Expert valuation, a process used to determine how much stakeholders value eco-system aspects, places experts as intermediaries for public-preference input into the environmental policy process. While the rise and refinement of expert valuation might capture ecosystem values more comprehensively,...

In recent years, collaborations, partnerships and networks have evolved as institutional innovations to address the integrated nature of complex policy problems. Understanding the variation in how these innovative institutions work, as well as what they do, is an important step in allowing...

In the United States, the common interest often is conceived as a by-product of the pluralist, interest group driven democratic process. Special interests dominate in many political arenas. Consequently, we have lost the language, vocabulary, and ability to talk about the common interest. The...

High quality plans are considered a crucial part of good land use planning and often used as a proxy measure for success in plan implementation and goal attainment. We explored the relationship of open space plan quality to the implementation of open space plans and attainment of open space...

Many policy practitioners and theorists have argued that value-free, objective solutions to policy problems do not exist. While participant values and subjective viewpoints influence policy problems, empirically determining participant perspectives and preferences has been a daunting task. This...

Federal policy has placed a priority on community-based approaches to address the wildfire risks facing communities and the environment. Federal and state governments impact considerably the resources that are available to local communities. This research identifies how federal and state...

Like most wild living resources, fish present a complex management challenge. Given the failure of command and control regulatory regimes to protect fisheries, scholars and practitioners have advocated the use of property rights to rectify the fisheries crisis. This meta analysis argues that...

We leverage economic theory, network theory, and social network analytical techniques to bring greater conceptual and methodological rigor to understand how information is exchanged during disasters. We ask, “How can information relationships be evaluated more systematically during a disaster...

Communication networks among responders are critical to effective coordination and information transfer across agencies active in a disaster response. Using the theory of embeddedness, we investigate how aspects of relational and institutional embeddedness influence the emergence and efficacy of...

The appeal of voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) lies in their promise to mutually serve government, industry, and environmental interests because they can reduce administrative burdens, provide flexibility to decide how to implement environmental improvements, and work toward superior...