Publications

Schlüter, M., Caniglia, G., Orach, K., Bodin, Ö., Magliocca, N., Meyfroidt, P., Reyers, B. 2022. Why care about theories? Innovative ways of theorizing in sustainability science. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101154

The complex nature of sustainability problems and the aim of sustainability science to support emergent processes of transformation require rethinking how we build and make use of theories. We highlight the diversity of ways in which theories, as assemblages of different elements that can serve a variety of purposes, can emerge within inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary processes. Such emerging theories are (i) contextu...

Orach, K., Schlüter, M.. 2021. Understanding the dynamics of fish politics: The role of diverse actor interactions in transformations towards co-management. Environmental Science & Policy. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.06.010

Co-management is often put forward as a way to foster sustainability and improve the adaptive capacity of small-scale fisheries. Transformations towards co-management are enabled by processes that support social change, such as nurturing leadership, collective action and learning, as well as political processes that change legislative frameworks from centralized to decentralized decision-making. However, major policy changes c...

Orach, K., Duit, A. and Schlüter, M., 2020. Sustainable natural resource governance under interest group competition in policy-making. Nature Human Behaviour, pp.1-12.

Non-state actors play an increasingly important role in environmental policy. Lobbying by interest groups has been associated with policy stagnation and environmental degradation as well as with sustainable governance. However, little is known about how competition between economic and environmental interests influences the ability of governance systems to avoid undesirable outcomes. We investigate how competing interest grou...

Orach, K., A. Duit, and M. Schlüter. 2020. Sustainable natural resource governance under interest group competition in policy-making. Nature Human Behaviour 4:898–909.

Non-state actors play an increasingly important role in environmental policy. Lobbying by interest groups has been associated with policy stagnation and environmental degradation as well as with sustainable governance. However, little is known about how competition between economic and environmental interests influences the ability of governance systems to avoid undesirable outcomes. We investigate how competing interest grou...

Wijermans, N., W. J. Boonstra, K. Orach, J. Hentati-Sundberg, and M. Schlüter. 2020. Behavioural diversity in fishing—Towards a next generation of fishery models. Fish and Fisheries 00:1–19.

Despite improved knowledge and stricter regulations, numerous fish stocks remain overharvested. Previous research has shown that fisheries management may fail when the models and assessments used to inform management are based on unrealistic assumptions regarding fishers' decision‐making and responses to policies. Improving the understanding of fisher behaviour requires addressing its diversity and complexity through the integ...

Schlüter, M., Orach, K., Lindkvist, E., Martin, R., Wijermans, N. et al. 2019. Toward a methodology for explaining and theorizing about social-ecological phenomena. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Volume 39, August 2019, Pages 44-53

Explanations that account for complex causation, emergence, and social-ecological interdependence are necessary for building theories of social-ecological phenomena. Social-ecological systems (SES) research has accumulated rich empirical understanding of SES; however, integration of this knowledge toward contextualized generalizations, or middle-range theories, remains challenging. We discuss the potential of an iterative and ...

Schlüter, M., L. J. Haider, S. J. Lade, E. Lindkvist, R. Martin, K. Orach, N. Wijermans, and C. Folke. 2019. Capturing emergent phenomena in social-ecological systems: an analytical framework. Ecology and Society 24(3):11.https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11012-240311

 Social-ecological systems (SES) are complex adaptive systems. Social-ecological system phenomena, such as regime shifts, transformations, or traps, emerge from interactions among and between human and nonhuman entities within and across scales. Analyses of SES phenomena thus require approaches that can account for (1) the intertwinedness of social and ecological processes and (2) the ways they jointly give rise to emergent so...

Orach, K., Schlüter, M., Österblom, H. 2017. Tracing a pathway to success: How competing interest groups influenced the 2013 EU Common Fisheries Policy reform. Environmental Science & Policy Volume 76, October 2017, Pages 90-102

Adaptation of environmental policies to often unexpected crises is an important function of sustainable governance arrangements. However the relationship between environmental change and policy is complicated. Much research has focused on understanding institutional dynamics or the role of specific participants in the policy process. This paper draws attention to interest groups and the mechanism through which they influence p...

Schlüter, M., Baeza, A., Dressler, G., Frank, K., Groeneveld, J., Jager, W., Janssen, M.A., McAllister, R.R.J., Müller, B., Orach, K., Schwarz, N., Wijermans, N. (2017). A framework for mapping and comparing behavioural theories in models of social-ecological systems, Ecological Economics, 131, 21-35.

Formal models are commonly used in natural resource management (NRM) to study human-environment interactions and inform policy making. In the majority of applications, human behaviour is represented by the rational actor model despite growing empirical evidence of its shortcomings in NRM contexts. While the importance of accounting for the complexity of human behaviour is increasingly recognized, its integration into formal mo...

Orach, K., M. Schlüter. 2016. Uncovering the political dimension of social-ecological systems: Contributions from policy process frameworks. Global Environmental Change 40 (2016) 13–25.

Research on the governance of social-ecological systems often emphasizes the need for self-organized, flexible and adaptive arrangements to deal with uncertainty, abrupt change and surprises that are characteristic of social-ecological systems. However, adaptive governance as well as transitions toward alternative forms of governance are embedded in politics and it is often the political processes that determine change and sta...