Abstract
Uncertainty surrounding climate change has encouraged policy makers to engage in flexible and exploratory policies and forms of policy making. The article examines the potential of experimentation in devising coastal adaptation policies, taking into account its political dimensions. We analysed a multi-level experiment, funded by the French Ministry for the Environment from 2012 to 2015, where coastal municipalities volunteered to simulate the implementation of planned retreat as an adaptation strategy. Using insights from discursive institutionalism, we tracked developments throughout the experiment period. We highlight a combined process of governance experiment, allowing social innovation at local and regional scales, and a more strategic tool for the state, governing and steering local coastal policy with new instruments. We shed light on a particular policy entrepreneur (a public organization dealing with coastal management) playing at the intersection of these two forms, and in the interplay of policy scales. Although the experiment contributed to the innovation of legal and economic instruments and produced policy feedbacks in local planning and governance, learning capacities of the multi-scale architecture are still moderate to make planned retreat a reality in the near future. The conclusion considers performative and interpretive effects of policy experiments as further research questions to explore.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Following a territorial reorganization in France by the end of 2015, this region is now part of a larger regional territory including Limousin, Poitou–Charentes and Aquitaine regions.
Organizationally speaking, it is composed of a technical team of 5 persons with a director and a president, who is chairman of the board. A technical group (technicians of member structures) and an advisory council (partners and stakeholders of coastal policies) are two forms of partnership involved in this functioning. Financial resources are mostly subsidies of its member structures and various grants (national and European funds, specific grants according to studies and actions that are carried out).
These sites are namely the communes (French municipalities) of Lacanau, La Teste and Labenne.
Two main reasons explaining why diffusion did not happen were advanced: the weakness of evaluation systems and the absence of networking at the national scale.
“The coordinative discourse encompasses the wide range of policy actors engaged in the construction of policy ideas” (Schmidt 2010, p. 3).
“The communicative discourse encompasses the wide range of political actors who bring the ideas developed in the context of the coordinative discourse to the public for deliberation and legitimation” (Schmidt 2010, p. 3).
References
Abel, N., Gorddard, R., Harman, B., Leitch, A., Langridge, J., Ryan, A., et al. (2011). Sea level rise, coastal development and planned retreat: analytical framework, governance principles and an Australian case study. Environmental Science and Policy, 14(3), 279–288.
Armitage, D., Berkes, F., & Doubleday, N. (Eds.). (2007). Adaptive co-management: Collaboration, learning and multi-level governance. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Armitage, D., Marschke, M., & Plummer, R. (2008). Adaptive co-management and the paradox of learning. Global Environmental Change, 18, 86–98.
Béal, V., & Pinson, G. (2015). From the governance of sustainability to the management of climate change: Reshaping urban policies and central–local relations in France. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 17(3), 402–419.
Bérard, Y. (2011). The making of climate change policy: Expertise, interplay of scales and territorialization in the case of France. Cahiers du Centre Emile Durkheim - Working Papers, 10, 1–28.
Bergeron, H., Castel, P., & Nouguez, E. (2013). Éléments pour une sociologie de l’entrepreneur-frontière. Revue française de sociologie, 54(2), 263–302.
Brunner, R. D., Steelman, T. A., Coe-Juell, L., Cromley, C. M., Edwards, C. M., & Tucker, D. W. (2005). Adaptive governance: Integrating science, policy, and decision making. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bulkeley, H., & Castán Broto, V. (2012). Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38(3), 361–378.
Cash, D. W., Adger, W. N., Berkes, F., Garden, P., Lebel, L., Olsson, P., et al. (2006). Scale and cross-scale dynamics: Governance and information in a multilevel world. Ecology and Society, 11(2), 8.
Celliers, L., Rosendo, S., Coetzee, I., & Daniels, G. (2013). Pathways of integrated coastal management from national policy to local implementation: Enabling climate change adaptation. Marine Policy, 39, 72–86.
