ABSTRACT The role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in addressing climate change is acknowledged, but engagement with questions of voice remains limited, especially in the Global South. Addressing this, this paper zooms in on (International) nongovernmental organizations ((I)NGOs) and their collaborations with domestic CSOs in the Global South on this front. (I)NGOs often sum up their role here as “amplification of voices,” which foregrounds communities articulating their perspectives and agendas, with domestic CSOs and (I)NGOs supporting and facilitating. However, this raises questions about where “voices” come from and how to understand their “amplification”. Based on qualitative research in Kenya, this paper examines how CSOs in Kenya working on amplification of voices on climate change relate to the populations they work with, and what these relationships reveal about what amplification of voices entails in practice for CSOs working on climate change in a setting in the Global South where climate change impacts are directly experienced. Key findings are, first: CSOs centered local settings and local people, but co‐created voices rather than amplifying existing ones. Second, they also co‐created arenas and processes in which voices were to be heard and promoted state actors' receptiveness to them. Third, the nature of the focus on the local kept voices circumscribed to immediately experienced climate change impacts and solutions conceived as projects that mitigate them, with little engagement with larger issues. The findings indicate that the notion of amplification as strengthening authentic existing voices of marginalized groups, while justly foregrounding lived experience and people's priorities, may not do justice to what happens. While providing legitimate CSO roles in facilitation of, and support for, “the local,” the notion of amplification, when used in a straightforward manner, hides the multidimensionality of CSO roles, fails to recognize how local voices are embedded in webs of power and politics, and discourages CSO roles in building larger movements that can engage complex issues.
ABSTRACT Ocean governance presents one of the most complex environmental policy challenges of our time, requiring coordinated action across multiple scales, sectors and stakeholder groups. This paper applies institutional work theory to systematically examine how actors create, maintain and disrupt the governance arrangements underpinning ocean sustainability and marine conservation finance. Through a comprehensive review of 107 peer‐reviewed articles, we identify patterns of institutional work across the ocean governance literature. Our findings reveal a predominant emphasis on institutional creation (100% of articles) and maintenance (91% of articles), with comparatively less attention to disruptive institutional actions (57% of articles). Statistical analysis using tetrachoric correlations demonstrates significant relationships between institutional work subcategories, suggesting that effective ocean governance requires coordinated action across multiple institutional dimensions. We show that these correlations disclose three recurring configurations of institutional work, namely enabling creation, normative maintenance and disruptive realignment and that the maintenance and disruptive configurations are largely decoupled across the review of literature. Building on this finding, we propose an integrated model in which ocean sustainability outcomes depend on the coupling of these configurations rather than on the volume of any single form of work. The model is stated as four testable propositions and identifies the agents positioned to carry each configuration together with the barriers to coupling them in a fragmented governance landscape. The paper contributes to environmental governance scholarship by demonstrating how institutional work theory can inform practical strategies for enhancing ocean sustainability.
ABSTRACT Moving from imitation to innovation across both technological and institutional domains represents the mega trend in China. The question remains: what drives these transformations, and how are the difficulties navigated? Drawing upon the case of China's light‐duty vehicle emission standards, we seek to provide empirically grounded answers. The standard and its second to fifth revisions all adopted the European Union standards from 2001 to 2016; the sixth revision of the standards made in 2016, however, shifted toward a more autonomous model. The shift was driven by growing domestic needs. On the one hand, public demand for better air quality called for stricter vehicle emission standards; on the other hand, decision‐makers intended to develop standards that serve domestic rather than international automakers' interests. To turn this intent into reality required sufficient policy capacity, which the responsible agency initially lacked but subsequently managed to acquire. Specifically, policy capacity was expanded through two mechanisms: the regulatory agency leveraged its nodality and authority to mobilize resources from domestic firms and research institutes and used China's structural power in global markets to access critical information from foreign regulators and suppliers. Building on these findings, we view policy capacity not as a static set of attributes but as a dynamic process of weaving fragmented capacities into usable ones, triggered by critical decisions and shaped by structural contexts. Overall, this study advances our understanding of Chinese policy‐making by showing how policy capacity can be enhanced through mechanisms beyond policy experimentation and borrowing.
