LIST OF PANELS

Over the past decades, a considerable corpus of literature has focused on the distinction between modes of governance. Sharp lines have been drawn between ‘old’ and ‘new’ steering styles in terms of who takes part in them and what institutional settings shape decision-making processes within (Pierre/Peters 2005, Bell/Hindmoor 2009). Novel forms of socio-political interaction outside the state’s typical domains of influence —featuring a wider involvement of private and civil society actors in network-like structures and more flexible coordination methods— are usually at the spotlight of this research tradition. Among its preferred veins of enquiry count the inspection on whether there is more or less government within governance (Rosenau/Czempiel 1992, Kooiman 1993, Rhodes 1996, Pierre/Peters 1998, 2000, Börzel/Risse 2010), the nature and role of policy instruments (Howlett 2000, Héritier/Lehmkuhl 2008, Kassim/Le Galès 2010, Capano et al. 2019), the proliferation of network-based practices in policymaking (Rhodes/Marsh 1992, Bressers et al. 1994, Rhodes 1997, 2007, Marsh/Smith 2000, O’Toole/Meier 2004, Bevir/Richards 2009) and the overall changing role of the state (Majone, 1997, 1999, Bevir et al. 2003, Sorensen 2006, Bell et al. 2010, Lynn 2010, Levi-Faur 2011).
 
As prosperous as the notion of governance have then been the typologies on its modes and, just as the concept itself, sometimes equally blurry. Despite considerable attention has been paid to the expressions of governance, a rather humble amount of practical investigation has so far explored its configuration in an integrative and systematic way. Artificial divides with relatively poor analytical value, such as the distinction between hierarchical/non-hierarchical steering styles and state/market/networks structures have permeated the scholarship. Far from capturing the complexity of real-world scenarios, the conceptual fuzziness of many of these typologies has weakened the term’s explanatory power and stretched the research agenda. Inspired by a narrower understanding of governance too intimately related with the realm of politics, most studies have so far analyzed who participates in governing processes and how these actors make decisions. Whereas especial consideration has thus been paid to the structural and processual aspects of governance, less is known about the contents and nature of the policymaking process taking place within.
 
In few domains has the literature on modes of governance thrived as rapidly an as confusedly as in the field of sustainable development (SD). Under the opaque veil of ‘novelty’ —new actors and institutions, new forms of interaction and new policy instruments— scholars have, sometimes too enthusiastically, found proof of the governing rationale 21st century problems demand. These steering styles, scholars claim, would be better suited to tackle sustainable development challenges (Voß/Kemp 2006, Meadowcroft 2007, Jordan 2008, Arnouts/Arts 2009, Capano et al. 2012, Meuleman/Niestroy 2015, Dijk 2015). Yet the ways of governance towards sustainability are densely paved with empirical drought. How do governance arrangements for sustainable development work in which settings and what kind of policy contents emerge from them is, despite growing scholarship, a question still requiring practical evidence.
 
This panel aims at further developing the theory of sustainability governance upon empirical basis. For that purpose, discussions within this panel will take on two main endeavors: first, to provide a coherent foundation for the conceptualization of governance and its modes, and; second, to explore specific governance arrangements for sustainable development. Overall, contributions shall advance the discussion on how sustainable development is governed across the globe.
 

The analytical entanglement between governance and sustainable development is not accidental. Emerged from different lexicons but similarly contested in their meanings, both have turned into signifiers of what Beck called a “meta-transformation of the political” (Beck 2006: 31) provoking a myriad of interdisciplinary debates in the social sciences, especially in the field of collective action problems. Since Hardy’s, Meadows’ and Ostrom’s seminal contributions to ecological economics, two main domains of research have informed the scholarship. An environmental vein inspired by managerial thinking has addressed the technical aspects and the design praxis of the transition towards sustainable development (Olsson et al. 2006, Farla et al. 2012, Colvin et al. 2014), whereas research on the nature of societal steering has typically emphasized the politics behind these transitions (Loorbach 2010, Avelino et al. 2016).
 
That the quest for sustainability requires not only a profound transformation of socio-ecological and economic regimes individually, but of the overall conditions framing their relationship as well, is a strong prescriptive premise shared across both domains of research (Ayre/Callway 2005, Meadowcroft et al. 2012). Such transformation, it appears incontrovertible, is of an underscored political nature. It calls for more reflexive policy designs attuned with both the dispersion of agency and the underlying uncertainty and multidimensionality of present-day challenges. The normative claim for a specific kind of societal steering and an overall change in the meanings and processes of governing lies thus at the center of the sustainability literature (Voß/Kemp 2006, Lafferty 2006, Jordan 2008, Lange 2017). Sustainable development is, in that regard, “really all about governance” (Meadowcroft 2011: 536). Is it really, though, about a new kind of governance?
 
Upon these reflections, this panel aims at further developing the theory of sustainability governance. For that purpose, we encourage scholars to propose abstracts of papers focusing on, but not limited to, the following topics / sub-research questions:
 
· What are adequate heuristics for approaching governance arrangements for sustainable development?
· Which “varieties of governance” are analytically and/or empirically recognizable in the field of sustainable development?
· What are main governance challenges in the transition towards sustainability?
· What processes, structures and contents of governance are driving the transition towards sustainability, especially in the Global South?
· What specific governance configurations can help accelerate the achievement of global, national, regional and local sustainable development agendas?
· How can governance performance in the field of sustainable development be assessed?
 
Both theoretical explorations and specific policy experiences will be welcomed. Please indicate which of these bests describe your paper when submitting your abstract.
 
Questions and submissions: claudia.azcuy.becquer@uni-passau.de