Environmental policy is increasingly implemented and operated within diverse networks of multilevel governance, bringing various actors and multiple scales to the fore. The increasing number of actors, institutions and interests has brought forth the unpredictability, volatility and uncertainty of environmental issues.
The focus of our research is on interpreting the nature of complex environmental policy processes. The core of environmental policy and governance research can be expressed in the form of key questions:
- How do environmental conflicts and controversies build up?
- Who are the key actors and what is the action space of different actors and stakeholders in environmental conflicts?
- How are meanings and their representations constructed and enacted in a specific context?
- How do the processes of globalization and localization frame policy problems and thus influence legitimacy, power dynamics and democracy in the practical implementation of environmental policy?
- What are the forms and fundaments of environmental and ecological citizenship?