In Pursuit of Sustainable Development

New governance practices at the sub-national level in Europe

Susan Baker, Katarina Eckerberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780415419109
• eBook ISBN: 9781134112241
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The book explores how implementation strategies engage sub-national, regional and local actors in the promotion of sustainable development.

Following the obligations incurred at the Rio Earth Summit and the related UNCED process, European states began to produce sustainable development strategies in the 1990s. Implementation efforts are increasingly using 'new' governance arrangements, including:

• use of public/private partnerships
• new policy tools
• policy transfer and benchmarking
• policy networks and involvement of stakeholder groups and institutional capacity enhancement.

The editors, whom are leading experts on the subject, explore the nature, extent and characteristics of the new governance arrangements that have been put in place to implement sustainable development strategies and initiatives at the sub-national levels. They also examine the approaches that sub-national governments adopted towards the mobilization of 'stakeholders' in these initiatives and what type of non-governmental actors have become involved.

In Pursuit of Sustainable Development will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, development, geography, planning and social policy.

Part I
Promoting governance capacity for sustainable development

1 National sustainable development strategies in EU member states

The regional dimension

Gerald Berger and Reinhard Steurer

Introduction

The objective of this chapter is to investigate the implementation of National Sustainable Development Strategies (NSDSs) at the sub-national level in selected European Union (EU) member states. The focus is on the governance arrangements and policy priorities to promote sustainable development at the regional level. Key policy issues for the promotion of sustainable development, for example, climate change and biodiversity, cross-cut not only the horizontal boundaries between various central government ministries, but also the vertical levels of political systems. Thus, it is important to examine the vertical dimension of policy-making if we are to fully understand the relevance and impacts of sustainable development strategies and policies. By exploring conceptual and practical approaches towards vertical policy integration in the context of NSDSs, this chapter tries to capture the ‘steering capacity’ of the nation state in pursuit of sustainable development.

The chapter explores the following three research questions:

• How do NSDSs address the challenge of vertical policy integration with respect to the regional level? What kind of (new) governance arrangements do NSDSs imply for sustainable development policy-making in regions?
• Do the vertical policy integration mechanisms foreseen in the NSDSs largely perpetuate traditional patterns of environmental policy or do they introduce new instruments and pathways that are more in line with the concept of sustainable development?
• What does vertical policy integration in NSDSs imply for the ‘steering capacity’ of the European nation states?

The bulk of the empirical material presented here is based on the results of the EU-funded project ‘Strategies for Regional Sustainable Development: An Integrated Approach Beyond Best Practice’ (REGIONET) and the outcomes of two conferences with NSDS coordinators from EU member states organised by the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN). For the more in-depth analysis presented in this chapter, four EU member states were selected, namely the United Kingdom (UK), France, Ireland and Austria.

The following section discusses basic terms and concepts that are relevant for the chapter, including ‘governance’, ‘policy integration’, the notion of ‘regions’ and ‘capacity-building’ for sustainable development. Then a brief overview is given of the development and practical experiences with NSDSs in Europe in general, followed by an in-depth analysis of the implementation of sustainable development at the regional level. The main arguments and reflections are summarised in a concluding section.

Basic concepts

Governance and policy integration

Over the last decade, ‘governance’ has become one of the most prominent concepts among both policy makers (European Commission 2001a) and social scientists (Treib et al. 2005; Kooiman 2003; Pierre and Peters 2000). Governance mainly refers to the ‘steering capacity’ of a political system (Gamble 2000). The concept became increasingly important when changes in framework conditions (for example, reinforced neo-liberal market approaches, globalisation trends) led to the questioning of traditional forms of top-down government interventions and policy-making. Therefore, one can distinguish between ‘old’ and ‘new’ governance approaches.

The key characteristics of ‘new’ governance are:

• The use of ‘softer’ policy instruments: instead of ‘command-and-control’ legislation, new governance is associated with new environmental policy instruments that are characterised by the use of market incentives (for example, eco-taxes and environmental agreements) and the provision of information about effects of certain choices (for example, eco-labelling) (Jordan et al. 2003).
• Extended forms of participation: new governance refers to a decisionand policy-making style that provides more possibilities for involving different kinds of non-state actors, such as companies or nongovernmental organisations (Treib et al. 2005). This element of new governance is also known as ‘network governance’ (Kriesi et al. 2006).
• Increased involvement of sub-national levels of government: new governance is associated with ‘multi-level governance’, a concept that refers to a stronger collaboration between the different levels of government (European, national, regional and local) in the decision- and policy-making process (Smismans 2006; Berger 2003; Peters and Pierre 1998).

