Publications

@article{Bidone2018,

title = {From nationalism to global climate change: analysis of the historical evolution of environmental governance in the Brazilian Amazon},

author = {F. Bidone and Z. Kovacic},

url = {https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/10.1505/146554818825240656},

doi = {10.1505/146554818825240656},

issn = {1465-5489},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-12-01},

journal = {International Forestry Review},

volume = {20},

number = {4},

pages = {420--435},

publisher = {Commonwealth Forestry Association},

abstract = {The Brazilian Amazon is at the forefront of forest policy because of its importance for the conservation of the world's largest rainforest and its leading role in the implementation of the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation programme (REDD+). However, the increasing population and the extraction of natural resources challenge forest governance. This paper assesses the historical evolution of the policy narratives that have driven environmental governance in Brazil. We argue that environmental policy has evolved through an overlapping of narratives, rather than a change in governance logics. The success of REDD+ relies not only on the soundness of its scientific base but also on its interaction with existing narratives, the susceptibility of policies to economic and political changes at the national and international level and the mechanisms of social exclusion it may reinforce.},

keywords = {environmental policy, Narratives, rainforest, REDD+},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Cabello2018,

title = {Unravelling narratives of water management: Reflections on epistemic uncertainty in the first cycle of implementation of the Water Framework Directive in southern Spain},

author = {Violeta Cabello and Zora Kovacic and Nora Van Cauwenbergh},

url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1462901117306779},

doi = {10.1016/j.envsci.2018.03.019},

issn = {14629011},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-07-01},

journal = {Environmental Science & Policy},

volume = {85},

pages = {19--27},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {The participatory planning model promoted by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) leads to the emergence of new questions on how to define problems, how to know if something is a problem and for whom. We propose the concept of epistemic uncertainty to assess adaptive governance in the context of broadening of narratives about how water should be managed. For this purpose, we analyse how framings of the problem-solution duality with regards to water management evolve throughout the first cycle of implementation of the WFD in a semi-arid river basin in Southern Spain. We identify five narratives on water management: supply-side management, demand-side management, deep ecology, rural livelihoods and knowledge and governance. The paper contributes to the adaptive governance literature by arguing that epistemic uncertainty cannot be treated as a technical problem, and dealing with pluralism and accommodating evolving narratives are essential to adaptability in governance. We submit that the implementation of the WFD should take into account stakeholders' uneven capacities to influence water management and the hindrances to implementation that ensue. With regard to the study area, we find that (i) narrative pluralism is handled through ambiguity and coalition strategies based on large infrastructural investments, traditional in the Spanish context, (ii) unexpected events such as the economic crisis had greater influence on water management than participatory processes, and (iii) little evolution was observed in the perception of problems after implementation of the plan and mistrust of the water administration rose during the period analysed.},

keywords = {Adaptive governance, Epistemic uncertainty, Narratives, Participatory planning, Pluralism, Water Framework Directive},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Gamboa2016,

title = {The Complexity of Food Systems: Defining Relevant Attributes and Indicators for the Evaluation of Food Supply Chains in Spain},

author = {Gonzalo Gamboa and Zora Kovacic and Marina Di Masso and Sara Mingorr\'{i}a and Tiziano Gomiero and Marta Rivera-Ferr\'{e} and Mario Giampietro},

url = {http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/6/515},

doi = {10.3390/su8060515},

issn = {2071-1050},

year  = {2016},

date = {2016-05-01},

journal = {Sustainability},

volume = {8},

number = {6},

pages = {515},

abstract = {The wide-ranging literature on food systems provides multiple perspectives and world views. Various stakeholders define food and food systems in non-equivalent ways. The perception of the performance of food systems is determined by these specific perspectives, and a wide variety of policies responding to different aims are proposed and implemented accordingly. This paper sets out to demonstrate that the pre-analytical adoption of different narratives about the food system leads to non-equivalent assessments of the performance of food supply chains. In order to do so, we (i) identify a set of relevant narratives on food supply chains in Spanish and Catalan contexts; (ii) identify the pertinent attributes needed to describe and represent food supply chains within the different perspectives or narratives; and (iii) carry out an integrated assessment of three organic tomato supply chains from the different perspectives. In doing so, the paper proposes an analysis of narratives to enable the analyst to characterize the performance of food supply chains from different perspectives and to identify the expected trade-offs of integrated assessment, associating them with the legitimate-but-contrasting views found among the social actors involved.},

keywords = {Food supply chains, Food systems, Integrated assessment, Narratives},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}