Exploring the Promise of Actor Analysis for Environmental Policy Analysis: Lessons from Four Cases in Water Resources Management

Abstract

ABSTRACT. A persistent challenge for the development of well-informed and sound environmental policies is to improve the connection between environmental experts, decision makers, and other involved actors. Answers are sought in processes for social learning and adaptive co-management that engage experts, decision makers, and local actors in an interactive way of policy making. The preparation and organization of such interactive processes is usefully supported by actor analysis, which can help to identify the main actors to be involved in environmental policy making, to locate useful local knowledge, to identify potential conflicts, and to assess the feasibility of different policy measures. I explored the promise that actor analysis holds to support environmental experts in environmental policy analysis activities. I present and discuss the findings from four cases in water resources management. These findings are counterintuitive in that they suggest that environmental experts are more reluctant to use the insights provided by actor analysis than one would expect based on their frequently expressed desire to improve their connection with decision makers. Therefore, I conclude with a discussion of three mechanisms that might explain these findings, as well as their consequences for the future use of actor analysis in environmental policy analysis.

Stakeholder mapping for the governance of biosecurity: a literature review

“…Although these relationships may be used to categorise and prioritise stakeholders for engagement, these sorts of analyses are typically conducted after stakeholders have been categorised, to understand how different stakeholder groups interact with one another, and to identify specific individuals or organisations that may play an important role in diffusing knowledge or practices within and between different groups of stakeholders. Such methods can be useful to identify opportunities and risks of engaging with certain stakeholders, and to identify the values and priorities of different groups, so that these can be taken into account in the design of a participatory process (Hermans 2008). This is an important final step to take if the results of a stakeholder mapping exercise are to usefully inform the development of disease management and communications strategies that could enhance biosecurity.…”

“…alliances and conflicts) between Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences 29 stakeholders, the modes of communication most suited to different groups, and the sorts of key messages and framings they are most likely to respond positively towards. There is a range of methods that have been developed to understand relationships between stakeholders (sometimes also referred to as 'actor analysis' methods; Hermans 2008). Such methods are important in the context of improving biosecurity governance, given the need to facilitate knowledge exchange between disparate groups of stakeholders, who may have quite different norms and values, and preferred methods of communication (Cook et al 2010).…”

Using social network analysis to identify key stakeholders in agricultural biodiversity governance and related land-use decisions at regional and local level

“…Further, it is suggested to integrate the strategy in existing policies; in the case of agricultural landscapes the EC points to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This integration poses the challenge that while the GI strategy is meant to be implemented bottom up, the CAP implementation usually follows a top-down approach (Repohl et al 2015) For a bottom-up approach, however, identifying key actors and stakeholders has been found crucial (Welp et al 2006, Prager and Nagel 2008, Kok and Veldkamp 2011, Young et al 2013) and actor analysis, also often called stakeholder analysis , Prell et al 2011, has proven to be useful in governance contexts (Hermans 2008, Young et al 2013. Although single actors are certainly important, it is essential to look at the governance network with its institutionalized relations, which develop because of shared interests in solving a problem (Newig et al 2010).…”

The use of technical knowledge in European water policy‐making

“…In this case, there are problems with communication and 'usable knowledge' (Haas, 2004). The solution lies in an improved dialogue, realigning research and technical knowledge more directly to the needs and questions of decision-makers, and framing technical inputs in an appropriate way (Haas 2004;Quevauvillier et al, 2005;Maynard, 2006;Hermans, 2008).…”