Decentralization in Environmental Governance ─ A Post-Contingency Approach

Post-contingencya€? is a critical reflection on the dangers and risks of governance renewal. Also, it is a warning against one-sided criticism on traditional command-and-control approaches to planning. a€?Post-contingencya€?, instead, is an attempt at formulating arguments that support when and how governance renewable might be pursued. But a€?Post-contingencya€? is not just meant for practitioners and scholars interested in governance renewal. It is also meant for those interested in the challenge of navigating a plural landscape of diverse planning approaches, which are each rooted in contrasting theoretical and philosophical positions. a€?Post-contingencya€? offers a strategy for making argued choices between alternative planning approaches, despite their theoretical and philosophical positions. It does so by revitalizing the idea that we can contingently relate alternative planning approaches to the circumstances encountered. It is an idea traced to contingency studies of the mid and late 20th century, reinterpreted here within a planning landscape dominated by notions of uncertainty, complexity and socially constructed knowledge. a€?Post-contingencya€? is both a theoretical investigation of arguments for navigating the theoretical plurality we face and an empirical study into renewing environmental governance. Next to its theoretical ambitions, a€?Post-contingencya€? is also practical in offering a constructive critique on current processes of governance renewal in European environmental governance.

Dr. Christian Zuidema is assistant professor in Spatial Planning at the Department of Spatial Planning and Environment at the University of Groningen. Zuidema has done extensive research on topics such as sustainable urban management, and governance renewal in environmental planning and energy planning. Following his research, he has published various books, such as Stimulating Local Environmental Policy (2011), Smart Methods for Environmental Externalities (2012) and Post-contingency: Making Sense of Decentralization in Environmental Governance (2015, forthcoming). Zuidema is member of the Energy Academy Europe and has been awarded with the Association of European Schools of Planning a€?Young Academicsa€? best paper prize and as the University of Groningen a€?Teacher of the Yeara€? award in 2013.