Moving Beyond Panaceas in Fisheries Governance PERSPECTIVE Oran R
PERSPECTIVE Moving beyond panaceas in fisheries governance PERSPECTIVE Oran R. Younga, D. G. Websterb,1, Michael E. Coxb, Jesper Raakjærc, Lau Øfjord Blaxekjærd,e, N´ıels Einarssonf, Ross A. Virginiab, James Achesong, Daniel Bromleyh, Emma Cardwelli, Courtney Carothersj, Einar Eyth ´orssonk, Richard B. Howarthb, Svein Jentoftl, Bonnie J. McCaym, Fiona McCormackn, Gail Osherenkoo, Evelyn Pinkertonp, Rob van Ginkelq, James A. Wilsonr, Louie Rivers IIIs, and Robyn S. Wilsont Edited by Arild Underdal, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, and approved July 31, 2018 (received for review September 21, 2017) In fisheries management—as in environmental governance more generally—regulatory arrangements that are thought to be helpful in some contexts frequently become panaceas or, in other words, simple formulaic policy prescriptions believed to solve a given problem in a wide range of contexts, regardless of their actual consequences. When this happens, management is likely to fail, and negative side effects are common. We focus on the case of individual transferable quotas to explore the panacea mindset, a set of factors that promote the spread and persistence of panaceas. These include conceptual narratives that make easy answers like panaceas seem plausible, power disconnects that create vested interests in pan- aceas, and heuristics and biases that prevent people from accurately assessing panaceas. Analysts have suggested many approaches to avoiding panaceas, but most fail to conquer the underlying panacea mindset. Here, we suggest the codevelopment of an institutional diagnostics toolkit to distill the vast amount of information on fisheries governance into an easily accessible, open, on-line database of check- lists, case studies, and related resources.
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