“Greening of Policies – Interlinkages and Policy Integration”

2004 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Berlin, 3-4 December 2004
 

Deadline for submissions:  15 August 2004

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The Environmental Policy and Global Change section of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) and its partners invite papers for the 2004 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, to be held in Berlin on 3-4 December 2004. This year’s discussions will address the theme “Greening of Policies – Interlinkages and Policy Integration”. The 2004 Berlin Conference has been endorsed by the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) core projects “Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC)” and “Industrial Transformation” (IHDP-IT), and is organised by the Environmental Policy Research Centre of the Freie Universität Berlin. Additional support is provided by the Global Governance Project (glogov.org).

The Policy Problem

Problems of Global and Regional Environmental Change are by their very nature sector-related problems. Insofar, their solution requires sector-integrated approaches of policy-making that abandon the parallel pursuit of contradictory policies. Thirty years of environmental policy-making at the national and international level reveal, however, striking problems to establish interlinkages that lead to an integration of regimes and joined-up policy-making, both horizontally on each level of political decision-making and vertically between the different layers of the multi-level system of international governance. At the national level, new cross-cutting issues such as environmental protection have been institutionalized mostly in a separate way, without changing the framework conditions for action in the policy sectors mainly responsible for environmental deterioration. Also, new international environmental agreements have been institutionalized separately from other policy regimes.

One crucial factor in explaining this path of development is the traditional organization model of bureaucracy that is based upon specialization and division of work. It has proven to be successful in a number of ways. It fails, however, in addressing the needs of cross-cutting problems such as environmental protection. The challenge, both at the national and international level, is to establish institutional provisions that allow actors to pursue a more coordinated approach. Special attention has to be paid to mutual interaction between regimes and policies on the international and national level, such as trade and environment.

The struggle for coherence and policy integration is going into its fourth decade. Meanwhile, the overall framework conditions of policy-making have considerably changed: Processes of economic and political globalization have deepened, new forms of governance have emerged and new actors have entered the stage, such as International Organizations or transnational advocacy-networks. The result is a significant increase of the complexity of policy-making.

What is needed is a comprehensive review of the gathered experiences, in order to learn, which strategies might be applied best at which level against the background of this increased complexity of policy-making. The analysis of past experiences requires a joint effort of different disciplines. In particular political scientist and lawyers can improve the understanding of institutions for policy integration. It is furthermore necessary to assess the impacts of policies on the different dimensions of sustainability to inform policy makers about integration requirements and hence form the knowledge basis of policy coherence and integration. Different tasks might be best suited at different levels, but the concrete allocation of competencies and responsibilities is a question open to discussion. This requires a close co-operation of many different disciplines. Possible foci of such efforts are integrated models and integrated assessments. The conference should bring about a stocktaking of both the institutional basis of policy integration on the different levels of policy making as well as an improvement of the knowledge basis for a furthering of integration.
 

Core Questions

Given the obstacles for a more far reaching consideration of environmental concerns in sectoral policy making processes on both the national and the international level there is a need for an analysis of instruments and strategies, and the institutional setting in which they are implemented. Which approaches have proven to be successful, what are the impediments? Against this background contributions are particularly invited on the following issues:

1. Analysis of policy integration in practice: What kinds of institutions are successful in strengthening policy integration? Which actors, which instruments and strategies were the driving forces of a greening of policies? We are interested in case studies from different policy fields and from different levels of policy making. What are the implications of policy integration for environmental policy? Is there evidence for a diluting of environmental concerns by building up an over-complexity of integration requirements and a loss of advantages gained by specialization? What is the role of law in codifying integration requirements? In how far are major trends, e.g. economic and political globalization, from government to governance, from environmental protection to sustainable development affecting integration efforts?
2. Instruments and knowledge basis for policy integration: What methods are available or currently under development that allow for an ex ante evaluation of the effects of policies on the different dimensions of sustainability? What indicators are available that allow an assessment in how far a policies are integrated? What experiences are available in integrating the different domains of knowledge for such an assessment?
3. Multi-level aspects: To what extent are international regimes affecting the capacities at the national level for a greening of policies and vice versa? What efforts have been undertaken to ensure also a vertical integration among the different levels of policy making? In how far are impacts in other countries considered in approaches of policy integration, in particular in respect of developing countries? What mechanisms proved to be successful in ensuring the coherence of the different international regimes, in particular between environmental and trade regimes?
    

