Politics of flood risk management in Switzerland: Political feasibility of instrument mixes

Abstract

Complex environmental problems affect multiple policy sectors, decision-making levels and territories simultaneously and, as such, call for encompassing policy solutions. However, no consensus exists on how encompassing policy solutions are designed. A trade-off persists between single instruments, leading to sectoral "silo" thinking and complex instrument mixes, constituting the risk of not being implemented due to actors' objections. Policy designs, including balanced policy mixes, can fulfil various goals, interests and priorities; address numerous challenges; and involve multiple actors. Such balanced policy mixes, however, can only manage complex environmental problems successfully when supported by actors belonging to different sectors, levels and territories. This study therefore analyses the political feasibility of balanced instrument mixes via actors' policy preferences in the case of Swiss flood risk management. Public and private actors involved in flood risk management are surveyed on their preferred instrument mixes. Based on these preference

Is regional emergency management key to containing COVID-19? A comparison between the regional Italian models of Emilia-Romagna and Veneto

“…The Veneto data indicate an overall response that is in contrast to the broad-based response developed by Emilia-Romagna. Veneto appeared to establish a hierarchical order in terms of key objectives and operational measures (Glaus, 2021), focusing on "identifying, confirming and rapidly isolating" (key-objective 2-3) both in terms of public health and health assistance through a greater number of swabs and a better ratio of home-based patient care/hospitalization. The strategy therefore has two characteristics: (1) strict subordination and clear chains of command ranging from the regional control room to the emergency team guaranteeing a straightforward, uniform response in line with a coordination model that had already been tested in ordinary conditions (Takeda and Helms, 2006), (2) it was influenced by Crisanti's expertise (see 2.2), turning into medical priorities in operational measures (Capano and Lippi, 2021).…”

“…Multiple key objectives may be (1) conflicting: their trade-off is highlighted by the content of the operational measures (Karafili and Lupu, 2017) (2) hierarchical, mainly characterized by the different numbers of related tools available (3) balanced, depending on both the content and the number of operational measures (Glaus, 2021).…”

The role of actors' issue and sector specialization for policy integration in the parliamentary arena: an analysis of Swiss biodiversity policy using text as data

“…However, the academic policy integration literature (Runhaar et al, 2014;Tosun & Lang, 2017) emphasizes the fact that cross-sectoral policy integration constitutes a major challenge to policymaking processes and actors involved therein, as many policy decisions are traditionally made within specific policy sectors and silos. As research on crosscutting issues such as water or climate change has shown (Brandenberger et al, 2022;Glaus, 2021), most actors are still "trapped" in their subsystem or sectoral logic. According to the literature, policy integration often involves at least two phenomena (Tosun & Lang, 2017): procedures and content.…”

A new framework to understand the drivers of policy mixes in multilevel contexts: The case of urban air pollution

“…This is particularly the case within multilevel systems, where power dynamics operate in multiple directions and which can exhibit substantial variance in the instruments they adopt to tackle similar problems (Matti et al, 2017). This may be due to various factors: for example, municipalities that suffer from resource constraints, operate within a context of restricted autonomy and/or receive limited local support for their policy strategies may be less able to push through potentially controversial initiatives (Glaus, 2021; Lesnikowski et al, 2020). As research on multilevel climate governance has identified (e.g., Kern, 2019), such developments may have contributed towards increasing divergence in local policy mixes, particularly in countries where significant contextual differences exist between different areas.…”

“…However, they can be expensive and make it easier to identify ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, which might trigger societal opposition (Kuhlmann & Blum, 2021). Societal interests are less likely to oppose informational instruments, which are relatively easy to introduce because they are cheap and do not involve coercion (Glaus, 2021; Kirschke & Kosow, 2021; Lesnikowski et al, 2020). However, their voluntary nature means they are less likely to result in the level of behavioural change that might be necessary to achieve policy objectives (Niles & Lubell, 2012).…”