Adaptive Governance

Definition

Adaptive governance integrates scientific and other types of knowledge into policies to advance the common interest in particular contexts through open decision-making structures. It is considered as an alternative to and a reaction to the predominant approach to natural resource management in the twentieth century, often referred to as “scientific management.” Scientific management emphasized the isolation of a single best practice through rational consideration of the problem and technical expertise, often times developed and implemented by few persons or entities, in a centralized power context (Brunner and Steelman, 2005).

Adaptive governance is best understood as a pattern of practices that emphasizes the adaptation of policy decisions to a diversity of those people who are affected by the decision(s) in question. Any policy must be flexible enough to react to ongoing experiences occurring on the ground. So that managers have the ability to react to unexpected outcomes,...