Uncovering the political dimension of social-ecological systems: Contributions from policy process frameworks

Global Environmental Change 40 (2016) 13–25

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Uncovering the political dimension of social-ecological systems: Contributions from policy process frameworks Kirill Orach* , Maja Schlüter Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Kräftriket 2B, 114 19 Stockholm, Sweden

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history: Received 11 September 2015 Received in revised form 28 May 2016 Accepted 5 June 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: Policy process Framework Policy change Social-ecological system Governance

A B S T R A C T

Research on the governance of social-ecological systems often emphasizes the need for self-organized, flexible and adaptive arrangements to deal with uncertainty, abrupt change and surprises that are characteristic of social-ecological systems. However, adaptive governance as well as transitions toward alternative forms of governance are embedded in politics and it is often the political processes that determine change and stability in governance systems and policy. This paper analyses five established theoretical frameworks of the policy process originating in political science and public policy research with respect to their potential to enhance understanding of governance and complex policy dynamics in social-ecological systems. The frameworks are found to be divergent in their conceptualization of policy change (focusing on incremental or large-scale, major changes), highlighting different aspects of bounded rationality in their model of individual behavior and focusing their attention on different aspects of the policy process (role of information, attention, beliefs, institutional structure, particular actors, etc.). We discuss the application of these frameworks and their potential contribution to unravelling the political dimension in adaptive governance and transformations. ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Social-ecological systems (SES) research emphasizes the interdependencies between human and natural systems (Berkes et al., 2000; Liu et al., 2007) and their importance for governance of SES. It moves forward from studying society and the natural environment within their own disciplinary domains towards focusing on the relationships between components of the two systems (Berkes et al., 2000). These include interactions among actors and between actors and ecosystems within given biophysical and institutional settings and the role of such interactions in shaping the co-evolution of SES (Jeffrey and Mcintosh, 2006; Schlüter et al., 2012). A central theme in SES research is the need to adapt, anticipate and manage change through adaptive governance (Folke et al., 2005, 2011). Governance, as we understand it, is performed by networks of actors – from state, market and civil society – that interact within institutional arrangements to solve societal problems and provide principles for guiding social as well as social-ecological interactions (Rhodes, 1997; Kooiman et al., 2008). Their action or

* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Orach), [email protected] (M. Schlüter). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.06.002 0959-3780/ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

inaction in regards to such problems are further referred to as policy (Birkland, 2010). Policy process then is the complex pathway that leads to a decision to act (or refrain from action) and the action itself (Hill and Varone, 2014). As one of the outcomes of governance, policy can influence interactions between people and ecosystems by for example introducing a rule with an aim to alter behavior of resource-users. At the same time inaction or simply maintaining the status quo in dealing with social or environmental problems could also be referred to as policy. One of the central challenges for governance of humanenvironmental systems is that such systems are complex and adaptive. They perpetually evolve, are difficult to predict, often generate surprises and change abruptly (Holland, 1992; Levin et al., 2013). Research on SES governance has therefore focused on understanding how governance can be designed to successfully tackle irreducible uncertainty, change and complexity. Specifically, adaptive governance approach suggests a set of characteristics that enables management of natural resources ‘to recover or adjust to change so as to maintain or improve to a desirable state’ (Koontz et al., 2015; p. 2). Adaptive governance emphasizes the role of flexible, inclusive and polycentric institutions that encourage learning and experimentation, integrate different types of knowledge in decision-making and generate trust and social capital (Folke et al., 2005; Chaffin et al., 2014).

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In view of the many sustainability challenges societies are facing, SES research has an interest in understanding how governance systems can be transformed to become more adaptive, focusing on both the barriers and the opportunities for successful transitions (Olsson et al., 2004; Anderies et al., 2013; Chaffin et al., 2014). While adaptive governance is about steering policy in a flexible (often incremental) manner in response to perceived social-ecological change, transformation refers to fundamental alteration of structures and processes of a social-ecological system. Adaptive governance can be seen as a set of ‘good governance’ principles of SES and as such is often prescriptive. Transformation research on the other hand aims to understand and describe the governance system ‘as it is’ in order to identify factors and processes that enable or hinder change towards adaptive governance. Policy decisions in adaptive governance as well as large-scale transformations of governance systems, however, do not take place in a vacuum. Governance systems not only face complex environmental problems – they are complex themselves and often involve a broad range of state and non-state actors with different interests and beliefs (Sabatier, 1987; Rhodes, 1996; Ostrom and Janssen, 2005 Duit and Galaz, 2008). Governance is shaped by politics – the ‘processing of a diversity of ideas and interests’, ‘interactions and substantial accounts by which individual and collective actors struggle for the definition and the provision of the common good’ (Voß and Bornemann, 2011). Governance of natural systems may be multilevel and involve interactions across the levels (local, national and international) as well as within them (e.g. overlapping international regimes). Policies, as outcomes of such interactions, are to a great extent driven by political processes – such as coalitional and agendasetting dynamics, power relations, institutional interplay, elite capture and others (Duit, 2015). SES governance sometimes persists in undesirable states, fails to anticipate change or reacts only to specific signals from the social-ecological system, while ignoring others (Khan and Neis, 2010; Axelrod, 2011; Korte and Jörgens, 2012; Biesbroek et al., 2014; Howlett, 2014). It is the ‘politics’ – internal complex dynamics of governance – that often determine which signals are perceived or ignored and the ‘appropriate’ policy response to such signals. In this paper we delve into the policy science literature with the aim of presenting a systematic overview and analysis of a variety of theoretical framings and understandings of the policy process and policy change from policy sciences. With this we hope to make the diversity of approaches and knowledge available to SES scholars in order to facilitate incorporating political complexity and the link between social-ecological processes and policy change in social ecological systems research. In this our goal is not to focus on theories that explore specific drivers of policy change, but rather start with a broad set of key frameworks that ‘set the stage’ for understanding the policy process and can further guide in selecting a theory of interest. Here we use Ostrom’s (2011) distinction between theories and frameworks, which she defines as a general set of variables and relationships among them that account for a phenomena; a ‘metatheoretical language’. Accordingly, a theory assigns values to some of the variables and provides a more specific and coherent set of relationships. Policy process frameworks have frequently been applied to study policy change and stability in environmental and natural resource governance. Matti and Sandström (2011) for instance use the Advocacy Coalition (Sabatier, 1987) framework to look at the case of Swedish carnivore policy which represents a ‘tug of war’ between nature-conservationist interest and hunters and sheep or reindeer-herders’ negative attitudes towards carnivores. The clash of interests gave rise to a political struggle between the two beliefbased coalitions which greatly determined the policy outcome.

