General comments on the book chapter

Much existing research on (and practice of) development evokes, for me, what Paolo Freire termed "the banking system of education," which he believed disempowered people by failing to treat them as agents in their own education. I believe this relates directly to the chapter's goals of "credibility, legitimacy and salience." If we simply offer people "the right answer" without involving them in its discovery, they are unlikely to fully trust and make use of this knowledge. The idea of "collaborative, user-driven dialogue" is a move toward Freire's "dialogics," in which learning is a mutual process and students set their own learning agendas and goals. Being directly involved in knowledge creation certainly addresses its credibility, legitimacy and salience. In particular, I liked the idea on slide 17 of turning the earlier presented 'chain' into a loop, which seems (in theory at least) to address the three broad categories of challenges presented in the chapter. The problem, for me, is how to operationalize this.

It strikes me that these same problems that prevent academic research from being translated into action are also plaguing the entire system of development assistance. Without consulting beneficiaries, locally inappropriate solutions to development problems are often implemented in a top-down manner (often based on the results of similarly top-down research projects). Therefore, my interpretation of the "collaborative dialogue" to solve the trust problem involves decentralization of decision-making and local-level involvement in action research. However, I'm not entirely sure if the chapter is talking about the same thing or if I am merely reading into it what I want to see... so, I would like some further clarification on a couple of points.

First, if collaborative research involves decentralized, local level involvement in problem definition, etc., then how does the final link in the slide 17 chain work (between large-scale diffusion and problem re-definition)? The nature of "large-scale diffusion" implies that we are at some point saying we DO have the answer for other people, who were not involved in the small-scale adoption and field testing. Is "scaling up" (or even the milder "diffusion of knowledge") actually possible if we believe that everyone (beneficiaries as well as policy-makers) must be included in the process that encourages credibility/legitimacy/salience?

Also, as long as development organizations and governance structures remain centralized, it may be very difficult for researchers to decentralize their own work. Putting people in control of their own development (or even involving them in any serious way in research concerning it) is a challenge to existing power structures, which implies that it may face opposition from current elites. How will sustainability science strike the balance between pragmatic bargaining with those who currently hold power and involvement of those who are currently disempowered? It seems to me that such research would be forced to either initially work within existing power structures (which may reinforce them) or take an actual stance of independence from them (which may cause political backlash and be ultimately counterproductive).

Tara's comment on education and my reading of the slides brings back a point I made at the end of our discussion during week 10 on Institutions. I brought up the idea that changing how we do education or perhaps culture change seems essential to realizing good outcomes in CPRs. Ostrom emphasized the importance of trust and cooperation to create institutions that sustainably manage CPRs. How do we create a healthy environment for this kind of trust and cooperation? I cant imagine that interventions by aid agencies are the most cost effective way to achieve this goal and while they can be useful as a tool for learning the question of scalability and diffusion is always looming. This is underscored by the fact that most of the research points to the fact that institutions for managing CPRs are most effective when they are developed by the user-community locally. Thus for me the central question is how do you develop an education system that fosters this culture of trust and cooperation around CPRs. I don't know the answer to this question and have never worked in this area so I would be curious if anyone knows where the most innovative research is happening in this area. Tying back into the discussion of boundary-spanning organizations, it seems that one of their key functions could be in fostering a kind of environment where trust and cooperation can be realized. 

Previously Tara Grillos wrote:

Tara's comments helped me think of my own reaction to the reading for this session - and to the broader theme of linking knowledge to action.

Tara has brought up several important structural questions that I believe are worth addressing in the eventual book chapter, and in the accompanying readings.

I wanted to respond with my own thoughts on just one of the points in this post.

Tara writes: "First, if collaborative research involves decentralized, local level involvement in problem definition, etc., then how does the final link in the slide 17 chain work (between large-scale diffusion and problem re-definition)? The nature of "large-scale diffusion" implies that we are at some point saying we DO have the answer for other people, who were not involved in the small-scale adoption and field testing. Is "scaling up" (or even the milder "diffusion of knowledge") actually possible if we believe that everyone (beneficiaries as well as policy-makers) must be included in the process that encourages credibility/legitimacy/salience?"

This is a structural conundrum of the argument for full stakeholder involvement in decision making vs. the importance of scaling up. Philosophically, I see the dilemma clearly, and yet I think this question opens room for another potentially fruitful discussion. I see examples in practice in a business context.

) they will (at best) elicit commentary on decision making from their stakeholders, maintain transparency in their operations and financials, and include a variety of stakeholders on their advisory board. This does not mean that they will actually receive feedback from every stakeholder on every decision, but rather maintain a tradition of openness and listening as well as demonstrating through their actions that they do take the needs of all stakeholders into consideration.

to decision making, and the decision makers is possible - even in development projects that are "scaling up".

