An Interpretive Study of Governance in an Urban Watershed
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“POLICY IS WHAT WE MAKE OF IT”: AN INTERPRETIVE STUDY OF GOVERNANCE IN AN URBAN WATERSHED ARITREE SAMANTA Bachelor of Arts in Economics University of Delhi July 2006 Master of Arts in Social Work University of Delhi July 2009 Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree: DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN URBAN STUDIES & PUBLIC AFFIARS at the CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY March 2017 © COPYRIGHT BY ARITREE SAMANTA 2017 We hereby approve this dissertation for Aritree Samanta Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies and Public Affairs degree for the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs and the CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY College of Graduate Studies by Dissertation Chairperson, Wendy A. Kellogg, Ph.D. Department & Date Dissertation Committee Member, Nicholas C. Zingale, Ph.D. Department & Date Dissertation Committee Member, Nancy Meyer-Emerick, Ph.D. Department & Date Dissertation Committee Member, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, J.D., J.S.D. Department & Date Student’s Date of Defense: March 30th, 2017 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to Surekha and Asis Samanta ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am indebted to a number of people who have made this dissertation possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation committee members. Dr. Wendy Kellogg, my dissertation chairperson, for extended her unrelenting guidance and support in not only my dissertation work, but also in shaping my research interests and aptitude. Your abundant patience and encouragement over the past six years has made this work possible. Dr. Nick Zingale, thank you for being an amazingly supportive professor and mentor and for introducing me to the world of phenomenological research and interpretive inquiry. With your guidance, I am confident in saying that I have come to understand policy and public administration scholarship through a theoretical lens. Dr. Nancy Meyer-Emerick, thank you being such a patient sounding board for ideas. Your guidance towards pragmatic purpose of research encouraged me to think about my work’s relevance to practice. Professor Heidi Gorovitz-Robertson, thank you for your challenging and critical questions that fundamentally shaped the focus of this dissertation. I would also like to thank the Levin College community – Valerie Hicks, Suzanne Sharpe, Dave Arrighi, and Rachel Singer for facilitating such a supportive and encouraging environment to make it possible for me complete my doctoral work. It truly takes a village to raise a doctoral student. This project would not be possible without the love, support, and enthusiasm of my friends Amelia Caldwell, Melanie Mazanec, and Esther West. Thank you for your understanding, humor, and welcome distractions. I would like to thank my family for your confidence in me and believing that I could successfully do this. And finally, the biggest thank you goes to my husband and dear friend, Debojyoti Ghosh, for your love, support, patience, encouragement, and advice – I am indebted to you in more ways than I can express in writing. I would like to acknowledge the funding received from Cleveland State University’s Dissertation Research Award (2015-2016). I also appreciate the support provided by the Ralph P. Hummel Scholarship Award 2015. This award extended by The Institute of Applied Phenomenology in Science and Technology and the Public Administration Theory Network supported the methodological part of the study and participation in the annual Public Administration Theory conference in San Antonio, TX in May 2016. “POLICY IS WHAT WE MAKE OF IT”: AN INTERPRETIVE STUDY OF GOVERNANCE IN AN URBAN WATERSHED ARITREE SAMANTA ABSTRACT This study explores the governance of an urban watershed using a combination of interpretive approach and resilience framework. The key idea within resilience and social ecological systems (SESs) discourse is to link ‘human systems’ (e.g. communities, society, economy) with ‘natural systems’ (e.g. ecosystems, biophysical elements) and to understand the interconnections and feedbacks between these systems. Under resilience thinking SESs (e.g. urban environmental) are viewed as complex adaptive systems, therefore, adaptive governance is key for maintaining long-term sustainability of these systems. With this study, I examine the case of the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio, an urban watershed with legacy pollution and water quality issues, which in the recent times has also been recognized as an icon in water management. To do so, I conducted an interpretive analysis using a combination of political ethnography, interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), and social network mapping. Specifically, I conduct a characterization and analysis of an urban watershed, bringing