Princen (2010) analyses long-term stasis in a failing fishery policy of the EU and the sudden switch to a more ecosystem-based approach after a successful reframing of the issue and use of alternative policy venues by environmental groups. These details are captured by conceptualizing the problem through the Punctuated Equilibrium framework (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993). At the same time, Pedersen (2010) uses concepts from Policy Networks perspective and Punctuated Equilibrium framework to highlight the role of policy network dynamics influenced by different policy perceptions in the policy change within the Danish river management system. In all these cases the frameworks provide guidance for understanding the complex phenomena of policy process and policy change – and this is where their value to a SES researcher lies. In the above examples understanding of the political processes behind issues (changing policy images and venues, coalitionbuilding network dynamics, etc.) allows to learn why governance systems come up with solutions and responses that may seem surprising at first glance. In other words, looking at the problem through a policy process lens provides us with a better ability to capture complexity of the political decision-making world. In the context of social ecological systems the question of importance of political processes for exploring governance in SES has been raised repeatedly (e.g. Duit and Galaz, 2008; Huitema and Meijerink, 2010; Duit, 2015) – for transformations towards sustainability (Olsson et al., 2014) and adaptive governance (Chaffin et al., 2014). It has been suggested that a deeper understanding of social and political dimension and integration of insights from political theory into social-ecological systems research could be useful to address its socio-political context which may provide opportunities as well as create barriers to sustainability transformations (Olsson et al., 2014). In response to this need, SES researchers in multiple cases have made use of existing policy science or political science literature, although their application of frameworks and theories has been specific to the process or issue of their interest (e.g. learning, institutional setting, role of individuals or windows of opportunity for change). In order to understand how policy change, adaptation and even major transitions come about, SES scholars have often turned to Multiple Streams framework (e.g. Olsson et al., 2004, 2006; Huitema and Meijerink, 2010; Green et al., 2015), Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework (IAD) and its extensions (e.g. Ostrom and Cox, 2010; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2010; Anderies and Janssen, 2013; McGinnis and Ostrom, 2014; Whaley and Weatherhead, 2014), Advocacy Coalition framework (e.g. Huitema and Meijerink, 2010; Valkering et al., 2013; Babon et al., 2014; Valman et al., 2014) and others. Though the theoretical contributions from policy sciences to understanding change are anything but forgotten in SES research, we argue that the available diversity of such contributions is rarely addressed. At the same time, policy process frameworks have been used more for conceptualizing the process of interest, but less as a lens for identifying which other processes could also be influencing policy adaptation in the case. A notable exception is the work of Huitema and Meijerink (2010) who discuss multiple ways of understanding the policy process and alternative explanations of policy change provided by a variety of frameworks. Nevertheless, the authors from the beginning acknowledge that their investigation is limited to exploring specifically the role of individuals or ‘policy entrepreneurs’ in policy change and transitions. We argue that the state of research on policy change and adaptation in the context of social ecological systems calls for more ‘theoretical pluralism’, as put by Huitema and Meijerink (2010). Multiple theoretical perspectives on the political context of SES governance should be taken into consideration in order to better explain why in some cases governance fails to anticipate and

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respond to social or ecological change, while in others change and transition is less problematic. The gap in this case lies not only in addressing the ‘politics’ of SES governance per se, but also acknowledging the variety of possible understandings of policy process and applying them to have a more complete picture of the problem of interest. To this end our paper assesses the diversity of available perspectives. Our objective is not only to encourage the use of theoretical frameworks from policy science when approaching adaptive governance or SES transformations, but also to provide a ‘guide’ for a SES researcher in navigating the diversity of political science frameworks and their takes on explaining the policy process and specifically policy change. With abovementioned aims in mind, we conduct a review of prominent frameworks of the policy process from political science: Advocacy Coalition (AC), Punctuated Equilibrium (PE), Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD), Multiple Streams (MS) and Policy Networks (PN). The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. First we present the criteria according to which the policy process frameworks were selected and criteria for their analysis. Next we introduce the selected frameworks with a short description of their origins and main features, including their goals and conceptualization of the policy process, and relevant literature. Further we compare the frameworks with respect to selected structural criteria and their conceptualization of policy change. We provide a practical example where we apply the frameworks to the case of the Baltic Sea SES. Finally, we summarize our findings and discuss their implications for SES research in general and adaptive management and transformation in particular in the discussion and conclusion part of the paper. 2. Framework selection and analysis The public policy field is rich with theories and frameworks that conceptualize the policy process or some of its parts. Our aim is to provide SES researchers with an outlook on the most established frameworks rather than a comprehensive overview of theory in the field or emerging new frameworks. Furthermore we are interested in frameworks that explain different types of change (incremental or large-scale) and suggest different mechanisms for such change, given our interest in understanding policy change and adaptivity but also in providing multiple perspectives for the sake of analytical agility. To this end we adopted a set of criteria to select the frameworks that are sufficiently broad, substantially different and widely used in policy research. The first criterion is that a framework is well-established and tested. A framework is considered well-established when it has been used for considerable amount of time, has been tested in applications, discussed and identified as established in the review literature of the field. The reason for focusing on such frameworks was the greater availability of information about their advantages, as well as limitations, the spectrum of research questions explored within each framework, their ‘maturity’ in terms of conceptual development and their potential for further use. Due to this criterion we decided not to include some of the newer frameworks like Ecology of Games (Lubell, 2013) or Narrative Policy Framework (Jones and McBeth, 2010) which also build on approaches to policy change of the more established frameworks and can be treated as modifications or combinations of already existing frameworks. The second criterion addresses the broadness in description of the policy process: frameworks must be able to explain action at multiple stages of the policy process, such as agenda setting, policy formulation, legitimation, implementation and evaluation. Some theoretical contributions do not address the policy process as a whole, but highlight the role of specific concepts: e.g. policy learning, policy paradigms (Hall, 1993) or particular actors or

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groups of actors, such as the importance of bureaucracy (McCubbins et al., 1987). Focusing on inclusive frameworks which provide a broad outlook of the policy process allows as a next step to identify specific theories to answer research questions of interest. The third criterion relates to the comprehensiveness of a framework in describing policy process. According to Sabatier (2007, p. 8) comprehensiveness means taking into account ‘conflicting values and interests, information flows, institutional arrangements and variation in the socioeconomic environment’. The frameworks were selected after first examining the publications in the field that reviewed and compared the frameworks (Schlager and Blomquist, 1996; Zachariadis, 2007; Sabatier, 2007; Nowlin, 2011). These publications helped select the frameworks that were considered well-established while also informed us about broadness and comprehensiveness of the frameworks. Following the review publications we looked at empirical papers in order to see whether the frameworks were tested in applications – specifically when applied to cases of environmental policy (see Table 1 for the list of such publications). Finally, we looked at the theory-developing publications that introduced or further modified the frameworks (referenced in Table 1 under ‘key papers’). This mostly allowed us to judge about broadness and comprehensiveness of frameworks while it also gave us an idea when they were first introduced and how they developed over time. As a result of our search, we ended up with a selection of five frameworks: 1. Advocacy Coalition Framework (Sabatier, 1987) 2. Punctuated Equilibrium (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993) 3. Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (Kiser and Ostrom, 1982) 4. Multiple Streams Framework (Kingdon, 1984) 5. Policy Networks Approach (Atkinson and Coleman, 1989; Kenis and Schneider, 1991; Marin and Mayntz, 1991; Rhodes, 1986 and others) A relatively contested choice for the study was the Policy Networks approach. The approach is different, in the sense that it does not represent a unified framework or theory, but has been defined, conceived of and filled with hypotheses differently by a broad range of authors. Policy networks as an approach to analyze governance and policymaking can nevertheless serve as a broad conceptual toolbox for addressing policy process in multi-actor settings and is frequently used in public policy research (Adam and Kriesi, 2007). The selected frameworks were then analyzed and compared with regard to key structural features such as i) its understanding of the policy process, ii) policy change and its mechanisms (through which processes policy change may come about, according to the framework), iii) model(s) of individual used in the framework and iv) their level of analysis and level of application. The above structural features have been used in earlier review contributions to compare and analyze the frameworks (Sabatier, 2007). The structural criteria – model of individual, level of analysis and application of the frameworks – as well as the frameworks’ definitions of the policy process indicate key differences between frameworks and highlight those aspects that are important when selecting a framework. They help a researcher identify whether the framework may be a good fit to the case or specific research questions. Understanding how a framework addresses policy change, what type of change it explains (incremental or major) and which mechanisms or drivers of policy change it focusses on is crucial for linking policy and social-ecological change in SES research.