Something I took from Lin Ostrom's presentation was the potential work that scholars can do to enable greater communication in the decision making processes that precede policy decisions and implementation. Part of that (I think) can be the work of actual communications and technology scholars, but part of it comes out of the work described in the readings for today's session on boundary work: translation, mediation, accountability, etc.

Power, knowledge and action

I found the power dimension to be conspicuously absent in both the 'draft material' slides and many of the other readings for this week, to be honest. The draft material focuses on three barriers "that inhibit effective mobilization of knowledge to support decision making for SD" (4): 

• Mutual incomprehension between scientists and decision makers; 
• Fragmentation of the knowledge system; and 
• Inflexibility in a world of ignorance & surprise.

It is asserted that the mutual incomprehension problem is bridged by providing knowledge that decision makers trust because it is "not only credible, but also salient and legitimate". Similarly Cash et al. (2003) assert that better management is a result of better 'knowledge systems', which are best propagated through better 'boundary management'. The implicit assumption is that there is such thing as objective data that can be provided to decision-makers to improve their performance, and that they will heed or ignore this information based on the degrees to which it embodies three characteristics: Credibility, saliency and legitimacy. 

These three characteristics may indeed be important, but I would assert that power throws at least two different spanners into the works: First, the 'draft material' seems to assume that there are not stakeholders with divergent interests that can and do exert power to significantly intercede in this relationship between knowledge and action. Second, on a related note, it assumes that decision makers are themselves a unified body with a consistent and objective desire for the right knowledge and information.

It is not difficult to find examples of how powerful interests interrupt the knowledge to action relationship. A good example might be policy on climate change during the Bush Administration here in the United States. Climate scientists both within and outside of government were arguably prepared to provide credible, salient and legitimate information that, in an apolitical vacuum, could have precipitated action. Senior officials with strong connections to fossil fuel industries and ideologically opposed to more government regulation were, however, able to stymie the ability of these scientists to even share information (with congress and others) through mechanisms like limits on their public speech and interference in grant-giving processes.

One could argue that decision makers are never apolitical automatons of scientific management. The degree to which the 'draft material' does address interests and their impact on the knowledge-action relationship is by posing the question: "Has the knowledge system convincingly demonstrated that it is truly trying to serve the interests of the decision maker, rather than being a tool of other interests used to manipulate the decision makers’ beliefs and behavior?" This seems to suggest that the decision maker has altruistic interests while 'other interests' only seek to sabotage. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993) and others suggest a richer environment in which different decision makers and other stakeholders organize into coalitions that call upon different sets of knowledge to justify their positions and forward their unique interests.

It should come as no surprise that I really enjoyed the van Kerkhoff and Lebel (2006) pieces for their explicit treatment of the power dimension. I frankly think that the chapter would benefit from pulling their analysis in. I particularly appreciated that they presented a suite of ways in which engagement and power can be addressed, including learning, negotiation, integration and participation. Overcoming the power dimension - whether explicit and intentionally exercised or implicit in the paradigm, as Meadows (1999) noted it can often be - is a very difficult problem, but one that is necessary if we really want knowledge to translate into action.

My response relates largely to the model of large development agencies (e.g., USAID, World Bank) providing funding for sustainable development projects in local areas.

Christina and Tara discuss the idea of decentralized decision-making and communication between those impacted by a project and those who design the projects (often local communities and international organizations, respectively). I would add to that strand of conversation that it is important that we acknowledge both sides of such projects have valuable information.  Development agencies have better information on trends in international food prices, exchange rates, etc. as well as deeper understanding of potential geopolitical risks.  Thus, I don't think we can completely exclude them from sustainable development decision-making.

On a new strand, integrating questions from above, I also wonder if some of the challenges we describe have to do with contractual design.  It seems to me that better contract design could lead to development programs which more effectively integrate information.  My experience with development projects has been that they are often responses to RFPs from aid agencies.  Here, almost all of the decisions are made by the donor in advance, and any design "vetting" done by the bidder is not paid for.  Thus, the contracts seem to fail for two separate reasons: (1) they don't allow the party with context-specific information (e.g., the local community) to contribute to the majority of the decisions; and (2) they doesn't cover any of the costs associated with the limited program design that the bidder can do, nor do they cover the costs of performing in-depth risk assessment.  Thus, the implementing partner has an incentive to under-perform in these areas.

I am encouraged by newer, more flexible, development contracts which allow for (a) more design done by bidder, in some cases all design; and (b) more room for ex post negotiation over price.  Gates has done some of these, and if anyone has other information/papers about development contracting, I'd be very interested to read them.  Antcedotally, I've also been hearing more of a push by donor agencies to contract based on outcomes rather than activities, though my understanding is that implementing agents have been very resistant to this. I wonder if these types of contracting induce partners to avoid risk to an even greater extent, and to hide the truth from donors.

