Policy networks, stakeholder interactions and climate adaptation in the region of South East Queensland, Australia

Ryan R J Mcallister,Mark N Lubell,Rod Mccrea

doi:10.1007/s10113-013-0489-4

Abstract

The strategic use of science in regional policy-making forums often assumes collaborative interactions between stakeholders. However, other types of stakeholder interactions are possible. This paper uses the ecology of games to frame an investigation into stakeholder participation in the policy networks for regional climate change planning for South East Queensland, Australia. We tracked organisational participation in policy forums between 2008 and 2012. We then used a novel bipartite network theoretical approach to identify participation by different types of organisations across shared multiple forums, which we argue prefaces: cooperation, collaboration, support or advocacy. Network analysis was then combined with semi-structured interviews to access how scientific information was utilised across the regional network. Our results suggest that stakeholder interactions were predominately used to advocate for organisational agendas. Advocacy artificially narrows the scope of possible policy options and represents a biased, selective use of information. While advocacy is an important part of policy process, as a counter balance, explicit efforts are needed to recurrently expand the scope of policy options.

Highlights

Network analysis was combined with semistructured interviews to access how scientific information was utilised across the regional network
This paper combines quantitative network analysis with qualitative interviews to explore the nature of stakeholder engagement within the regional climate change planning networks of South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia
This research presents its framework as a first step and builds on previous research by linking stakeholder interactions with constellations of network configurations. By exploring whether such patterns of configurations are more or less frequent in a policy network than expected by chance and combining this with information from stakeholder interviews, statements can be made as to which organisational types engage in different modes of stakeholder interaction

Summary

Introduction

This paper combines quantitative network analysis with qualitative interviews to explore the nature of stakeholder engagement within the regional climate change planning networks of South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia. This research presents its framework as a first step and builds on previous research by linking stakeholder interactions with constellations of network configurations By exploring whether such patterns of configurations are more or less frequent in a policy network than expected by chance and combining this with information from stakeholder interviews, statements can be made as to which organisational types engage in different modes of stakeholder interaction. This builds toward more concrete thinking about what we mean when we relate structure to network function, which is somewhat missing in the literature. 26 March 2008; 30 April 2008; 25 June 2008; 30 July 2008; 03 September 2008; 29 October 2008; 17 December 2008

17 November 2011

Discussion and conclusions