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The Problem of Fit in Flood Risk Governance: Regulative, Normative, and Cultural-Cognitive Deliberations
Mid Sweden University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety, Lund University, Sweden; Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University, South Africa . (RCR)ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9379-9461
2020 (English)In: Politics and Governance, E-ISSN 2183-2463, Vol. 8, no 4, p. 281-293Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Sustainable development
Hållbar utveckling
Abstract [en]

Flood risk is a growing global concern that is not only affecting developing countries, but also the sustainable development of the most affluent liberal democracies. This has attracted attention to the systems governing flood risk across administrative levels, which vary between countries, but are relatively similar in the Nordic region, with both responsibilities and resources largely decentralized to the municipal level. However, floods tend not to be bounded by conventional borders but demand attention to the catchment area as a whole. Influential voices have long argued the importance of fit between the biophysical basis of an issue and the institutional arrangements of actors engaging in its governance. The article investigates such institutional fit in flood risk governance, based on a case study of flood risk mitigation in the Höje Å catchment area in Southern Sweden. Analyzing a unique dataset comprising 217 interviews with all individual formal actors actively engaged in flood risk mitigation in the catchment area illuminates a ’problem of fit’ between the hydrological system behind flood risk and the institutional arrangements of its governance. This ’problem of fit’ is not only visible along the borders of the municipalities composing the catchment area, but also of the spatial planning areas within them. The article deliberates on regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements that align to lock flood risk governance into a regime of practices that, if not addressed, continues to undermine society’s ability to anticipate and adapt to the expected escalation of flood risk in a changing climate.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Lissabon, 2020. Vol. 8, no 4, p. 281-293
Keywords [en]
flood risk, governance, governmentalization, institutional fit, institutionalism, mitigation, problem of fit, Sweden
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-40722DOI: 10.17645/pag.v8i4.3059ISI: 000605672100007Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85097398932OAI: oai:DiVA.org:miun-40722DiVA, id: diva2:1508554
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 942-2015-149Available from: 2020-12-10 Created: 2020-12-10 Last updated: 2022-09-28Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. On the governmentalization of sustainability: the case of flood risk mitigation in Sweden
Open this publication in new window or tab >>On the governmentalization of sustainability: the case of flood risk mitigation in Sweden
2021 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Contemporary society is confronted with numerous sustainability challenges. Some are new, others have been around since time immemorial, but none have been governed on the societal level since their emergence. Despite an abundant literature that addresses the governing of a range of such sustainability challenges, the processes through which they become something governable in the first place have not received much attention. This thesis, therefore, seeks to increase our understanding of how complex sustainability challenges become governmentalized in advanced liberal democracies. It presents an empirical investigation of the recent problematization of flood risk mitigation in a specific area. The goal is to answer two questions: (1) how flood risk mitigation is governed; and (2) how the process of governmentalization is conditioning this governing in Sweden. It combines theoretical perspectives of governmentality and new institutionalism. The case study focuses on the governing of flood risk mitigation in Lomma municipality and the Höje Å catchment area in Southern Sweden, and mixes structural and interpretative methods.

Data were collected through 217 interviews with all actors who actively contribute to flood risk mitigation in the area, together with numerous documentary sources. The findings reveal remarkable spatial, temporal, and functional fragmentation in the regime of practices mitigating flood risk, a concentration of responsibility for flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations, and an escalating penetration and diffusion of the market in its governing. Four constituent processes of governmentalization were identified. Reductivization refers to the process of conceptualizing the complex problem in smaller, disconnected parts. Projectification captures how the problem is addressed through piecemeal projects. Responsibilization is the process by which responsibility is transferred to an actor with less power and who lacks appropriate resources, and commodification refers to seeing the solution to the problem as the aggregation of standardized modules that can be sourced on the market. While these processes are intrinsically linked, and combine to seriously undermine the purpose of flood risk mitigation, they are also fundamental for it to become governable in the first place. This nexus may be a general feature of the governmentalization of complex sustainability challenges in advanced liberal democracies, albeit to various degrees and in different ways depending on the penetration and diffusion of neoliberalism. 

Abstract [sv]

Det moderna samhället har många hållbarhetsutmaningar. Vissa är nya, andra har funnits sedan urminnes tider, men inga har styrts på samhällsnivå sedan deras uppkomst. Trots riklig litteratur som behandlar styrningen av en rad sådana hållbarhetsutmaningar har de processer genom vilka de blir till något styrbart inte fått mycket uppmärksamhet. Denna avhandling syftar därför till att öka vår förståelse för hur komplexa hållbarhetsutmaningar görs styrbara i avancerade liberala demokratier. Den presenterar en empirisk undersökning av den nyliga problematiseringen av förebyggande av översvämningsrisker inom ett specifikt område. Målet är att svara på två frågor: (1) hur förebyggande av översvämningsrisker styrs; och (2) hur governmentaliseringsprocessen påverkar denna styrning i Sverige. Den kombinerar teoretiska perspektiv från governmentality och nyinstitutionalism. Fallstudien fokuserar på styrningen av förebyggande av översvämningsrisk i Lomma kommun och Höje Å avrinningsområde i södra Sverige, och kombinerar strukturella och interpretivistiska metoder.

Data samlades in genom 217 intervjuer med alla aktörer som bidrar aktivt till att förebygga översvämningsrisk i området, tillsammans med en mängd dokumentkällor. Resultaten avslöjar anmärkningsvärd spatial, temporal och funktionell fragmentering i rådande praktikerregim för förebyggande av översvämningsrisk, en koncentration av ansvaret för det till kommunerna, samt eskalerande penetration och spridning av marknaden i dess styrning. Fyra ingående delprocesser av governmentalisering identifierades. Reduktivisering avser processen att konceptualisera det komplexa problemet i mindre, frikopplade delar. Projektifiering fångar upp hur problemet hanteras bitvis genom frikopplade projekt. Responsibilisering är den process genom vilken ansvar överförs till en aktör med mindre makt, och som saknar lämpliga resurser, och kommodifiering refererar till att se lösningen på problemet som en sammanläggning av standardiserade moduler som kan anskaffas på marknaden. Även om dessa processer är kopplade till varandra och resulterar i att allvarligt undergräva syftet med förebyggande av översvämningsrisk, visar de sig också grundläggande för att det ska kunna styras överhuvudtaget. Detta nexus av delprocesser kan vara generellt för komplexa hållbarhetsutmaningar i avancerade liberala demokratier; om än i olika grad och på olika sätt beroende på omfattningen av neoliberalismens penetration och diffusion i varje sammanhang.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sundsvall/Östersund: Mid Sweden University, 2021. p. 103
Series
Mid Sweden University doctoral thesis, ISSN 1652-893X ; 340
Keywords
sustainability, risk, flood, mitigation, governmentality, governmentalization, institutionalism, social network analysis, fragmentation, reductivization, projectification, responsibilization, commodification
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-41811 (URN)978-91-88947-98-7 (ISBN)
Public defence
2021-05-28, O212/online, Kunskapens Väg 8, Östersund, 13:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 942-2015-149
Available from: 2021-04-20 Created: 2021-04-07 Last updated: 2021-04-20Bibliographically approved

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