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Table 1 General description of the policy process frameworks. Name of the framework

Goal of the framework

View of the policy process

Key papers

Advocacy Coalition (AC)

Understanding policy change over long periods of time (several decades); Understanding the role of policyoriented learning, the ways coalitions perceive and use information, depending on their belief systems.

Interactions between belief-based coalitions of actors who are actively concerned with a specific policy problem or issue.

Punctuated Equilibrium (PE)

Aimed to explain rapid large-scale changes in policymaking (in contrast to incremental, slow change); Investigated role of American political institutions' design in the dynamics of incrementalism and punctuated change.

The interplay between long periods of stasis (or incremental change) and sharp, ‘punctuated’ change in public policy.

Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD)

Contributed to understanding how institutions affect incentives and behavior of individuals; Provided a common “language” for different disciplines to analyze policy intervention in various issues; Aimed to analyze and comprehend complex social situations

A set of nested ‘action situations’ in which self-interested individuals interact and produce rules. Individual behavior is influenced by existing institutions, which in turn may be affected by the outcome of strategic interactions between individuals.

Multiple Streams (MS)

Explaining policy process under conditions of ambiguity. Explaining agenda-setting dynamics: why some issues move up on agenda of decisionmakers, while others do not?

Policymaking under ambiguity. Policy process consists of three independent streams (problem, politics and policy) which may be coupled by policy entrepreneurs in appropriate moments of time (policy windows), potentially resulting in policy change.

Policy Networks Describing policymaking in policy (PN) subsystems that occurs as a result of interaction of public and private actors, rather than state actors alone.

Formal and informal interaction between public and private actors concerned with policy issue. Complex problems and dispersed resources require collective action of multiple actors in order to reach solutions.

Sabatier and Zafonte, 1994 (water Sabatier (1987), Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993) policy); Litfin, 2000 (climate change Sabatier and Weible (2007) policy); Jordan and Greenaway, 1998 (water pollution); Lubell, 2003 (coastal watershed management); Leach and Sabatier, 2005 (local watershed management); Villamor, 2006 (forestry policy, protected area management); Weible, 2007 (marine protected areas); van Overveld et al., 2010 (water policy); Matti and Sandström, 2011, 2013 (carnivore policy); Baumgartner et al. (2009), Wood, 2006 (land use policy) GreenBaumgartner and Jones Pedersen and Wolfe, 2009 (1993), Jones and (environmental policy in US and Baumgartner (2012), True Denmark); Crow, 2010 (water policy); et al. (2007) Princen, 2010 (EU fisheries policy); Schneider and Ollman, 2013 (climate change policy); Carter and Jacobs, 2014 (climate change and energy policy); Kiser and Ostrom (1982), Tang, 1992 (irrigation policy); Lubell Ostrom (2011, 2009, 2005) et al., 2002 (watershed management); Koontz, 2005 (land use policy); Imperial and Yandle, 2005 (fisheries policy); Clement and Amezaga, 2009 (forestry, land use policy); Heikkila et al., 2011 (water policy); Arnold and Fleischman, 2013 (wetland policy); Rastogi et al., 2014 (conservation policy); Solecki and Shelley, 1996 (air and Cohen et al., (1972), Kingdon (1995, 1984), water pollution); Webber, 2008 (US Zachariadis (2007) environmental policy); Boscarino, 2009 (forestry policy); Font and Subirats, 2010 (water management, policy entrepreneurs); Liu et al., 2010 (local environmental policy); Storch and Winkel, 2013 (climate change policy, forestry policy); Adam and Kriesi (2007), Brinkerhoff, 1996 (Madagascar Atkinson and Coleman environmental policy); (1989), Dowding (1995), Daugbjerg, 1998 (nitrate policy, Marin and Mayntz (1991), agricultural policy); Bulkeley, 2000 Marsh and Rhodes (1992), (climate change policy); van Bueren Rhodes (1997, 1986) et al., 2003 (zinc emission policy); Ferreyra et al., 2008 (agricultural policy, watershed management); Lubell and Fulton, 2008 (watershed management); Pedersen, 2010 (river management, land use policy); Göhler et al., 2014 (forest governance);

3. Results 3.1. General overview of the policy process frameworks We present an overview of the different goals and perspective on the policy process that characterize each framework together with their sources and applications to environmental policy in Table 1. 3.1.1. Advocacy Coalition Framework The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), developed by Sabatier (1987) is designed to address policy in multi-level governance systems, characterized by a great number of disputes and conflicts over policy goals. Initially the framework was

Papers applying the framework to environmental policy

developed to address shortcomings of the Stages Heuristic model (Easton, 1965; Lasswell, 1951) emphasizing the role of actors at different levels of government in initiation, decision and implementation of policy (Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier, 1994). According to Sabatier (1987), actors have their own belief system, which works as a causal driver of political behavior and involves actors’ perceptions of the world, its state (is there an issue? how big or important is the issue?) and the instruments available for solving the issues. Based on shared beliefs, actors may form coalitions – groups that coordinate their activities and tend to persist over time (Schlager, 1995). Public policy then, according to ACF, is a ‘translation of normative and empirical beliefs of competing advocacy coalitions’ (Fischer et al., 2007, p. 132).

