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Empirical Analysis III: On the Consolidation of Cooperation

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Micro-Pollutant Regulation in the River Rhine

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Abstract

The chapter examines how actors’ participation in forums may consolidate cooperation among actors in a common-pool resource problem setting. I argue that actors’ participation in forums can enhance their knowledge about each other and about the topic and help build trust among actors, both factors that eventually benefit cooperation. To substantiate this claim, I first assess actors’ general participation in forums across the three cases through a descriptive data analysis. By focusing on selected forums that stand out as especially important in the case study regions’ contexts, I reveal:

  1. (a)

    The relevant forums for water quality management in the Rhine basin.

  2. (b)

    In which ways these forums foster cooperation among actors.

Furthermore, I construct bipartite actor-forum networks in which actors represent one type of vertice and forums the other, while the edges between them stand for actors’ participation in the forums. This descriptive Social Network Analysis allows to:

  1. (a)

    Trace the configurations of actors’ participation in forums that represent actors’ participation and actors’ joint-participation in forums.

  2. (b)

    To link these configurations back to the concepts of forums’ bridging and bonding capital as described by the Ecology of games framework (EGF) (Berardo and Lubell, Public Adm Rev 76(5):738–751, 2016).

I further compare the analyses of forum participation across the cases. The chapter closes with an overall summary of the research findings, compared across the cases. It reveals that the factor time is an important component when explaining the reasons for cooperation in CPR problem settings.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the cases’ lists of forums, see Tables 27–28, Annex XIII.

  2. 2.

    They comprise the four local WWTP operators, the three regional state authorities (AIBBL, AUEBL, AUEBS), a regional polluter (NOVARTIS), a national scientific association (CERCL), and the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN_W).

  3. 3.

    English translation: “I noticed that many of these committees, working groups, experience-exchange-groups, you name it, are not linked among each other—this is not the case for all areas, but for a lot of domains. Some do exactly the same as the others and often they don’t know about each other. Very unsatisfactory.”

  4. 4.

    English translation: “That’s why we focus on the ICPR. All top experts from the European countries are in there; the ICPR has a certain standing; it is legitimated by the conference of ministers. It is the locus where politics are being implemented. It is actually one of the most important committees for us.”

  5. 5.

    Interview N° 7. The working groups are AG S, the working group on water quality and emissions (see ICPR n.d.-c), and EG SDIF, the expert group on diffuse sources of micro-pollutants, especially pesticides (see ICPR n.d.-a).

  6. 6.

    Interview N° 8.

  7. 7.

    Original name: “Strategische Begleitgruppe Oberflächengewässer”.

  8. 8.

    Interview N° 6.

  9. 9.

    German name: Landesamt für Natur, Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz Nordrhein-Westphalen.

  10. 10.

    Interview N° 11.

  11. 11.

    Interview N° 10; the original name is “Koordinierungsgruppe anthropogenische Spurenstoffe im Wasserkreislauf.”

  12. 12.

    These are assemblies and advisory councils by the Emschergenossenschaft & Lippeverband, the Ruhrverband, the Federation of the Energy and Water Industry (BDEW), the MKULNV, and the UBA (Interview N° 14).

  13. 13.

    Interview N° 19, quote: “Die IKSMS das ist ja bei uns dann die, wo wir auch zusammen sprechen können. Wir sind ja teilweise gar nicht fähig so miteinander zu sprechen, weil wir keinen Dolmetscher haben, deshalb ist das ganz wichtig da in dem Zusammenhang. (…) Einmal jährlich [ist] die Vollversammlung und wo eben auch dann die Abteilungsleiter sich zusammen hocken und so. Es geht dann einfach dann mit den Dolmetschern.” English translation: “It’s at the level of the IKSMS that we’re able to talk with each other. Sometimes we’re simply not able to communicate because we have no interpreter. The IKSMS is really important in that regard. (…) Once a year the heads of department meet at the general assembly. Communication there is easy thanks to the interpreters.”

  14. 14.

    Interviews N° 3, 6, 11, and 16.

  15. 15.

    Interview N° 11.

  16. 16.

    Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and the European Commission ICPR (1994). English translation: “Rhin agreement.”

  17. 17.

    Interview N° 22.

  18. 18.

    The treaty was renewed in 1999; see ICPR (1999).

  19. 19.

    Interview N° 3.

  20. 20.

    International Association of Water Works in the Rhine Basin.

  21. 21.

    International Water Association.

  22. 22.

    German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste.

  23. 23.

    German Working Group on water issues of the Federal States and the Federal Government.

  24. 24.

    AUEBL, FOEN_W, and IWB are in the group of actors with the highest degree centralities in both the networks—the given political information network and the given technical information network.

  25. 25.

    Note: the actors belonging to the strong bonding capital structure are AWBR, IAWR, TZWK, WWB, IWB, WWR, AUEBL, SVGW, WWF, AQUAVIV, FOEN_W, AUEBS, and CERCL. Note: ALSACENAT is also in the box although the actor does not share more than one forum with another actor.

  26. 26.

    Actors participating in four forums together are TZWK and IAWR, while FOEN_W and AUEBL attend five forums together.

  27. 27.

    Aluseau is here understood in its function of an umbrella organization and thus as a forum.

  28. 28.

    For the chi2 test, the co-participation matrix was binarily coded, reflecting whether or not two actors attend one or more forums together. The calculation of the chi2 test was done in R.

  29. 29.

    The question of directionality remains: whether actors first start to cooperate and then attend the same forum or whether they first meet in a forum and afterwards initiate cooperation outside the forum.

  30. 30.

    See Summary of Model 1, Moselle case study: Figure XI.3, Annex XI.

  31. 31.

    See SVGW (2018), VSA (2018), and Wasser-Agenda 21 (2019).

  32. 32.

    ARW (2018), AWWR (2018), and DVGW (2020).

  33. 33.

    In the Basel and Ruhr case studies, actors evaluate the different potential effects of micro-pollutants on average with 2.7–3.3—that is, they perceive them as a serious problem.

  34. 34.

    30% of actors are in a bridging capital position in the Basel case study; 32% of the actors hold such a position in the Moselle case study.

  35. 35.

    Cf. Ch. 2.3.2: An ecology of games situation is understood as actors’ attendance in several forums within a specific policy subsystem with focus on a specific collective action problem; see Lubell et al. (2011, pp. 5–8); Lubell (2013, pp. 539–542).

  36. 36.

    Cf. Sect. 4.2.2 and Table 20, Annex X.

  37. 37.

    Cf. Table 20, Annex X.

  38. 38.

    See Table 4.13, Sect. 2.2, and Table 21, Annex X.

  39. 39.

    Cf. Models 2 and 5, Tables 23 and 26, Annex XI.

  40. 40.

    Interview N° 16.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Systems Research, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany

    Laura Mae Jacqueline Herzog

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Herzog, L.M.J. (2020). Empirical Analysis III: On the Consolidation of Cooperation. In: Micro-Pollutant Regulation in the River Rhine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36770-1_6

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