Private Actors Research Articles

Navigating the pathway from collaborative governance to impacts under uncertainty: A theory of change for watershed visions

Collaborative governance is considered effective in environmental problem solving. However, it is not always successful in delivering benefits. In Finland, collaborative ‘watershed visions’ are gaining popularity as a way to advance holistic water management. Watershed visions bring the public, private, and civil society actors across sectors together to agree on a desired future for a river basin and to plan steps for achieving it. The capability of watershed visions to lead to positive environmental impacts is, however, highly uncertain. We applied a Theory of Change approach to conceptualize an outcome-oriented impact pathway for the watershed visions to enhance the understanding of their possibilities to achieve their desired long-term impacts. Using empirical material, we structured a watershed vision process into an impact pathway of nine phases necessary for achieving the desired future. From each phase, we identified assumptions suggesting why and under what conditions the impact pathway successfully works, risks to its realization, and key uncertainties inherent to the risks. Focusing on the uncertainties, we developed a tool for ex-ante, interim, and ex-post evaluation of the watershed visions. We suggest that a longitudinal Theory of Change is a useful tool for addressing change and managing uncertainty in any collaborative process with long-term aims, and that applying this tool can increase the success of collaborative governance.

Neoliberalism and managerial governance in the Swedish pre-school sector

ABSTRACT Tax-funded private provision of welfare services in Sweden is among the most extensive in Europe. This paper focuses on a contradictory example of how discrepancies between neoliberal ideals and practice are embedded in the governance of Swedish preschool. Over time, national and local regulations in Sweden have become increasingly comprehensive and moved toward managerial systems. Using Alain Enthoven’s model of managed competition, and drawing on documents and interviews, this paper focuses on two right-wing, urban municipalities with a very high share of preschools operated by private actors, and their organization of local preschool quasi-markets in terms of so-called sponsors concerning five functions: establishing rules of equity, approving all participating private pre-schools, managing the enrollment process, creating price-elastic demand, and managing risk-selection. The findings show how instead of limiting bureaucratic power, municipal managers have been empowered to plan and optimize the organization of the preschool sector in ways discordant with neoliberal ideas.

The current policy focus shift from a sectoral to a territorial governance of wildfire reduction is aligned with forest owners’ preferences

Land management for wildfire reduction has been said to require new governance arrangements that ensure the coordination at the local level among landowners and between them and other relevant private and public actors. To promote a shift in the policy approach to wildfire mitigation from the current focus on fuel management, within the forestry sector, to a more effective cross-sectoral landscape transformation, this governance problem takes on even greater importance. Given the diversity of owners within a territory, our main goal is to identify a governance arrangement that match the heterogeneity of owners’ preferences for alternative governance options.Based on a face-to-face survey of 497 owners in a fire-prone region, four types of owners have been identified using a cluster analysis based on management practices and socioeconomic context. Our results show that the type of owner helps explaining their preferences for alternative governance options. Owners that are more active (e.g. regular forest interventions) and have stronger links to the forestry sector, through regular timber sales and participation in forest owner organizations, favor the keeping of individual management over the delegation of management on others or the renting or selling of the land. Although many of these owners see forest organizations alone as the best entities to promote wildfire mitigation, the majority would prefer solutions that also integrate local authorities. Owners that are less active (e.g. no forest interventions) and have weaker links to the sector (no timber sales and no enrollment in forest organizations) consider renting or selling the land, and view a combination of both local authorities and forest organizations as the best solution to promote wildfire reduction at the local level.We conclude that a multi-actor (public-private) territorially-based governance model fits both the required transition in the policy approach and the diverse preferences of different owner types.