Thus, my second question is: how can we induce risk-taking and truth-telling (before, during, and after projects)?   For this challenge (which Alicia touched on), I wonder if we can look to business. When a company determines whether or not to invest in a product, significant time and money is spent up front to determine whether or not that product will be successful.  In development, it seems we undertake this process in less depth.  How can we develop a norm where greater risk analysis is performed up front, and the true likelihood of "failure" is acknowledged and perhaps contingency plans put in place. 

One quick note - ENSO is mentioned quite often in the presentation, but never defined or described.  I believe this is the El Nino Southern Oscillation, thus in an actual chapter, would be helpful to define and describe this example more completely up front (effectively repeating the discussion of this challenge described in the Cash-Clark article we read).

I thought this week's presentation on the interaction between knowledge and action for sustainable development was excellent.  Again, as a learner of this material it was nice to see a worked example to bring out the key points from the presentation.  As I have mentioned before, in the final product it would be useful to make specific reference to the important content as it relates to the case or cases that are outlined in the text.  Most specifically for this section, the barriers to communication and the saliency, legitimacy, credibility criteria.

Another part of the section that I would like to see expanded on that I found particularly interesting is the use of boundary spanning objects.  This may be beyond the scope of a textbook, but perhaps in sustainability science in practice, specific examples of boundary spanning objects and the contexts in which they were used would be helpful for individuals in the field exploring ways to break down some of those boundaries for communication.  There is the excellent example of the cartoon, but examples of the other objects, the contexts in which they were / are used and possible instructions on how to go about creating these objects would be helpful to practitioners in the field.  Interestingly, we touched on this topic during a recent training for education in response to emergencies.  We were instructed that one of the first things to do with a displaced population is create a map of their environment, identifying where key components of the community are located (homes, water sources, landmarks etc.), what is missing and identify places where they would like to see a school, church, community center, etc., essentially creating a boundary spanning object between the community and aide workers (www.ineesite.org).

Overall, this is an important and difficult topic for all disciplines.  I wonder if it should be mandatory for sustainability science students of the future to take core classes in negotiation and leadership?  So much of these boundary spanning capabilities depend on the personalities involved and skills in these disciplines would no doubt be integral to achieving the goals of all parties involved.

On a different note, the attached case on the harvesting of turtle eggs in Ostional, Costa Rica potentially provides an example of a case that could fit well with this section.  Ostional is one a few known places where arribadas or a mass nesting of sea turtles takes place roughly once a month.  The event takes place of the course of several days and the community is able to harvest the eggs within the first 36 hours.  The article chronicles the development of the legal framework and community development that allows for this to happened, coupled with the distrust as well as incorporation of scientific knowledge into the final decision and community perceptions.

Although I find the “credibility-salience-legitimacy” framework helpful, I believe that this framework has ignored a fundamental concept: affect.

As Bill explained, the CSL framework was designed to explain how and why some knowledge becomes trusted (and therefore turned into action), while other knowledge does not.  However, to me it is obvious that “trust” does not depend on purely rational constructs (like credibility, saliency, and legitimacy), but is driven by affect and emotion.  If we view both the process of knowledge creation and the process of knowledge-to-action translation as negotiations between experts, policy makers, and practitioners, this point is even more obvious.  We know that negotiation outcomes depend on both logical/strategic actions and on emotional and cognitive factors.  For example, in the language of the CSL framework, the outcome will depend on whether your offer is relevant to the desires of the other party [saliency], whether your information about the situation is accurate [credibility], and whether you have the right to represent your client or position [legitimacy].  However, the outcome of the negotiation also depends upon the emotional and affective states of the negotiators; numerous studies have found that negative emotional reactions lead to fewer joint gains, impairment of rational judgments, and negotiation impasses (see, for example, Allred, Mallozzi, Matsui & Raia, 1997; Janis & Mann, 1977; Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1981).

Research has shown that negotiations involving environmental issues (which are often considered ideological or “sacred” issues) are more difficult to resolve because environmental (“sacred”) issues directly affect the negotiators’ affective states.  In an environmental negotiation experiment, Tenbrunsel, Wade-Benzoni, Tost, Medvec, Thompson, and Bazerman (2009) found that when negotiators have strong alternatives (when they are able to “walk away” from the table), the presence of environmental issues leads to more emotional reactions, more negative perceptions of the other parties, and more unresolved negotiations. In particular, the researchers found that when negotiators are addressing environmental issues and can easily walk away from the table, they are more likely to view the other party as less credible. For those that are interested, the paper is attached.

