Explaining reflexive governance through discursive institutionalism: Estuarine restoration in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

The paper examines an instance of reflexive governance in environmental policy and planning and explains its emergence through a discursive institutional lens. Discursive institutionalist frameworks draw attention to the articulation and institutionalisation of new ideas and the way they produce the objects of governance, powerfully influencing the conceptualisation of problems and solutions, determining who is involved in governance processes and the nature of their interactions, and environmental policy outcomes. We draw on the notion of a discursive institutionalist spiral as a way of understanding the nearly 40-year evolving relationship between ideas, discourses and institutions that have shaped the planning context in an estuary restoration initiative on the east coast of the North Island, New Zealand. The case is based on the analysis of an archive of historical policy, planning and technical documents, and 25 in-depth interviews with participants representing different groups involved in a current restoration initiative. We suggest that the case represents a new degree of reflexivity by the responsible governing authority, that this can be explained by reference to the historical dynamic of discursive and institutional change, and that it indicates the benefits of the interactive and participatory formulation of goals and strategies in environmental governance and management.