Wil Thissen

Rationality in decision- and policy-making: implications for strategic environmental assessment

A proper integration of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) into policy-making processes is considered critical to the success of SEA. Most of the work in SEA seems to be based on the assumption that the provision of rational information will help improve decision-making, but the literature points to other characteristics of real decision-making processes, including cognitive limitations, behavioural biases, ambiguity and variability of preferences and norms, distribution of decision-making over actors and in time, and the notion of decision-making as a process of learning and negotiation between multiple actors. All these are very relevant at the planning and policy level. In the policy sciences literature, some approaches may also hold promise for SEA, such as supporting an open learning process, variety in ways to support and roles to play in these processes, and paying more attention to the actor configuration and distribution of interests, as a basis for finding implementable and effective solutions to policy problems. The elaboration of these ideas holds promises as well as challenges for SEA.

Actor analysis methods and their use for public policy analysts

Public policy analysts use methods rooted in OR and systems analysis to support policy makers in their judgement. In doing so, most policy analysts recognize the value of a certain understanding of the role of actors in policy making processes. Different methods are available to aid such understanding and, although they all focus on actors, there are important differences between them. Insight into the range of available methods and their characteristics will thus help policy analysts to learn more about the potential and limitations involved in analyzing multi-actor processes. This article provides such an overview, based on the main requirements these methods should meet. This overview is used to discuss some of the implications for policy analysts who are interested in analyzing multi-actor processes, focusing specifically on trade-offs between analytic quality and practical usability.

A Transition Research Perspective on Governance for Sustainability

In this chapter we present the transitions approach as an integrated perspective to understand and possibly orient our society towards sustainable development. Since the concept of sustainability is inherently normative, subjective and ambiguous, we argue that (unlike some more traditional approaches to sustainable development) we should focus on an open facilitation and stimulation of social processes towards sustainability. The transitions approach and transition management specifically, seek to deal with ongoing changes in society in an evolutionary manner so as to influence these ongoing changes in terms of speed and direction: towards sustainability. A transitions approach to explore sustainability transitions poses novel challenges for research: there are no unequivocal answers, nor it is clear how these processes should be governed. We conclude our analysis by formulating the basic research questions central to the search for governance for sustainability, and by reflecting on the role of science in sustainability transitions.

Investigations into the World3 Model: Lessons for Understanding Complicated Models

Methodological lessons are drawn from a broad analysis of the World3 model. It is argued that model understanding is a crucial part of the modeling approach. Generalization of the experiences with World3 leads to a proposal for a general approach to understanding complicated models. First, certain general attitudes are recommended. Subsequently, a strategy for model analysis is presented in algorithmic form and illustrated by reference to the World3 study. Finally, an extensive list of tools and techniques is given that may be useful in many phases of model analysis.

Towards a conceptual structure for evaluating policy analytic activities

Abstract Relatively little research has been done on the topic of evaluating policy analytic activities. This paper presents the results of a survey of publications from the field of policy analysis and some related fields. It appeared that a large variety exists regarding evaluation concepts and criteria. Although the establishment of a single set of generally applicable criteria is not feasible, a conceptual structure for identifying and categorizing criteria to evaluate policy analytic activities is proposed in this paper. The elaborated structure and constructed list of criteria provides a basis, from which researchers can, in individual cases, make a selection depending on the context and objectives of their research. The list of criteria provides a helping hand to evaluate and, in the end, improve policy analytic activities.