Cloutier, G., Joerin, F., Dubois, C., Labarthe, M., Legay, C., & Viens, D. (2015). Planning adaptation based on local actors’ knowledge and participation: A climate governance experiment. Climate Policy, 15(4), 458–474.
Cooper, J. A. G., & McKenna, J. (2008). Social justice in coastal erosion management: The temporal and spatial dimensions. Geoforum, 39, 294–306.
Curato, N., & Böker, M. (2016). Linking mini-publics to the deliberative system: A research agenda. Policy Sciences, 49(2), 173–190.
DATAR, (2010). Rapport complémentaire sur la mise en œuvre de la GIZC, France.
Driessen, P., Leroy, P., & van Vierssen, W. (Eds.). (2010). From climate change to social change: Perspectives on science-policy interactions. Utrecht: International Books.
Epstein, R. (2013). La rénovation urbaine. Démolition-reconstruction de l’Etat. Paris: Presses de Science Po.
European Union (2004). Living with coastal erosion in Europe: Sediment and Space for Sustainability. Part 1, Major findings and Policy Recommendations of the EUROSION project. Directorate General Environment.
Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P., & Norberg, J. (2005). Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 30, 441–473.
GIP Littoral Aquitain (2009). Plan de développement durable du littoral aquitain 2007–2020.
Hoffman, M. J. (2011). Climate governance at the crossroads: Experimenting with a global response after Kyoto. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Howlett, M. (2014). Why are policy innovations rare and so often negative? Blame avoidance and problem denial in climate change policy-making. Global Environmental Change, 29, 395–403.
Huitema, D., & Meijerink, S. (2010). Realizing water transitions. The role of policy entrepreneurs in water policy change. Ecology and Society, 15(2), 26.
Huitema, D., Mostert, E., Egas, W., Moellenkamp, S., Pahl-Wostl, C., & Yalcin, R. (2009). Adaptive water governance: Assessing the institutional prescriptions of adaptive (co)management from a governance perspective and defining a research agenda. Ecology and Society, 14(1), 26.
Jordan, A. J., & Huitema, D. (2014). Policy innovation in a changing climate: Sources, patterns and effects. Global Environmental Change, 29, 387–394.
Jordan, A. J., Huitema, D., Hildén, M., van Asselt, H., Rayner, T. J., Schoenefeld, J. J., et al. (2015). Emergence of polycentric climate governance and its future prospects. Nature Climate Change, 5(11), 977–982.
Jordan, A., & Matt, E. (2014). Designing policies that intentionally stick: Policy feedback in a changing climate. Policy Sciences, 47(3), 227–247.
Keskitalo, C. (Ed.). (2010). Developing adaptation policy and practice in Europe: Multi-level governance of climate change. New York: Springer.
Kingdon, J. W. (1984). Agendas, alternatives and public policies. New York: Harper Collins.
Laurent, B. (2011). Technologies of democracy: Experiments and demonstrations. Science and Engineering Ethics, 17(4), 649–666.
MEDDE. (2012). Stratégie nationale de gestion intégrée du trait de côte. Vers la relocalisation des activités et des biens. Paris: French Ministry for Sustainable Development and Energy.
MEDDE. (2013). Evaluation à mi-parcours du Plan national d’adaptation au changement climatique (PNACC). Paris: French Ministry for Sustainable Development and Energy.
MEDDTL. (2011). Plan national d’adaptation au changement climatique 2011–2015. Paris: French Ministry for Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing.
Mermet, L., & Salles, D. (Eds.). (2015). Environnement: la concertation apprivoisée, contestée, dépassée?. Louvain-La-Neuve: De Boeck Supérieur.
Nair, S., & Howlett, M. (2016). Meaning and power in the design and development of policy experiments. Futures, 76, 67–74.
