Research trends: Responsibilization in natural resource governance

Abstract The diversity of governance instruments for natural resources provides a rich analytical field for scholars of public action and policy. Existing research contributions on natural resources governance suggest that governance interventions, coupled with the diversity of contexts in which they occur, are associated with many different social and ecological outcomes and careful analysis is critical to attribute outcomes to interventions. This special issue highlights a specific thematic and analytical focus – responsibilization – that we suggest as being common across the diversity of post-state governance arrangements. Responsibilization has attracted attention in other fields of governance – particularly education and health. Broadly, the process of responsibilization is associated with a transfer of responsibilities to administrative arrangements and agents subordinate within a decision-making hierarchy; in turn, decision units receiving new responsibilities adopt the goals of governance and carry associated responsibilities as their own. The nine articles included in this special issue show how responsibilization unfolds in different forms of decentered natural resource governance. We find that in diverse contexts, the process of responsibilization denotes the assignment of new responsibilities and the emergence and creation of responsible subjects but often without the powers and resources necessary to carry out these responsibilities. Responsible subjects, by becoming responsible for their own actions, behaviors, and well-being, also contribute to greater societal well-being, or what has summarily been called ‘well-doing’. Based on the empirical materials in the included studies, we build upon an analytical approach to governance that takes institutions, incentives, and information as its building blocks. Our analysis draws attention to and leads to a call for governance capacities and resources, as well as capabilities, for local decision makers and agents in proportion to their responsibilities. Inclusive governance of natural resources thus requires that legal governance mandates be matched to resources and powers for lower level decision-making agents to complement and support their mandates and capabilities.