Decision-making Forums Research Articles

A world agenda? How was universal primary education selected as a UN Millennium Development Goal?

ABSTRACT Between 2000 and 2015, the eight UN Millennium Development Goals were central to the UN agenda, forming a blueprint for development. However, the manner in which multilateral agencies establish such global priorities is not well understood. The article analyses how and why universal primary education was selected as a Millennium Development Goal. It shows the historical momentum of MDG2 among competing priorities in a contested policy space and how policy entrepreneurs skilfully managed and navigated the process. Developing country voices, on the other hand, were virtually absent from influential decision-making forums. A unique contribution of the research is interviews with MDG policy entrepreneurs, to improve understanding of what would otherwise remain hidden aspects of the process and to aid theory testing and development.

Gendered Practices in Transboundary Water Negotiations

Abstract This paper analyzes how practices in water diplomacy, and in particular in international water negotiations, are gendered and with what effects. We conduct a comparative analysis of three intergovernmental decision-making forums on international rivers: the Nile Technical Advisory Committee, the Chu-Talas Water Commission, and the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine. These three cases demonstrate how gender is relational and creates situations in which gendered norms and values are strengthened, challenged, and changed, and sometimes used strategically to gain more power. In addition, two specific dynamics were observed: first, aligning with gendered stereotypes, confrontational practices in water negotiations are perceived as masculine and cooperative ones as feminine. Second, women’s participation in negotiations leads to both male and female negotiators adapting their behavior, resulting in a tendency towards less openly confrontational dynamics in more gender-balanced settings.

Engaging artisanal fishers and processors from coastal states into RFMO discussions lead to agenda shifts toward science-based management. The case of the Jumbo Flying Squid fishery and the role of CALAMASUR

Artisanal and small-scale fisheries and the livelihoods of entire fishery dependent communities often rely on the catch and processing of straddling fish stocks. These stocks, as they expand to Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), are usually subject to different management regimes —within Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) by coastal states and by Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) in the high seas. While RFMO decisions can impact the livelihoods of entire coastal communities, artisanal and small-scale fishers are rarely engaged in regional decision-making fora. The South Pacific Jumbo Flying Squid (JFS), is mainly fished by artisanal operators in Chile, Peru and Ecuador, along with a growing Distant Water Fleet operating within ABNJ. In view of the lack of attention placed by the South Pacific RFMO (SPRFMO) to JFS management in the high seas, in 2018, the most important artisanal fishing cooperatives and processors from Chile, Peru and Ecuador, joined together to promote improvements in RFMO policies towards a sustainable use of the resource. In this paper we review the impact of the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the JFS in the South Pacific (CALAMASUR) in influencing the RFMO agenda. We conclude that CALAMASUR has influenced the SPRFMO agenda by triggering an increased focus on squid as well as by driving attention to the group's 5 priority improvement areas. Results suggests that resource users' engagement in RFMO governance can help advance RFMOs towards meeting the objectives set in their founding arrangements. The paper calls for improving RFMO governance by developing co-management mechanisms that enable effective participation of artisanal and small-scale fishers from coastal states in decisions affecting their livelihoods.

The direction of gender equality policy in Britain post-Brexit: towards a masculinised Westminster model

ABSTRACT This article examines gender equality policy in Britain, pre-and post-Brexit. Through a gendered analysis of European Union (EU) directives over forty years, we examine which policies have been key to Britain’s gender equality agenda. We find that the EU’s gender equality framework has been particularly integral to the advancement of ‘class-based’ policies, which seek to ameliorate inequalities that arise from the sexual division of labour. Taken together, we argue that the impact of Brexit risks directly rolling back these class-based gains. This is as a result of a shift away from a more consensual style of policymaking at the supranational level, towards a top-down, adversarial and masculinised Westminster Model, which marginalises women from decision-making fora. As it stands, advancements in gender equality policies are unlikely to be regained in the current political climate due to the absence of the stimulus of the EU for domestic gender equality reform.

Water diplomacy: A man’s world? Insights from the Nile, Rhine and Chu-Talas basins

Based on Feminist Institutionalism, this paper analyses the reasons for gender disbalance in water diplomacy. To this end, it looks at three intergovernmental decision-making forums on shared waters, namely the Nile Technical Advisory Committee, the Chu-Talas Water Commission, and the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine. The perceived key obstacles for women’s access to decision-making positions were disciplinary gender divides that go along with a largely technical approach to water management, the gender division of labour, cultural norms, and perceptions of good leadership. While their relevance differed in the different socio-economic, political and cultural contexts, the overall results show that male dominance in water diplomacy is not only a matter of numerical representation, but enshrined in professional norms and practices.

