Page 48 - Governing Congo Basin Forests in a Changing Climate • Olufunso Somorin

Chapter 1
More appropriately, for the thesis, the key question is how in practice do ideas, frames and discourses constitute conditions for their institutionalization into the policy process, in this case, on adaptation and mitigation strategies in the Congo Basin forests. Based on a number of publications: Howarth (2000), Philips et al. (2004), Böcher et al. (2008), Arts and Buizer (2009) Schmidt (2008 & 2011) and Buijs et al. (2014), the following circumstances are considered most relevant: (a) the new discourses cover ‘existential’ and ‘timely’ topics that resonate with a larger and concerned audience; (b) the emerging ideas, frames and discourses appear credible and coherent to the audience, at least to a reasonable level; (c) they are carried and strongly advocated for by authoritative policy actors, that is, discursive agents; and (d) the legitimacy of the current discourse and related institutional arrangements are under pressure. Buijs et al. (2014) further argue that under such conditions, the new discourse might become dominant over the preceding one, and force (some) institutional change. The ‘new’ emerging discourses in this thesis are the concepts of climate adaptation and mitigation as well as their envisioned policy strategies in the forest-climate nexus and the Congo basin context.
1.3.5 Institutions and Environmental Governance
In its simplest form, institutions are the formal and informal rules that prescribe the “dos and don’ts” that people recognize in a given situation (Dietz et al., 2003). As systems of norms, rules, and decision-making procedures that give rise to social practices, institutions assign roles to actors within these practices that guide interactions among them (Young et al., 2008). A system of norms, rules and values defines goals, imposes constraints on social behaviour and empowers social action (Scott, 2001; Young, 2002). In creating solutions to environmental problems, Jentoft (2004) argues that it is the design of ‘institutions’, their dynamic nature and operations that are essential for shaping effective governance outcomes
Based on the earlier work of several authors such as North (1990), Bowles (1998), Williamson (2000), Acemoglu et al. (2001) and Beck et al. (2002), Jutting (2003) presents three different ways of classifying institutions – according to the degree of formality (informal and formal), different levels (social structure, rules of the game, play of the game, allocation mechanisms), and the arena where they are
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