Reinhard Steurer

Towards a New Pattern of Strategy Formation in the Public Sector: First Experiences with National Strategies for Sustainable Development in Europe

Despite lengthy debates about planning versus incrementalism, there is still no consensus on what strategy processes should look like in the public sector. In the environmental policy field, the decline of formal policy planning was nonetheless followed by a surge of national strategies for sustainable development (NSSDs). After summarizing this development, we highlight some key characteristics, good practices, and weaknesses of NSSDs with regard to participation, horizontal and vertical policy integration, policy implementation, and monitoring. It is shown that NSSDs go well beyond former environmental policy plans, not just in terms of their thematic scope, but foremost because they resemble evolving rather than static strategy processes. Finally, we explore what model of strategy formation may be adequate for the public sector in general. Based on the empirical evidence presented here and by drawing on strategic management theory, strategic public management is proposed as an ideal pattern for strategy formation, which reconciles planning and incremental learning.

The Governance of Climate Change Adaptation in Ten OECD Countries: Challenges and Approaches

The governance of climate change adaptation gained increasing attention among both policy makers and researchers in recent years. Nevertheless, it is still largely unclear how governments aim to develop and implement adaptation policies. This paper takes stock of respective governance approaches at the national level in ten OECD countries. It first introduces four governance challenges that play a key role in the literature, i.e. (i) how to better integrate adaptation policies horizontally across policy sectors and (ii) vertically across jurisdictional levels, (iii) how to deal with uncertainties and integrate knowledge in adaptation policy decisions and, (iv), how to involve non-state stakeholders in adaptation decisions. Based on a desk research and a telephone survey, the paper then highlights a plethora of governance approaches the selected governments employ to cope with these four challenges. Overall, it is shown that most governance approaches are restricted to soft, voluntary ways of coordination and steering, and that national adaptation strategies often mark a centre piece around which complex governance setups emerge.

Business-Society Relations in Central-Eastern and Western Europe: How Those Who Lead in Sustainability Reporting Bridge the Gap in Corporate (Social) Responsibility

Summary In Western Europe, corporate (social) responsibility (CR) has become a popular concept that no major company can afford to ignore. However, what about the major companies from the new Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) Member States? The present paper is one of the first attempts to analyse the understanding and relevance of the CR of some major CEE companies that are leaders in sustainability reporting. This analysis is conducted in direct comparison with a similar analysis on major Western European companies. Methodologically, the paper intertwines two qualitative strands of research: an analysis of 19 CR reports (12 from CEE and 7 from Western Europe) provides a general impression about the understanding of CR across different socio-political contexts. This report-based depiction is complemented by two surveys of 22 companies (11 from CEE and 11 from Western Europe). The surveys show the relevance that the companies attach to specific CR issues. Overall, the paper concludes that the understanding of CR is context-specific, but also that, in the case of major companies that are leading in CR reporting, the differences are not as stark as one might expect.

Barriers and guidelines for public policies on climate change adaptation: A missed opportunity of scientific knowledge‐brokerage

Progress in formulating and implementing effective adaptation policies is often hampered by a wide variety of barriers that are well documented in the literature. Among the barriers are lack of awareness, certainty, resources and political commitment. Since these and other barriers can be overcome (e.g., by raising awareness, closing knowledge gaps, and increasing resources), numerous decision‐support frameworks (mainly written guidelines) have been developed for this purpose. The present paper takes stock of both the barriers in adaptation policymaking, as documented in the literature, and the guidelines that aim to facilitate public policies on climate change adaptation. It then compares to what degree selected adaptation guidelines serve as knowledge‐brokerage tools that provide guidance on how to overcome the barriers addressed in the scientific literature. The comparison shows that adaptation guidelines address barriers of adaptation policymaking neither comprehensively nor systematically. Since most adaptation guidelines focus on (subjective) experiences with good practices than on empirical research findings, we conclude that they represent a missed opportunity of scientific knowledge‐brokerage in climate change adaptation.

Integrated strategies on sustainable development, climate change mitigation and adaptation in Western Europe: communication rather than coordination

Complex environmental challenges cut horizontally across sectors and vertically across levels of government. To address them in coordinated and integrated ways, governments have resorted to integrated, multi-sectoral strategies since the 1990s. After introducing this new governance approach, this paper describes the policy rationale, prevalence, governance characteristics and performance of three distinct yet thematically related, integrated strategies on sustainable development, climate change mitigation and adaptation in the EU-15 countries. Based on this literature-based synthesis, we highlight their similarities and differences and the lack of linkages between them. The concluding discussion explores options on how to develop integrated strategies further. Since all three integrated strategies failed as comprehensive governing processes that aim to better coordinate policies, we suggest recalibrating them towards communication so that they can be more effective in pursuing the functions they can realistically fulfil: providing direction and raising awareness.

Innovation in Climate Adaptation Policy: Are Regional Partnerships Catalysts or Talking Shops?