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3.1.2. Punctuated equilibrium The concept of punctuated equilibrium takes root in evolutionary biology, where it represented a model of evolutionary change which happens as a sharp punctuation after a long period of stasis (Prindle, 2012). Baumgartner and Jones (1993) following the observation of multiple cases of policymaking in the US, argued that the policy process often tends to maintain long periods of stability, followed by bursts of change. The stability in this case is characterized by a ‘policy monopoly’ – a set of powerful ideas or images carrying empirical information about the issue and its solutions – that are widely accepted across the policy subsystem (small issue-oriented niche – community of experts) (True et al., 2007). Due to large disturbances or accumulation of minor events the issue may receive the spotlight and become prone to positive feedback – during which small changes in policy result in larger, major change (True et al., 2007). 3.1.3. Institutional analysis and development framework The framework originates in the institutional rational choice approach, that looks at the way institutions affect and are affected by the behavior of self-interested rational actors. Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) pictures the policymaking as a collective choice-tier action situation – a space for social interaction, within which individuals ‘interact, exchange goods and services, solve problems, dominate one another or fight’ (Ostrom, 2011; p. 11). The outcome of the policymaking (in terms of a policy or rule) eventually affects the action situation at a lower (operational) tier, where actors interact in light of the incentives they face to generate outcomes directly in the world (Ostrom, 2011). The structure of action situations at any tier, according to Ostrom (2011) is shaped by four clusters of variables: resources that actors own in action situations, values they assign to the world and own actions, ways they acquire and store information and decision-making processes they use to select a course of action. Each action situation is affected by the rules-in-use among participants, physical or material conditions (state of the world) and structure of the community within which the action takes place (Ostrom, 2011). 3.1.4. Multiple streams Developed by Kingdon in 1984, the Multiple Streams (MS) Framework looks at policymaking under ambiguity. A situation is ambiguous if there are multiple ways of framing it and defining its circumstances. In contrast to uncertainty, ambiguity of a situation is never reduced after obtaining additional information (Zachariadis, 2007). Assumptions of the framework are grounded in the garbage can model of organizational choice (Cohen et al., 1972). The policymaking, under conception of MS framework, consists of three independent streams – the problem, the politics and the policy stream. The problem stream contains issues that public and policymakers want to be addressed. The politics stream consists of the national mood (ideas and interests of the general public in the state), activity of interest groups and legislative or administrative turnover as a result of elections or other processes. Finally, the policy stream includes ideas or solutions to policy problems that also compete with each other to survive the selection process and be implemented by decision makers (Nowlin, 2011; Zachariadis, 2007). The possibility for policy change arises when the three streams are coupled, providing the opportunity ‘for advocates of proposals (policy entrepreneurs) to push for their pet solutions, or to push attention to specific problems’ (Kingdon, 1995; p. 165).

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3.1.5. Policy networks Formal and informal interactions between public and private actors within policy subsystems are the focus of the Policy Networks approach (PN). PN assumes that policy networks exist due to the fact that actors often depend on each other to achieve their goals and therefore create networks to merge their resources (Adam and Kriesi, 2007). Börzel (2002) identifies two schools that focused on the networks approach from different sides: the interest intermediation and the governance school. Interest intermediation school looks at policy networks as relationships between public and private actors in general. It is mainly interested in the relationship between the State and interest groups and the way it may influence (although not determine) the policy outcome (Börzel, 2002; Kassim, 1994). The approach taken by the governance school is different, in the sense that it views policy networks as a new governing structure – non-hierarchical and self-organizing (Adam and Kriesi, 2007; Börzel, 2002). The policy networks approach generally claims that public policy occurs through ‘mobilization of dispersed resources through webs of relatively stable and ongoing interactions and orchestration of collective action towards the solution of a common policy problem’ (Börzel, 1998, p. 260). 3.2. Comparison of the frameworks with respect to selected structural criteria and conceptualization of policy change The frameworks differ with respect to their underlying model of the individual, the level of analysis, the way they conceptualize policy change and how they explain policy change as can be seen in Table 2 and is discussed below. Voß and Bornemann (2011) divide the political world into three parts: policy (definition of problems, formulation of solutions), polity (institutional settings for decision-making) and politics (process during which individual and collective actors with diverging beliefs interact and communicate). The aspects of the political world are addressed by the frameworks through their take on the decision-making model of individual, the role of institutional structure in the policy process and beliefs and issue framing by the participants. 3.2.1. Level of analysis SES research addresses both within- and cross-level dynamics in order to understand and explain change, and it is therefore important to know the capability of the frameworks to address different levels of analysis and scales at which interactions between governance actors could occur. Although all analyzed frameworks assume emergence of policy processes from individual interactions of boundedly rational actors, some tend to pay more attention to the lowest level of interaction, rather than to the aggregate systemic processes that define policymaking. In particular, IAD framework, that borrows the concept of action situation tends to focus on strategic interaction of individuals which may result in collective action. This process leads to emergence of new rules for interaction with the world (at the operational level) or for action situations at a higher level (collective choice and constitutional rules). Nevertheless when applied, the IAD framework tends to be used not at the individual but rather at a more aggregate level – the action situation and the variables which characterize it. Action situation lies at the heart of the IAD framework and it specifically focuses on the variables that characterize and affect the action situation itself, and less so on describing heterogeneity among individual actors within the action situation.

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Table 2 Comparison of the frameworks based on structural criteria and conceptualization of policy change and its mechanisms. Framework

Model of the Individual

Boundedly rational, ‘procedurally rational’ individuals with belief systems through which they see the world and filter information. Emphasize losses more than gains – exaggerate power and influence of opponents,which leads them to coalition-forming for ‘political survival’. Belief system within coalitions often homogenous. (Cairney and Heikkila, 2014; Schlager, 2007; Schlager and Blomquist, 1996; Weible et al., 2009) Key: values and beliefs Boundedly rational. Individuals Punctuated Equilibrium have fixed, slow changing (PE) preferences. Limited information processing capability strongly affects choice (individuals can only attend to several characteristics of the situation at the same time). Information changes framing of issues and target of attention. Change of attention in turn may change the pReferences (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993; Schlager, 2007; True et al., 2007) Key: selectivity of attention Boundedly rational, fallible Institutional learners. Information-processing Analysis and Development capabilities of individuals are (IAD) limited. Information is costy and scarce. Therefore preferences are poorly structured, individuals operate with incomplete information. Due to such uncertainty, individuals have to engage in trial-and-error learning. Institutions affect the incentives for individuals to learn from mistakes. (Ostrom, 2005; Schlager, 2007; Schlager and Blomquist, 1996) Key: experimenting and learning Boundedly rational, follows Multiple Streams (MS) “garbage can” model of choice (Cohen et al., 1972). Due to ambiguity of the situation, the decision-making is more about making sense rather than about pursuing concrete goals. Individuals manipulate (provide meaning, clarification and identity) and get manipulated. Time and attention of individuals is limited. No time and possibility to look for the best possible solution – individuals are “satisficers”. (Schlager, 2007; Zachariadis, 2007) Key: satisficing under ambiguous conditions Policy Networks Boundedly rational, however (PN) decisionmaking model not specified. Some applications focus on rational choice and newinstitutionalism. Potentially similar to IAD or PE. (Bevir and Richards, 2009; Börzel, 2002; Schlager, 2007) Key: varies/similar to IAD or PE Advocacy Coalition (AC)

System versus individual level of analysis

Policy change

Mechanisms of policy change

Focus on groups of individuals (coalitions). Coalition members act on individual (micro) level, their actions aggregate to meso-level (advocacy coalitions). (Cairney and Heikkila, 2014 Zahariadis, 1998)

Sharp or incremental change as a result of coalitional dynamics (change in composition or resources of coalitions) or learning across coalitions.

