Zealand. Second, they discuss scorecard approaches in the academic literature, thereby providing a most up-to-date review of applications in political science, public administration, economics and legal studies. Third, they attend to methodological challenges. The chapter argues that the potential of scorecards has not yet been fully exploited, and suggests various pathways to broaden their application and impact.