New Approaches to Environmental Governance
Martin Jänicke, Helge Jörgens
Abstract
This chapter explores how persistent environmental problems can be tackled more effectively against a backdrop of changes in the institutional and policy framework, and what part can be played here by new approaches to governance. It focuses on fundamental issues of environmental policy making that come under the general heading of governance in both academic and policy debate. The chapter describes the changed environmental and political situation. Written in the light of experience with the Rio Process begun in 1992 and its ambitious model of multilevel governance, it evaluates four central governance approaches in recent environmental policy: target orientation, integration, cooperation and participation. The Rio Process, structured by and designed to implement Agenda 21, met with many obstacles over time but nonetheless delivered sometimes remarkable and unanticipated results. The chapter discusses the empirical changes in governance and the conditions surrounding them changing actor groups, the increasing variety of policy levels and instruments, and changes in the institutional framework.