Stable and dynamic external shocks leading to major change (socioeconomic conditions, change in governing coalition, etc.); Internal shocks (e.g. disasters within policy subsystem); Slow internal processes (e.g. learning) that lead to incremental policy change

Focus is on system-level patterns of the policy process, negativepositive feedback dynamics that result in change or stability. (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993; Schlager, 2007)

Policy may change incrementally and slowly during the stasis period – when the issue is captured by the policy monopoly in the subsystem. When the issue receives systemic attention, the policy is subject to rapid and major change.

Major change: when issue gets attention of policymakers at the macro-level. Attention shift could occur due to large external events – crises or disturbances or due to aggregation of multiple minor events over a long term.

Strategic interactions between individuals that scale up to processes which characterize the action situation. (Ostrom, 2011)

Incremental change through policy learning

Step-by-step adjustment through policy experimentation and learning from mistakes.

Systemic level. Collective choice results not only from individual interactions, but also from a number of structural forces and internal processes (attention, search, selection). (Zachariadis, 2007)

Policy change occurs during the coupling of three streams: problem, politics and policy. The coupling is done by policy entrepreneurs at the suitable time (window of opportunity). Potentially describes major shifts in policy.

Major events and changes in the political stream create ‘windows of opportunity’ during which policy change is highly possible.

Focus on network structure and relation patterns between individuals, takes a systemic view. (Adam and Kriesi, 2007; Klijn, 1996)

Actors negotiate and interact with other actors within the policy networks to produce policy output and policy change.

Distribution of power and types of interaction among participants conflict, bargaining or cooperation (determined by network structure).

Despite uncovering the ‘inner world’ of individuals and outlining their system of beliefs, ACF does not offer much explanation of action at the individual level. Individuals, according to ACF align themselves in coalitions, based on their values and beliefs. The belief-based coalitions and interactions between them

lie in the scope of the framework. Heterogeneity of beliefs within coalitions is less important in ACF: individuals within advocacy coalitions are assumed to have a relatively similar set of beliefs and are expected to behave in a similar way. Due to this, the framework is well-suited to explaining policy change which results from

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competition between advocacy coalitions, but may overlook the struggles between individuals within coalitions, which also may lead to shifts in policy. PE and MS frameworks both take a systemic view on the policy process. PE describes the system-level dynamics of policy stability and change the negative and positive feedback processes. The negative feedback (for example the established framing of the issue) is a retarding force, blocking the potential for policy change, forcing the system back to the stable state. During the positive feedback the issue ‘catches fire’ and small alterations in circumstances of the issue lead to the rapidly aggregating change process, during which the attention of policymakers switches to the issue. For example, small developments in the problem may catch the attention of the public and media, which then results in small changes within the policy subsystem and even large-scale changes if the issue manages to reach the state level. The roots of such dynamics lie in the selectivity of attention of governance actors and their limited information processing capacity – although this assumption is embedded in PE, the framework is interested in aggregate attention spans, rather than focusing on each single individual. In the MS framework the focus remains on the aggregate, system level – the unit of analysis in this case is the process of choice. MS outlines processes of attention, search and selection at an aggregate level in order to explain how issues and policy solutions are chosen from the appropriate streams. Finally, the focus of the PN approach is on the structure of the policy process and collective decision-making – the ensemble of relationships between state and non-state actors that constitute the whole governance system. Due to this we argue that it generally takes a systemic perspective, looking at relationship structure rather than behavior of separate individuals. Most frameworks used in the analysis have a focus on system-level processes, rather than on the individual level, however individual characteristics of actors can serve as an important factor for explaining policy decisions in some of them. 3.2.2. Level of application The level of application also varies across the frameworks (Fig. 1). Given their origins in political science, most of them aim to theorize about the policy process at the state level, like the MS framework. However, some scale down, looking at policymaking at the regional and local levels. The local level is situated below the state level and is spatially and organizationally closest to the social-ecological interaction of interest – such as decision-making on municipal or county level (how much a researcher decides to ‘zoom in’ is context-dependent). Particularly, the IAD framework is better suited for conceptualizing local-level decision-making – for instance addressing the issues of cooperation between resource users in self-governance of the resource. Scaling up to the policymaking at the regional and state level is nevertheless possible with the IAD framework due to its conceptualization of nested action situations across levels of analysis. ACF specifically targets policy subsystems – groups of actors centered around a specific policy problem. Policy subsystems are limited by their functional (specific policy area) and territorial (geographical boundaries within which the policymaking takes place) dimensions. Though most often confined to domestic policy, a subsystem is not always situated within a state level, and can include constellations of actors and institutions participating in international political decisions over a certain policy issue. PE framework on the other hand is heavily focused on the domestic policy issues, particularly on the interactions between policymaking at policy subsystem level (communities of experts that operate ‘out of the political spotlight’) and the macropolitical level, high on the national agenda. Finally, PN approach is very flexible in the scope of analysis (able to describe actor networks

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Fig. 1. Level of application of policy process frameworks. Local level is situated below the state and can for example represent a regional or municipal government. State level can be represented by a national government, while policy subsystem is exemplified by a network of institutions, national and subnational such as the ones involved in Australian water policy.

within and across levels), depending on where the researcher aims to set the boundaries. 3.2.3. Model of the individual Viewing SES as a complex adaptive system, SES researchers are often interested in the way collective decisions emerge from interactions among multiple individual governance actors. Having clear assumptions about individual behavior is crucial in this case. All frameworks included in our study employ bounded rationality as a basis for their model of individual behavior. A boundedly rational actor has limited cognitive capacities, limited time and incomplete information about the environment (Gigerenzer et al., 2002). The reason for the similarity in this general assumption, according to Schlager (2007) is the nature of the policy process – contextualized by ‘complexity, uncertainty and weak selective pressure’, which provides a good basis for adopting the assumptions of bounded rationality. The frameworks, however, focus on different aspects of bounded rationality that are often crucial for understanding how the framework conceives of the policy process in general. For the ACF beliefs are at the centerpiece of its model of the individual. Beliefs affect the way individuals filter information and perceive the world. Individuals according to ACF tend to be biased in the way they treat information, ally with individuals with similar belief systems and overestimate the threat from their opponents (which further encourages coalition-forming). Boundedly rational individuals in IAD framework due to having incomplete information have to engage in trial-and-error learning – experimenting and adjusting their behavior according to outcomes they receive. IAD also assumes that individuals are limited in their information-processing capacity which constrains their strategic behavior. The limited information processing capabilities and attention of boundedly rational individuals is also emphasized by both PE and MS frameworks. The selectivity of attention of individuals is key to understanding the dominance of certain policy images or perspectives according to the PE framework. Individuals are able to pay attention only to certain characteristic of the situation at the same time, while additional information may ‘re-frame’ their perception of the problem. In MS framework limited attention and time of policymakers and ambiguity of the situation forces them to

