Governing complexity: Integrating science, governance, and law to manage accelerating change in the globalized commons

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Barbara Cosens, University of Idaho, Moscow; JB Ruhl, Vanderbilt University, Nashville; Niko Soininen, University of Eastern Finland; Lance Gunderson, Emory University; Antti Belinskij, University of Eastern Finland; Thorsten Blenckner, Stockholm University; Alejandro E Camacho, University of California, Irvine; Brian C Chaffin, University of Montana, Missoula; Robin Kundis Craig, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Holly Doremus, University of California, Berkeley; Robert Glicksman, George Washington University, Washington; Anna-Stiina Heiskanen, Finnish Environment Institute; Rhett Larson, Arizona State University, Tempe; Jukka Simila, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi
• Language: English
• Date: 2021-09-07
• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2021. Published under the PNAS license.
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2102798118
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• Volume: 118
• Issue: 36
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was developed under the Adaptive Water Governance (AWG) Project, funded by the US National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding from National Science Foundation (NSF) Award DBI-1052875, and by AWG 2.0 with support from SESYNC; by the research project “Adaptive Capacity for Sustainable Blue Growth” (BlueAdapt) funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland (Decisions 312652 and 312747); and by NSF/National Institute of Food and Agriculture INFEWS T1, 2016–2020, Increasing Regional to Global-Scale Resilience in Food–Energy–Water Systems through Coordinated Management, Technology, and Institutions (Award 1639458).
• Keywords: social–ecological–technological systems; complex systems; law and science; governance
• Research Categories: Law

Abstract

The speed and uncertainty of environmental change in the Anthropocene challenge the capacity of coevolving social–ecological–technological systems (SETs) to adapt or transform to these changes. Formal government and legal structures further constrain the adaptive capacity of our SETs. However, new, self-organized forms of adaptive governance are emerging at multiple scales in natural resource-based SETs. Adaptive governance involves the private and public sectors as well as formal and informal institutions, self-organized to fill governance gaps in the traditional roles of states. While new governance forms are emerging, they are not yet doing so rapidly enough to match the pace of environmental change. Furthermore, they do not yet possess the legitimacy or capacity needed to address disparities between the winners and losers from change. These emergent forms of adaptive governance appear to be particularly effective in managing complexity. We explore governance and SETs as coevolving complex systems, focusing on legal systems to understand the potential pathways and obstacles to equitable adaptation. We explore how governments may facilitate the emergence of adaptive governance and promote legitimacy in both the process of governance despite the involvement of nonstate actors, and its adherence to democratic values of equity and justice. To manage the contextual nature of the results of change in complex systems, we propose the establishment of long-term study initiatives for the coproduction of knowledge, to accelerate learning and synergize interactions between science and governance and to foster public science and epistemic communities dedicated to navigating transitions to more just, sustainable, and resilient futures.