This document discusses bridging organizations and adaptive governance. It begins by outlining the topics to be covered, including the context of social-ecological systems for bridging organizations. It then discusses how bridging organizations can help address the degradation of ecosystem services by connecting different groups. However, there are also limitations to collaboration within bridging organizations and adaptive governance approaches. The document advocates for viewing social and ecological systems as interdependent and embracing complexity and cross-scale interactions when addressing sustainability challenges.

1. Bridging organisations
Lecture for Module 10, Adaptive Governance
2015-03-15
Thomas Hahn
thomas.hahn@su.se
1

2. Outline
1. “Repetition” – Economics, paradigms, WEF
2. Green Economy = adapting the economic
system to sustainability
3. SES – the context of bridging organisations
4. Individuals or organisations?
5. Limitations of Adaptive Governance and
collaboration within bridging organisations
6. Do we study systems or agents with
intentions?
7. Resilience and political ecology

3. Degradation of ecosystem services often
causes significant harm to human well-being
 “The total economic value
associated with managing
ecosystems more sustainably is
often higher than the value
associated with conversion”
(Opportunity cost)
 “Conversion may still occur
because private economic benefits
are often greater for the converted
system” (external costs)
 “Governments should first stop
subsidies to such conversions,
then subsidize production of
ecosystem services” (incentives)
 (How are the values in the table estimated?)
Economics is not equal to money!

4. The Biosphere
The Economic
System
The Social System
air
soil
minerals
plants animals micro-organisms
biological diversity
water
nutrients
biogeochemical
cycles
ecosystem functioning
thresholds
decomposition
EcolEcon: Human wellbeing
depend on the Biosphere
regardless whether we
understand it or not.
Neoclass.EnvEcon:
The value of nature
depends on human
preferences.

5. Neoclassical economics versus Democracy
• Example (Survey 1997): Swedish citizens think it
should not be allowed
– to build mosques in Sweden?
– to have homosexual teachers at primary
school?
• These large minority opinions are contrary
to the Swedish constitution. Conclusion:
many people have “wrong” preferences, i.e.
their preferences should not be given moral
weight in formulation of policy goals.
46%
39 %

6. Million-dollar questions:
• Should we adapt the Swedish constitution to accommodate
these values that violate human rights?
• Sustainable development may not be supported by citizens
(e.g. rising taxes on fossil fuel). Could sustainability or the
integrity of ecosystems be framed as human rights-issues
(constitutional issues), e.g. the right to breathe fresh air, the
right to clean ground and surface water? Implications on
property rights?
• If value systems are hierarchical (human rights, democracy,
sustainability are “overarching ideologies”), then these
“overarching ideologies” could be used to direct, frame, and
constrain policy options as well as choices by consumers!
Just like our constitution frames legislation.

7. “Nobel” Prizes in Economics
1. Kenneth Arrow, 1972 (social choice, ecol-econ)
2. Gunnar Myrdal, 1974 (inst econ, questioned “value-
free”)
3. Herbert Simon, 1978 (bounded rationality)
4. James Tobin, 1981 (“Tobin tax”)
5. Douglass North, 1993 (institutional economics)
6. Amartya Sen, 1998 (re-define efficiency, ethics, fixed
preferences, narrow self-interest)
7. Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 (Development, IMF critic)
8. Daniel Kahneman, 2002 (testing theory in experiments)
9. Elinor Ostrom, 2009 (Challenged “the tragedy of the
commons” and its assumption of narrow self-interest)

8. Paradigm critique in economics
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in
Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009 was awarded Elinor
Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance,
especially the commons“
• Ostrom assumed rational choice but rejected the
(Lakatos) “protective belt” assumption of narrow self-
interest:
• Investments in social capital and cooperation can be
rational. Hence, people may overcome the “tragedy of
open access” (Nash equilibrium)

