Cross-boundary Cooperation Research Articles

Interaction between formal and informal actors in the shadow of policymaking: Case studies of community-based urban pluvial flood risk management in Pearl River Delta cities

Policymakers increasingly integrate urban pluvial flood risk management into multiple strategies, acknowledging that local contexts and the actors involved are crucial. However, the literature on the decision-making processes of community-based pluvial flood risk management sheds little light on how local formal and informal actors relate to each other. This paper contributes to filling this research gap by exploring the interdependency between local authorities and community residents from a multilevel governance perspective. Two cases, based in Pearl River Delta Cities, are analysed to explore actors' interactions locally in the Chinese Sponge City Program, a national programme for urban pluvial flood risk management. The comparative study of the two cases leads to four conclusions. First, the Sponge City Program at the local level can be viewed as multilevel governance. Second, triggered by the goal set by the national government and the local contexts, local authorities see the benefit of locally integrating the Sponge City Program into an integrated and area-specific plan, emphasizing the importance of institutional assertiveness. Third, tensions and synergies exist in the interaction process between local authorities and residents that will have to be recognized and embraced and, where necessary, converted from constraining to enabling factors. Fourth, institutional barriers still dominate locally in the Sponge City Program because of a lack of support for cross-boundary cooperation and public participation. To span these boundaries, policymakers should be more open to changing the perspective from ‘planning for people’ to ‘planning with people’.

Assembling state power through rescaling: Inter-jurisdictional development in the Beijing-Tianjin Zhongguancun Tech Town

Recent studies have applied the explanatory framework of state rescaling to interrogate China's emergent city-regional governance. Much of the extant literature has concentrated on either the centrally driven city regionalism from above or local efforts on cross-boundary cooperation from below. Rather than simply abstracting the multi-dimensional and multi-scalar dynamics in the rescaling process around one singular state project, this paper moves forward to explore the co-existence and co-functioning of variegated rescaling processes contributing to regional governance by deploying assemblage as a heuristic approach. This paper examines an inter-jurisdictional development zone – Beijing-Tianjin Zhongguancun Tech Town in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to provide a relational and processual understanding of scalar politics on the ground. Our analysis demonstrates how discrete and fragmented spaces and actors are assembled within a specific entity through various rescaling processes. The interplay of local, regional and national actors with different motivations gives rise to a new inter-scalar and inter-jurisdictional regulatory regime for regional industrial integration with relative coherence. This emergent governance regime is sustained and embedded in both topological and territorial political relations. This article furthers the understanding of China's city regional governance by analysing a situated assemblage. It provides an applicable perspective for investigating other trans-local projects and city regionalism.

Cross-boundary cooperation in wildfire management during the custodial management period of the US Forest Service: A case study of the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA, 1905–1945

In the U.S., federal, tribal, state, local, and private land management entities seek to implement a wildfire management strategy that spans large spatial extents and multiple ownerships to achieve wildfire risk reduction and forest restoration. This strategy requires cross-boundary cooperation. Cooperative cross-boundary forest management is not new; yet little case study research has documented historical examples. This study provides insight into how potentially overlooked models of cross-boundary cooperation of the past may be applicable to renewed cross-boundary cooperation today. We examined cooperation during the custodial management period (1905–1945) of Forest Service history. This study identifies the governance institutions, partner roles, and practices that promoted the establishment and durability of cross-boundary cooperation under two governance models adopted by the Forest Service and partners. The models are: cooperative federalism, for partnering with state and private landowner local entities – forest protective associations (FPAs); and federal interagency cooperation, for partnering with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Forestry Division, historically responsible for managing tribal lands. Using case study methods, we examined two examples of each model from the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA. Two governance characteristics promoted durable cooperation, regardless of model: (1) the development of a bundle of cooperation-focused institutions (cross-organizational policy alignment; headquarters-level cooperative policies, laws, and/ or interagency agreements; unit-level cooperative agreements) that linked multiple Forest Service administrative levels (agency headquarters, local unit) to those of partner entities; and (2) the performance of a diversity of partner roles— operating at both headquarters and local levels — that enabled management entities to offset capacity constraints. Several governance characteristics promoted cooperation in the model that engaged private landowners (cooperative federalism). These were: the state-granted authorities of a special purpose district, whereby self-organized FPAs garnered resources and developed and enforced cooperative practices that coordinated upward with state and federal policies; recognition by the state and Forest Service of authorized, local entities that represented private landowners (FPAs) as essential partners; an administrative structure for state transfer of federal funding to local entities, resulting in cost-sharing; and the state’s performance of the roles of cost-sharing administrator and liaison between Forest Service and local entities. We suggest that the more partners can integrate these features into cross-boundary wildfire management cooperation today, the better its chances of establishment and durability.

