Oliver Fritsch

Water resources are under increasing threat globally from anthropogenic activities, thereby adding a fifth perspective to our conceptualizations relating to the politicized nature of water. This chapter introduces this Handbook by offering a definition of water and water governance and a brief history of water governance. It also links water governance to the sustainable development discourse and to integrated water resources management, the globally leading paradigm in the field of water. The chapter then provides an overview of the contributions to this Handbook.

The governance and management of water resources has long been almost exclusively restricted to elected policy makers and public officials. In the last four decades this hierarchical approach to governing water has increasingly become subject to criticism. Academics from various disciplines as well as industry and civil society representatives suggest that water governance and management might be improved considerably by giving non-state actors a voice in policy design, implementation and enforcement. Other authors question the legitimacy of representative democracy altogether and put forward notions of collaborative, deliberative or participatory democracy. This chapter provides an overview of public participation in water policy and governance. It offers a conceptual discussion, followed by an analysis of its applications at the international level and in the European Union. The chapter then reviews the claims that have been made in relation to participatory water governance and examines the empirical evidence for its effectiveness.

This chapter examines the sustainable governance of water resources, its historical development, underlying principles and policy objectives. It starts out by analysing the suite of policy instruments typically applied in water policy, including regulatory, economic and behavioural approaches. With a particular focus on the hydrological cycle, river basin management, and public participation, it then studies the concept of policy integration and integrated water resources management (IWRM) as the leading discourse here. Initially restricted to environmental sustainability, global water policy goals gradually expanded to include social and economic considerations, leading to the three E's: environmental sustainability, efficient water use and equal access. The chapter introduces into key international agreements to reflect this new agenda, their implementation on the ground and how the three E's reinforce the sustainability agenda or contradict each other. Finally, the partnership approach will be discussed, designed to respond to these governance challenges and implementation deficits.

During the last 20 years political scientists, economists and lawyers have analysed impact assessments (IAs) from diverse methodological perspectives. These have included single case studies, within-case comparisons, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), large-N statistical approaches and narrative analysis. However, scorecards are the most popular approach, both as an instrument in its own right as well as a step towards further qualitative and quantitative analyses. Scholars employ scorecards to examine the contents of IA documents, and they do so in particular if they study medium to large numbers of documents. The chapter takes a closer look at the application of scorecard approaches in policy and academia. In doing so, the authors’ ambition is threefold. First, they review scorecard approaches in regulatory oversight. To this end, they examine the usage of scorecards in countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Sweden and New Zealand. Second, they discuss scorecard approaches in the academic literature, thereby providing a most up-to-date review of applications in political science, public administration, economics and legal studies. Third, they attend to methodological challenges. The chapter argues that the potential of scorecards has not yet been fully exploited, and suggests various pathways to broaden their application and impact.

This chapter, which critically assesses the potential of participatory and reflexive governance in realizing sustainability goals, discusses the condition along with favorable reflexive and participatory mechanisms needed to realize local knowledge, collective learning, and environmental goals. It presents the findings of a meta-analysis of many studies on the collective environmental decision-making processes, focusing on examples of public participation initiated to agree on relevant public decisions. The samples required for the meta-analysis are taken from a database of 200 case studies of collaborative environmental management in Western countries. The sample cases are selected according to the comprehensiveness of available information derived from North America, demonstrating the significance of participatory governance in the United States and Canada.

Partizipation und Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung haben eine lange Tradition im Bereich der Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitspolitik. Dabei haben sich die Motive zur Durchführung partizipativer im Unterschied zu klassisch hoheitlichen Entscheidungsverfahren im Laufe der Jahrzehnte gewandelt. Noch in den 1960er und 70er Jahren standen emanzipatorische und legitimatorische Motive im Mittelpunkt, so die Möglichkeit zur Mitbestimmung, die Öffnung von Entscheidungsprozessen und die Demokratisierung der Gesellschaft (von Alemann 1975). Diese spielen in der jüngeren politikwissenschaftlichen Partizipationsdebatte nach wie vor eine wichtige Rolle (Renn et al. 1995; Feindt 2001; Arbter et al. 2005)…

Bezug nehmend auf eine Analyse politischer Dokumente zeigen die Verfasser, dass die Partizipation zu einem integralen Element der offiziellen Rhetorik von EU-Institutionen geworden ist, die sie 'präventiv' den Vorwürfen bezüglich des Demokratiedefizits entgegensetzen. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Steigerung der Output-Legitimität oder der politischen Effektivität lediglich durch Erhöhung der Input-Legitimität (Inklusion, Verfahrenslegitimität) erreicht werden kann. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass Partizipation die Legitimität und Effektivität der Governance steigert. Die Autoren analysieren einzelne Mechanismen, durch die eine positive Wirkung der Partizipation auf die Qualität der Entscheidungen und deren Implementierung gewährleistet werden kann. Abschließend werden empirische Forschungsergebnisse herangezogen, mit deren Hilfe die Bedeutung von Partizipation im Rahmen ökologiebezogener Entscheidungsprozesse verdeutlicht wird.

Die besondere Konjunktur des Themas Zivilgesellschaft, so wurde jüngst vermutet, kann als Antwort „von oben“ auf die fortwährenden staatlichen Steuerungsdefizite gesehen werden (Gosewinkel et al. 2004). So erhofft man sich von der Einbindung zivilgesellschaftlicher Akteure in Governance-Prozesse effektivere und effizientere Politiken (Schuppert 2004; Weidner 2004). Diese Entwicklung reflektiert eine qualitative Veränderung auch des Partizipationsdiskurses: Noch in den 1960er und 70er Jahren standen in der bundesdeutschen Debatte emanzipatorische und legitimatorische Motive wie die Möglichkeit zur Mitbestimmung, die Öffnung von Entscheidungsprozessen und die Demokratisierung der Gesellschaft im Mittelpunkt (von Alemann 1975). Diese spielen in der jüngeren politikwissenschaftlichen Partizipationsdebatte nach wie vor eine wichtige Rolle (Renn et al. 1995; Feindt 2001; Fisahn 2002). Jedoch tritt demgegenüber vor allem im Kontext der jüngsten europarechtlichen Verankerung von Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung der instrumentelle Wert von Partizipation in den Vordergrund.