Nicholson-Cole, S., & O’Riordan, T. (2009). Adaptive governance for a changing coastline: Science, policy and publics in search of a sustainable future. In N. W. Adger, I. Lorenzoni, & K. O’Brien (Eds.), Adapting to climate change. Thresholds, values, governance (pp. 368–383). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Olsson, P., Gunderson, L. H., Carpenter, S. R., Ryan, P., Lebel, L., Folke, C., et al. (2006). Shooting the rapids. Navigating transitions to adaptive governance of social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 11(1), 18.
Parker, K. A. (1996). Pragmatism and environmental thought. In A. Light & E. Katz (Eds.), Environmental pragmatism (pp. 21–37). London and New York: Routledge.
Rocle, N. (2015). Gouverner l’adaptation au changement climatique sur (et par) les territoires. L’exemple des littoraux aquitain et martiniquais. Natures Sciences Sociétés, 23(3), 244–255.
Sabel, C. F., & Zeitlin, J. (2012). Experimentalist Governance. In D. Levi-Faur (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of governance (pp. 169–183). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Salles, D. (2011). Responsibility based environmental governance. S.A.P.I.EN.S, 4(1), 1–7.
Sanderson, I. (2002). Evaluation, policy learning and evidence-based policy making. Public Administration, 80(1), 1–22.
Schmidt, V. A. (2008). Discursive institutionalism: The explanatory power of ideas and discourse. Annual Review of Political Science, 11, 303–326.
Schmidt, V. A. (2010). Taking ideas and discourses seriously: Explaining change through discursive institutionalism as the fourth ‘new institutionalism’. European Political Science Review, 2(1), 1–25.
Schmidt, V. A. (2013). Democracy and legitimacy in the European Union revisited: Input, output and ‘throughput’. Political Studies, 61(1), 2–22.
Shackley, S., & Wynne, B. (1996). Representing uncertainty in global climate change science and policy: Boundary-ordering devices and authority. Science, Technology and Human Values, 21(3), 275–302.
SOGREAH (2011). Stratégie de gestion du trait de côte en Aquitaine. Façade océanique. Site test Lacanau - Rapport no 1711979R1, GIP Littoral Aquitain.
Termeer, C., Dewulf, A., Rijswick, H., Van Buuren, A., Huitema, D., Meijerink, S., et al. (2011). The regional governance of climate adaptation: A framework for developing legitimate, effective, and resilient governance arrangements. Climate Law, 2, 159–179.
Urwin, K., & Jordan, A. (2008). Does public policy support or undermine climate change adaptation? Exploring policy interplay across different scales of governance. Global Environmental Change, 18(1), 180–191.
Voß, J., & Bornemann, B. (2011). The politics of reflexive governance: Challenges for designing adaptive management and transition management. Ecology and Society, 16(2), 9.
Wong, P. P., Losada, I. J., Gattuso, J. P., Hinkel, J., Khattabi, A., McInnes, K. L., et al. (2014). Coastal systems and low-lying areas. In C. B. Field, V. R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, et al. (Eds.), Climate change 2014: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part A: Global and sectoral aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 361–409). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgements
For their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper, the authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as the participants of the INOGOV workshop held in March 2015 at the Finnish Environment Institute in Helsinki, Finland. The study has been carried out as part of the Cluster of Excellence COTE (Programme of the French National Research Agency, ANR-10-LABX-45) and funded by the Aquitaine Regional Council (PERMALA project, Grant no 201212004004).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix: Timeline of the attended events during the planned retreat experiment
Appendix: Timeline of the attended events during the planned retreat experiment
The Public Interest Group of Aquitaine coastline participated in and served as the main link between all these events. With the exception of the two national monitoring committees, all the attended events were recorded, along with note taking, and half were fully transcribed.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rocle, N., Salles, D. “Pioneers but not guinea pigs”: experimenting with climate change adaptation in French coastal areas. Policy Sci 51, 231–247 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-017-9279-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-017-9279-z