Stepwise transition of urban entrepreneurialism in cross-boundary statecraft: A qualitative study of an enclave industrial park in Zhejiang province, China

This study examines the roles and ideologies of cross-boundary statecraft in the context of urban entrepreneurialism in multi-level bureaucratic China. Referring to comparative studies on city diplomacy, intrapreneurialism, and state entrepreneurialism, we conducted a case study of Quzhou Inno-Industrial Park (QIIP) (an enclave industrial park) in Zhejiang province to clarify the nature of territorial rationality in cross-boundary development. We thus found that entrepreneurial objectives were fulfilled through top-down politics, wherein roles played by the central, provincial, and municipal governments were differentiated in territorial expressions. First, the provincial government actualized central government initiatives by promulgating developmental agenda and distributing to municipalities under state entrepreneurialism. Second, municipalities forged independent territorial rationality to benefit bilateral development through city diplomacy when releasing cross-boundary cooperation schemes. Third, multiple governments have chosen speculative and experimental practices over passive compliance with allegiances through top-down bureaucratic dictates, thus fulfilling provincial developmental intentions within territorial incentives of local benefits. Overall, these findings reveal an arrangement that greatly differs from a fixed modality of urban entrepreneurialism, wherein cross-boundary statecraft exposes stepwise genres in a transitional spectrum of urban entrepreneurialism that reflects perceptions of multi-level bureaucratic China.

Family forest owner perceptions of wildfire and invasive pest risk: The role of interpersonally-produced risks

Societal risks associated with natural hazards are largely determined by human decision-making and risk mitigation behaviors. While much is known about individual risk perception, there is a gap in understanding interpersonal risk production (IPR), defined as the decision to prepare for an environmental threat/hazard which influences the risk faced by others. This study considers IPR for two forest-based hazards: wildfires and invasive insects. We surveyed private landowners in Colorado and Massachusetts, two states with high incidence of wildfire, and invasive insects, respectively. Results suggest that the threat of both wildfire and invasive species hazards may be less relevant to private forest owners and thus not conducive to promoting present action. Land managers and policymakers can better leverage efficacy beliefs to encourage risk reduction behaviors if they can communicate the benefit of promoting cross-boundary cooperation and inter-personally produced risks when confronting forest hazards.

How digitalisation empowering firm innovation breaks the game? Based on fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis

ABSTRACT The digital era leads the digital transformation of firms to become a significant way to drive innovation. However, the existing research has not deeply discussed how digitalisation empowering firm innovation breaks the game. Through configuration thinking and holistic perspective, using technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework, this study explores the multiple concurrent factors of digitalisation empowering firm innovation. Based on the cases of 30 Chinese high-tech firms, this study investigates the configuration effect of six important factors on firm innovation ability by fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results show that three conditional configurations or innovation paths can contribute to high firm innovation ability, namely technology-organisation driven innovation, organisation led innovation and comprehensive collaborative innovation. Among them, digital infrastructure is the underlying support for digitalisation empowering firm innovation, and cross-boundary cooperation plays a key role in such innovation. The main findings have theoretical and practical significance for firm innovation under the digital background.