Beyond mitigation: building a case for collective rights and remedies for digital ID-enabled harms

ABSTRACT National digital ID systems have been promoted by both private and public sector actor actors as a means of fostering economic development and individual empowerment, and of administering a growing digital welfare state. However, these digital ID systems have also been associated with different forms of injustice and remain flashpoints for the contestation of public sector digitalization and datafication initiatives. The complex, intersectional impacts that such systems may have on social exclusion and human rights have made it challenging to articulate rights-based approaches that cover the range of potential injustices or to institutionalize legal and administrative mechanisms capable of remedying violations. This paper posits two ways in which the legal contestation of digital ID has revealed potential barriers to obtaining adequate remedies for digital ID related harm. First, a core methodological challenge is the way in which powerful narratives about the capabilities of digital ID have worked in tandem with individualizing logics of databases, making it difficult to center the collective experiences of affected groups and balance competing interests. Second, is the way in which legal frameworks have structured governance of national digital ID systems, fragmenting responsibility across institutions and individuals in ways that compromise access to justice, rule of law, and pathways to remedies. In bringing together a data justice framework with insights from legal analysis, the paper seeks to assess both limitations and potential opportunities to work through existing legal frameworks to better address the collective harms of digital ID systems.

Human Rights System Guidelines on the Benefit from Scientific Progress in Access to Medicines

Abstract Health innovation and research has become an economic and profitable activity. Market practices have exposed inequalities, scarcities and inequities in access to treatments and have significantly reduced the decision-making power of governments in the field of public health. Documentary research on the human right (HR) to health (Art. 12) and its interrelationship with the right to benefit from scientific progress (Art. 15, b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on access to medicines in three bodies of the UN system - the ICESCR Monitoring Committee (CESCR), the Human Rights Council (HRC) and World Health Organisation - over the last 10 years. The documents address three main topics. Market: marketing restrictions, price controls and using flexibility in pharmaceutical patents to reduce costs and produce generics. Innovation: patent protection without barriers to access to medicines for people in need. Health system interventions: giving priority to economic efficiency and sustainability by institutionalising health technology assessment, selecting essential medicines, developing clinical guidelines and integrating and linking regulatory agencies. These normative guidelines minimise the ethical, political and legal dimensions of the human right to enjoy scientific progress in access to medicines as a priority value that should guide public and private action, and emphasise technocratic and financial measures that seek to reconcile the liberal and social logic of the ICESCR. Key messages • In order to maximise the guarantee of human rights in access to medicines, economic and financial considerations should play only a residual role in human rights. • To give countries greater decision-making power at the global health, the scope of the right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications in health care needs to be expanded.

Green path development: The agency of the City of Vaasa in establishing the battery industry

AbstractEmpirical studies on agency in green path development (GPD) have underexplored non‐firm actors' roles. Through a semi‐structured interview, this article provides insight into how the City of Vaasa exercises agency toward developing the battery industry and the concomitant effects. The findings reveal that the City of Vaasa provides place‐based leadership, for example, through a local‐based initiative, that is, the GigaVaasa, as a platform to increase participation and coordinate the actions of public and private actors. As an institutional entrepreneur, they govern the issuance of operating licenses to optimize their economic interest; as innovative entrepreneur, they strategically plan and coordinate infrastructure development to increase the region's attractiveness to external investors and talents. The City of Vaasa agency increases the chances for the region to participate in the global battery market and stimulate the region's economic development. Nonetheless, environmental sustainability concerns remain a profound unintended effect. Conceptually, the article introduces the agency cyclicality and synchronization model to enhance the understanding of the interplay and effect of agency in an emerging green industry's development trajectory.

‘State Brokerage’ in Migration Infrastructure: A Case of State-Led Multilevel Governance of the Employment Permit System in South Korea

This paper examines ‘state brokerage’ in migration infrastructure through South Korea's Employment Permit System (EPS). It introduces the concept of state-led multilevel governance (sMLG)—a synthesis of multilevel governance (MLG) and state transformation (ST)—as a framework for understanding state brokerage, thereby contributing to the greater diversity in migration infrastructure scholarship. By analyzing state archival documents, the paper examines how South Korean state has developed a governance framework that spans multiple political-territorial boundaries through state transformation. The transformation encompasses forging diplomatic relationships with foreign governments and orchestrating cross-border policy collaborations as well as (re)arranging domestic governance by establishing new institutions, enacting and revising laws, and reconfiguring the relationships among these entities. These processes have allowed the EPS to facilitate the migration of less-skilled labor without the involvement of private actors.