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adopt a ‘satisficing’ strategy – picking the closest solution to the problem that fits a certain threshold. 3.2.4. Policy change For researchers looking at governance problems in SES it is often crucial to understand what drives policy change and how policy tends to get stuck in stagnation – failing to adapt and respond appropriately to the changes in social and ecological systems. Frameworks analyzed in this paper differ in their conceptualization of the policy change process. Some of the frameworks have a stronger focus on describing how sharp, major changes may occur, while others theorize about gradual change over time. PE, ACF and MS frameworks account for major large scale changes. IAD framework on the other hand conceives of change as a gradual, step-by-step process. Actors adjust their behavior incrementally through learning from repeated mistakes and interact with each other to produce policy as a result of collective choice. According to the PN approach, institutional structure, structure of networks and their capacity to mitigate or allow change will to a great extent determine the speed and magnitude of policy change. Frameworks also place emphasis on different mechanisms – endogenous and exogenous, through which the policy process may change its course or remain stable. ACF pays a lot of attention to the role of shocks that are external to the policy subsystem. External shocks focus attention of policymakers, move some problems higher on their agendas, redistribute political resources between coalitions or potentially even alter actors’ core policy beliefs. Some examples of such shocks are changes in socioeconomic conditions, elections or even disasters. ACF also argues about the effect of internal shocks (disasters that occur within the policy subsystem and are largely within the control of subsystem actors – like local environmental collapses resulted from policy failures) which also may lead to major policy change through shifts in political power between coalitions as well as by increased doubt in the core policy beliefs of the dominant coalition. While external and internal shocks may lead to dramatic, large-scale policy changes, slower internal processes like policy learning, according to ACF may bring minor policy change that occurs over time, as actors adjust their secondary beliefs that are not as deep and more prone to change. PE framework highlights agenda setting (how issue receives attention of policymakers) and issue definition (how the problem is framed in public discourse) as two key processes that determine policy process dynamics. Issues that are processed in the communities of specialists – policy subsystems – tend to be captured by negative feedback processes, during which the change is prevented by the dominating image, perception of the problem and solutions and may only occur incrementally. However, as the public attention becomes centered at the problem (reflected by, for example, media coverage) the issue may move up to the macropolitical agenda, changing its dominating image. This attracts new actors to the policy process and may eventually disrupt the status quo. In this case the change would be large-scale and accelerating due to the positive feedback processes small changes lead to increasingly larger change. Causes of this attention-shift and switch to macropolitical agenda could be internal or external, it could be caused by a large-scale event or shock or preceded by multiple small changes over long periods of time. In the MS framework the policy changes during the opening of the ‘window of opportunity’ – a situation during which all three streams – problem, politics and policy, are coupled. During the coupling conditions for policy change arise: the problem is recognized, solutions for it become available and political change within the politics stream (elections or national mood shifts) makes policy change possible. During the opening of the window,

problems, solutions and decision-makers are linked together by the policy entrepreneurs. The key factors that affect opening of the windows and therefore provide opportunity for policy change are major accidents or events that may trigger the opening of multiple policy windows (hurricanes, oil spills, epidemics, military conflicts, etc.) and changes in the political stream (a new coalition gains power or new administration is appointed). Policy change in the PN approach, according to the typology developed by Kriesi et al. (2006), depends on the structure of the policy network, particularly on the distribution of power among participants (concentrated or fragmented) and type of interactions between them (conflict, bargaining or cooperation). Concentration of power among several actors in the network tends to reduce the potential for change and make it more likely that the status quo is preserved, while power fragmentation provides more opportunities to challenge it. At the same time conflict relations under conditions of fragmented power within the network provide the highest potential for significant change in policy, while cooperative interaction tends to preserve status quo. Although this contribution is one of the potential explanations of policy change that can be developed within the PN approach, it is clear that network structure plays a key role in this process. To summarize the approach of the frameworks to policy change, it is possible to say that PE approach focuses on explaining change as well as stability through positive and negative feedback mechanisms; MS explains change, but is more interested in the agenda setting, how policy issues receive attention of policymakers; AC approaches change through the lens of belief and coalitional dynamics; IAD is not exactly focused on policy change and rather looks at the role of institutions for cooperation and even the interplay between multiple institutions; PN may explain change through network structure, however in order to do this it has to be coupled to theories of policy change. 4. Applying policy process frameworks to the governance of the Baltic Sea – a practical example In the following section we exemplify the use of policy process frameworks for analyzing a governance problem in the Baltic Sea SES – a case of unsustainable fishery policy which persisted after an internal environmental crisis – the Baltic cod collapse. Although in this example we go through all the analyzed frameworks in order to show the different questions they might answer, we do not want to imply that all frameworks must be considered each time before approaching the case. This case example illustrates differences between frameworks and should be helpful for framework selection, given a specific research question of interest. The Baltic Sea is a semi-enclosed brackish body of water bordered by 9 states, 8 of which are members of the EU. The ecosystem of the Baltic Sea is species-poor, where for majority of the Baltic Sea states cod represents one of the most important commercially fished species (Österblom et al., 2007). The ecosystem of the Baltic Sea is strongly influenced by the inflow of saline and oxygen-rich water from the North Sea through the Danish straight, as well as human influences – particularly fishing pressure and eutrophication caused by nutrient runoff from land. In the late 1970s favorable salinity and oxygen conditions resulted in a major increase of cod biomass. This in turn signified the start for a ‘race for the fish’ during which the fishing pressure on cod significantly increased and continued growing with more fishers coming to the Baltic from other regions and governments investing in their fishing fleets. The rising fishing pressure together with environmental drivers led to a collapse of cod population in the late 1980s (Österblom et al., 2007). The Baltic fisheries were managed internationally by the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission (IBSFC) until the

