Philosophical Foundations of Environmental Policy Analysis: Can Critical Realism Bridge the Neopositivist/Interpretivist Divide?

Traditional environmental policy analysis has followed a neopositivist epistemological frame, using the natural sciences as a template as to how social-ecological problems can be analyzed. Such approaches to policy analysis have been caught up in the same crisis as the social sciences have in general: an overarching failure to create a predictive science of society or to consistently provide solutions to social problems. This has led some policy researchers to align with the interpretivist turn, which has had its own drawbacks. In this review I summarize the historical development and main tenets of both approaches, examining their advantages and disadvantages. I then review an alternative epistemological approach to social science, critical realism, which combines an ontological realism with an epistemological relativism, a focus on elucidating causal mechanisms in the social-ecological systems studied, an approach that may be particularly suited for analyzing the complex social-ecological systems studied in environmental policy analysis.

A gift programme for sustainable forest management? A Swiss perspective on public policies and property rights

For multifunctional forests that seek to fulfil societal, environmental and economic demands, active forest management is key. However, like in many other western European countries, Switzerland's small-scale private forest owners increasingly do not manage their forests. By applying and adapting the Institutional Resource Regime (IRR), a framework for environmental policy analysis that considers use rights both from public policies and property rights, we analyse the situation in Switzerland. Subsequently, we propose a Swiss forest gift programme – based on the Canadian Ecological Gifts Program (EGP) – consisting of different policy instruments that would ultimately lead to a transfer of property rights from the current to new owners. In sum, we argue that our proposal would lead to more “coherence”, with regard to the IRR's sustainability dimension, and consequently to clearer responsibilities for the sustainable management of forests in Switzerland.

Building a Diversified and Sustainable Economy in Kazakhstan

Due to globalization, entrepreneurship has become fundamental for the competitiveness of countries, and as shown by the Triple Helix Framework enterprises, universities and governments must create synergies to their mutual advantage. In Kazakhstan, a Post-Soviet transition economy, gross domestic product has doubled over the past decade thanks to the extractive and heavy industries and on an intensive use of electricity produced from coal. The authors present a goal programming model for environmental policy analysis involving criteria such as economic development, electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and the total number of employees to determine the optimal labour allocation across different economic sectors. The purpose is to provide empirical evidence and policy recommendations to decision makers in developing the optimal strategy able to simultaneously satisfy energy demand, decrease GHG emissions, increase economic growth, and foster labour development by 2050. The analysis will allow to compare Kazakhstan with similar economies.