The Mediterranean Sea Basin as a Single Ecosystem: Problems and Prospects for International Cooperation

The article justifies that the Mediterranean Basin in the broad sense (Mediterranean, Black, Azov and Marmara Seas) is a single ecosystem. The state of this ecosystem is affected by the rivers of this water intake basin, among them - the Nile, Tiber, Po, Rhone, Ebro, Danube, Don and others. The interconnection of the individual elements of the ecosystem is ensured through active water exchange and a sufficiently branched system of currents that turn the inland seas of the Mediterranean basin into communicating vessels. The paper analyzes the main anthropogenic factors, as well as the influence of climate changes on the ecological condition of the Mediterranean ecosystem. Within the framework of anthropogenic impact, special attention is paid to the negative impact of urbanization, the oil industry (production, transportation and oil refining), industrial and agricultural waste, as well as runoff waters. The problem of plastic, as well as contamination with dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is discussed in detail. Analysis of DDT accumulations in the bottom sediments of the Mediterranean basin makes it possible to study the synchronization of anthropogenic processes and their long-term nature. Aridization (intensification of droughts) in the Mediterranean is shown as an important problem for the regional ecology, not directly related to the anthropogenic factor. The article reveals the disastrous effects of increasing droughts and climate change on Mediterranean basin countries. International cooperation to regulate transboundary environmental problems in the region is associated with a number of problems. Among them is the delimitation of sea zones between countries, first of all - the territorial claims of Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean. The problem of the shelf around the Serpents Island in the Black Sea is also considered, as well as territorial disputes in the Western Mediterranean (France/Spain). The paper widely presents successful cases of cross-boundary cooperation: the 1976 RAMOGE Agreement, the 1975 Mediterranean Action Plan and the 1995 Barcelona Convention, as well as its seven protocols. The cases of PEGASO and 4GreenInn projects, as well as the BSEC environmental projects, are considered as successful examples of cross-border academic cooperation. Promising areas of cooperation are outlined and the conclusion is made about the importance of transboundary environmental risk management, despite the political differences between the Mediterranean countries and the EU sanctions restrictions on Russia after 2014.

Barriers and opportunities for cooperative wetland management: a case study in the greater Rocky Mountain National Park ecosystem

The boundaries of most protected areas are not large enough to encompass natural processes such as hydrologic and ecological connections between wetlands and within watersheds. Therefore, management is likely to be improved by working across boundaries with multiple jurisdictions. This research explores barriers and opportunities for cross-boundary cooperation for wetland stewardship in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), Colorado, USA, and surrounding areas, using semi-structured interviews with staff members of government agencies, nonprofits, research organizations, and municipalities. Results show that wetlands outside of RMNP are experiencing similar cross-boundary disturbances to those within the park. Although participants recognize that working cooperatively with neighboring jurisdictions can decrease the effects of boundaries on wetland integrity, they also reported that the most significant cross-boundary challenge is working with others to exchange resources, develop a common goal, and implement projects cooperatively. We provide recommendations on how to address cooperative management challenges while taking advantage of opportunities to facilitate cross-boundary wetland stewardship at the ecosystem-scale.

Foreword- A Decade of Cross-Boundary Cooperation: UICC-ARO and the University of Tokyo.

Foreword- A Decade of Cross-Boundary Cooperation: UICC-ARO and the University of Tokyo.

Revisiting the innovation systems of cross-border cities: the role of higher education institution and cross-boundary cooperation in Hong Kong and Shenzhen

ABSTRACTOver the past decades, the development of knowledge-based and innovation-led economy has gained the attention of higher education (HE) institutions. The Quadruple Helix Model of the relations amongst universities, industries, government and society provides a general framework for systematically investigating the dynamics of innovation amongst these agents. However, knowledge about their influence on cross-boundary cities is limited. The ways in which HE institutions bridge different innovation systems also remain unknown. This study thus examines the innovation systems of two neighbouring cities along the border, namely, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and their multidirectional innovation cooperation. Research findings suggest that the two innovation systems differ in terms of the unequal role of the agents. The systems seem mutually complementary in terms of HE capacity and industrial composition, and cross-boundary cooperation in HE sectors currently occurs through various means. This study sheds light on the development of and cooperation between cross-border innovation systems.