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mid-2000s when the majority of the Baltic Sea states joined the EU. After this the fishery management was mainly carried out as a part of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). During the period of cod boom the cod fishery was not limited by quotas. Quotas were only adopted after the collapse, although at much higher levels than the limits recommended by scientists. The adoption of unsustainable quotas continued in the later years, combined with a lack of attention to monitoring and fishers’ compliance and persistent state subsidies to the fisheries which were already struggling with overcapacity. Albeit being governed mostly by developed states, at least three of which could be considered environmental pioneers (Germany, Sweden and Denmark), with a complex multi-level governance system and a significant amount of NGOs operating at the Baltic as well as the EU level, the Baltic cod fishery governance system had difficulties in adopting sustainable policies, anticipating and adapting to environmental change, reducing conflict and securing trust of resource users (Burns and Stöhr, 2011; Linke and Jentoft, 2013; ORCA-EU, 2007; Stöhr and Chabay, 2010; Suuronen et al., 2010). This history of fishery governance in the Baltic Sea raises the question of why fishery policy there was unresponsive to ecological change such as the cod collapse and how its governance system could be transformed to become more adaptive. In Table 3 we provide some examples of more focused questions that illustrate how the five frameworks analyzed in this study may approach this issue from different perspectives. The frameworks should provide a ‘point of view’ and allow us to focus on specific variables or concepts within the case – and link them further with the help of more specific theories. As described in the overview of the frameworks, each of them pays attention to different aspects of the policy process (actor beliefs, relationships between them, institutional setting, etc.) that may explain the lack of policy response and the barriers for transformation and therefore helps to explore different sides of this complex issue. As possible to see from the table above, each of the frameworks provides the opportunity to ‘zoom in’ on a specific concept or several concepts within the case. For example, ACF and PN suggest directing attention to the variety of actors and groups of actors in

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the policy process, the interactions between them. ACF gives additional insight into the role of beliefs that hold coalitions of actors together and filter the information they perceive and the ability of coalitions to engage in policy-oriented learning. These aspects of the problem could be important for a researcher looking at the relationship between policy and ecosystem change in the Baltic fisheries during the last decades – studying the policy process at the EU level.PE at the same time is not as appropriate for looking at policy process as a result of interactions between actors or groups of actors. Instead it draws our attention to system-level processes of incrementalism and punctuated change. In case our interest lies in international governance of the Baltic fisheries, this framework may not be the perfect fit. It is better designed to describe the policy process on a state level, while being specifically tailored to the US institutions (however, with some assumptions relaxed it has been successfully applied even for looking at EU policymaking – see Princen, 2010). Nevertheless, if we direct our attention to the period of cod collapse in the late 1980s – early 1990s, the perspective offered by the framework could be especially useful to explain the slow, incremental dynamics of the fishery policy that persisted despite ecological change. In case policy changes that followed in late 1990s and early 2000s can be framed as ‘sharp punctuations’, PE could also be applied to explain them (e.g. through change in dominating policy images). It is important to note, however, that we discuss the ‘fit’ of the frameworks based on their structural features. While some of them may have been designed to describe the policy process in a different institutional setting or focused on a different type of change than observed in the case, applying each of them (perhaps, with some assumptions relaxed) may still be useful for getting closer to understanding the complexity of SES governance. 5. Discussion Interactions between people and ecosystems in complex socialecological systems are influenced by policies, which rarely are a simple linear response to an issue at stake with a goal to provide the most efficient solution. Rather, policymaking by itself is a

Table 3 Example of applying the frameworks to the Baltic Sea case. Framework

Broad questions for analysis

Advocacy Coalition (AC)

 How do the belief systems of actors in the Baltic Sea fishery governance affect the way they perceive ecological, social and economic information?  Does policy-oriented learning occur across coalitions of governance actors and how is it affected by established belief systems?  How do coalitions within the Baltic Sea fishery governance subsystem transform in response to internal events within the fishery as well as external shocks (changes in public opinion, higher level institutional change, etc.)?

Punctuated Equilibrium (PE)

 How do interactions between fishery policy venues at different levels (regional, national, international/EU) affect the adaptivity of policy to social and ecological change?  Can slow, incremental dynamics within the Baltic fishery policy be explained by dominant policy images?  What role did large-scale exogenous changes (political, social or ecological) play in the Baltic fishery policy?  Have there been any sharp (punctuated) policy changes and what is their relation to social-ecological change in the Baltic fishery?

Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD)

 How do structural characteristics of action situations and variables external to the action situation (such as attributes of the biophysical world or higher tier rules: national EU) affect interactions between actors in Baltic Sea fishery governance?  What institutional conditions are required for a transformation of Baltic Sea fishery governance system towards a more adaptive state?

Multiple Streams (MS)

 Which individual and aggregate actors can be identified as policy entrepreneurs within Baltic Sea fishery policy?  How have policy entrepreneurs affected adaptivity of the fishery policy to social and ecological change?  Can we identify windows of opportunity for transition within the fishery policy? How were they exploited by policy entrepreneurs?

Policy Networks (PN)

 How does the structure of relationships among Baltic fishery governance actors and distribution of power and resources among them affect adaptivity of the fishery governance system to social and ecological change?  How does the structure of the Baltic Sea fishery policy network affect information flows (spreading of social and ecological information across the governance network)? Can we identify actors that play a key role in this process?  How can the fishery policy community structure be altered to allow for transition to a more adaptive configuration?

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complex undertaking that involves a variety of actors (public and private) that interact, make decisions, perceive issues and solutions differently and have biased information and interpretations about complex and ambiguous problems. As it has been emphasized by multiple SES scholars (Chaffin et al., 2014; Duit, 2015; Robards et al., 2011) the political dimension of socialecological systems governance needs to receive more attention. Recent research is moving in this direction by taking steps towards a better conceptualization of political decision-making within SES and integration of theoretical frameworks from policy science (e.g. Huitema and Meijerink, 2010; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2010; Anderies and Janssen, 2013 and others). However, the existing theoretical discourse in policy science is still yet to be considered to a full extent. We believe that our systematic analysis of key frameworks of the policy process will contribute to this endeavor by helping SES researchers to navigate the vast ocean of policy theory. By highlighting distinguishing features of each framework and discussing their application within the context of SES research it encourages the use of policy process frameworks as a tool to start engaging with governance complexity. With this discussion we aim to advance understanding of the role of political processes in the co-evolutionary dynamics of social-ecological systems and help create a basis for the integrative analysis of SESs embedded in their political context. While the frameworks themselves do not explicitly address the policy process within a SES context, their different conceptualizations of policy change and mechanisms behind it provide opportunities to link other SES elements or processes to policy change. Those elements or processes may affect policy both directly and indirectly, e.g. through triggering public opinion shifts, causing unexpected policy failures, providing new scientific and technical knowledge or changing actors’ resources. Social-ecological (SE) change, for instance, may play an important role as the input or setting of policy processes and thus may be part of a mechanism explaining policy change according to frameworks that focus on how policy change comes about (e.g. SE change may play a role of disturbance that would push the system towards punctuated change, according to PE framework). Frameworks that emphasize learning, such as AC or IAD, may also be suitable for looking at how policies are implemented in specific SES context and hence how social-ecological change affects policy outcomes through learning. The AC framework for example focuses attention on the role of external crises caused by SE change, or the flow of information from the SES which is perceived by actors differently, due to their own belief systems. For MS framework SE change could be an important part of the ‘problem’ (through issues that need to be addressed) and ‘politics’ (indirectly, through national mood) streams. Finally, PN perspective allows us to see how the actors participating in the policy process are connected to SES and explore the problem of fit or the extent to which existing policy networks are able to adapt to SE change. Thus the link between SES and policy can occur in many indirect and direct ways – and frameworks (together with in-depth knowledge of the case in question) can be used to generate a variety of assumptions on how that link may occur and what it means for coupled SES-policy dynamics. Selecting (as a result of informed choice) and applying policy process frameworks to understand political decision-making in the context of adaptation and transformation in social-ecological systems is a first step in unravelling the policy process within a SES and understanding its implications for SES governance. As shown in the case example as well as in the analysis section of the paper, the frameworks not only provide different explanation of what may drive policy change (from the role of individual actors to learning processes external disturbance and institutional structure of the governance system), but also conceive of change differently.

