Polycentric urban climate governance: Creating synergies between integrative and interactive governance in Oslo

Abstract

Cities have emerged as important agents and sites in climate governance interventions, experimentations and networks. Drawing upon two strains of climate governance and collaborative governance literature, respectively, this article adopts a polycentric approach to the analysis of Oslo's urban climate governance. It unpacks the relationships between urban leadership, climate goal‐setting and institutional design, and reveals how these variables condition the employment of a combination of integrative and interactive governing instruments that foster both self‐governance and co‐creation in climate responses. The article argues that broad and long‐term political support facilitates the adoption of ambitious climate goals, utilization of regulatory powers, and the design and operations of innovative hybrid mixes of integrative and interactive governing instruments. The hybrid combination of instruments is what provides the basis for synergistic, predictable and dynamic forms of self‐governance and co‐created linkages among public and private ‘units’ within the wider urban climate governance ecosystem. Trans‐local and transnational networks play an important role in building such capacities for urban climate governance. Local processes of co‐creation and networked experimentations are ‘scaling up’ to change policies at city, national and international levels. The empirical observations from Oslo have implication for theories of polycentric urban climate governance and for the promise and limitations of co‐creation in the climate arena. The analysis draws upon qualitative interviews with close to 50 public and private stakeholders and policy document studies.

Designing and leading collaborative urban climate governance: Comparative experiences of co‐creation from Copenhagen and Oslo

“…Third, we also propose, especially with reference to the Oslo case, that a variety of partly reformed bureaucratic tools supported and underpinned the design and engagement in co-creation processes (cf. Vedeld et al, 2021). This intimate relationship between the (reformed) traditional hierarchical instruments (climate budget, new planning and procurement rules with climate criteria) and the building of co-creation arenas is often not recognized in the collaborative governance literature, which has been preoccupied with analyzing the encounters between public actors and citizens (Torfing et al, 2016).…”

“…Co‐creation is an emergent concept linked to the collaborative governance scholarship and represent a distinct form of collaboration across a set of public and/or public actors (Ansell & Torfing, 2021; Hofstad et al, 2021). Moving beyond the idea of a ‘ladder of participation’ (Arnstein, 1969), co‐creation recognizes the limitations of a citizen participation approach in the theory and practice of urban governance by suggesting that there is a need to bring multiple types of actors' knowledge, resources and competences together to address complex and unruly climate change issues (Torfing et al, 2019; Hofstad et al, 2021; Vedeld, Hofstad, Solli & Hanssen, 2021). Hence, co‐creation as a strategic governance mechanism is assumed to move beyond ‘citizen participation’ and a dyadic ‘co‐production’ of services (Ansell & Torfing, 2021; Osborne et al, 2016; Pestoff, 2018).…”

“…We define co‐creation as processes in which public and/or private actors attempt to solve a shared public problem or task by exchanging different kinds of resources serving to co‐initiate, co‐design and/or co‐implement visions, strategies, policies, regulatory frameworks or technological solutions (Hofstad et al, 2021; Torfing et al, 2016; Vedeld et al, 2021). As such, it is concerned with the design and leadership of interactional processes and networks and the systematic engagement of all kinds of relevant and concerned public and private actors in the initiation and implementation of shared goals, innovative strategies, and co‐created projects.…”

“…Several partly overlapping, partly evolutionary developments are discernible in the literature: network governance studies (Ansell & Gash, 2008; Keast et al, 2014; Kooiman, 1993; Sørensen & Torfing, 2007), collaborative innovation (Sørensen & Torfing, 2016; Vargo et al, 2015), co‐production of services (Lusch & Vargo, 2011; Radnor et al, 2014; Strockosch & Osborne, 2020; Trischler & Charles, 2019) and co‐creation in the face of complex, cross‐sectoral and multilevel challenges (Sørensen & Bryson, 2021; Torfing et al, 2016). In this regard, co‐creation serves to highlight and target specific forms and practices of collaboration, increasingly observed to be actively encouraged by governments in urban climate governance (Hofstad & Vedeld, 2021; Vedeld et al, 2021).…”

The Remaking of Institutions for Local Climate Governance? Towards Understanding Climate Governance in a Multi-Level UK Local Government Area: A Micro-Local Case Study

“…There has also been significant work in academic research and policy development on the local governance of climate action-focusing predominantly on the role of urban municipalities and leading cities (see, for example, [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]). This reflects the political and economic weight of major cities, and also the role taken by many of them in promoting more radical policies on the climate crisis than have been advanced by their national governments.…”