In the analysis in this chapter, it is important to reflect further upon multilevel governance and policy integration.

In the EU context, multi-level governance features are seen as defining the interface between EU policy-making and the member states. However, scholars dispute the role of the nation state in this respect. On the one hand, Hooghe and Marks (2001: 1) argue that ‘formal authority has been dispersed from central states both up to the supranational institutions and down to the subnational governments’. On the other hand, Pierre and Peters (2000) argue that nation states still possess important resources for guiding policy structures and processes. Generally, the ‘steering capacity’ of the nation state remains critical in order to establish a coordinated form of policy-making in the various policy fields, for example, through framework legislation or strategy formulation, but at the same allowing leeway for the sub-national level, especially in the implementation of policies.

The concept of governance also refers to ‘policy integration’. The search for better policy coordination has lead to intensive discussions about the way policy-making should be carried out. Several scholars in the field of public policy and public administration have dealt with policy integration (Schout and Jordan 2005; Peters 1998). According to Meijers and Stead (2004: 2) policy integration ‘concerns the management of cross-cutting issues in policy-making that transcend the boundaries of established policy fields, and which do not correspond to the institutional responsibilities of individual departments’. This definition mainly refers to ‘horizontal policy integration’, which points to the coordination between different ministries and/or administrative bodies on the same political level. The main objective is to develop provisions and measures for integrating various sectoral policies. Over the last years, for example, efforts have been made to achieve environmental policy integration, that is, the integration of environmental issues into other, non-environmental fields (Lafferty and Hovden 2003). However, policy integration also comprises ‘vertical policy integration’, which refers to the coordination of various policies between the different levels of government. This can involve, for example, framework legislation, strategies or programmes and coordinating bodies, including councils or commissions. The aim is to achieve coherence between activities at the different political levels, from policy generation to implementation (Zingerli et al. 2004). Generally, both horizontal and vertical policy integration is inherent in the concept of sustainable development, which calls for the integration of ‘social, economic, development and environmental issues at all levels of developmental decision-making and implementation’ (UNCED 1992, paragraph 8.12).

Reflection on the ‘steering capacity’ of the nation states for a coordinated form of policy-making—that is policy integration to achieve coherence between different political levels from policy generation to implementation—is of central importance in this chapter. The focus is on a specific form of coordination tool used by central states, namely, strategy documents. We focus in particular on national sustainable development strategies, examining how they are used to foster sustainable development at the sub-national levels. Overall, vertical policy integration comprises two major challenges for national governments. First, they have to secure the commitment for policy objectives and measures from the sub-national levels. Second, they need to contribute to building or strengthening the capacities of the subnational levels to undertake the actions foreseen (May et al. 1996).

Regions in Europe and sustainable development

Because the concept of sustainable development transcends different levels of government, it needs to be tackled also at the regional level (Börzel 2003). First, regions are increasingly identified as the space in which many of the specific problems that are associated with sustainable development become evident and impinge directly upon human life. Second, regions are seen as the appropriate political level to deal with the practical tasks of promoting sustainable development policies. In other words,

regions […] hold important resources that are necessary to develop and implement sustainable development. It is not only their capacity to make and impose […] decisions […but they] play a crucial role as interface coordinators or arenas for policy coordination among local actors with the necessary resources to make regional policies work.

(Börzel 2003: 20)

However, before we further investigate the role of regions in policy-making and sustainable development policy, it is important to clarify what is meant by the notion of ‘regions’.