In general, the majority of questions in the field of SES governance relate to its ability to change both internal processes and key elements in response to social or ecological change or in anticipation of such change (Pahl-Wostl, 2009). The process of framework selection and application will help identify in a comprehensive way variables and processes or actors and actions that may explain adaptation to social-ecological surprise and change or lack thereof. Furthermore this process will point towards relevant theories that may contribute to an analysis of the socialecological processes of interest. Taking into account governance complexity is important not only for studying difficulties and lags in adapting policy to social and ecological change but also for moving forward the theory on governance as part of coupled SES. The frameworks analyzed in this paper represent different lenses through which the political aspect of SES governance can be explored. As shown by the practical example of the Baltic Sea fishery policy in this paper, each policy process framework asks different questions to understand why policy adapts to social and ecological change or remains in stasis and suggests different explanations for these phenomena. Individually, each of the five ‘contributes important pieces to the policy puzzle’ (Schlager and Blomquist, 1996; p. 665). We argue that framework selection is often an iterative process: by becoming more familiar with the case and the specific context in which SES governance takes place, it becomes easier to choose the framework that will address the most relevant processes. Nevertheless, as frameworks represent such diverse perspectives on the policy process, applying them interchangeably or in combination may yield additional insight. When the framework is selected and applied, it should serve as foundation for other theoretical assumptions, help identify key concepts and variables and lead to specific theories which will be able to give a more detailed picture of the ‘black box’ of politics and governance in SES. Since the goal of SES researchers is not testing and developing policy theory but understanding the interdependencies between social and ecological change and consequences for human wellbeing and ecological integrity, the value of the frameworks for researchers that study governance in SES lies in providing guidance with respect to key concepts and theories to consider when approaching an empirical puzzle. Hence when selecting which framework to apply to a particular case, it is crucial to understand which aspects of the policy process it highlights and allows to be studied more in-depth. Nevertheless, it is useful to consider the ‘fit’ of the framework in order to make sure that it is able to provide a good understanding of the case(s) and is suitable for answering the research questions of interest. Selection of a particular framework is not aimed at ignoring the complexity of the political process. Quite the opposite: by first considering multiple frameworks, understanding their key aspects and identifying which ones are most relevant for a specific case; one becomes aware and is given a tool to deal with this complexity. Then, through selecting a framework or a combination of frameworks – simply zoom in on its most relevant segment. Our framework overview thus allows for a better informed simplification of a complex problem to the degree necessary for a given analysis. This may imply using several frameworks simultaneously as they address complementary aspects of the complexity that is considered relevant for a given question, such as combining the ACF and the IAD which account for belief-based coalitions and the action situations in which they play out, respectively. The possibility and ways to combine different frameworks to address incremental policy change in adaptive governance or large-scale transformations of governance systems remains, however, subject for further research. Using the frameworks in combination has been discussed in policy science (Cairney and Heikkila, 2014) although minding,

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which of their features may or may not be compatible. Using frameworks in synthesis or choosing to go with a single framework could also result in a tradeoff between having a broad and integrative conceptualization of the policy process and having a relatively precise and specific set of variables or concepts to focus on. As mentioned before, the main aim behind using these frameworks in SES research is not to advance policy theory, but rather to assist in conceptualizing and analyzing the political dimension of SES and its role for adaptive governance and transformation. Therefore the appeal of having a broad, inclusive overview of the policy process may be less significant than having a relatively clear set of concepts to direct attention to. Nevertheless, we hope that the possibilities as well as potential issues of combining and using multiple policy process frameworks for looking at SES governance will be addressed more extensively in further research. Of course capturing all the intricacies of the policy process in all the possible settings will be an impossible task for any framework or even a combination of frameworks. However careful selection of the framework, applying several frameworks to look at the case from different perspectives and combining insights can move us closer to tackling governance complexity. We hope that the analysis provided in this paper will make such selection process easier and encourage the use (or at least consideration) of a broad range of theoretical frameworks by researchers aiming to dig deeper into the political context of SES governance. Acknowledgements We thank Andreas Duit, Carl Folke and Philipp Pechmann for helpful comments on the manuscript. The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/ 2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement 283950 SES-LINK. References Österblom, H., Hansson, S., Larsson, U., Hjerne, O., Wulff, F., Elmgren, R., Folke, C., 2007. Human-induced Trophic Cascades and Ecological Regime Shifts in the Baltic Sea. Ecosystems 10, 877–889. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10021-0079069-0. Adam, S., Kriesi, H., 2007. The network approach. Theories of the Policy Process. Westview Press. Anderies, J.M., Janssen, M.A., 2013. Robustness of social-Ecological systems: implications for public policy. Policy Stud. J. 41, 513–536. doi:http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1111/psj.12027. Anderies, J.M., Folke, C., Walker, B., Ostrom, E., 2013. Aligning key concepts for global change policy: robustness, resilience, and sustainability. Ecol. Soc. 18, 8. Arnold, G., Fleischman, F.D., 2013. The influence of organizations and institutions on wetland policy stability: the Rapanos case. Policy Stud. J. 41, 343–364. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/psj.12020. Atkinson, M.M., Coleman, W.D., 1989. Strong states and weak states: sectoral policy networks in advanced capitalist economies. Br. J. Polit. Sci. 19, 47–67. doi:http:// dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0007123400005317. Axelrod, M., 2011. Climate change and global fisheries management: linking issues to protect ecosystems or to save political interests? Glob. Environ. Polit. 11, 64– 84. Börzel, T.A., 1998. Organizing babylon—on the different conceptions of policy networks. Public Adm. 76, 253–273. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/14679299.00100. Börzel, T., 2002. What’s So Special About Policy Networks? An Exploration of the Concept and Its Usefulness in Studying European Governance (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 302706). Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY. Babon, A., McIntyre, D., Gowae, G.Y., Gallemore, C., Carmenta, R., Di Gregorio, M., Brockhaus, M., 2014. Advocacy coalitions REDD+, and forest governance in Papua New Guinea: how likely is transformational change? Ecol. Soc. 19 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06486-190316. Baumgartner, F.R., Jones, B.D., 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. University of Chicago Press. Baumgartner, F.R., Breunig, C., Green-Pedersen, C., Jones, B.D., Mortensen, P.B., Nuytemans, M., Walgrave, S., 2009. Punctuated equilibrium in comparative perspective. Am. J. Polit. Sci. 53, 603–620. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.15405907.2009.00389.x.

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