TY - JOUR
T1 - Governing for resilience: the role of institutional work
AU - Beunen, R.
AU - Patterson, J.
AU - Van Assche, Kristof
PY - 2017/10
Y1 - 2017/10
N2 - Resilience has become a key concept in the sciences and practices of environmental governance. Yet governing for resilience is a major challenge because it requires governance systems to be both stable and flexible at the same time. Achieving a productive balance between stability and flexibility is a key challenge. The concept of "institutional work" is a promising lens for analysing the dynamic tension between stability and flexibility in governance systems. It refers to actions through which actors create, maintain, or disrupt institutional structures. The paper explains the concept of institutional work and shows how it usefully integrates several emerging lines of study regarding agency in governance, which have so far remained separate. Overall, the concept of institutional work opens up novel opportunities for analysing the interactions between actors and institutional structures that produce stability and flexibility in governance systems.
AB - Resilience has become a key concept in the sciences and practices of environmental governance. Yet governing for resilience is a major challenge because it requires governance systems to be both stable and flexible at the same time. Achieving a productive balance between stability and flexibility is a key challenge. The concept of "institutional work" is a promising lens for analysing the dynamic tension between stability and flexibility in governance systems. It refers to actions through which actors create, maintain, or disrupt institutional structures. The paper explains the concept of institutional work and shows how it usefully integrates several emerging lines of study regarding agency in governance, which have so far remained separate. Overall, the concept of institutional work opens up novel opportunities for analysing the interactions between actors and institutional structures that produce stability and flexibility in governance systems.
KW - Environment
KW - Evolutionary Governance Theory
KW - Governance
KW - Resilience
KW - Social Change
KW - Sustainability
KW - institutional entrepreneurship
KW - institutional work
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cosust.2017.04.010
DO - 10.1016/j.cosust.2017.04.010
M3 - Article
VL - 28
SP - 10
EP - 16
JO - Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
JF - Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
SN - 1877-3435
ER -