What Makes Decisions About Urban Water Infrastructure Forward Looking? a Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Investmen
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University of Groningen What makes decisions about urban water infrastructure forward looking? A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of investment decisions in 40 Dutch municipalities Pot, W.D.; Dewulf, A.; Biesbroek, G.R.; Verweij, S. Published in: Land Use Policy DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.12.012 IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2019 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Pot, W. D., Dewulf, A., Biesbroek, G. R., & Verweij, S. (2019). What makes decisions about urban water infrastructure forward looking? A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of investment decisions in 40 Dutch municipalities. Land Use Policy, 82, 781-795. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.12.012 Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 29-04-2019 Land Use Policy 82 (2019) 781–795 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol What makes decisions about urban water infrastructure forward looking? A T fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of investment decisions in 40 Dutch municipalities ⁎ W.D. Pota, , A. Dewulfa, G.R. Biesbroeka, S. Verweijb a Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University and Research, Hollandseweg 1, P.O. box 47, 6706 KN, Wageningen, the Netherlands b Department of Spatial Planning and Environment, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, Landleven 1, 9747 AD, Groningen, the Netherlands ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Municipalities worldwide are confronted with the need to take long-term decisions about ageing water infra- Forward-looking decisions structure in the face of unpredictable future developments. Previous studies on long-term decision making have Multiple streams framework proposed solutions targeted at the domain of either politics or planning. This study combines insights from the Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis domains of policy, politics, and planning by using the Multiple Streams Framework to explain what enables (fsQCA) municipalities to take forward-looking investment decisions. We combine the configurational MSF perspective Urban water infrastructure with an explicitly configurational method namely fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and apply thisto40 Long-term governance cases of Dutch municipalities. We conclude that enabling conditions differ for small versus medium-to-large municipalities. Furthermore, forward-looking investment decisions can be achieved regardless of the munici- palities’ organizational analytical capacity. In fact, and contrasting to the requirement of the MSF, not all streams necessarily have to be present for forward-looking decisions to occur. For medium-to-large municipalities, forward-looking investment decisions are stimulated by: (1) the presence of organizational analytical capacity, (2) transactional/networking political leadership in situations without focusing events, or (3) entrepreneurial/ transformative political leadership in situations with focusing events. For small municipalities, forward-looking investment decisions are stimulated by networking/interpersonal political leadership combined with the oc- currence of focusing events. 1. Introduction anticipate a range of future challenges when they invest in their drai- nage, sewerage, and water storage infrastructure (Maier et al., 2016). Municipalities worldwide are confronted with water-related crises However, municipalities encounter barriers that make it difficult for and a portfolio of ageing urban water infrastructure (OECD, 2016). It is them to anticipate the future. Frequently reported barriers include poor likely that the impact and frequency of crises will increase, and urban political leadership and weak political incentives to invest in the long water infrastructure will age even more rapidly consequent to climate term (Bonfiglioli and Gancia, 2013; Hovi et al., 2009), limited long- change, urbanization, and technological developments. Municipalities term strategic planning (Lienert et al., 2013), and institutional frag- can no longer assume stationarity and predictability of future devel- mentation (Van de Meene et al., 2011). To strengthen long-term gov- opments in their decisions to renew infrastructure (Hill Clarvis et al., ernance, existing literature mainly focused on proposing new methods 2013; Mazmanian et al., 2013). Instead, facing future challenges re- and institutions targeted at either political leaders (Bonfiglioli and quires forward-looking investment decisions, in which governments Gancia, 2013; Boston, 2017; Goetz, 2014; Granjou et al., 2017) or the adopt robust and flexible policies, and explicitly account for the future strategic planning arena (Abbott, 2005; Kwakkel et al., 2016; Urich and problems and developments that may impact these policies (Walker Rauch, 2014). In the field of politics, Jacobs (2011) is one of the few et al., 2013; Pot et al., 2018). Without forward-looking decisions, that not only proposed but also tested political conditions necessary for governments run the risk of disruptive surprises (Anderson, 2010) and long-term governance. But a configurational perspective that combines policy failure (Nair and Howlett, 2017). To create resilient and sus- factors from politics, policy and planning to explain long-term gov- tainable built environments, municipalities will therefore need to ernmental action is lacking. Therefore, we use the Multiple Streams ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (W.D. Pot), [email protected] (A. Dewulf), [email protected] (G.R. Biesbroek), [email protected] (S. Verweij). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.12.012 Received 26 April 2018; Received in revised form 7 November 2018; Accepted 5 December 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/). W.D. Pot et al. Land Use Policy 82 (2019) 781–795 Framework (MSF) in this study. The MSF has been designed as a con- into account. Therefore, following Pot et al. (2018), we conceptualize a figurational approach, in which multiple factors, or streams, incom- forward-looking decision as a decision that consists of three elements: bination produce an outcome (Howlett et al., 2014; Kingdon, 2003). However, so far, no studies exist that combine the MSF with an ex- 1) A forward-looking problem definition, i.e., a problem definition plicitly configurational method, such as Qualitative Comparative Ana- with a long time horizon and referring to possible future develop- lysis (QCA) to understand which combinations of factors from the ments (Sprinz, 2009); streams produce specific policy outcomes (Cairney and Jones, 2016; 2) A forward-looking solution, i.e., solutions that are flexible and/or Jones et al., 2016; Ragin, 2008a). By combining the configurational robust so as to remain effective under changing future circumstances perspective about decision making from the MSF with a configurational (Dewulf and Termeer, 2015); QCA research approach, this article aims to make three contributions: 3) A forward-looking justification, i.e., a justification that relies on (1) to strengthen insights about long-term governmental action by desirable, possible, or plausible future states of the world through combining and testing enabling conditions from politics, policy and scenarios, long-term goals, and/or visions (Maier et al., 2016; planning; (2) to show how the MSF could be combined with a QCA Meuleman and’ t Veld, 2010; Voß et al., 2009). research approach to explain specific policy outcomes; and (3) to pro- vide explanations about how municipalities, both large and small, are 2.2. Conditions enabling forward-looking decisions enabled to take forward-looking investment decisions about their urban water infrastructure. From the three streams that are part of the MSF, which we combine To meet these aims, we systematically compare 40 cases of muni- with a review of literature about considerations of the long-term in cipal investment decisions in urban water infrastructure from 40 mu- governance and policy processes, we derive three conditions that sti- nicipalities of different sizes. The QCA approach allows us to identify mulate forward-looking decisions. (1) From the problem stream: the configurational explanations drawn from the MSF, i.e., combinations of attention to long-term problems as a result of focusing events (Jones conditions from the problem stream (focusing events), the political and Baumgartner, 2005); (2) from the political stream: political com- stream (leadership style of the elected politician), and the solution mitment