This is just one illustration of the significant impact that emotion and affect has on whether and how knowledge is trusted, adopted, and translated into action.  Therefore, I am very interested in investigating how the CSL framework can incorporate the idea of affect.  A few preliminary thoughts come to mind:

1.        The nature of the topic becomes relevant:  In the case studies examined by Cash et al., little attention was paid to how the topic of the knowledge influenced the outcome.  The above research suggests that the more “sacred” or ideologically-driven the nature of the contested knowledge, the more emotion will be present in the knowledge negotiation, and the more likely other parties (and other knowledges) will be viewed as non-credible.  Note, however, that this effect is only present when the negotiators have strong alternatives (when the negotiators do not feel that the knowledge conflict is urgent).

2.       The urgency of the conflict:  The research on affect, “sacredness”, and negotiations also suggests that knowledge negotiations involving contested environmental issues will only be resolved when both parties do not have strong alternatives (when they cannot easily walk away from the table).  Unfortunately, the long-term and uncertain nature of sustainability problems means that MOST sustainability issues will NOT be viewed as urgent; indeed, most parties will view the alternatives (business as usual) as being perfectly viable if an agreement is not reached.  Therefore, it seems that the knowledge negotiations and knowledge-action negotiations in sustainability science will be particularly prone to breakdown because there are strong incentives to “walk away” from the table.

3.       Education is not the answer:  Although education may be vital to long-term cultural changes, the problems raised by this view of “affect-influenced environmental negotiations” do not seem to be solvable by education alone.  Certainly education will not reduce people’s attitudes towards the “sacredness” of the environment; if policy-makers and scientists continue to view the alternatives as being attractive, then environmental knowledge/action will continue to be prone to highly affective conflicts and incomplete resolutions.  If, however, we can make the negotiators (the scientists, policy makers, and practitioners) feel as though the alternatives are weak, then the parties may be less influenced by the affective component of these negotiations, and view the other parties as credible and compatible with their goals.

I have many, many more thoughts about the incorporation of cognitive (affective) factors into the CSL framework, but to prevent you all from reading a dissertation, I’ll close here.  However, if anyone else is interested in continuing this conversation, please do so—I am eager to explore these ideas further!

I enjoyed this section and its summary of how science and knowledge link to policy and action. This is most certainty a core concern for the book and the ideas presented are quite crisp and clear.

I wonder if the three factors affecting whether knowledge is trusted (credible, salient, legitimate) are modulated by uncertainty and risk. This is a point I raised in the class discussion, but I made my point poorly. I am attempting again online. 

If we take the case of climate change, but place ourselves in the context of 1980 rather than 2010, the scientific uncertainty would be much higher and therefore the risk would be difficult to plan for or operationalize. These factors would likely affect the credibility, saliency and legitimacy of the scientific information and whether the ideas are absorbed by policy into action.

It is possible that these issues are already embedded within "credible," which is the degree to which scientists themselves think the science is sound; however, perceptions of uncertainty and risk by those outside of the scientific community may modulate the amount to which scientific knowledge is up taken by policymakers, particularly when the science is HIGHLY uncertain.

We could imagine a case of a new environmental problem beginning to emerge; in the early stages, risk perception and scientific uncertainty could be important factors affecting how decision makers integrate the science into their policy and planning. These factors may become less important as the science increases in credibility. 

The mediation of competing interests on the path from knowledge to action is something that came up in the class discussion. It is also treated in the van Kerkhoff and Lebel (2006) article, fitting under various categories on their 'engagement and power' continuum - particularly 'negotiation' and 'learning'. It seems important to acknowledge that different stakeholders, often including the 'experts' themselves, have interests and positions constructed on top of those interests.

The dispute resolution and collaborative planning literatures offer some insight into how these stakeholders with (often conflicting) interests can be brought together to craft outcomes that all can live with (i.e. that leave them better off than they would be if they did not engage). 'Joint fact-finding' is a tool employed to support collaborative learning, as an ideal outcome that works for all is typically not obvious and shifting parties away from their initial positions towards others that also meet their underlying interests often requires some exploration.

Building, in part, on the theory of Habermas, Innes and Booher (2010) elucidate a theory of 'collaborative rationality' for dealing with 'wicked problems' in their book Planning With Complexity. Central to their model is what they call the "DIAT (diversity, interdependence, authentic dialogue) theory of collaborative rationality". Stakeholders with a diversity of interests engage - because of the interdependence of those interests - in a process of authentic dialogue, which fosters reciprocity, the fostering of relationships, shared learning and creativity. This ultimately leads to system-level adaptations, including the construction of shared identities, shared meanings, new heuristics and innovation (see pages 35-38 of their 2010 book).