Thailand has announced ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a programme that allows private companies to earn carbon credits from protecting and restoring mangroves. In 2023, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) began enrolling local communities and private firms in this scheme. We examine whether communities can participate fairly, drawing on 18 semi-structured interviews with government officials, NGOs, community leaders and private sector actors. We identify five barriers: unclear policies that leave communities uncertain about their rights; benefit-sharing arrangements widely perceived as unfair; divergent views among communities and NGOs about carbon offsetting; knowledge and capacity gaps that limit meaningful engagement; and prohibitive verification and implementation costs. We argue that these barriers are not discrete problems but mutually reinforcing features of T-VER's governance architecture, producing distributive, procedural and recognitional injustices that constrain participation. State mediation does not necessarily protect communities. Without formal rights, independent accountability mechanisms and accessible verification pathways, it can instead concentrate power in the hands of state and corporate actors. Thailand's experience raises important concerns for other countries where forest land remains under state control. We conclude with recommendations for reform that could make community participation more equitable and projects more durable.
Local governments are widely regarded as key leaders in the global response to climate change. Understanding if and how municipalities commit to climate mitigation is crucial for assessing their contribution to global emission-reduction goals and identifying barriers to effective climate transitions. Here we provide an assessment of local climate action planning and implementation approaches. Drawing from an original survey dataset from municipal governments across Canada, we identify in a cluster analysis six climate governance typologies: Comprehensive Climate Advocates, Foundation Builders, Internal Impact Architects, Unseen Leaders, Silent Implementers, and Climate Bystanders. Whereas municipalities in the top-performing cluster have adopted the most convincing approaches, subsequent clusters highlight inconsistencies regarding planning, budgeting, implementation, and reporting, revealing a polarized climate action landscape. Association analysis points to the limited influence of existing subnational policies on local climate action and to setbacks for some municipalities, while also revealing an emerging group of small and mid-sized municipalities that is gaining prominence in comprehensive climate action. These results can help to inform climate action scholarship and policymaking, providing insights into the comprehensiveness of mitigation approaches across different types of municipalities and the need for continued assessment of multi-level accountability mechanisms.
Freshwater availability is a critical climate change challenge in coastal delta regions. This challenge requires a transformative change toward circular water management. While experimentation and collaborative governance are recognized as enablers of transformative change, their interaction remains complex and insufficiently understood. Experimentation offers flexibility and learning processes with innovative solutions, whereas collaborative governance is based on collective decision-making and is often resistant to change. Despite the differences, both concepts complement each other and jointly shape the transformative potential of water systems. This paper unravels the interplay between collaborative dynamics and experimentation, advancing transformative potential in circular water systems. We operationalize the framework of Emerson et al. to analyze a Dutch case study in which a diverse actor network engages in water experiments and other initiatives aimed at developing a circular and resilient system. Data were collected through document analysis, four workshops, and 10 in-depth interviews. The findings show that the transformative potential of a water system depends on key collaborative dynamics, including open and transparent deliberation to address conflicting interests, developing a mutual understanding, and determining collective actions. Deliberation also plays a central role in fostering mutual trust and shared commitment among stakeholders. In addition, clearly defined leadership, flexible procedural and institutional arrangements for experimentation, and the availability of financial and human resources are crucial to support the transformative potential of water systems. Finally, the study demonstrates that experiments contribute to transformative potential when they function as collaborative spaces in which stakeholders jointly engage in advancing a circular water system.
ABSTRACT Mangroves are critical resources in sustaining coastal communities by providing essential ecosystem goods and services. Occurring within the interface of land and sea, they serve as critical ecological zones shaped by dynamic interactions between terrestrial and marine systems. Using qualitative policy analysis of legal instruments, policy documents, and peer‐reviewed literature, the study investigates how nested governance arrangements influence mangrove management. The findings show that mangrove governance across the three contexts takes hybrid forms shaped by historical trajectories and legal pluralism. Although participatory mechanisms such as CREMAs in Ghana, Joint Forest Management in Tanzania Mainland, and Community Forest Management Agreements in Zanzibar formally recognise community involvement, authority remains unevenly distributed due to fragmented institutional mandates and unclear tenure arrangements. As a result, mangrove governance is constrained by overlapping institutional responsibilities and weak enforcement. These findings suggest that reforms should prioritise integrated land–seascape approaches, stronger coordination across sectors, and greater statutory support for local institutions to sustain mangrove ecosystems.
