Global Governance Dimensions of Globally Networked Risks: The State of the Art in Social Science Research

Galaz, Victor; Tallberg, Jonas; Boin, Arjen; Ituarte-Lima, Claudia; Hey, Ellen; Olsson, Per; Westley, Frances

doi:10.1002/rhc3.12108

Cited by 58 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…Clearly, TNCs are central actors in the human-dominated world and possess the ability to influence critical functions of the biosphere. This global keystone actor dimension of TNCs 31 , whether producers, suppliers, or financial actors, should be recognized, accounted for and governed in efforts towards sustainability within planetary boundaries 38,39 .…”

Section: Shaping the Biospherementioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational corporations and the challenge of biosphere stewardship

et al. 2019

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Sustainability within planetary boundaries requires concerted action by individuals, governments, civil society and private actors. For the private sector, there is concern that the power exercised by transnational corporations generates, and is even central to, global environmental change. Here, we ask under which conditions transnational corporations could either hinder or promote a global shift towards sustainability. We show that a handful of transnational corporations have become a major force shaping the global intertwined system of people and planet. Transnational corporations in agriculture, forestry, seafood, cement, minerals, and fossil energy cause environmental impacts and possess the ability to influence critical functions of the biosphere. We review evidence of current practices and identify six observed features of change towards 'Corporate Biosphere Stewardship', with significant potential for upscaling. Actions by transnational corporations, if combined with effective public policies and improved governmental regulations, could substantially accelerate sustainability efforts. MAIN TEXT Consolidation among corporations, whereby a small number of companies control a large market share of the overall output or sales for a particular product or product type (i.e. oligopoly or, at the extreme, monopoly), is a well-known 1,2 and predictable 3,4 feature of economic development 5. Some 10% of the world's corporations generate 80% of all profits globally 6. A handful of transnational companies (TNCs) in the information technology sector control 90% or more of the global market share of search engines, operating systems, and social media 7. Three investor firms manage over 90% of all assets under management in passive equity funds 8 , and retailers, which form the interface between consumers and global supply chains, also show high levels of concentration 9,10. Such dominance is variously explained by increasing share of returns from growth going to capital rather than labour, the ability of TNCs to navigate regulatory systems opportunistically across multiple jurisdictions, and their capacity to create barriers to entry for smaller firms 11 .

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Section: Shaping the Biospherementioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational corporations and the challenge of biosphere stewardship

et al. 2019

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“…In recent studies of disaster management, network governance of crisis response has gained considerable attention (Christensen & Lægreid, ; Comfort, ; Comfort & Kapucu, ; Galaz et al, ; Huizer et al, ; Kapucu et al, ; Kapucu, Augustin, & Garayev, ; Magsino, ; Moynihan & Theory, ; Nowell & Steelman, ; Nowell et al, ). As noted previously, Nohrstedt et al () produced a systematic literature review on Managing Crisis Collaboratively , Kuipers and Welsh appealed, in their Taxonomy of Crisis and Disaster literature , for more attention to be paid to inter alia “Networked Crisis Management” (Kuipers & Welsh, , p. 280), while Boin et al (, p. 32) claim in The Crisis Approach that “In fact, the crisis response in modern society is best characterized in terms of a network.” The current consensus thus appears to favour network governance, which in turn leads to the question: what type of network governance?…”

Section: Distinguishing Different Types Of Response For Multi‐actor Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to improve our capacity to respond to potentially catastrophic events, we need to move beyond this schism and ask ourselves the question which different, potentially effective options are available as crisis response arrangements. A rather recent and important argument in the crisis‐response literature is advancing the importance of “coordination.” This is not surprising, given the fact that crisis response, almost by definition, requires division of labour in which an assemblage of organizations collaborate (see Christensen & Lægreid, ; Galaz et al, ; Huizer, Kraaij‐Dirkzwager, Timen, Schuitmaker, & van Steenbergen, ; Kuipers & Welsh, ; Nohrstedt et al, ). Coordination is probably a good answer to a crisis threat but, from a contingency perspective, the question remains: what type of coordination is most appropriate for which type of threat?…”