Corporate regulation in the public interest– from concession to authorisation

ABSTRACT The current debate on corporate purpose challenges the idea that the corporation is solely a private actor. There is an increasing insistence that corporations are social and political actors as much as they are economic actors. If a key concern in the corporate purpose literature is to define and delimit the role that corporations now play in public and private life, then it is important to have a theoretical framework within which we can decide where and how those limits should be set. Available theories do not adequately capture this conceptual shift. The most likely candidate is concession theory, but it does not properly capture the role of the state in modern regulatory capitalism. This paper reconfigures the core elements of concession theory and develops a framework that provides a justification for the role of the state in regulating corporations.

Global Climate Change: Challenges, Opportunities, and Multilateral Strategies for Sustainable Development

Background: Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges, demanding collaborative action from both developed and developing countries. Despite numerous international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, political will and leadership commitment have been inconsistent, hindering effective global climate action. Private actors and global partnerships have emerged as critical players in addressing climate risks, but geopolitical and economic tensions continue to impede progress. Objectives: This research explores the key challenges and opportunities in combating climate change, emphasizing the role of international cooperation, the involvement of private and public sectors, and the need for innovative solutions. It also seeks to examine the responsibilities of developed and developing countries in contributing to global climate goals. Methods: A qualitative analysis was conducted by reviewing relevant literature, international agreements, and case studies. Data from climate summits, reports, and expert opinions were integrated to understand the political, economic, and environmental dimensions of climate change. Findings: The study identifies several challenges, including a lack of political will among major powers, economic competition, and inconsistent global leadership. It also highlights opportunities, such as the potential for technological innovation, investment in renewable energy, and the strategic role of private actors in promoting sustainable development. The findings underscore the importance of global partnerships and multilateral platforms like the United Nations in fostering cooperation among nations. Conclusion: Addressing climate change requires a holistic approach involving state and non-state actors, strong political leadership, and global partnerships. The transition to a low-carbon economy will require significant economic restructuring, but it presents opportunities for innovation and sustainable development. The study emphasizes the need for developed countries to fulfill their financial commitments to support adaptation in developing nations. Novelty: This research contributes to the existing literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of both the challenges and opportunities in combating climate change. It highlights the critical role of private actors and international cooperation, offering a framework for future global actions.

How self-interest and symbolic politics shape the effectiveness of compensation for nearby housing development

Abstract Policy with concentrated costs often faces intense localized opposition. Both private and governmental actors frequently use financial compensation to attempt to overcome this opposition. We measure how effective such compensation is for winning policy support in the arena of housing development. We build a novel survey platform that shows respondents images of their self-reported neighborhood with hypothetical renderings of new housing superimposed on existing structures. Using a sample of nearly 600 Bostonians, we find that compensating residents increases their support for nearby market-rate housing construction. However, compensation does not influence support for affordable housing. We theorize that the inclusion of affordable housing activates symbolic attitudes, decreasing the importance of financial self-interest and thus the effectiveness of compensation. Our findings suggest greater interaction between self-interest and symbolic politics within policy design than previously asserted. Together, this research signals opportunities for coalition building by policy entrepreneurs when facing opposition due to concentrated costs.

