TY - JOUR

T1 - Qualitative comparative institutional analysis of environmental governance

T2 - Implications from research on payments for ecosystem services

AU - Meyer, Claas

AU - Chen, Cheng

AU - Matzdorf, Bettina

N1 - Funding Information: The CAP is a common policy for all the countries of the European Union. It is managed and funded at European level from the resources of the EU’s budget. The CAP is financed through the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF): direct support and market measures, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD): rural development. National paying agencies, set up by each European Union country, manage the payments to beneficiaries (https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/key-policies/common-agricultural-policy/cap-glance_en#legal-aspects).

PY - 2018/12

Y1 - 2018/12

N2 - Designing environmental governance structures and in particular ecosystem services governance structures, means modifying, replacing, or creating institutional arrangements. Several scholars have tried to identify sets of functioning and particularly preferred institutional design principles for environmental governance. Comparative institutional analysis (CIA) plays a major role in this process and refers to comparing real-world institutions, organizations, decision-making structures, and coordination mechanisms. CIA attempts to determine preferred institutional arrangements among several possibilities. Within the paper, it is emphasized that the set-theoretic Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) approach and technique may support CIA. Therefore, different institutional structures that regulate resource use may be understood and presented as sets of institutions and may be put into a relation. Correspondingly, the paper illustrates a qualitative comparative institutional analysis (QCIA) application procedure. It explains how QCA works, determines how it could be applied to CIA, and defines certain basic steps for QCIA application. The application of crisp-set and fuzzy-set QCA are presented step by step based on two examples – German agri-environmental payment schemes (AEM) and the Chinese Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP). Finally, challenges and benefits of QCA application to CIA of environmental governance structures are discussed. In sum, the paper shows that QCA may generally support the CIA of complex units, which are conducted by many institutional economists and institutionalists. QCA can help to facilitate the reduction of structural institutional complexity. Furthermore, QCA provides formalization for qualitative comparative aspects, and the generated results are highly policy relevant. However, there are certain challenges and limitations of QCIA that also cannot be neglected.

AB - Designing environmental governance structures and in particular ecosystem services governance structures, means modifying, replacing, or creating institutional arrangements. Several scholars have tried to identify sets of functioning and particularly preferred institutional design principles for environmental governance. Comparative institutional analysis (CIA) plays a major role in this process and refers to comparing real-world institutions, organizations, decision-making structures, and coordination mechanisms. CIA attempts to determine preferred institutional arrangements among several possibilities. Within the paper, it is emphasized that the set-theoretic Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) approach and technique may support CIA. Therefore, different institutional structures that regulate resource use may be understood and presented as sets of institutions and may be put into a relation. Correspondingly, the paper illustrates a qualitative comparative institutional analysis (QCIA) application procedure. It explains how QCA works, determines how it could be applied to CIA, and defines certain basic steps for QCIA application. The application of crisp-set and fuzzy-set QCA are presented step by step based on two examples – German agri-environmental payment schemes (AEM) and the Chinese Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP). Finally, challenges and benefits of QCA application to CIA of environmental governance structures are discussed. In sum, the paper shows that QCA may generally support the CIA of complex units, which are conducted by many institutional economists and institutionalists. QCA can help to facilitate the reduction of structural institutional complexity. Furthermore, QCA provides formalization for qualitative comparative aspects, and the generated results are highly policy relevant. However, there are certain challenges and limitations of QCIA that also cannot be neglected.

KW - Agri-environmental measures

KW - China

KW - Comparative institutional analysis

KW - Ecosystem services governance

KW - Germany

KW - Qualitative comparative analysis

KW - Sloping Land Conversion Program

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85051787076&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.07.008

DO - 10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.07.008

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85051787076

VL - 34

SP - 169

EP - 180

JO - Ecosystem Services

JF - Ecosystem Services

SN - 2212-0416

ER -