ABSTRACT In this article, we explore how stakeholders navigate potential collaborative partnerships in complex social‐ecological systems. Building from literature on social‐ecological fit, collaborative governance, and resource dependence, we evaluate the degree to which (1) collaborative gaps (i.e., instances where stakeholders manage the same issue(s) but do not directly collaborate), (2) mutual partners, and (3) the potential to access social, financial, and human capital guide stakeholders' evaluations of potential partners. We organized a partnership rating activity where stakeholders involved in climate change adaptation in Columbus, Ohio, interacted with potential partners and privately rated the importance of their potential partnership. We find that participants were more likely to rate other stakeholders as important partners when they worked on more overlapping issues, but less likely to favorably rate potential partners when they shared more mutual partners. Our study describes how actors navigate complex social‐ecological systems, showing that collaborative gaps are important for partnership evaluation.
ABSTRACT Interdisciplinary sociotechnical interventions are widely promoted to address sustainability challenges in energy, water, and environmental governance, yet many struggle to sustain collective action once external funding and coordination recede. This article examines how governance arrangements are reconfigured under institutional constraint during the implementation of a community‐based sociotechnical intervention in rural Mexico. Drawing on qualitative process tracing grounded in project documentation, institutional deliberations, and reflexive engagement with the intervention, the analysis reconstructs how distributive conflict, enforcement fragility, fiscal misalignment, temporal pressure, and multilevel accountability shaped the project trajectory. The study develops an empirically grounded governance framework centered on four interdependent conditions: stabilization of authority, alignment of incentives and responsibilities, management of temporality and transition, and fiscal and operational continuity. The findings show that governance sustainability depended less on technological feasibility than on institutionally durable arrangements capable of reconciling participation, enforcement, and accountability.
Just transitions, and justice in the governance of climate transition more generally, have over the last decade developed as an influential policy concept and governance concern. Just transitions have acted as a projection space for visions of a profoundly different society, but have also been used to undercut climate policies and social change altogether. At the same time, the just transition has shifted shape repeatedly and appears in the process of being superseded by other policy priorities. This Special Issue explores the emergent, dynamic career of the just transition as a multifaceted policy project. It brings together seven studies, largely rooted in European contexts, that show how justice in transition governance is being ‘done’—constructed in multiple settings, built on, dismantled and reconstructed. In this editorial, we use the metaphor of assemblage to bring the different contributions to the Special Issue together and embed them in the wider just transitions literature. We outline how diverse actors are involved in assembling the just transition and how they are, simultaneously, constructed as part of the just transition: Whilst some actors are cast as central, others are pushed to the margins. We also highlight how we, as researchers, contribute to this process of assembling and how the interaction between academic rationalities and our own normative aspirations might lead to conceptual developments that, perhaps ironically, render the just transition an impossible political project. The editorial concludes with a call for reflexivity in our critical engagement with just transitions and other, similar policy projects.
In light of the democratic and social-ecological crises, deliberative minipublics such as citizens' assemblies are increasingly implemented and discussed by scholars as a means for sound decision-making and to enhance public support for sustainability transformations. Through a case study covering three municipalities in East Germany, this article examines how citizens' assemblies can impact the willingness to change for sustainability in rural municipalities. Interviews were conducted with participants of the assemblies, local politicians, and administrative employees. The locally prevailing willingness to change was perceived as low, mainly due to structural barriers and widespread disenchantment with current approaches to sustainability. Despite this, the findings suggest effects of the citizens' assemblies on the participants' willingness to change, notably through a reported increase in knowledge and in the perceived feasibility of change. The described effects on the municipal administration and politics include local trust building and an enhanced participatory culture. The findings point to the potentials of locally adapted solutions, while emphasizing a need for deliberative approaches that are sensitive to both diverging contexts and structural conflicts in sustainability transformations.
The circular economy (CE) is now a cornerstone of global environmental policy. However, current debates often frame CE as a future-oriented strategy to be adopted or scaled, implicitly assuming that emerging economies and the Global South are starting from strictly linear conditions. Drawing on practice-oriented and institutional perspectives, this paper reconceptualizes CE as a set of already-operating, economically rational practices-such as repair, reuse, and informal material circulation. We argue that the central governance challenge in these contexts is not the introduction of CE from scratch, but understanding how existing circularity is recognized, reorganized, or displaced during institutionalization. By synthesizing research across capability, governance, transition, and justice-oriented framings, we illustrate how dominant models neglect everyday circularity as "informal" rather than constitutive of the system. We develop a practice-based translation perspective to distinguish between practices of CE and CE in practice, elucidating how these processes shape value creation and power relations. Ultimately, this paper posits that emerging economies are not merely "catching up," but are analytically informative settings for understanding circular governance under constraint. We conclude by outlining implications for transformative and mission-oriented innovation policy.