We analyse whether and how six regional partnerships catalyse innovations in climate adaptation policies in Canada and England. The relatively rare and underexplored adaptation partnerships are collaborative arrangements in which governmental, business, and civil society actors strive to facilitate adaptation to climate change. Representing new political spaces, partnerships are expected to produce more innovative policies than hierarchies do. We find that the partnerships catalyse policy innovations in three distinct ways: through collaboration among the partners, through scaling up their activities beyond the partnerships, and by supporting national adaptation politics. However, the instrumental portfolio of the policy innovations is limited. It primarily comprises informational policies (e.g. guidelines), strategies, and plans (usually non-binding). Regarding innovation mechanisms, the analysis highlights the importance of collaboration and learning. Although there is a risk that partnerships will become talking shops, we conclude that, thus far, they support policymakers in tackling the challenges of an emerging policy field.

Multi-sectoral strategies as dead ends of policy integration: Lessons to be learned from sustainable development:

Until the mid-2000s, the rise of a “new pattern of strategy formation” in the context of sustainable development (SD) appeared to be a promising shift from mostly ineffective one-off-planning to iterative governance processes. The present paper revisits this once promising governance approach critically. Based on studies, evaluations and peer reviews, it synthesizes how national SD strategies have failed as policy documents and as governance processes in better integrating policies across sectors and levels of government. Based on the conclusion that comprehensive policy integration cannot be achieved through a single multi-sectoral strategy, we argue that it is time to either abandon an approach that has obviously failed to deliver or to recalibrate SD strategies towards the more realistic end of effectively communicating a long-term vision. Although the political relevance of SD strategies has declined in recent years, our findings are relevant to implementing other multi-sectoral strategies and the post-2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. While the former replicate already the governance failures analyzed here, the implementation of the latter runs a considerable risk of doing so in the near future.

National Adaptation Strategies, What Else? Comparing Adaptation Mainstreaming in German and Dutch Water Management

Over the past decade, governments in many countries began to integrate or mainstream climate change adaptation into a range of sectors. Comprehensive multi-sectoral adaptation strategies have emerged as the preferred approach across Europe. The German Adaptation Strategy is a prominent example for such a comprehensive strategy. It addresses 14 sectors with national key issues and measures, and it provides orientation for other (mainly sub-national) actors. Against this trend, the Netherlands has pursued climate change adaptation mainly through a sectorally focused approach: the Dutch Delta Programme. Building on existing programmes,Governments in many it facilitates analysis and strategy development for long-term water management at a national scale with a strong regional focus. The present paper compares the two dissimilar governance approaches mainly with regard to how and to what degree they mainstream adaptation into water and coastal zone management in selected regions. After discussing strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches, we conclude that the more common multi-sectoral approach applied in Germany and most other OECD countries is not necessarily superior to sectorally focused approaches. Although the Dutch and the German cases appear to resemble alternatives, we highlight that their combination holds the promise to compensate for each other’s weaknesses. Overall, we argue that diversity in the governance of climate change adaptation is desirable because it can help to prevent that several countries fail in similar ways.

Sustainable Development as Governance Reform Agenda: An Aggregation of Distinguished Challenges for Policy-Making

Sustainable development (SD) is commonly defined as development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations.This paper addresses the concept not with regard to economic, social or environmental policy challenges, but regarding its key implications for public governance. It shows that in terms of governance, SD requires horizontal integration of sectoral policies, closer co-operation between different tiers of government (vertical integration), integrating different stakeholders in decision-making (participation), considering different types of knowledge throughout the policy-making process (reflexivity), and balancing short- and long-term time scales (intergenerational equity). This paper contributes to the SD as well as the governance discourse in basic ways by aggregating these widely accepted normative SD principles to a comprehensive governance reform agenda. By doing so, it also highlights the considerable yet rarely noticed overlap between the discourses on SD and (good) governance.

The ambiguity of federalism in climate policy-making: how the political system in Austria hinders mitigation and facilitates adaptation

ABSTRACT Although the impacts of federalism on environmental policy-making are still contested, many policy analysts emphasise its advantages in climate policy-making. This applies to the mitigation of climate change, in particular when federal governments (as in the U.S.) are inactive. More recently, federalism is also expected to empower sub-national actors in adapting to local impacts of climate change. The present paper analyses the role federalism in Austria played in greening the decentralised building sector (relevant for mitigation) on the one hand, and in improving regional flood risk management (relevant for adaptation) on the other. In line with the so-called matching school of the environmental federalism research strand we conclude that Austrian federalism proved to be more appropriate for regional flood protection than for mitigating climate change. We highlight that it is not federalism per se but federalism embedded in various contextual factors that shape environmental policy-making. Among these factors are the spatial scale of an environmental problem, the nitty-gritty of polity systems, and national politics (such as federal positions on climate change mitigation).