Diagnosing Participation and Inclusion in Collective Decision-Making in the Commons: Lessons from Ecuador

The objectives of our study are to advance our understanding of the micro-level governance conditions that facilitate more inclusive communal decision-making processes. Common-pool resource scholars frequently point to participatory governance arrangements as critical for successful resource management. Recognizing local decision-making rights, however, does not necessarily ensure that the decision process or management outcomes will be inclusive or equitable. Examples from decentralized and community-based resource management illustrate how communities and outside organizations alike can struggle to create decision-making forums that include and recognize the voices of more marginalized members. Our exploratory analysis examines household participation (n = 491) in communal decisions in twelve rural indigenous communities in the central Andes of Ecuador. We use the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to structure a set of logit models to identify the household attributes and community governance conditions that make it more likely that a household engages in community meetings (attends, voices opinions, perceives opinion is respected), and agrees with the collective decisions. Our findings reiterate the challenge of gaining full participation, particularly from women, and indicate how local governance characteristics such as frequency of meetings and leader training may promote greater inclusion and overall agreement with communal decisions.

GROUP RIGHTS, GENDER JUSTICE, AND WOMEN’S SELF-HELP GROUPS: EXIT, VOICE, AND LOYALTY IN AN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY IN INDIA

AbstractThis essay addresses tensions within political philosophy between group rights, which allow historically marginalized communities some self-governance in determining its own rules and norms, and the rights of marginalized subgroups, such as women, within these communities. Community norms frequently uphold patriarchal structures that define women as inferior to men, assign them a subordinate status within the community, and cut them off from the individual rights enjoyed by women in other sections of society. As feminists point out, the capacity for voice and exit cannot be taken for granted, for community norms may be organized in ways that deny women any voice in its decision-making forums as well as the resources they would need to survive outside the community. This essay draws on research among the Gond, an indigenous community in India, to explore this debate. Given the strength of the forces within the community militating against women’s capacity for voice or exit, the question motivating our research is: Can external organizations make a difference? We explore the impacts of two external development organizations that sought to work with women within these communities in order to answer this question.

Persistent Partnerships: Collaborating for an Urban Park

As the environmental justice movement has gained recognition, community organizers, industry representatives, and public officials have increasingly been called upon to work together to address environmental injustices through collaborative problem-solving processes. However, collaborative processes do not inherently create just, equitable, and legitimate decision-making forums. The characteristics of environmental justice situations, such as past procedural injustices and high levels of distrust, may complicate such processes. Thus, an exploration of the factors that facilitate and impede collaboration in cases of environmental injustice is warranted. The case study of La Villita Park tells the story of how community-based organizations partnered with city and federal agencies to transform a contaminated site into a community park through collaborative problem-solving. The creation of La Villita Park represents a victory for environmental justice but also highlights the challenges and opportunities of using collaboration to achieve environmental justice. An examination of this case sheds light on the value of trusted and legitimate community leadership, the necessity of employing multiple organizing strategies to create space for community voices, and the importance of transparent communication across all parties. As a result of engaging with this case, readers will be able to explain and analyze how the challenges of collaboration in the environmental justice context manifest themselves and how they can be mitigated.

ADAPTING A DIGITAL TWIN TO ENABLE REAL-TIME WATER SENSITIVE URBAN DESIGN DECISION-MAKING

Abstract. Landscape architects and urban designers are often tasked with decision-making about implementation of flood moderating measures in urban renewal projects. These decisions require consideration of complex, interdependent existing and proposed infrastructure, and must be informed by data and modelling from multiple disciplines such as hydrologists, transport engineers and urban planners. Here we describe the challenges of integrating these data and modelling from both GIS and BIM sources, into a framework that could support flood moderation decision-making, embedded within a spatially enabled Digital Twin. Our findings outline some of the considerable adjustments to future data collection methods that will be required to enable such a decision-support framework. Furthermore, we outline the requirements of the framework for employability in stakeholders and community decision-making forums. We test this framework on a large-scale urban renewal precinct in Melbourne Australia, with well recognised current and future flooding issues.