Factors associated with family forest owner actions: A vote-count meta-analysis

Family forest owners in the United States have an important role in providing social and ecological benefits across landscapes. Thus, a detailed understanding of their land management behavior is critical to determine whether or not these benefits will be realized. In this paper, we report on a vote-count meta-analysis of peer-reviewed quantitative studies in the U.S. to examine an array of forest landowner behaviors. We extend other reviews of this literature by including papers with any behavioral dependent variable, rather than only timber harvesting or land management behavior. We document the significance, direction, and frequency of independent variables examined with regard to 13 categories of behavior including participation in policy tools, cross-boundary cooperation, invasive species management, and wildlife management. Study-level characteristics are reported for the 128 published studies that met initial inclusion criteria for this analysis (quantitative studies within the U.S. modeling landowner behavior that were published between 2002 and 2016). Thirty-eight studies that statistically modeled landowner behavior were further analyzed. Studies examining intentions were excluded, as were qualitative explorations of landowner behavior. The most commonly studied behavior included in our analysis was participation in landowner incentive programs, and the least common was participation in cross-boundary cooperation. Among independent variables, owner characteristics and ownership objectives were most commonly included. Independent variables found to be significant across behaviors examined included: current/past landowner behaviors, knowledge, and parcel size/forested acres. Actions like cross-boundary cooperation and landowner interactions have not been quantitatively modeled as often as other actions, and represent key areas for future research.

Cross-boundary cooperation for landscape management: Collective action and social exchange among individual private forest landowners

The landscape is an ideal spatial extent for managing forests because many ecological processes and disturbances occur on such scales. Moreover, landscape-level decision-making processes can improve the efficiency of forest management, as when many owners of small parcels increase the economy of scale of their operations by jointly hiring labor or selling products. Despite the potential benefits of managing at the landscape level, cooperation on management activities across property boundaries is rare among private landowners and poorly understood. We used a comparative case study approach to explain cooperative management among eight sets of individual private forest landowners in the Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest, USA. We characterized how private forest owners cooperated on management and the outcomes they associated with cooperating, and we identified factors that influenced cooperation. We investigated whether cooperative management among private landowners may be constrained by social risks and whether formal institutions may be needed to facilitate cooperation. In the cases we investigated, owners jointly planned and implemented integrated management decisions on their collective forest properties. They perceived a number of beneficial social and ecological outcomes of cooperation. The key factors that fostered the emergence and continuity of cooperative management included shared concern, especially about risks to their properties and the health of their forests; pre-existing networks; trust; external expertise and resources; local leadership; and formal institutions. These factors are consistent with collective action and social exchange theory. Our findings shed light on social conditions that foster cooperative landscape management.

Remedial Measures for Erroneous Environmental Policies: Assessing Infrastructure Projects of Waste-to-Energy Incineration in Taiwan with a Case Study of the Taitung Incinerator

Taiwan, like many other countries, often incentivizes private investors to participate in the construction of infrastructures for environmental protection. The build-operate-transfer (BOT) or build-operate-own (BOO) model of financing public infrastructure was introduced to Taiwan in the 1990s. Among them, the construction of incinerators to treat the municipal solid waste using the BOT/BOO model was quite a success in the beginning. With the socio-technical change of lifestyle and waste generation, the amount of amount of trash dropped dramatically. The policy failed eventually, however, because the government over-estimated the trash quantity and refrained from inter-municipality cooperation to treat trash efficiently. This failure triggered a rash of intense debates and legal disputes. In the case of the Taitung incinerator, the 26th incinerator located in southeastern Taiwan, the arbitration resulted in the government making significant compensation payments to the private sector. The finished construction was consequently converted into a “mothballed and pensioned off” facility. This study applies in-depth interviews and literature review to discuss aspects contributing to the policy failure and proposes some possible remedial measures. Five aspects are summarized, namely, the administrative organization’s rigid attitude, the irrationality of the BOT/BOO contracts, the loss of the spirit of BOO partnerships, the heavy financial burden on local government, and the abandonment of inter-municipality cooperation. The remedial measures for the policy failure are presented in the form of thorough policy evaluation, room for contract adjustments under the BOT/BOO model, encouragement of cross-boundary cooperation, and revision of the legal framework for implementing decentralization.

