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Towards deliberative coastal governance: insights from South Africa and the Mississippi Delta

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Abstract

Coastal sustainability is elusive in South Africa and the Mississippi delta. These case studies and convergent literatures demonstrate the merits of reconceptualising coastal management as a transformative practice of deliberative governance. A normative framework is presented that focuses attention on underpinning deliberative outcomes to enable governance actors and networks to build cognitive, democratic, sociopolitical and institutional capacity to transform unsustainable and maladaptive coastal practices. But operationalising such intentions is complex and contested and requires a volte-face in thinking and practice. The South African and Mississippi delta experiences provide insights about how to develop a deliberative praxis of coastal governance based on consideration of the choice of process, timeliness, quality of process, equity and representation, connections to the policy cycle, impact, implementation and institutionalisation.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors for considering this article for inclusion in this Special Issue. I would also like to thank LOICZ and the New Zealand Earthquake Commission for providing financial support that enabled me to conduct the research upon which this article is based and to enable participation in IMBIZO III. I would also like to thank the journal editors and reviewers for their constructive suggestions that helped to improve the manuscript. I retain sole responsibility for this research.

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  1. School of People Environment and Planning, Massey University, Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North, 4442, New Zealand

    Bruce Christopher Glavovic

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  1. Bruce Christopher Glavovic
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Correspondence to Bruce Christopher Glavovic.

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Glavovic, B.C. Towards deliberative coastal governance: insights from South Africa and the Mississippi Delta. Reg Environ Change 16, 353–365 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0727-4

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