Big events, little change: Extreme climatic events have no region-wide effect on Great Barrier Reef governance

Extreme climatic events trigger changes in ecosystems with potential negative impacts for people. These events may provide an opportunity for environmental managers and decision-makers to improve the governance of social-ecological systems, however there is conflicting evidence regarding whether these actors are indeed able to change governance after extreme climatic events. In addition, the majority of research to date has focused on changes in specific policies or organizations after crises. A broader investigation of governance actors’ activities is needed to more fully understand whether or not crises trigger change. Here we demonstrate the use of a social network analysis of management and decision-making forums (e.g. meetings, partnerships) to reveal the effects of an extreme climatic event on governance of the Great Barrier Reef over an eight-year period. To assess potential shifts in action, we examine the topics of forums and the relative participation and influence of diverse governance actors before, during, and after two back-to-back mass coral bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. Our analysis reveals that there is little change in the topics that receive attention, and in the relative participation and influence of different actor groups in the region. Our research demonstrates that network analysis of forums is useful for analyzing whether or not actors’ activities and priorities evolve over time. Our results provide empirical evidence that governance actors struggle to leverage extreme climate events as windows of opportunity and further research is needed to identify alternative opportunities to improve governance.

Corporate power, urban governance and urban law

Given the growing role played by corporate power in urban governance, this article considers how, in structuring the interplay between corporations and the local state within contemporary urban governance arrangements, urban law can enhance public values and public accountability. Drawing on examples from different cities and legal systems, the article points to the commonality of hybrid public/private governance arrangements at city-level and highlights common challenges pertaining to coordination, democratic participation and accountability. It then engages with some of the common legal underpinnings of these challenges and considers ways in which urban law may address them. These include the shaping of urban autonomy through the legal devolution of state power, the legal structuring and regulation of urban decision-making fora and governance instruments, and the horizontal application of human rights law in local governance settings.

Feminist advocacy in the agenda for implementing Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development initiatives in Monrovia, Liberia

abstract Literature has much to say about the socio-economic, and political, impact of civil wars on women. The Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development (PCRD) policy framework was designed by the African Union (AU) in response to the devastation caused by civil wars in post-conflict African countries. While contexts differ in each country, the framework provides a general outline of steps to be followed by an African country emerging from civil war, in pursuit of successful post-conflict reconstruction and development programmes. Of interest to this article, using Monrovia (Liberia) as a case study, is the extent to which the AU PCRD policy initiative recognises the agency of women as being central to the process, and whether it bolsters their capacity and access to discussion around the table. It proposes that feminist advocacy is a precondition to push for positions on post-conflict peacebuilding in which women play a key role. This in itself is contingent on the effectiveness of government mainstreaming of gender equality and women’s voice in policy and government. The potential of women as contributors to peace-making and conflict resolution processes and commitment to sustainable peace is not in question in Liberia’s history. What is missing in action is Liberian women’s presence and mobilisation around long stalled reconstruction and rebuilding. Drawing from a mixed-method research study conducted in Monrovia between April 2019 and April 2021, research found the AU PCRD policy initiative is ineffective, as it considers women on paper, in isolation from the specific context in which women can assert power through representation and voice, not only in participating in post-war reconstruction but in Liberia’s political decision-making forums. Wider social gender power imbalances and inequalities experienced by women are directly linked to their lack of presence and visibility in driving the peace, security and reconstruction processes. There is a need to be able to demand accountability in the commitment to post-war reconstruction. As major stakeholders in the post-conflict reconstruction programme, women should be at the top of Liberia’s reconstruction programme, consistent with the AU PCRD framework agenda objectives.