There is no generally accepted definition of what a ‘region’ is, neither in the EU member states nor among scholars. Berger (2003) makes a distinction between three forms of regions. First, regions can be regarded as spatial or geographical entities which share common historical roots, language or culture (Lafferty 2000). Second, regions can be defined as functional entities with regard to a specific policy field, for example, economic, labour market or bio-regions (McGinnis 1998). Finally, and most importantly, regions are political-administrative entities, representing the first level below the nation state, with specific political and/or administrative competencies. How these competencies are defined is dependent on different state traditions within the member states. Loughlin (2001: 12) argues that ‘each of these state traditions conceives of the state in a particular manner and [therefore] distinct political and administrative cultures, forms of state organisation, and kinds of state-society relationships [prevail]’. As a consequence, ‘the place of subnational government also varies considerably across different traditions’ (Loughlin 2001: 12). The most common distinction in state traditions is between central and federal political systems. In addition to state traditions influencing the structure of centre/local relations, the EU has become another strong influence shaping the relationship between the different levels of government. In particular, direct relationships have developed between the EU and the regions in relation to the implementation of EU regional development programmes, including the Structural Funds.

A brief overview is presented here of the relationship between the governmental levels in the selected four countries. The UK, Ireland and France have centralised political systems in place, whereas Austria is one of the few federal states in Europe. The changing role of the regions within the EU, along with the administrative needs of the Structural Funds regime, was a prime driver in the development of a more regional approach in the UK. This led, among other changes, to the creation of Regional Development Agencies. In recent years, the UK has witnessed some dynamics in its political system because the devolved administrations (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) gained specific legislation and policy-making powers (McEvoy and Ravetz 2004).

Similar to the UK, the development of regional authorities in Ireland has occurred largely in response to EU requirements, particularly for the management of Structural Funds spending. Nevertheless, Ireland is still characterised by a high degree of centralisation (see also the chapter of Connaughton et al. in this volume). Thus, while the newly created regional authorities were charged with reporting on key issues for their regions, they continued to lack political power and financial resources. However, they do nonetheless play a role in the implementation of sustainable development at the local level (Mullally 2003, 2004a).

Although France must still be considered as a centralised state, its regions have significantly more competencies than those in the UK and Ireland, in particular since the decentralisation laws passed in 1982 (Bertrand and Larrue 2005). As a result, French regions have become important actors in the implementation of regional policies (Brillet and Féron 2003).

In contrast, Austria is the only federal state among the selected countries. The nine Austrian regions are not only provided with important competencies in certain fields, for example, health, social policy and nature protection, but also have their own budget. Although sometimes referred to as ‘implementation federalism’, the practical policy-making process is characterised by the strong bargaining power of the regions and their informal relationships with the national level (Berger and Narodoslawsky 2004).

The importance of regions in the implementation of sustainable development policies brings discussion to the concept of capacity-building for, and in, the regions.

Capacity-building for promoting sustainable development

The link between capacity-building and sustainable development was made in Agenda 21, the action plan that followed the United Nations (UN) conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It was acknowledged that the ability to follow a sustainable development path critically depends on the capacity of people and institutions. Capacity-building encompasses ‘human, scientific, technological, organizational, institutional and resource capabilities’ (UNCED 1992: paragraph 37.1). For sustainable development, the main implication is that long-term sustainable development strategies, to be successfully implemented, need to include concepts and provisions for improving capacity. As pointed out in Agenda 21, ‘a fundamental goal of capacity-building is to enhance the ability to evaluate and address the crucial questions related to policy choices and modes of implementation’ (UNCED 1992: 37.1).

In the sustainable development policy debate, Jänicke’s (1997) concept of capacity-building has become seminal. He defines capacity building as the ‘necessary preconditions for successful solutions of a given type of problem’ (Jänicke 1997: 1). He identifies the preconditions for sustainable development policy capacity as: (i) ecological, technological and administrative knowledge, (ii) legal, personal and budgetary resources, and (iii) the inclusion of relevant political and societal actors.

In addition, we argue that NSDSs can contribute to improve the capacities for sustainable development at the regional level through providing a long-term vision of sustainable development and by enabling strategic planning, including identifying policy priorities and appropriate instruments. These can, in turn, be used to guide the regional institutions and actors in their practical implementation tasks.

National sustainable development strategies in the EU

Agenda 21 suggests that NSDSs should ‘build upon and harmonize the various sectoral economic, social and environmental policies and plans that are operating in the country [and] ensure socially responsible economic d...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Series editor’s preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: in pursuit of sustainable development at the sub-national level: the ‘new’ governance agenda
• PART I Promoting governance capacity for sustainable development
• PART II Engaging in governance for sustainable development
• Conclusion: combining old and new governance in pursuit of sustainable development