Ensuring vertical policy consistency is essential for achieving China's "dual carbon" goals and energy transition, yet it is complicated by a top-down, multilevel governance system. A comprehensive understanding of consistency between national and provincial renewable energy policy mixes remains a key research gap. This study addresses this gap by developing an analytical framework that conceptualizes consistency as a unidirectional relationship focusing on the provincial-level response to central directives. We analyzed 398 renewable energy policy documents to assess vertical policy consistency across three key interactions: national-provincial strategies, national-provincial instruments, and national strategies-provincial instruments. Our findings reveal a truncated spectrum of policy interaction: inconsistency is absent, and divergence consistently manifests as weak consistency. While we observed strong consistency at the strategic level, significant substantive implementation gaps emerged at the instrument level. This non-linear relationship is rooted in China's unique central-provincial dynamics-specifically the tension between centralized political control and provincial economic decentralization. Provincial governments often employ feigned compliance to balance rigid top-down mandates with regional economic interests. These findings refine Western-centric policy mix theories for unitary systems. We demonstrate that the weak consistency and dynamic of feigned compliance are typical governance features across China's broader energy industries and public policy sectors. Consequently, the theoretical and practical focus should shift from preventing negative interactions to addressing the substantive implementation gaps caused by selective implementation.
An emerging consensus calls for transformative climate governance. However, what instigates and sustains transformative pathways remains unclear. This study characterises the existence, quality and structural underpinnings of transformative governance capacities in local government climate change response in Aotearoa New Zealand, applying a well-established conceptual framework for transformative governance to existing literature. Results show that some local authorities have started to develop 'stewarding', 'unlocking', 'orchestrating', and 'transformative' capacities, focusing on adaptation more than mitigation. This evidence stems from a small number of urban centres and regional areas with a strong presence of indigenous (M & amacr;ori) communities. Most evidence points to the development of 'stewarding capacity', showing that local governments are building an evidence base around understanding climate risks in collaboration with communities and knowledge partners. Beyond biophysical monitoring, however, there was limited evidence of monitoring and learning. Literature documenting 'unlocking capacity' shows that local governments have tried a variety of activities to overcome resistance to change. However, the literature also points to limited efforts to identify the drivers of unsustainable practices, few mechanisms for challenging vested interests and existing incentive structures, and a need for stronger accountability mechanisms in decision-making. Results underscore a lack of co-ordination and empowerment of actors to engage in adaptation or mitigation. Overall, capacity development was enabled by applied research projects, with ad-hoc local government-led initiatives and state government incentive schemes also playing a role, and was constrained by a wide range of institutional, regulatory, economic, and social factors - consistent with a country at the formative stages of decentralised climate policy implementation. We contextualise the findings in relation to international literature and practices, pointing to opportunities to further develop local government capacity for transformative governance.
While REDD+ prioritizes carbon sequestration, its narrow focus often overlooks forest-health linkages critical to community well-being. This paper examines the holistic model of Health in Harmony (HIH) and Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), which integrates forest conservation with healthcare through radical listening-a decolonial community engagement approach that centers indigenous expertise and challenges historical injustices. In Indonesian Borneo (2007-2017), Radical Listening revealed that lack of healthcare access was a primary driver of logging. Community-defined interventions, from livelihood trainings to healthcare-for-conservation programs, led to a 70% reduction in forest loss, a 67% drop in infant mortality, and significant reforestation accompanied by the return of endangered wildlife. Recent RL sessions across Papua and West Papua (2021-2024), engaging 346 participants from 29 communities, surfaced context-specific priorities from healthcare to Indigenous-led restoration, confirming the replicability of HIH-ASRI's approach. We argue that Radical Listening functions as a governance innovation that (1) identifies deeper systemic leverage points by diagnosing root causes; (2) enables the design of non-market, holistic natural climate solutions (NCS) that simultaneously restore ecosystems and advance health equity; and (3) advances procedural and epistemic justice by redistributing authority to indigenous communities. This paper offers a scalable, community-led framework for reorienting climate and conservation policy toward safeguarding planetary health in Southeast Asia and beyond.
