Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Vanderbilt Law Review
Publication Date
2020
ISSN
0042-2533
Page Number
1687
Keywords
adaptive governance, complex systems, law and government, socio-ecological systems
Disciplines
Environmental Law | Law
Abstract
This Article contributes to the development of adaptive governance theory by articulating and situating the role of formal law and government as the facilitator, but not central controller, of adaptive governance. To advance the understanding of adaptive governance, we argue that it can be understood in the broader context of scholarship covering the observed emergence of new governance, the efforts to develop theoretical understandings through decentered theory, and the refinement of constitutional understanding through democratic experimentalism. Synthesis of these three themes in turn informs the role of law and government in working with emergent governance responses to complexity to manage change and wicked problems. This inter- and transdisciplinary exercise reveals that the role of law and government in adaptive governance is to leave space for local innovation and private governance. Law and government must provide the catalyzation, facilitation, steering, and oversight essential for public and private institutions to respond at the rate and complexity of change in large-scale social-ecological systems, and they must do so while advancing good governance.
Recommended Citation
J. B. Ruhl, Barbara A. Cosens A. Cosens, Niko Soininen, and Lance Gunderson,
Designing Law to Enable Adaptive Governance of Modern Wicked Problems, 73 Vanderbilt Law Review. 1687
(2020)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1189