Strategic environmental assessment at a crossroads

M ANY DECISIONS AFFECTING environmental quality, and, more broadly, sustainability, are made at the policy, plan and programme level rather than at the project level. Therefore, many environmental assessment practitioners felt that an approach complementary to environmental impact assessment (EIA) had to be developed to ensure sufficient attention to environmental and sustainability considerations at these decision levels. This approach was labelled strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Interest in SEA has been growing rapidly over the last decade (Project Appraisal, 1992; Thérivel and Partidário, 1995; Sadler and Verheem, 1996; Partidário and Clark, 2000). A host of issues and questions have been raised with respect to the nature of SEA. Should it be an upscaled version of EIA or something completely different? What should be the relation of SEA and existing planning and policy-making procedures? Should it be founded in legislation? Is it something new or just re-inventing the wheel? How should it be applied? How should it be ‘sold’? In the spirit of growing interest and increased intensity of discussions, at the IAIA’98 Conference held in Christchurch, New Zealand, the workshop on SEA, Planning and Decision Making covered nine sessions, included more than 30 presentations, and was attended by well over 100 participants. The workshop had been set up “to enhance a shared understanding of the relationship between strategic approaches to environmental assessment and policy/planning systems”, and consisted of sessions focused on: (1) country case studies and country overviews (2) institutional and procedural aspects of the formal planning context, and (3) more theoretical or visionary contributions. Inspired by the lively discussions at the workshop and the relevance of wider dissemination of the material presented, a process towards the publication of a special issue of Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal on SEA, planning and policy making was started, based on the contributions to the workshop. The present issue, consisting of nine papers, is the result of this effort. The papers have been ordered into two main themes. The first five directly address several of the questions about SEA mentioned above. They concentrate on visions and theoretical views on what SEA is or should be, its future development, its implementation, and its integration with policy and planning processes. The subsequent four papers are primarily empirical in that they describe country case studies and reflect on what the findings mean for SEA and its relation to planning and policy making. The empirical material confirms several of the assertions made in the more theoretical papers. In the first paper, Verheem and Tonk address the issue of guidelines for SEA. They argue that, instead of attempting to define one best way of performing SEA, a limited set of more general principles should be established that are recognisable to potential users of SEA, and at the same time allow for variety in implementation forms depending on the context. They tentatively develop such a set of principles, and use two examples to show that quite different implementation forms of SEA can be in accordance with the proposed principles. Brown and Thérivel argue, along similar lines, that discussion should be focused on SEA concepts,

Dealing with Uncertainties in Fresh Water Supply: Experiences in the Netherlands

Developing fresh water supply strategies for the long term needs to take into account the fact that the future is deeply uncertain. Not only the extent of climate change and the extent and nature of its impacts are unknown, also socio-economic conditions may change in unpredictable ways, as well as social preferences. Often, it is not possible to find solid ground for estimating probabilities for the relevant range of imaginable possible future developments. Yet, some of these may have profound impacts and consequences for society which could be reduced by timely proactive adaptation. In response to these and similar challenges, various approaches, methods and techniques have been proposed and are being developed to specifically address long-term strategy development under so-called deep uncertainty. This paper, first, offers a brief overview of developments in the field of planning under (deep) uncertainty. Next, we illustrate application of three different approaches to fresh water provision planning under uncertainty in case studies in the Netherlands: a resilience approach, oriented to (re) designing fresh water systems in such a way that they will be less vulnerable, resp. will be able to recover easily from future disturbances; a robustness approach, oriented to quantitative assessment of system performance for various system configurations (adaptation options) under a range of external disturbances, and an exploratory modeling approach, developed to explore policy effectiveness and system operation under a very wide set of assumptions about future conditions.

The Influence of Scale Preferences on the Design of a Water Innovation: A Case in Dutch River Management

The debate on scale use in river management focuses primarily on the (lack of) fit between the bio-geophysical and institutional systems. However, in this article we focus on the ‘subjective’ aspect of scale preferences in water governance. We apply an adapted version of the Integrated Scale Hierarchy for Rivers to determine the degree of fit between the scale preferences of the actors involved in a Dutch case study and the scale requirements of the innovative river management concept. This allows us to understand which riverine processes and characteristics are regarded as important by the different actors and to identify mismatches in scale perspectives as they manifest themselves in water management practice. We discover that inflexibility in scale use on the part of the involved actors places bounds on the design and quality of interventions and demonstrate that a more flexible use of scales in the design phase of a river management intervention has the potential to lead to more effective solutions.

Uncertainty and Intelligent Transport Systems: implications for policy

Policy making with respect to Intelligent Transport Systems has to face a host of uncertainties. These relate to the lack of knowledge about technological developments, about the functionality and the acceptance of the envisaged systems, and about the impacts of these systems once implemented. These uncertainties have important implications for policy choices and the types of policies that should be considered. We first describe a generic typology of uncertainties, their causes, and possible ways to deal with them. Next, we apply this typology to the field of policy making with respect to Intelligent Transport Systems development and implementation. We conclude that a preferred strategy would combine further knowledge acquisition and learning with an adaptive policy. Key elements that need to be elaborated in the development of such a policy are identified.

How to use a systems diagram to analyse and structure complex problems for policy issue papers

Many policy problems are complex in the sense that natural, technological, social and human elements interact. Problem exploration and structuring are essential as a basis for deliberate and focused approaches towards problem resolution. The results of problem exploration efforts can be laid down in the form of a policy issue paper. We have developed a systemic, stepwise approach, which has been elaborated and taught for over a decade to hundreds of students. This seven-step approach centers on the construction of a system diagram as a means to provide structure to the conceptualisation of a complex problem situation. The approach is based on a conscious combination of existing relatively straightforward analytical methods including objectives hierarchy, means-ends analysis, causal diagramming, stakeholder analysis, and contextual scenarios. The obtained insights are then summed up in a policy issue paper, which is the basis for further planning and research.