ECOFEMINISM OF FORESTRY CONSERVATION IN RIAU

In the last 18 years, Riau Province, especially Pekanbaru and its surroundings, has often been surrounded by smoke from forest fires. Based on National Board and Disaster Management, Riau is the province with the largest forest fires. There were 49,266 hectares of land burned with 90 hotspots detected until August 2019. The effect of it was the air pollution index in Pekanbaru and its surroundings has reached red degrees. This condition is very dangerous, especially for vulnerable groups such as women, pregnant women, elderly group and children. The central and local government have taken many actions every year, but still not sufficient to protect public health, especially vulnerable groups. So far, women and children have been forced to inhale the smoke intensively without any protective equipment (N95 masks) or proper shelters in case of forest fires. The children were forced not to go to school for weeks, because the classrooms were not equipped with air-conditioned rooms and air purifiers. Several studies have found that smoke-contaminated air, soil and food are very bad for health before and after birth. Toxic substances inhaled by pregnant women can interfere with their health and interfere with the nutrition and oxygen flow of the fetus. Another study also found that exposure to Indonesia’s forest fires in late 1997 caused more than 15,600 child, infant and fetal deaths, meaning children’s survival rates decreased by 1.2 percentage points due to exposure to toxic fumes. A child’s nutrition and health can be directly compromised after inhaling toxic fumes or ingesting them in contaminated raw food. In addition to health impacts, forest fires also have a major impact on the economic, social and environmental affairs of local communities. And the biggest group that bears the impact is again women. The Women Research Institute (2016) states that women as the person in charge of domestic affairs turned out to be the most real victims in the domino effect of these forest fires. To name a few examples, women have to take care of sick family members even though they themselves are in poor health conditions. Women who are pregnant and breastfeeding have to breathe toxic air which results in low nutrition delivered to their children. If the head of the family cannot actively work because of illness, then it is the woman who must be the backbone of the family. Because they are directly affected, women have also been shown to be actively involved in various efforts to extinguish forest fires. Starting from technical forest fires to informal advocacy against companies that have forest concession permits. However, in various decision-making forums between the government and companies related to forest concessions that involve elements of the community, women’s groups are often not involved, so women’s aspirations and interests are not taken into account. In fact, in forest management and utilization, men and women have different roles and knowledge, so that their involvement is very important to realize proper governance. This study intends to explore and identify the extent to which women and their groups are involved in forest and environmental conservation efforts in Riau. The information obtained later is expected to be able to explain how the cultural and social constructs of society in supporting the involvement of women in these efforts. Including how these cultural constructs ultimately influence the government’s decision to involve women’s groups.
 Keywords: Ecofeminism, Forestry, Conservation, Forest fires

Meaningful Refugee Participation: An Emerging Norm in the Global Refugee Regime

Abstract Is meaningful refugee participation a norm within the global refugee regime? Despite growing attention since 2016, we argue that meaningful refugee participation in the governance of the global refugee regime is not yet an established norm. By drawing on the norm lifecycle framework developed by Finnemore and Sikkink and an analysis of recent initiatives, we argue instead that meaningful refugee participation is an emerging norm that has the potential to become the standard of appropriate behaviour in global decision-making fora. Despite this progress, we argue that the pursuit of differentiated approaches to refugee participation by norm entrepreneurs may constrain efforts to advance the norm. By examining efforts by States, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and refugee-led initiatives in recent years, we seek to highlight the similarities and differences between these initiatives and the extent to which they meet the threshold for norm emergence. Through this analysis, we consider the current state of the norm of meaningful refugee participation and present some possible scenarios for the future of the norm. While meaningful refugee participation is not yet a norm in the global refugee regime, we argue that a deeper understanding of its steady emergence holds important lessons for future research, policy, and practice.

Evaluating COVID-19 decision-making in a humanitarian setting: The case study of Somalia.

The global COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its scope and impact. While a great deal of research has been directed towards the response in high-income countries, relatively little is known about the way in which decision-makers in low-income and crisis-affected countries have contended with the epidemic. Through use of an a priori decision framework, we aimed to evaluate the process of policy and operational decision-making in relation to the COVID-19 response in Somalia, a chronically fragile country, focusing particularly on the use of information and the role of transparency. We undertook a desk review, observed a number of key decision-making fora and conducted a series of key informant and focus group discussions with a range of decision-makers including state authority, civil society, humanitarian and development actors. We found that nearly all actors struggled to make sense of the scale of the epidemic and form an appropriate response. Decisions made during the early months had a large impact on the course of the epidemic response. Decision-makers relied heavily on international norms and were constrained by a number of factors within the political environment including resource limitations, political contestation and low population adherence to response measures. Important aspects of the response suffered from a transparency deficit and would have benefitted from more inclusive decision-making. Development of decision support tools appropriate for crisis-affected settings that explicitly deal with individual and environmental decision factors could lead to more effective and timely epidemic response.

Do participation structures affect workers’ voice?

Employees’ democratic right to participate is a core element of Nordic labour market models exercised both through representative and indirect participation as well as individual and direct participation. This article analyses representative participation and whether the form it takes matters: Is local trade union representatives’ assessment of influence at company level dependent on whether meetings with management are formal or informal? The question is important because institutional arrangements are on the decline in several European countries. Weaker trade unions and trade union representatives, due to falling unionisation rates, could affect strategic decisions by management when it comes to inviting trade union representatives into decision-making forums. Furthermore, individual-oriented management concepts may be strengthening this trend, in turn challenging the Nordic labour market models at company level. These issues are addressed through power resource perspectives by examining how such resources affect local trade union representatives’ capacity to influence decisions.

