Adaptive Governance of Coupled Social-Ecological Systems: Introduction to the Special Issue Themes

Stockholm Resilience Alliance (SRA) defines adaptive governance as an evolving research framework for analyzing the social, institutional, economical, and ecological foundations of multilevel governance modes that are successful in building resilience for the vast challenges posed by multiscale drivers of change, such as global climate change, rapid technological change, terrorism, socio-economic disruptions, and political coups. The social-ecological systems (SES) framework is an advanced version of Elinor Ostrom’s (1990, 2005) institutional analysis and development framework. Folk and his colleagues (2005) laid out the theoretical foundations for a deeper study of adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. They argue that adaptive governance systems often self-organize as social networks with teams and actor groups that draw on various knowledge systems and experiences for the development of a common understanding and policies, in particular during periods of abrupt change (crisis) in social-ecological systems. Folk and his colleagues conclude that “the emergence of bridging organizations seem to lower the costs of collaboration and conflict resolution, and enabling legislation and governmental policies can support self-organization while framing creativity for adaptive co-management efforts” (p. 41). In this context, the SRA group laid out two grand challenges for the study of adaptive governance: -