9. Paradigm critique in economics
Core:
Utility maximization
Self-interest
Rational choice
Spontaneous order
Equilibrium
Protective belt assumptions:
Narrow self-interest
Sometimes broad
self-interest
Full rationality
Bounded rationality
Non-cooperation
Sometimes cooperation
Economic man
Political-economic man
Full information
Information economics
Only utilitarian
ethics
Rights-based
approaches
Objective market prices
Prices depend on
institutions Conclusion: The neoclassical core has been
re-defined when important assumptions have
been questioned by economists
Natural capital can be
substituted for
Limited substitutability
Linear change
Tipping points
Exponential growth is good
Growth can be uneconomic
Fixed preferences
Preferences change in
a decision context

10. A green economy means living within the “planetary
boundaries” and meeting global human needs
• Kate Raworth at Oxfam has
added a social dimension
consisting of minimum
requirements above critical
human deprivations – such
as hunger, illiteracy, poverty
and voicelessness.
• Together these boundaries
form a safe and just space
for humanity – and economic
activity
CAN WE LIVE WITHIN THE
DOUGHNUT?
Oxfam Discussion Papers 2012

11. 8 worst Global Risks
Impact
Likelihood
Based on a
survey of over
1,000 experts
from industry,
government,
academia and
civil society
http://www.weforum.org/
reports/global-risks-2013-
eighth-edition

12. 5 of the 8 worst Global Risks are ecosystem-based
1. Water supply crises
2. Rising greenhouse gas emissions
3. Failure of climate change adaptation
4. Extreme volatility in energy and
agriculture prices
5. Food shortage crises
Non-ecosystem-based risks:
1. Chronic fiscal imbalances
2. Major systemic financial failure
3. Severe income disparity
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2013-eighth-edition

13. = beginning of the biosphere era?
2010 = end of the neoliberal era?

14. The Sustainable Development discourse is focusing
more on Economics: TEEB 2009 and GE 2011

15. Green Economy means radical changes in
the economic systems – based on
mainstream economic theory
 Feed-in tarriffs on solar and
wind
 Green fiscal (tax) reform
 Regulating the market
 Technology transfer, etc
 Results in clean GDP growth
 Presented as more efficient
(economically + ecologically)
than the ”Brown” Economy but
what about equity?

16. http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5296

17. Green Economy – some worries from South
1. Land grabbing is NOT a part of a GE but is justified as
such by the “land grabbers”
2. Other ecosystem services may also be commercialised
3. North may impose ”carbon tariffs” or ”border adjustment
taxes” on products imported from developing countries
with little emission control (Sarkozy 2007, Waxman-
Markey bill in the USA 2009).
- If so, the net revenue should be transferred to the
government which, according to North, should have
imposed the tax in the first place (”return tariff”)
4. National perspective: Fiscal reforms within a developing
country may have regressive effects on income distribution

18.  The discussion on fuel
subsidies is an important
national issue.
 Here’s an example from
Ghana
 Logical but assumes…?
a benevolent government!

19. Fiscal reforms are necessary but…
 BBC Africa 2012-01-02: “Ordinary
Nigerians and trade unionists have
condemned the government for
withdrawing a fuel price subsidy which
has led petrol prices to more than
double in many areas.”
 Political resistance against reducing
fossil fuel subsidies is often based on
mistrust (a corrupt government).
 Is it possible, or even desirable, to
calculate a global optimal carbon tax?
 No. There is no “optimal carbon tax”.
Each country must find a level that
promotes transformation!