Socio-Economic Impacts of Fruit Crop Production in the Mungo Corridor, Littoral Region, Cameroon

Purpose: Agriculture, particularly fruit crop production, serves as a vital driver of economic growth worldwide. In Cameroon, the Mungo Corridor plays a substantial role in the agricultural sector, particularly in fruit crop production. This study aims to assess the socio-economic impacts of fruit crop production within the Mungo Corridor, a region known for cultivating bananas, pineapples, and mangoes. By evaluating the economic contributions and challenges, the study seeks to provide insights for policies that could enhance the sustainability and development of fruit production in the area. The study adopted a multi-stage sampling technique to select respondents and resource persons. Materials and Methods: Data collection involved the use of structured and pre-tested questionnaires along with an interview guide. Quantitative data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 and Microsoft Excel, while qualitative data from interviews was subjected to thematic analysis. Six subdivisions from the Mungo Division were purposely chosen to represent the agricultural activities within the region. Findings: The study confirms that fruit crop production has significant socio-economic benefits in the Mungo Corridor. Over a 10-year period, banana production reached 195,000 tons, while pineapple production rose from 6,543 tons in 2012 to 28,141 tons in 2022. Papaya production increased from 36 tons to 86 tons during the same period. The income from fruit sales enabled stakeholders to develop socio-economic activities, fostering regional development. Fruit crop production contributed to the construction of 12 schools (primary and secondary), 21 health centers, the rehabilitation of 8 fruit markets, 3 bus stations, and growth in the informal sector. However, the study also identified several challenges with Farmers face limited access to markets. Poor infrastructure affects production and distribution. The looming threat of climate change presents long-term risks to fruit farming. Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: To address the challenges and ensure sustainable fruit crop production in the Mungo Corridor, the study recommends the implementation of policies that promote local products and support farmers through market access initiatives. Invest in transport, storage, and market infrastructure to improve efficiency. Develop interventions to mitigate the impact of climate change on fruit production and strengthen cooperation among farmers, government, and private actors to maximize the benefits of fruit crop production and foster sustainable development. By highlighting the essential role of fruit farming in the socio-economic development of the Mungo Corridor, the study emphasizes the need for renewed efforts to support the sector and enhance its contributions to regional growth.

Industrial symbiosis as enabler and barrier for defossilization: The case of Höchst Industrial Park

Höchst Industrial Park (IPH) was founded in 1863. Over the years, a network of symbiotic relationships has developed between the companies in the park, the park, and the Rhine-Main region, resulting in the efficient use of resources. However, while this industrial symbiosis reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a shift towards more sustainable energy and raw material supplies is required to meet climate goals. Options include renewable electricity, heat electrification, green hydrogen, carbon capture and utilisation, biomass, and recycling. Such a transformation is challenging because it requires the application of highly innovative technologies on a large scale, the cooperation of many public and private actors, a fast pace to achieve GHG reduction targets, and a high degree of structural complexity due to the need to adapt the infrastructure. This need must be managed amid considerable regulatory uncertainty, a lack of infrastructure for producing and transporting green hydrogen and electricity and increasing international competition between production sites. We analyse how established symbiotic relationships affect the transformation of an existing industrial park using the case of IPH and focus on the manufacturing companies at this site. In addition, we show how a defossilised energy supply in IPH could look and which new symbiotic relationships could develop. We also discuss the role of stakeholder management in achieving coordinated action.

Policy entrepreneurship for transformative governance

AbstractScholarship is growing on societal transitions, describing radical societal change involving multiple sectors and scales, and transformative governance, describing how public, private, and civil society actors use tools of policy to pursue this fundamental change, aiming to build resiliency and sustainability. Much of this literature has a systems‐level focus and does not closely examine how governance participants, working individually or collectively, can steer a jurisdiction toward or away from transformativeness. This paper offers a corrective, integrating policy entrepreneurship scholarship with transformative governance research to advance understanding of how human agency underpins societal change. Drawing on accounts from 50 interviewees across eight case studies of US cities grappling with flooding hazards, we show how policy entrepreneurship can boost the political and economic resources that city officials rely upon to help propel radical shifts towards greater social, economic, and environmental equity.

