Coupling Climate Change Adaptation – A Comparative Case Study on Decision Making in Five Dutch Municipalities

The urgency for governments to implement climate change adaptation (CCA) is increasing. Since implementation takes place at the local level, this level is particularly relevant in this regard. However, the lack of research into CCA implementation at the local level highlights our ignorance regarding these CCA decision making processes and denotes a substantial knowledge gap (Reckien et al. 2018). To address this knowledge gap, we compare decision making processes across five Dutch municipalities. In doing so, we aim to answer the following question: “How and why do different municipalities connect climate change adaptation with other issues?” To explain the connection of CCA with other policy issues we build on Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). Within MSF, policy processes comprise three separate streams that exist simultaneously: problems, politics, and policies. At critical points in time a policy entrepreneur can couple all three streams to place CCA on the agenda (Zahariadis 2007). Some of these “Windows of Opportunity” can arise from spontaneous events, such as extreme weather. As coupling all three streams for one policy issue is not always feasible during such a window, we also investigate an alternative coupling strategy: connecting different policy issues in order to couple all three streams (Dolan 2019). We examine coupling through a comparative case study that includes five Dutch municipalities: Deventer, Enschede, Haaksbergen, Oldenzaal, and Zwolle, all located in the Province of Overijssel. Our case selection includes geographical spread within the Province and municipalities of varying sizes. We collected data as part of a regional project between December 2018 and December 2019 through interviews, workshops, and observations. We then analysed the data by coding for relevant decision moments and contextual factors. Next, we traced back from these decision moments to identify instances of coupling. Preliminary results indicate that municipalities’ approaches to coupling CCA differ depending on the local context. Nevertheless, we found that couplings through connecting with other policy issues explain the observed policy processes better than coupling all three streams for CCA. The examples from our case studies also highlight how policy entrepreneurs can increase the diffusion of CCA policy by connecting several topics to achieve couplings, especially when the room for action is restricted by the context. However, further research is necessary to test the hypotheses about the conditions for transferability of approaches across different local contexts. Abstract bibliography Dolan, Dana A. (2019): Multiple Partial Couplings in the Multiple Streams Framework. The Case of Extreme Weather and Climate Change Adaptation. In Policy Stud J 10 (1), pp. 1–26. DOI: 10.1111/psj.12341. Reckien, Diana; Salvia, Monica; Heidrich, Oliver; Church, Jon Marco; Pietrapertosa, Filomena; Gregorio-Hurtado, Sonia de et al. (2018): How are cities planning to respond to climate change? Assessment of local climate plans from 885 cities in the EU-28. In Journal of Cleaner Production 191, pp. 207–219. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.03.220. Zahariadis, Nikolaos (2007): The Multiple Streams Framework. Structure, Limitations, Prospects. In Paul A. Sabatier (Ed.): Theories of the policy process. 2nd ed. Boulder Colo.: Westview Press, pp. 65–92.