Stakeholders, “Policy Communities” and the Assessment of Vulnerability and Adaptation Patricia Romero Lankao AIACC: Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation Trieste, June 2- 12

Assessments, in the Interface between Knowledge and Policy If assessments are supposed to be scientifically and politically relevant  How stakeholders – actors – are conceived of?  What is the nature of their actions?  How do they relate to each other?

Linear or Rational Model (top-down process)  “Rational” actions, expertise key role, publics passive, labeled as ignorant  Scientists, neutral observers, explain and assess climate related “facts”, not values  Policy makers decide and prescribe based on the “truth” of science

Technocratic Version of the Linear Model In highly politicized and clientelistic environments, such as in LA,  policy makers may a)look for science generated tools as valid, reliable, relevant and objective means to avoid “interference” b) mimic such tools through technically correct, efficient and effective policy instruments  Stakeholders may distrust policy actions and/or ignore programs

Muddling through, Incrementalistic Model (bottom-up process)  Policy-makers act more based in past experiences than in “neutral knowledge”  Policies as courses of action, part of on- going processes of negotiation and bar- gaining between multiple actors over time  Emphasis on agency of different actors across multiple “interfaces” and in their day-to-day dealings with policy issues

The “Mutual Construction” of Science and Policy  Science frames the bases for debate about issues; policy debates and popular concerns influence the way scientists working on the “interface” frame the research problems  Science as constructed knowledge, result of competition between groups  Policy as discourse: power, unequal access to resources and decisions, institutional context

Stakeholders and Policy Community, two key concepts  Stakeholders all the actors, not necessarily in an active way, within and around an issue, “V/A” in this case  Policy community, the network of state and policy actors around a policy issue, with regularized (strong) or intermittent (weak) patterns of interaction and power relations

Actors Relevant to V/A in the Coffee Sector, an Example  Large and small scale export producers, small scale commercial farmers, subsistence peasants  Agribusiness sector made of coffee processing, dealers, exporters and big (international) corporations  Farmers organizations  Governmental national/local agencies  NGOs and other social organizations  Specialists

V/A in the Coffee Sector, the Next Step  Which of these actors are relevant to Climate, macro and sectoral policies?  What a kind of policy community do they constitute? A strong or a weak one?  How are they institutional and power relations working?  How does this community influence (or could) the design and implementation of vulnerability related policies?  How to build a mutually constructed assessment, study?

Regarding your case study!  Which stakeholders around and within your issue can you identify? What a kind of policy community do they constitute?  Which are their connections (impact, influence) regarding your research questions? How do they perceive them?  How will you approach them and how will you work with them to (mutually) select, construct your assessments, policy relevant proposals and so on?