the resilience and SES frameworks to the study of urban SESs. I also develop a conceptual framework for analyzing urban watersheds based on SES dynamics and resilience attributes that are critical for building adaptive capacity, explicitly focusing on governance and management influences. Further, I explore what the networked approach to watershed governance in the Cuyahoga River watershed mean to the governance actors in terms of building long-term adaptive capacity. I suggest that using approach and through continued dialogue and discourse, governance actors create and bind policy meanings vii that overtime transforms governance. I suggest that the lessons drawn from this study will provide insights for watershed managers, public agencies, and non-governmental organizations to enhance their long-term capacity-building mechanisms and processes that support watershed planning, policy development, implementation and decision- making. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………….vii LIST OF TABLES..........................................................................................................xiii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………xiv CHAPTERS I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….1 Research Statement and Questions………………………………………..9 Organization of Dissertation……………………………………………..12 II. LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………………...16 Introduction……………………………………………………………....16 Complexity……………………………………………………………….16 Social-Ecological Systems and Resilience………………………………16 Governance………………………………………………………………18 Governance Networks……………………………………………24 Informality/Informal Action…………………………………......25 Knowledge and Learning through Informal or Loose Networks……………………………………………….26 Collaborative Watershed Management…………………………………..29 Adaptive Governance…………………………………………………….33 Understanding Planning, Policy, and Public Administration through Interpretation……………………………………………………………..34 Implementation Research………………………………………………...38 Interpretive Methods……………………………………………………..42 III. LOGIC OF INQUIRY AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK…………….45 Understanding Reality through Positivist/Empirical Approaches……….45 Social Constructionist View of the World……………………………….48 Interpretive and Deliberative Policy Analysis…………………………...49 Complexity and Public Policy…………………………………………...52 Phenomenology, Complexity Theory, and Public Policy………………..53 Governance and Interpretation…………………………………………...56 Hermeneutics and Phenomenology……………………………………....57 Interpretation and Hermeneutics…………………………………………59 ix Tradition, Authority, and Prejudice……………………………59 Dialogue………………………………………………………..62 Between Hermeneutics and Post-Structuralism…………………….….63 Conceptual Framework for the Study………………………………….65 IV. METHODS AND ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK……………………………...68 Introduction………………………………………………………………68 Research Design………………………………………………………….69 Methods………………………………………………………………......72 Ethnography……………………………………………………...72 Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis………………………...74 Network Mapping………………………………………………..76 Data Collection…………………………………………………………..79 Document Review……………………………………………......80 Observations……………………………………………………..82 Interviews………………………………………………………...85 Secondary Data for Network Mapping…………………………..88 Description of Analysis………………………………………………......91 Study Limitations…………………………………………………….…..95 Issues of Validity and Evaluative Criteria…………………………….…97 V. CHARACTERIZATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL- ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM…………………………………………………....103 Social-Ecological Systems (SES), Resilience, and Governance…….....103 Urban SES, Resilience, and Adaptive Governance………………….....105 Research Questions and Analysis Method……………………..……….107 Social-Ecological Systems Analysis……………………………107 Application of Social-Ecological Systems Analysis……………108 Social-Ecological Systems Analysis Framework………………………110 Analysis of Data for Network Mapping………………………...114 Results: Description of the Focal System………..……………………..116 Background (physiography, geology, land-use, and history)…..116 The Focal System…………………………………………...…..120 Ecosystem Services……………………………………………..122 Changes, Uncertainties, and Disturbances……………………...131 Key Drivers of Change and Governance and Management Attributes…138 Ecological (biophysical) Drivers……………………….……....138 Social Drivers…………………………………………………...142 Governance and Management Attributes……………………….156 x Networked Governance in the Watershed………………...……167 Summary and Implications……………………………………………..172 VI. PRACTICE OF GOVERNANCE: EXPERIENCES AND MEANINGS.....180 Water Pollution Control Policies and Implementation…………………180 Research Questions and Analysis Method……………………………..184 Analysis Method………………………………………………..185 Results…………………………………………………………………..188 Relation to the River and Perceptions About it………………...188 Placemaking: Creating a Sense of Place and a Local Identity….192 Governance, Policies, and Organizational