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Policy Sci (2016) 49:281307
DOI 10.1007/s11077-016-9245-1
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Zachary Bischoff-Mattson1 Amanda H. Lynch1
Published online: 4 February 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Australias MurrayDarling Basin exemplies complex governance challenges raised by large-scale trans-boundary river systems. The Basin contains a varied and fragmentary mosaic of human perspectives and practices, situated in a dynamic biophysical system that accounts for a signicant portion of Australias agricultural produce and is home to diverse and iconic ecosystems. Severe drought, high river-ow variability, and persistent ecosystem degradation have been impetus for water policy reforms culminating in the highly contested 2012 MurrayDarling Basin Plan. We analyzed public-record content from opinion editorials and speeches by policy elites, 20102012, to examine public discourses and discourse coalitions associated with development of the Plan. We focus on three domains of discourse: denition of problems, promotion of solutions, and assertions of fact. Discourses illustrated divergent, exclusionary, and largely un-reconciled perspectives about how water resources should be managed, as well as how plural interests should be represented in decision-making. We identify discourse coalition-linked narrative scripts, develop an understanding of constitutive dynamics relevant to ongoing processes of policy development and implementation, and discuss implications for adaptive governance of water resources.
Keywords Discourse Water policy MurrayDarling Basin Adaptive governance
& Zachary Bischoff-Mattson [email protected]
1 Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown University, Providence,
RI 02912, USA
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s11077-016-9245-1&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s11077-016-9245-1&domain=pdf
Web End = Adaptive governance in water reform discourses of the MurrayDarling Basin, Australia
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Introduction
Adaptive governance (Dietz et al. 2003; Anderies et al. 2004; Folke et al. 2005; Brunner et al. 2005; Brunner and Lynch 2010) is an analytic construct for approaching the knowledge generation and decision-making challenges engendered by complex human environment systems (see Rittel and Webber 1973; Funtowicz et al. 1999; Ludwig 2001; Holling 2001; Harding et al. 2009). Adaptive governance in its broadest form can be understood as an iterative framework for social learning and institutional reexivity that spans ordinary and constitutive decision functions (Ostrom 2007) (akin to notions of triple-loop learning per Keen et al. 2005; Edwards 2010, reexive governance per Voss et al. 2006, and ecosystemic reexivity per Dryzek 2014). As such, adaptive governance recognizes the multi-scale and evolving nature of interests in...