Huitema, D., E. Mostert, W. Egas, S. Moellenkamp, C. Pahl-Wostl, and R. Yalcin. 2009. Adaptive water governance: assessing the institutional prescriptions of adaptive (co-)management from a governance perspective and defining a research agenda. Ecology and Society 14(1): 26. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02827-140126

The governance of climate change is in flux. In the understandable rush to explore what is filling the governance gaps created by gridlock in the international regime, scholars risk under-appreciating the capacity of states to engage in policy innovation at national and sub-national levels. Based on a review of existing concepts and theoretical explanations for (in)action at this level, we make the case for adopting a more holistic approach to understanding policy innovation, covering the source of new policy elements (‘invention’), their wider entry into use (‘diffusion’), and their projected and/or real effects (‘evaluation’). The analytical and methodological challenges that arise from integrating these three perspectives are systematically explored and integrated into a new analytical framework used in the other contributions to this volume to explore more fully the politics of invention, diffusion, and evaluation in specific areas of mitigation and adaptation policy.

States have been widely criticized for failing to advance the international climate regime. Many observers now believe that a “new” climate governance is emerging through transnational and/or local forms of action that will eventually plug the resulting governance gaps. Yet states, which remain oddly absent from most discussions of the “new” governance, will remain key players as governance becomes more polycentric. This paper introduces a special issue that explores the ability of states to rise to these interconnected challenges through the analytical prism of policy innovation. It reveals that policy innovation is much more multi-dimensional than is often thought; it encompasses three vital activities: invention (centering on the ‘source’ of new policy elements), diffusion (that produces different ‘patterns’ of policy adoption), and the evaluation of the ‘effects’ that such innovations create in reality. The papers, which range from qualitative case studies to large ‘n’ quantitative studies, offer new insights into the varied roles that states play in relation to all three. They show, for instance that: the policy activity of states has risen dramatically in the past decade; that state innovation is affected to similar degrees by internal and external factors; and that policies that offer flexibility to target groups on how to meet policy goals are most effective but that voluntary reporting requirements are ineffective. This paper draws upon these and many other insights to offer a much more nuanced reflection on the future of climate governance; one that deservedly puts states at the front and center of analysis

Experimentation has been proposed as a key way in which governance drives sustainability transitions, notably by creating space for innovative solutions to emerge. In seeking to bring greater coherence to the literatures on climate and sustainability governance experiments, this article reports on a systematic review of articles published between 2009 and 2015. Based on these results a new definition and typology of climate governance experiments is suggested. The typology distinguishes between the various purposes experiments can have, including niche creation, market creation, spatial development, and societal problem solving. It deepens the understanding of the diversity in experimenting by highlighting the salient features of different types of governance experiments. It can therefore guide future research to generate more cumulative research findings contributing to a better understanding of the role and outcomes of experiments in societal transitions. The findings also suggest that real transitions towards low-carbon and climate-resilient societies will require a systematic deliberate combination of different types of experiments

Meijerink, S., and D. Huitema. 2010. Policy entrepreneurs and change strategies: lessons from sixteen case studies of water transitions around the globe. Ecology and Society 15(2): 21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03509-150221