Section: Introduction: Getting Preparedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Appropriate Governance Responses to Infectious Disease Threats: Developing Working Hypotheses

Kenis¹,

Schol²,

Kraaij-Dirkzwager³

et al. 2019

Risk Hazard & Crisis Pub Pol

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Infectious diseases remain a threat to public health in today's interconnected world. There is an ongoing debate on how responses to threats of infectious diseases can best be coordinated, and the field remains nascent in understanding which specific structural governance arrangement will perform best. The present paper contributes to this discussion by demonstrating that it is possible to develop working hypotheses specifying the relationship between the type of infectious disease crisis and type of response to the crisis. For type of crises and type of response mechanisms there is still a lack of research, but the hypothesis combining these two provide a perspective for a future research and action agenda. It certainly prevents us from choosing between schism or hypes when it comes to crisis response. It provides instruments to realize that no single type of response is the most effective and that not all responses are equally effective in a concrete case.

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“…6, some of the most important conceptual system boundaries considered in water management research include (increasing in scale and complexity) watershed (Giordano and Shah, 2014), transboundary river basin (Giordano and Shah, 2014), nexus approach to account for synergies across sectors (Endo et al, 2015), and concepts of water footprint and virtual water that account for the trade of embedded water (Allan, 1997). The typical classical SES concept (Holling, 2001;Folke et al, 2004;Folke, 2006) and panarchy (Gunderson and Holling, 2002) has typically considered social dynamics more profoundly but has also mainly been limited to blue water (i.e., river flows, groundwater, lakes) (Gunderson et al, 2017).…”

Section: Advancing Human-water System Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the social dynamics of moisture recycling

Keys

Wang‐Erlandsson

2018

Earth Syst. Dynam.

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Abstract. The biophysical phenomenon of terrestrial moisture recycling connects distant regions via the atmospheric branch of the water cycle. This process, whereby the land surface mediates evaporation to the atmosphere and the precipitation that falls downwind, is increasingly well-understood. However, recent studies highlight a need to consider an important and often missing dimension -the social. Here, we explore the social dynamics of three case study countries with strong terrestrial moisture recycling: Mongolia, Niger, and Bolivia. We first use the WAM-2layers moisture tracking scheme and ERA-Interim climate reanalysis, to calculate the evaporation sources for each country's precipitation, a.k.a. the precipitationshed. Second, we examine the social aspects of source and sink regions, using economic, food security, and land-use data. Third, we perform a literature review of relevant economic links, land-use policies, and land-use change for each country and its evaporation sources. The moisture-recycling analysis reveals that Mongolia, Niger, and Bolivia recycle 13, 9, and 18 % of their own moisture, respectively. Our analysis of social aspects suggests considerable heterogeneity in the social characteristics within each country relative to the societies in its corresponding evaporation sources. We synthesize our case studies and develop a set of three system archetypes that capture the core features of the moisturerecycling social-ecological systems (MRSESs): isolated, regional, and tele-coupled systems. Our key results are as follows: (a) geophysical tele-connections of atmospheric moisture are complemented by social tele-couplings forming feedback loops, and consequently, complex adaptive systems; (b) the heterogeneity of the social dynamics among our case studies renders broad generalization difficult and highlights the need for nuanced individual analysis; and, (c) there does not appear to be a single desirable or undesirable MRSES, with each archetype associated with benefits and disadvantages. This exploration of the social dimensions of moisture recycling is part of an extension of the emerging discipline of socio-hydrology and a suggestion for further exploration of new disciplines such as socio-meteorology or socio-climatology, within which the Earth system is considered as a coevolutionary social-ecological system.

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Global Governance Dimensions of Globally Networked Risks: The State of the Art in Social Science Research

Cited by 58 publications

References 102 publications

Transnational corporations and the challenge of biosphere stewardship

Transnational corporations and the challenge of biosphere stewardship

Appropriate Governance Responses to Infectious Disease Threats: Developing Working Hypotheses

On the social dynamics of moisture recycling

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