NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in Australia

Dolan Dana A, Herndon VA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds Dana Dolan of George Mason University to conduct an interdisciplinary research project in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences area during the summer of 2013 at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, ACT. The project title is "Governance for Climate Change Adaptation in Complex, Crossboundary, Social-Ecological Systems." The host scientist is Professor Stephen R. Dovers, Director of ANU's Fenner School of Environment and Society. The goal of this study is to understand the evolution of institutional arrangements for long-term governance, in theory and in practice. Climate change is a scientifically and socially complex challenge marked by irreducible uncertainty, very long feedback cycles and significant variation at the local scale. Adaptation will require coordination and collaboration across multiple institutional boundaries and across multiple sectors. These requirements present novel challenges to traditional, hierarchical approaches to governing as well as to decentralized market approaches; networked governance theories may help explain emerging decision-making structures. This study responds to calls from the climate change research community for empirical research that analyzes place-based adaptation and that extends existing work in the natural sciences to incorporate social sciences through a qualitative case study of the public policy networks in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) region in southeast Australia, an ecologically rich, politically fragmented, and institutionally diverse Social-Ecological System (SES). Furthermore, this research may provide insights for the literature on institutional change, broadly defined. Traditional theories such as punctuated equilibrium have provided a wealth of insight into how institutional change occurs-or is resisted-in complex public policy areas: governance through reaction to crises. However, the long-term crisis of climate change threatens to produce events ("punctuations") with unacceptable consequences in terms of human suffering. Developing alternative models of institutional change that support proactive approaches to long-term governance issues may help reduce these negative consequences. Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Results of this study will be documented in a research report suitable for peer-reviewed publication. Findings will also be presented at national conferences and local seminars or workshops in both Australia and the United States with the aim of furthering cross-national policy learning and collaborative scholarship.