Environmental and Natural Resources

The environment and natural resources constitute a particularly urgent and complex governance domain. A linear relationship is commonly assumed between statehood and environmental performance, but this is not supported by the data, nor the expansive literatures that focus on communities and social networks, on the one hand, and on markets and voluntary action by market-based actors, on the other. ‘Hybrid’ or ‘mixed’ forms of governance involving collaboration between state, business, and civil society actors have emerged, but the effectiveness and legitimacy of such collaboration is likely constrained in areas with very limited statehood. As statehood increases, prospects for such mixed governance improve, though this depends inter alia on characteristics of the state, such as its commitment to participatory and deliberative decision-making. Overall, statehood clearly plays an important role in environmental governance and its outcomes, but in a more multidimensional and often indirect way than commonly assumed.