Migratory songbirds in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway: a review from a conservation perspective

SummaryThe East Asian-Australasian Flyway supports the greatest diversity and populations of migratory birds globally, as well as the highest number of threatened migratory species of any flyway, including passerines (15 species). However it is also one of the most poorly understood migration systems, and little is known about the populations and ecology of the passerine migrants that breed, stop over and winter in the habitats along this flyway. We provide the first flyway-wide review of diversity, ecology, and conservation issues relating to 170 species of long-distance and over 80 short-distance migrants from 32 families. Recent studies of songbird migration movements and ecology is limited, and is skewed towards East Asia, particularly Mainland China, Taiwan, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Strong evidence of declines exists for some species, e.g. Yellow-breasted BuntingEmberiza aureola, but tends to be fragmentary, localised or anecdotal for many others. More species have small breeding ranges (< 250,000 km2) and/or are dependent on tropical forests as wintering habitat than those in any other Eurasian migratory system, and are thus more vulnerable to habitat loss and degradation throughout their ranges. Poorly regulated hunting for food and the pet trade, invasive species and collisions with man-made structures further threaten migratory songbirds at a number of stop-over or wintering sites, while climate change and habitat loss may be of increasing concern in the breeding ranges. A key conservation priority is to carry out intensive field surveys across the region while simultaneously tapping into citizen science datasets, to identify important stop-over and wintering sites, particularly for poorly-known or globally threatened species across South-East Asia and southern China for targeted conservation actions. Additionally, the advent of miniaturised tracking technology, molecular and isotopic techniques can provide novel insights into migration connectivity, paths and ecology for species in this migration system, complementing data from banding exercises and observation-based surveys, and could prove useful in informing conservation priorities. However, until most states along the East Asian-Australasian flyway ratify the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and other cross-boundary treaties, the relative lack of cross-boundary cooperation, coordination and information sharing in the region will continue to present a stumbling block for effective conservation of migratory passerines.

Cooperative, cross-boundary management facilitates large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts

In California and across the United States, landscape restoration projects often require cross-boundary cooperation, though successful examples are rare and not well understood. This case study describes the Burney Gardens timber harvesting plan, a cooperative, cross-boundary meadow restoration project undertaken by private corporate forest landowners in Northern California as part of a larger collaborative restoration effort. The project is notable because it (1) received institutional support — both financial and political — from federal, regional and local sources and (2) engaged a diverse group of stakeholders in pre-project planning with multiple agency partners. This approach enabled the project plan to pass through the rigorous California regulatory system in an unusually rapid fashion despite its complexity. The collaborative model of the Burney Gardens project is relevant to other restoration efforts, particularly as diverse ownerships across the West implement large-scale projects that cross property boundaries, including those of federal and private lands.

Increasing external effects negate local efforts to control ozone air pollution: a case study of Hong Kong and implications for other Chinese cities.

It is challenging to reduce ground-level ozone (O3) pollution at a given locale, due in part to the contributions of both local and distant sources. We present direct evidence that the increasing regional effects have negated local control efforts for O3 pollution in Hong Kong over the past decade, by analyzing the daily maximum 8 h average O3 and Ox (=O3+NO2) concentrations observed during the high O3 season (September-November) at Air Quality Monitoring Stations. The locally produced Ox showed a statistically significant decreasing trend over 2002-2013 in Hong Kong. Analysis by an observation-based model confirms this decline in in situ Ox production, which is attributable to a reduction in aromatic hydrocarbons. However, the regional background Ox transported into Hong Kong has increased more significantly during the same period, reflecting contributions from southern/eastern China. The combined result is a rise in O3 and a nondecrease in Ox. This study highlights the urgent need for close cross-boundary cooperation to mitigate the O3 problem in Hong Kong. China's air pollution control policy applies primarily to its large cities, with little attention to developing areas elsewhere. The experience of Hong Kong suggests that this control policy does not effectively address secondary pollution, and that a coordinated multiregional program is required.