20. Green Economy for OECD
 Reduce working hours and
employ more in low-
productivity personal services
like health care (Tim Jackson
& Peter Victor 2011)
 Labour has been the most expensive factor for production,
hence most innovation has been about saving labour
 Labour must become relatively “cheaper” = mindshift and
tax reform. Focus on “green jobs”
 Tax reform in health care, especially for old people: reduce
i) working hours for low-paid workers, ii) unemployment, and
iii) ecological footprint = win-win-win

21. Conclusions on Green Economy
 Green Economy (UNEP) is based on good
environmental economics thinking and policy, to
enhance environmental and economic efficiency.
Allows for GDP growth in the South (“clean growth”)
 However, many developing countries fear that GDP
growth is compromised by environmental restrictions
decided by OECD countries.
 All countries have common but differentiated
responsibilities and capacities to stop climate change.
 Anthropocene requires a new global stewardship
based on solidarity, not land grabbing
 Economic theory also needs to be challenged (include
equity, skip GDP growth as a goal in OECD countries,
and focus on resource productivity)

22. A Social-Ecological System (Hahn et al. 2006 HumEcol)
Social norms
and rules
Management:
actors, organizations
Ecosystem processes +
services
Know-
ledge
systems
External
drivers,
change
and
surprise
The capacity to generate valuable ecosystem services depends on ecosystem
processes as well as the organizational and institutional capacity to
govern people, manage ecosystems and handling surprises.
Capacity for
dealing with
governmental
policies,
social
unrest,
global
market
demands,
climate
change
etc.
Flexible
institutions,
adaptive
governance
Multilevel governance,
legal and financial
support
Adaptive
management
Knowledge
generation
Adaptive management

23. Social-ecological systems (SES)
Three core features:
1. society and nature represent truly interdependent social-
ecological systems (SES);
2. social-ecological systems are complex adaptive systems;
3. cross scale and dynamic interactions represent new
challenges for governance and management in relation to
interdependent SES and ecosystem services.
These three core features provide a broad research direction,
and will continue to serve as a significant attractor that allows
for emergence of diverse approaches from different
disciplines within a common framing. The content and
direction of the framing is a central identity of the SRC that
distinguishes SRC research from multidisciplinary
collaborations in sustainability science.
(Stockholm Resilience Centre, Action Plan 2010-2013)

24. Search on Scopus for ”adaptive governance”
EXPORT DATE:05 Mar 2015. Sorted by Citations
1. Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P., Norberg, J. Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems (2005) Annual
Review of Environment and Resources, 30, pp. 441-473. Cited 996 times.
2. Folke, C. Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses (2006) Global
Environmental Change, 16 (3), pp. 253-267. Cited 939 times.
3. Walker, B., Holling, C.S., Carpenter, S.R., Kinzig, A. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social-
ecological systems (2004) Ecology and Society, 9 (2), art. no. 5, 9 p. Cited 844 times.
4. Olsson, P., Gunderson, L.H., Carpenter, S.R., Ryan, P., Lebel, L., Folke, C., Holling, C.S. Shooting the rapids:
Navigating transitions to adaptive governance of social-ecological systems (2006) Ecology and Society,
11 (1), art. no. 18, . Cited 299 times.
5. Pahl-Wostl, C. A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes
in resource governance regimes. (2009) Global Environmental Change, 19 (3), pp. 354-365. Cited 235
times.
6. Armitage, D., Marschke, M., Plummer, R. Adaptive co-management and the paradox of learning. (2008)
Global Environmental Change, 18 (1), pp. 86-98. Cited 205 times.
7. Olsson, P., Folke, C., Hahn, T. Social-ecological transformation for ecosystem management: The
development of adaptive co-management of a wetland landscape in southern Sweden. (2004) Ecology
and Society, 9 (4). Cited 185 times.