Voluntary Planning and City Networks: A Systematic Bibliometric Review Addressing Current Issues for Sustainable and Climate-Responsive Planning

Over the years, energy saving and climate change have sparked a challenge in developing innovative spatial and urban planning tools, methods, and approaches for urban areas and territorial management. This challenge has pointed out a gap in the traditional planning framework in tackling energy and climate issues, highlighting the need for renovated spatial planning practices. The current effective measures carried out by the complex network of stakeholders (public and private) are fragmented, and the role of city networks in shaping decisions and interventions has emerged. In particular, among the approaches for urban and territorial planning and the development of climate-responsive measures, this research adopts a specific focus on voluntary planning. The authors, through a literature review and an analysis of nine city networks, investigated how this approach addresses energy and climate issues and how it is linked to the city networks in designing investments and interventions within the urban context. From the authors’ perspective, city networks are the operative component in designing local experiences and applications, contributing to achievement of the global energy and climate targets according to the current policies. In this context, successful results with respect to climate and energy challenges is expressed in the degree of the awareness and the commitment achieved by the local communities. Moreover, reaching the climate and energy goals is a representation of the outcome of the interaction between the (public or private) actors involved and the degree of a city’s climate-responsiveness, rather than from a normative constraint or an institutional framework.

FemTech: empowering reproductive rights or FEM-TRAP for surveillance?

The emergence of FemTech technologies promises to revolutionize women's health and reproductive rights but conceals an insidious trap of surveillance and control in the hands of private and state actors. This article examines the extent to which FemTech technologies, under the guise of empowerment, enable private actors to play a leading role in managing reproductive rights, replacing largely inactive States in this crucial function. The analysis shows how private FemTech companies are becoming critical players in implementing and defending these rights, often in response to the inaction or inadequacies of States. The article approaches the FemTech phenomenon from several angles, including the promises of empowerment, concerns about surveillance and control, and the ambivalent roles of private actors as implementers and defenders of reproductive rights. This structure makes it possible to offer a critical analysis of the legal, societal, and ethical implications of FemTech, highlighting the tensions between the promises of empowerment and the risks of surveillance and control.

Pro- and Contra-Coalition: Governing the Rise and Fall of Creative Industrial Parks in China

A great number of creative industrial parks (CIPs) have emerged in the past two decades in China as a critical and popular approach to the adaptive reuse of abandoned industrial land in cities. However, a few vibrant CIPs have been closed in the past few years, and the sites are set to be demolished and redeveloped in a property-led manner, suggesting the fragility of CIPs as a land reuse approach. This article aims to elaborate on the institutional rationale behind such a phenomenon. Cases in Shanghai and Guangzhou are examined and presented. The key arguments include: (a) in the industrial land redevelopment process, public and private actors flexibly establish pro-coalitions and contra-coalitions to foster and close CIPs, with strategies to overcome institutional obstacles and to implement land redevelopment-pursued regulatory plans, respectively; (b) key actors forming the two coalitions overlap, such as the local government and the state-owned enterprise land occupiers, and their positions shift subject to specific circumstances; and (c) the finding of the two coalitions echoes the existing argument that there are forces beyond the growth machine driving China’s urban development and provides further insight into the explicit framework of the dual forces underneath.

Links between deforestation, conservation areas and conservation funding in major deforestation regions of South America

