When is transformation a viable policy alternative?
Introduction
Changing climatic conditions are bringing numerous challenges to policy and practice across all sectors (Handmer et al., 2012, Mechler and Bouwer, 2014). These challenges include for example increases in extreme events such as shifts in fire regimes due to increased drought conditions (Pausas and Fernández-Muñoz, 2012), extreme fire weather (Grose et al., 2014), extreme water deficits (Sippel and Otto, 2014), and extreme temperatures and heat waves (Hansen et al., 2012). The heatwaves in Europe in 2003 (Feuensenger, 2012, Larsen, 2006) and Russia in 2010 (Gallant, 2010) both broke temperature records and exposed multiple simultaneous vulnerabilities across service networks and economic sectors. In 2010, NOAA National Climatic Data Center reported a range of extreme events across the globe, many which displayed increases in magnitude (NOAA National Climatic Data Center, 2010). Australia has broken its heatwave records first in 2013 and now in 2014 prompting discussion on the kinds of societal changes more intense and frequent heatwaves will pose to the society (Frew, 2014). Hence, policy problems in a variety of areas are likely to display increasingly complex features and lie outside of previous experience (O’Neill and Handmer, 2012, Preston et al., 2013).
Yet, while the evidence for climatic regime shifts is accelerating (IPCC, 2014), societies tend to respond to pressures to change mostly through incremental steps, which focus on maintaining the current system or accepting gradual partial change (Handmer and Dovers, 2009, Handmer and Dovers, 2013). Part of this problem lies in the human experience as Patt et al. (2010, p. 385) note: “Human society is inexperienced at trying to steer itself, deliberatively and quickly, in fundamentally new directions”. In terms of risk management, organisations can be quite rigid in their management regimes and “the capacity to respond quickly and appropriately, once emergent signs are noted, often seems to be restricted” (Barnes et al., 2007, p. 9). As Kasperson (2011, p. 435) also remarks, “societies and decision-makers proceed on basic management or technological courses that accumulate over time. Major shifts away from these well-established developmental paths generally require either major risk events or incremental decisions made over long periods of time”. There are exceptions to this view, but they are few.
While institutions and agencies have developed and adhered to particular approaches over time to manage policy problems (Handmer and Dovers, 2013), the way the nature of policy problems is now changing has invoked thinking around which management approaches are sufficient and where transformative change, both in practices and perceptions, is necessary to respond more effectively to evolving complexity in the scope and scale of issues (Kates et al., 2012, O’Brien, 2012, Park et al., 2012, Pelling, 2011, Preston, 2013). Transformation is championed partly due to the urgency to change development pathways to adapt to climate change (Hallegatte, 2009; IPCC, 2014), and the accompanying increasing number of disasters associated with extreme weather and climate events (IPCC, 2012, Preston, 2013, Visser et al., 2014).
However, although the idea of transformation has become more prominent in particular among the scientific community (IPCC, 2012, Mustelin and Handmer, 2014, O’Brien, 2012, O’Brien and Sygna, 2014, Park et al., 2012, Pelling, 2011, Preston et al., 2013), there is no clear consensus as to what the concept means in practice, how it could be evaluated, and what role transformative approaches play in disaster risk management, policy and practice. For example, O’Brien (2012, p. 670) notes that despite the increasing interest in transformation research, the concept remains fairly vaguely defined specifically given that it can mean “different things to different people or groups, and it is not always clear what exactly needs to be transformed and why, whose interest these transformations serve, and what will be the consequences”. This poses obvious problems regarding attempts to set and identify such elements as boundaries, scale, and the evaluation of transformation, even though most definitions agree that transformation involves fundamental change.
The aim of this paper is to explore the concept of transformation in its current usage and definition, and to demonstrate how different approaches to public policy and policy problems are more or less able to accommodate transformative approaches. It uses Handmer and Dovers, 2007, Handmer and Dovers, 2009, Handmer and Dovers, 2013 typologies of common approaches to societal resilience and framing of policy problems, and examines the level of potential for transformation.
The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 reviews briefly common definitions for transformation as qualitative change. After that Section 3 discusses different framings of policy problems and introduces the typology used to illuminate different dimensions of problem types and management responses. Section 4 discusses in more detail what different responses and framings mean in terms of identifying and understanding the nature of transformative change by using several practical examples from disaster risk management. Section 5 summarises the arguments and suggests some strategies to better understand such processes of change.
Section snippets
Defining transformation
The concept of transformation is frequently used and widely applied across diverse fields such as mathematics, genetics, leadership, organisational change, education, and theatre. Over time particular characteristics have formed to distinguish and explain transformation from the perspective of qualitative change (Table 1), seen as a fundamental system change. Most of these definitions see transformation as an act or process, which demands significant change. This change, as the Farlex Free
Problem types and management approaches
Handmer and Dovers, 2007, Handmer and Dovers, 2009, Handmer and Dovers, 2013 propose three different types of problems and dimensions of resilience and practices, which describe the general societal attitude or perception of dealing with risks and hazards (Table 3). The typology portrays different ways a particular policy problem can be framed, which has obvious consequences for strategy choice and subsequent policy pathways. As Handmer and Dovers (2007) note, the first step in problem solving
Addressing Type III problems through transformation
The section above has demonstrated how different framings, management and problem types determine often the kind of space available for transformative action. These issues relate to multiple factors such as the tolerance for uncertainty and its role in managing change, the kind of science and knowledge perceived as useful and necessary, the flexibility and sustainability of chosen options and pathways, and the scale, extent and speed of preferred change. The way climate change is perceived by
Conclusions
Transformation has recently emerged as a suggested approach to manage change in societies given the increased complexity of policy problems. Problem types and their familiarity to actors determine often how change is managed, and whether transformative actions are undertaken. Yet, the question is whether non-routine events are enough to trigger transformation or whether management responses will only change when complex Type III problems and approaches become the new norm.
While complex
Dr. Johanna Nalau is a joint Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Griffith Climate Change Response Program and Griffith Institute for Tourism at Griffith University. Her research focuses on understanding the usefulness of adaptation science for policy and practice in the Pacific and in Melanesia in particular. Johanna is a contributing author in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report and outcomes of her research have been published in Nature Climate Change, Environmental Science and Policy,
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Dr. Johanna Nalau is a joint Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Griffith Climate Change Response Program and Griffith Institute for Tourism at Griffith University. Her research focuses on understanding the usefulness of adaptation science for policy and practice in the Pacific and in Melanesia in particular. Johanna is a contributing author in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report and outcomes of her research have been published in Nature Climate Change, Environmental Science and Policy, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, and Climate and Development.
Professor John Handmer leads RMIT's Risk and Community Safety research group. He was Convener of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Network for Emergency Management, and Principle Scientific Advisor for the Bushfire CRC, and was also a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC's special report on extremes. He works on the human dimensions of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.