25. Search on Scopus for ”bridging organizations”
EXPORT DATE:05 Mar 2015. Sorted by Citations
1. Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P., Norberg, J. Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems (2005) Annual Review of
Environment and Resources, 30, pp. 441-473. Cited 996 times.
2. Berkes, F. Evolution of co-management: Role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations and social learning (2009)
Journal of Environmental Management, 90 (5), pp. 1692-1702. Cited 353 times.
3. Ketchen Jr., D.J., Hult, G.T.M. Bridging organization theory and supply chain management: The case of best value supply
chains (2007) Journal of Operations Management, 25 (2), pp. 573-580. Cited 141 times.
4. Olsson, P., Folke, C., Galaz, V., Hahn, T., Schultz, L. Enhancing the fit through adaptive co-management: Creating and
maintaining bridging functions for matching scales in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve, Sweden (2007)
Ecology and Society, 12 (1), art. no. 28, . Cited 119 times.
5. Hahn, T., Olsson, P., Folke, C., Johansson, K. Trust-building, knowledge generation and organizational innovations: The role
of a bridging organization for adaptive comanagement of a wetland landscape around Kristianstad, Sweden (2006)
Human Ecology, 34 (4), pp. 573-592. Cited 112 times.
6. Schultz, L., Folke, C., Olsson, P. Enhancing ecosystem management through social-ecological inventories: Lessons from
Kristianstads Vattenrike, Sweden (2007) Environmental Conservation, 34 (2), pp. 140-152. Cited 44 times.
---
13. Crona, B.I., Parker, J.N. Learning in support of governance: Theories, methods, and a framework to assess how bridging
organizations contribute to adaptive resource governance (2012) Ecology and Society, 17 (1), . Cited 20 times.
15. Hahn, T. Self-organized governance networks for ecosystem management: Who is accountable?
(2011) Ecology and Society, 16 (2), . Cited 15 times.

26. The context of bridging organisations
• Adaptive governance of coupled social and ecological systems is
about connecting actors and organisations at multiple organizational
levels to enable an ecosystem-based management. These actors
are connected in social networks and provide leadership, trust,
vision, meaning, and they help transform management
organizations toward a learning environment (Folke et al. 2005).
• Organizations that link diverse actors or groups through some form
of strategic bridging process are called “bridging organizations
(Crona & Parker 2012).
• As an integral part of adaptive ecosystem governance, bridging
organizations provide social incentives to individuals within
stakeholder groups by rewarding and creating space for
collaboration, value formation, and innovation (Hahn et al. 2006).
• Accomplishments by informal networking can be institutionalized in
land-use plans and other regulations

27. The context of bridging organisations
• Bridging organizations, or individuals performing these functions, are
crucial for successful governance, i.e. collaboration between agencies
and NGOs (Berkes 2009).
• Adaptive governance coordinates different types of networks. The
governance network typically includes national NGOs and civil
servants who can provide and mobilise institutional, financial and
political support as well as external knowledge. Local steward
networks typically include landowners and local NGOs and civil
servants concerned with the actual management (Schultz et al.
2007; Hahn 2011).
• The challenges of “legitimacy” and “accountability” are often treated
as similar in international governance while in local governance they
are obviously different. Informal self-organized governance networks
may increase legitimacy if a variety of stakeholders are involved, but
at the same time accountability becomes blurred when decisions are
taken. (Hahn 2011).
• Question: is there a risk that self-organized governance networks
“take over” responsibility from the representative democracy?

28. Fig. 1. The governance network of Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve. The
nodes are agencies/organizations, except in five cases (noted by names) in which
the nodes could be described as individuals who created their own mandates within
their respective organizations. (Hahn 2011, E&S)
Individuals or organisations?

29. BKV Office
International
National
County
Sub-municipal
Municipal
International:
MAB, Poland
Denmark
National:
Local Invest-
ment Programs
EPA
WWF
County:
CAB
Farmers’
Organizations
Municipal:
BKV Office
Municipal
Administrations
Sub-Municipal:
Farmers/
Landowners
Local Business
Local Steward
Organizations
The Flooded Meadows Project
Mix of governance and management networks
Management network includes the lower parts and the extension
expert Hans Cronert at CAB focuses on actual management

30. Bridging organizations
•Performing essential functions in
crafting effective responses to
change in social-ecological
systems
•Linking groups, networks and
organizations across levels,
creating the right links, at the
right time, around the right
issues
•Accessing and combining
multiple sources of knowledge
and interests
•Enhancing vertical and
horizontal integration and social
learning
Bridging
organization
Folke et al. 2005, Hahn et al. 2006, Olsson et al. 2007

