Abstract

Transformative governance is an approach to environmental governance that has the capacity to respond to, manage, and trigger regime shifts in coupled social-ecological systems (SESs) at multiple scales. The goal of transformative governance is to actively shift degraded SESs to alternative, more desirable, or more functional regimes by altering the structures and processes that define the system. Transformative governance is rooted in ecological theories to explain cross-scale dynamics in complex systems, as well as social theories of change, innovation, and technological transformation. Similar to adaptive governance, transformative governance involves a broad set of governance components, but requires additional capacity to foster new social-ecological regimes including increased risk tolerance, significant systemic investment, and restructured economies and power relations. Transformative governance has the potential to actively respond to regime shifts triggered by climate change, and thus future research should focus on identifying system drivers and leading indicators associated with social-ecological thresholds.

Keywords

transformative governance; adaptive governance; transformation; governance; social-ecological systems; regime shifts; resilience; panarchy

Published in

Annual Review of Environment and Resources
2016, Volume: 41, pages: 399-423
Title: ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES, VOL 41
ISBN: 978-0-8243-2341-7
Publisher: ANNUAL REVIEWS

SLU Authors

• Angeler, David

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-110615-085817

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/82413