Stakeholder Engagement in Decision Making and Pathways of Influence for Southern Ocean Ecosystem Services

Southern Ocean ecosystem management is characterized by a unique and complex international network of stakeholders and stakeholder relationships (a ‘transactional landscape’) relating to the globally significant services that these ecosystems support. This transactional landscape spans governments, industry (fishing and tourism), scientific research, conservation non-government organizations, civil society, and international decision-making forums. We used a network approach for stakeholder mapping to provide the first description of the transactional landscape for Southern Ocean ecosystem management – both in terms of the connections between stakeholders and ecosystem services, and directly between stakeholder groups. We considered 65 stakeholders and their relationships to 12 provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services. An analysis of the connections within this network reveals differences in the degree of connectivity between stakeholders and ecosystem services. Notably, ecosystem science facilitates high connectivity between stakeholders and provisioning services, but there is little connectivity between stakeholders and supporting services. We then applied a formal ‘values-rules-knowledge’ framework to a set of case studies to analyze the decision-making process in relation to Southern Ocean ecosystem services, as well as the relative importance of different stakeholder groups which were considered in the network analysis. Our analyses suggest that emphases for decision making have been on knowledge and rules, but that wider consideration of values across the broader stakeholder landscape – together with science (knowledge) and governance (rules) – might better support decision making for Southern Ocean ecosystem conservation and management, and provide a stronger foundation for sustainable provision of ecosystem services into the future.

Challenges to Implementing Regional Ocean Governance in the Wider Caribbean Region

For over two decades, the countries, subregional and regional level intergovernmental organizations in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) have been engaged in an initiative to implement a regional governance approach for managing the shared living marine resources of the Caribbean Sea and adjacent regions. Given the inherent socio-economic and geopolitical complexity of the region, this approach has been recognized as essential to address the challenges associated with the interconnected nature of shared ecosystem goods and services upon which countries in the region depend. This paper uses a retrospective lens to shed light on the challenges confronting the region and its efforts to overcome them. It is based on the Large Marine Ecosystem Governance Framework developed specifically for the WCR in 2006 and characterized as “learning by doing.” Data were obtained for this study through desktop review of published literature documenting progress over the period 2001–2021 and insights requested from 15 key individual and institutional contributors involved in the initiative. While the lack of financial resources was an underpinning and cross-cutting issue, key constraints identified were categorized as institutional, capacity building, awareness raising, leadership, legal, political, social capital, or socio-cultural. They include national capacity to engage with regional level processes due to a variety of factors including funding, political, and institutional challenges of developing a regional coordination mechanism, engaging the broader ocean community to create the critical mass needed, the difficulty of mainstreaming ocean affairs into high level political and decision-making fora and the scarcity of local, national and regional technical and political champions. This paper advances understanding of the barriers to be overcome in highly complex socio-politically developing regions if regional ocean governance initiatives are to play the essential role identified in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, reaping the sustainable benefits of a blue economy.

Taking the slow route to decarbonisation? Developing climate governance for international transport

Despite their significant, growing contribution to global emissions, international aviation and shipping have avoided a significant climate governance response until recently. This paper outlines the urgent need for, but major barriers to, decarbonisation of these industries, including various market failures and sensitivities over restraining demand. The need and potential for international governance to address these issues is seen to vary across aviation and shipping, given different industry structures and characteristics. A range of relevant inter- and transnational governance institutions is highlighted and an assessment of their overall adequacy offered. With a 2018 commitment to significant emission reduction, maritime governance effort has progressed further, although significant implementation challenges remain. Meanwhile aviation-related commitments rely more on out-of-sector offsets. Options for enhancing governance for decarbonisation are outlined, highlighting the importance of, inter alia, coordination between the UNFCCC and sectoral bodies, mechanisms to finance R&D and incentivise investment, and openness in key decision-making fora.

Cities as Emergent International Actors in the Field of Migration

Abstract Cities are fast becoming actors on issues of transnational import. This is also true in the field of migration governance where their scope of responsibility has traditionally been perceived as entirely domestic in nature. As mayors act and advocate transnationally on migration, they are supported by a growing web of intercity networks spanning knowledge sharing, to lobbying, to operational work. In parallel, cities’ agency is rising as they begin to acquire access and influence in interstate deliberations and decision-making fora. Their active presence impacts policy instruments like the UN Global Compact for Migration and Global Compact on Refugees, and policy frameworks like the Global Forum on Migration and Development. In turn, as cities provide more information on challenges faced locally, we may expect more pragmatic approaches to migration. This article outlines this expansion of cities’ agency and what it could mean for international migration governance.