Abstract Land‐use change is a major driver of biodiversity loss, affecting tropical forests and savannas at an unprecedented rate. To protect these ecosystems and their biodiversity, national conservation areas and international conservation funding have increased considerably in these regions. Understanding of how conservation funding allocation relates to dynamics in deforestation and conservation areas is crucial to identifying what mobilizes and distributes conservation funding. By applying fixed‐effect models on 30 years of dynamics in forest cover, conservation areas and conservation funding in the main deforestation regions of South America, we analysed the conservation funding allocation strategies in relation to deforestation (proactive vs. reactive), conservation areas (expanding or consolidating) and previous investment (agglomerating or not). We also assessed whether allocation strategies vary across regions and the stages of deforestation and conservation. We found that funding allocation followed conservation areas and higher prior funding levels over space and over time, across all regions and deforestation stages. This highlights the important role of recognized conservation areas (including protected areas and Indigenous territories) in mobilizing financial support for conservation. The allocation strategies relating to forest dynamics, however, varied depending on the scale of analysis, whether we look at the temporal or spatial dimension, and in which regions we assessed the allocation patterns. Capturing region‐level biases and within‐region dynamics is crucial for more effective and equitable conservation. As public and private actors commit to mobilizing more conservation funding and conserving more areas of the Earth, our insights on the relations between forest change and conservation efforts can help improve the allocation of conservation areas and conservation funding. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Toward sustainable energy switch in built environment: learning from ongoing experiences

Abstract The contribution addresses the topic of the ecological transition of energy production and supply systems of built environment, mean as an evolution towards sustainable forms of reorganization of human communities. To this end, focuses its attention on the most recent application experiences, to compare what has been outlined at the political and financial level, with the output generated by the concrete interventions, by the energy, environmental and social point of view. A broad and varied picture emerges, in which the actions ranges from the energy solarization of individual or complex of buildings, to the solar use of large portions of territory. The analysis and classification of each initiative it made possible to understand which are the most widespread solutions and which requires greater support to be accepted at the local community level. It also consented to understand the need to integrate each initiative within a design process oriented towards preserving the quality of urban and rural landscape. This innovative approach, based on a bottom-up operational models founded on a public-private partnerships, a multidisciplinary of actors and an active participation of citizens, constitutes the next objective assumed by research work, oriented to define an operative design based procedure, able to support public and private actors in the choices formulation.

Equity as a priority in EAT-Lancet-aligned food system transformations.

Food systems drive human and environmental change, reflect diverse cultural and ecological contexts, and, in their diversity, can bolster nutrition and planetary health. Ignoring structural inequities in food system transformations risks offsetting potential gains. We summarize current evidence on the context-dependent implications of EAT-Lancet goals and propose six priority areas to guide equitable food system transformations, targeting food and nutrition security, just sustainability and cultural diversity. Priority areas-namely, diverse and nutritious food access, food industry regulation, climate-resilient food production, localized, small-scale food systems, cultural diversity and social well-being-can be achieved through public, private and civil society action.

Food is Medicine National Summit: Transforming Health Care

Food is Medicine (FIM) interventions reflect the critical links between food security, nutrition security, health, and health equity, integrated into health care delivery. They comprise programs that provide nutritionally tailored food, free of charge or at a discount, to support disease management, disease prevention, or optimal health, linked to the health care system as part of a patient’s treatment plan. Such programs often prioritize health equity. On 26–27 April, 2023, Tufts University’s Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and Food & Nutrition Innovation Institute held a 2-day National Food is Medicine Summit with leaders, practitioners, and individuals with diverse lived experiences in health care, research, government, advocacy, philanthropy, and the private sector to identify challenges and opportunities to sustainably incorporate FIM services into the health care system and at scale. This report of a meeting describes key themes of the Summit, based on presentations and discussions on momentum around FIM, incorporating FIM in health care, tradeoffs and unintended consequences of various FIM models, scaling of programs, financing and payment mechanisms, educating and engaging the health care workforce, and federal and state government actions and opportunities on FIM. Speakers highlighted examples of recent public and private sector actions on FIM and innovative cross-sector partnerships, including state Medicaid waivers, academic and philanthropic research initiatives, health care system screenings and interventions, and collaborations including community-based organizations and/or entities outside of the food and health care sectors. Challenges and opportunities to broader implementation and scaling of FIM programs identified include incorporating FIM into health care business models, educating the health care workforce, and sustainably scaling FIM programs while leveraging the local connections of community-based organizations. This meeting report highlights recent advances, best practices, challenges, and opportunities discussed at the National Summit to inform future actions on FIM.