Balancing differentiated interests and conceptualizations in environmental management

Abstract

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the everyday practices and routines undertaken by an authority to support internal coordination and deal with sector-specific interests and conflicting goals, and how exclusive interests and objectives in policy work are construed, understood, and negotiated in practice.Design/methodology/approach– An institutional ethnographic approach was adopted to investigate how policy-formulated goals, bureaucratic aims, and rules establish a frame for action procedures and alternatives available for agency-level collaboration.Findings– The results of this study reveal how compromise and agreement may be difficult to achieve in practice since each concerned administrative unit has its own sets of criteria concerning what constitutes valid or valuable knowledge of aspects relating to river restoration. The study illustrates how lack of knowledge affects collaboration, how the policy process is informed by sector-specific rules and norms for organizational conduct, and how the professions in their discussions and interaction concerning the issue of river restoration uphold, demarcate, and negotiate what knowledge and interests should take centre stage in the decision-making process.Originality/value– The paper contributes to policy anthropology literature and highlights how the policy process is informed politically and regulatorily but is also guided by sector-specific norms, values, and differently construed ideas of temporality and heritage. In this case, policy work exposes contrasting ideas of the past, present, and future, and mobilize diverse conceptual models and structural arrangements that are continually performed and contested in everyday policy work.