Governing Sea Level Rise in a Polycentric System - Easier Said Than Done

How do polycentric governance systems respond to new collective action problems? This Element tackles this question by studying the governance of adaptation to sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Like climate mitigation, climate adaptation has public good characteristics and therefore poses collective action problems of coordination and cooperation. The Element brings together the literature on adaptation planning with the Ecology of Games framework, a theory of polycentricity combining rational choice institutionalism with social network theory, to investigate how policy actors address the collective action problems of climate adaptation: the key barriers to coordination they perceive, the collaborative relationships they form, and their assessment of the quality of the cooperation process in the policy forums they attend. Using both qualitative and quantitative data and analysis, the Element finds that polycentric governance systems can address coordination problems by fostering the emergence of leaders who reduce transaction and information costs. Polycentric systems, however, struggle to address issues of inequality and redistribution.

List of contents

1. Introduction: climate adaptation and collective action; 2. Sea level rise adaptation as a new collective action problem; 3. Climate adaptation barriers in polycentric systems; 4. Policy networks for cooperation and learning; 5. Sea level rise adaptation games; 6. Implications and agenda for future research; Appendix; References.

Summary

This Element combines the literature on adaptation planning with the Ecology of Games framework to investigate how policy actors address the collective action problems of climate adaptation: the key barriers they perceive, their collaborative relationships and their assessment of the policy forums they attend.

Foreword

This Element focuses on the climate adaptation governance in the sea level rise case in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Product details

• Authors: Mark Lubell, Lubell Mark, Francesca Pia Vantaggiato, Francesca Pia (Kings College London) Vantaggiato
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.05.2024
• EAN: 9781009433587
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0943358-7
• No. of pages: 75
• Series: Organizational Response to Climate Change: Businesses, Governments
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > General, dictionaries; Social sciences, law, business > Business > General, dictionaries; San Francisco, Climate Change, California, Finance, SCIENCE / Earth Sciences / Meteorology & Climatology, Social impact of environmental issues, Meteorology & climatology, Business & the environment, 'Green' approaches to business, Hydraulic Engineering, Green Finance / Sustainable Finance, Climatology and climate modelling, Coastal engineering