31. International bridging organizations
• Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing in the
Southern Ocean became a major concern in the 1990s , not
only for ENGOs but also for legal fisheries and governments.
• The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine
Living Resources (CCAMLRs) was an inter-governmental
commission but emerged to a bridging organization.
• In CCAMLR, NGO concerns with drowning of charismatic
seabirds benefitted from converging interests with the fishing
industry and governments: actors had symmetrical or
converging interests and CCAMLR provided the arena for
successfully reducing IUU.
(Österblom & Sumaila 2011)

32. Focus on understanding changes
(transformations/transitions)
• Social learning is important to overcome the tyranny of fixed
preferences and vested interests (“learning leadership”)
• Besides this focus on leadership and learning, the researcher
also needs to analyse power:
• Any stakeholder benefitting from the status quo (of sub-
optimal ecosystem management) and powerful enough to
impede social learning processes?
• Is collaboration viable, is it possible to attract any key person
within this stakeholder group to a new vision? If not, then
Adaptive co-management (ACM) or Adaptive Governance of
SES (AGSES) are not suitable frameworks for analysis.

33. Adaptive Governance of Social-
Ecological Systems (AGSES)
“adaptive governance emphasises flexibility, experimentation, and
learning as strategies for anticipating and dealing with unintended
consequences. Such governance approaches are thus deemed
appropriate to situations of rapid change and high uncertainty.
Nevertheless, they tend to assume that there are shared goals
around what system properties should remain resilient, or that
consensus can be built through the governance process.”
(Leach, M, 2008, p 1791.)
• This critique misses the point: AGSES case studies don’t
assume but document HOW shared goals and (sufficient)
consensus have been accomplished.
• Still, Leach has a point: AGSES is not a good (normative or
analytical) framework for all case studies. Instead: Trade-off
analysis and Multicriteria analysis focusing more on power as
obstacles to change (e.g. Kate Brown 2001 Ecol. Econ.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800900002937 )

34. “Can you address power issues
using systems ecology?”
• No! Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and other systems
approaches enable analysis of anticipated vulnerability
related to thresholds, tipping points, and regime shifts.
Purpose = understand ecological feedbacks.
• However, adaptations are crafted by people with intentions
who organise and exert their power in conflict with other
interests. Understanding actual adaptations and adaptive
capacity means acknowledging that power issues are part of
the dynamics in a SES. (Nykvist & Hahn forthcoming)

35. Stakeholders have intentions
• In the resilience theory literature, 30% of the papers on
”adaptability” see people as agents with intentions,
strategies, and hence allow for power analysis. 50% see
people as part of ”social systems” interacting with
ecosystems, focus on understanding ecological + system
feedbacks.
• The “problem” with systems ecology is not the use of self-
organization in relation to scales or levels, e.g. that
responses can emerge through leadership and stakeholder
interaction at a local level without being forced by external
factors. The problem is when such interaction is regarded as
autonomous.

36. Resilience and political ecology
• Some of the research on resilience of SES is compatible to
Political ecology in the sense that power issues are (or can
be) addressed.
• The use of political ecology in resilience research is
increasing as the number of social scientists in this field is
growing.
• However, the starting point in resilience research is
understanding how to govern and manage ecosystem
services sustainably. Then power issues are only
instrumental, not the analytical focus.

37. Resilience and political ecology
• Some of the research on resilience of SES is compatible to
Political ecology in the sense that power issues are (or can
be) addressed.
• The use of political ecology in resilience research is
increasing as the number of social scientists in this field is
growing.
• However, the starting point in resilience research is
understanding how to govern and manage ecosystem
services sustainably. Then power issues are only
instrumental, not the analytical focus.

38. Thanks!