A solution for a lack of breakthrough innovation – strategic C-suite direction and involvement

Purpose – The authors believe that too many large organizations mistakenly see innovation as a capability challenge that can be addressed through the development and allocation of resources when the real problem is a lack of strategic direction and alignment resulting from insufficient involvement of C-Suite leaders. This paper aims to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach – First the authors explain the downside of seeing innovation primarily as a resources challenge. They trace the growth of functionalization, which they warn can make the innovation process capable of only incremental achievements. Then they show how to promote C-suite participation in the innovation process. Findings – Leading innovation performers understand that there are two critical “responsibilities” that only C-suite executives can accomplish: enabling cross-boundary cooperation; and granting the permissions needed to pursue longer-term or other higher risk opportunities. Originality/value – The authors explain how successful companies foster C-suite participation in breakthrough innovation by a variety of approaches, including: conducting regular C-level portfolio reviews; identifying strategic focus areas for innovation exploration; using active C-level sponsorship of larger innovation opportunities; and creating separate incubators for developing breakthrough opportunities.

Management Without Borders? A Survey of Landowner Practices and Attitudes toward Cross-Boundary Cooperation

Ecosystem management requires cross-jurisdictional problem-solving and, when private lands are involved, cross-boundary cooperation from many individual landowners. Fragmented ownership patterns and variation in ownership values, as well as distrust and transaction costs, can limit cooperation. Results from a landowner survey in California were analyzed using an audience segmentation approach. Landowners were grouped into four clusters according to ownership motivations: rural lifestyle, working landscape, natural amenity, and financial investment. All clusters showed willingness to cooperate for all three topics addressed in the survey (pest and disease control, fire hazard reduction, and wildlife conservation), but their degree of willingness differed by cluster, who they were expected to cooperate with, and the natural resource problem addressed. All were more willing to cooperate with neighbors and local groups than with state and federal agencies. Landowners were most willing to cooperate to reduce fire hazard, which is the most direct threat to property and well-being.

Crossborder cooperation in transboundary conservation-development initiatives in southern Africa: The role of borders of the mind

Transboundary Protected Areas (TBPAs) are often characterised as a viable strategy in facilitating the participation of crossborder communities in crossborder nature-based tourism business partnerships. In southern Africa, the introduction of these expansive initiatives has however, not resulted in such developments. Extant attempts to investigate the reasons for this gap are dominated by a focus on the adequacy or otherwise, of physical infrastructural facilities that are usually deemed crucial to achieving successful crossborder cooperation. Useful as this approach is, its robustness is questionable especially because it seems wholly inspired by a conceptualisation of borders as essentially physical entities. However, there is a growing body of literature that subscribes to the idea that borders exist both in space and mind. In this context, through qualitative in-depth personal interviews, this study scrutinizes the Makuleke Community's border narratives and experiences to determine the extent to which interiorised cognitive borders are implicated in the manner in which they approach the idea of forging crossborder tourism business partnerships with their regional counterparts. One major finding is that there are significant cognitive barriers to cross-boundary cooperation. The study recommends the institutionalisation of diverse spatial socialisation programmes to build trust, social capital and intercultural awareness to encourage crossborder communities to exhibit approach rather than avoidance behaviour towards each other.

Limits to Growth: The Challenge of Housing Delivery in England's ‘Under-bounded’ Districts

In the UK, the outward growth of settlements beyond their existing territorial boundaries has until recently been managed primarily through local negotiation between neighbouring authorities or by the coordination and impetus provided by strategic planning. The current overhaul of the planning system in England, with the removal of regional planning, has unlocked a debate over how ‘larger than local’ planning is undertaken and how cross-boundary cooperation is promoted. This paper reports, firstly, on planning professionals' recent experience of cooperating on major housing developments in three under-bounded authorities. Secondly, it reflects on the loss of the regional tier, and thirdly, it examines expectations of a more locally oriented planning system and its likely capacity to deliver on major cross-boundary projects.