Plenary speakers include

• Frans Berkhout: Director, ESRC Sustainable Technologies Programme; Senior Fellow and Co-ordinator, SPRU Environment and Energy Programme; Chair of the IHDP-IT Scientific Steering Committee; University of Sussex, Brighton.
• William Lafferty: Director, Program for Research and Documentation for a Sustainable Society, ProSus; Oslo.
• Guy B. Peters: Maurice Falk Professor of American Government; Michigan State University, Pittsburgh.
• Jürgen Trittin: Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety; Berlin.

• N.N. (t.b.c.): Representative of the World Bank Group; Washington.

• Oran Young: Chair, IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee; Bren School of Environmental Science and Management University of California; Santa Barbara.

Special panel Teaching

This years Berlin Conference will host a special panel on academic environmental teaching programs. Complex environmental problems as climate change, loss in biodiversity, ground water pollution, degradation of soil caused by human activities ranging from global to local level challenge academia in many respects.

To tackle these problems contributions from a variety of natural and social science disciplines are needed. Topics such as the deterioration of the earth system, institutional measures for the greening of policies, policy impact assessment, strategic approaches to multi-level environmental governance require an interdisciplinary perspective.

Hence academic training has to adapt new forms of systematic interdisciplinary cooperation. Professional training needs to integrate elements such as interdisciplinary communication, methods of problem-oriented approaches and teambuilding. Moreover the ground has to be paved for communication between academia and non-university experts and practitioners from the state, industry and non-government organisations.
How can academic programs respond to these challenges? We invite papers to exchange experiences in teaching environmental sciences, dealing with questions such as:

How can curriculum design of Bachelors and Masters level environmental teaching programs respond to the challenges of inter- to transdisciplinary sciences? How can interlinkages between research and teaching be created most suitable? What can be learned from pioneering interdisciplinary projects in terms of institutional design for inter-faculty cooperation bridging the gaps between the disciplines? How can communication beyond academia be improved? What kind of problem-solving skills are required from the perspective of both public and private organisations involved in environmental governance? How can the international cooperation of academic environmental science programs be advanced also in regard to capacity building for environmental academic education?
 

How to participate

The 2004 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change is the fourth of its kind in Germany. The last meetings, gathered around 200 participants from all over the world each for intensive two-day debates. While the Berlin Conferences have so far been organised by the German Political Science Association, we also seek dialogue with colleagues from economics and other fields of the social sciences. Furthermore, we welcome representatives of natural and integrative sciences. The conference will be held in English. Prospective paper-givers should send an abstract of their paper that outlines the main argument, method and finding of the research to the conference office (BC2004@zedat.fu-berlin.de). The submission must include name, affiliation and address of the author(s) and must not exceed 300 words.
 

Deadline

The deadline for submissions is August 15th, 2004. All paper and panel submissions will be reviewed before being accepted for the conference programme. We will send out decisions on acceptance of papers by September 15th, 2004. We expect all presenters to e-mail the final version of their paper by November 15th. Full papers submitted earlier will be posted on our web site to initiate early discussion.
Financial Support
We are making all efforts to ensure funding to reimburse the travel costs of some paper presenters. For earlier conferences, generous donor support allowed us to reimburse parts of the travel costs of many non-German participants, with special consideration of participants from developing countries and countries with economies in transition and of more junior colleagues.
Further Information


Further Information

For questions or suggestions, please contact

• Klaus Jacob, chair, 2004 Berlin Conference
• Daniel Pentzlin, manager, 2004 Berlin Conference [BC2004@zedat.fu-berlin.de]