The bioeconomy has become an increasingly popular concept in European Union (EU) policy, promising sustainable growth, job creation, and reduced environmental impacts. Yet its meaning remains contested, ambiguous, and politically charged. This study critically examines how EU bioeconomy policy narratives prior to 2025 construct this concept and how the extended peer community makes sense of, negotiates, and critiques these narratives through a boundary object lens. By combining narrative analysis with in-depth interviews and an exploratory workshop, we identify nine distinct policy narratives. While many reproduce the familiar bio-resource storylines, others fall within the Eco-Retreat option space or frame the bioeconomy primarily as a policy-making exercise, revealing greater complexity than previous studies suggest. The findings show a clear discrepancy between the EU's open-structured narratives and the more grounded, discipline-specific interpretations of practitioners and experts. Members of the extended peer community both appropriate and challenge the concept; some embrace its flexibility and coalition-building potential, endorsing its environmental sustainability, social benefits, and growth prospects, while others question its scope, plausibility, and credibility, pointing to overlooked trade-offs, unrealistic expectations, and unresolved normative commitments. Using the boundary object lens, the bioeconomy is seen as enabling political convergence across diverse interests, albeit at the expense of conceptual clarity. While this ambiguity supports broad alignment, it may also mask underlying conflicts and limit transformative potential. The study argues that embracing rather than smoothing over discord could strengthen the robustness and legitimacy of future bioeconomy governance, while acknowledging that this might be politically difficult.
Why do formally similar multi-level governance arrangements produce different governance outcomes in urban climate and transport policy? This article examines variation in governance performance across three metropolitan regions in Norway operating under the national Urban Growth Agreement (UGA) framework and pursuing the shared objective of zero growth in private car traffic. Drawing on participatory observation of steering group meetings, three rounds of elite interviews, and document analysis, the study analyzes how polycentric governance operates in practice. Building on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework and Carlisle and Gruby's concept of enabling conditions, it argues that variation in governance performance is explained less by whether enabling conditions are present than by how they are configured across decision arenas. The findings identify three governance configurations: one characterized by structured bargaining and distributive tensions, one by stable coordination supported by technical expertise and consensus-oriented procedures, and one by consensus-constrained adaptation shaped by territorial balancing. The findings show that institutional configurations of enabling conditions shape adaptive capacity, institutional fit, and redundancy in polycentric urban climate governance systems.
Despite decentralization, Indonesian local governments persistently fail to deliver environmental outcomes. This article asks: why do institutional architectures systematically disable ecological responsiveness despite formal mandates? Introducing ecological institutional failure (EIF), the study develops a diagnostic framework moving beyond capacity-centric explanations. Based on document analysis of planning documents, budgets, and performance evaluations across five regencies, Sleman, Banjarmasin, Kutai Kartanegara, Sumbawa, and Wakatobi, the research identifies three mechanisms reproducing failure: symbolic compliance (performative commitment without substantive change), structural disjunction (fragmented mandates misaligned with ecological imperatives), and inertial governance (ritualized activity simulating motion without transformation). Rather than lacking resources, local governments exhibit overproduction of forms that obscure systemic inaction. Drawing on institutional theory and ecological governance literature, the article reframes governance failure as strategic maintenance of bureaucratic comfort zones, contributing to debates on environmental governance in the Global South.
Since China updated its nationally determined contributions in 2021, achieving carbon peaking before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060-the so-called "dual carbon" goals-has become the new guiding principle of China's climate governance. However, few studies have examined the implementation of China's dual carbon goals, particularly the variation at the subnational level. To bridge this knowledge gap, we investigate the strategies to implement the dual carbon goals in three Chinese cities with different economic and institutional conditions: Changji, Huzhou, and Guangzhou. Drawing on data from policy documents, media reports, and field interviews, we identify distinctive governance models adopted by the three city governments, shaped by their respective local contexts. Based on our inductive case studies, we propose a political economy framework that highlights three key factors-economic structure, local government commitment and prior experience, and the influence of non-state actors-to explain variation in net-zero implementation across Chinese cities. By unpacking the dynamics of local adaptation and innovation in net-zero governance, our study contributes to the theoretical debate on polycentricity in China's climate governance.
