9.1 Resilience and Its Critics

Without a doubt the concept of resilience has almost reached the status of a new paradigm in the realm of regional planning and urban development. Resilience is an appealing idea for planning practitioners as well as for academics as the concept facilitates the re-articulation of many powerful notions such as regional sustainable development, strategic planning or transformative governance. Practical implications stretch from interventions in environmental planning, risk management to integrated regional development and territorial cohesion policies. In terms of theory, the concept of resilience borrows ideas from many fields such as complexity theory, ecology, adaptive management and social innovation and this conceptual plurality seems to be an attraction for many scholars (Folke 2006; Holling and Gunderson 2002; Hutter and Lorenz 2018).

At the same time the term resilience is used in an inflationary and sometimes ambivalent way and, as a result, recent publications discuss resilience critically (Bohland et al. 2018). This criticism is justified as resilience is running the risk of becoming a political buzzword with weak explanatory power and a lack of conceptual clarity (Jore 2020). Sceptical remarks refer to an emerging new technocracy and value-neutral functionalism in planning, machine-politics, soft sustainable development, depoliticized decision-making, and shadow neoliberalism (Davoudi et al.2018; see also Pelling 2010, p. 84). Critics further add the neglect of the social and political dimension of resilience (Duit 2016; Hutter and Lorenz 2018). Other issues that need discussion are the definitions of system boundaries as well as the de facto normative standards of stability and state of equilibrium: are these desired states and if so, desired by whom? This provokes references to systems theory in the social sciences (from David Easton’s systems approach to the idea of autopoiesis in Niklas Luhmanns work; see Duit et al. 2010). In addition, implicit functionalist assumptions about agency, rational learning and transformative change call for a closer examination of the relationship between the social sciences and resilience studies as the latter still display their origin in natural sciences. A certain functionalism prevails in many contributions to the debate which is an unexpected result as, following Hutter, resilience is about “managing the unexpected” or even “surprise” (Hutter 2017).

In this chapter, we argue that through a stronger recognition of the social science literature on governance the concept of resilience would have more explanatory value as well as predictive quality. Still, the criticism needs to be taken into account. Peter Rogers expressed this ambivalence very well:

“Resilience is a concept which, if used well, may help deliver a paradigm change in how an urbanization is governed in the 21st century, yet the term remains a focus of scepticism and critique for many who encounter it.” (Rogers 2018, p. 125).

In fact, the concept oscillates between arguments for stability and change, persistence and transformation, path-dependence and path-breaking. In our view, it is necessary to disaggregate resilience into components in order to get a better understanding of what needs to be done when implementing it. Moreover, the normative desirability of some of the goals closely linked to the concept can be better discussed. Do we want a system (i.e. city, region or community) just to cope and adapt, or to transform and change (Hutter and Lorenz 2018, p. 197; Pelling 2010)? Disaggregation may also help with regard to a better understanding of the conceptual basis of resilience thinking. In many publications, the concept of resilience is understood in a holistic way as a capacity of a social-spatial entity. However, due to systems differentiation, a number of dimensions of resilience are accentuated in more recent contributions (Fuchs and Thaler 2018). These include social resilience (Hutter and Lorenz 2018), economic resilience in deindustrializing regions (Cowell 2015) or institutional and organizational resilience (Duit 2016; cf. Pelling 2010, p. 91). Breaking down resilience into these dimensions would help to understand better what determines the capacity of a city or region to react and cope with unexpected events.

Among different dimensions of resilience, the institutional and policy dimension is a relevant category for analysis. The concept of resilience seems to be based on assumptions of reflexive and collaborative governance for the adaptive management as well as transformation of socio-ecological systems (Feindt and Weiland 2018; Folke 2006; Pelling 2010; Voß and Bornemann 2011). Following this path, we argue that a stronger recognition of policy analysis and governance studies is desirable, offering a change in perspective for the analysis and design of resilience policies (Duit 2016). In our view, this is not least necessary against the background of recent contributions on Over-reaction and under-reaction in climate policy (Peters et al. 2017). Resilience is often seen as an abstract capacity of a socio-ecological system. But who implements resilience? Who adapts to what for which reason and what is an appropriate institutional response to an external challenge (Pelling 2010; Peters et al. 2017)? The following quote taken from Anderies et al. (2004, p. 1) expresses our concern quite well:

“More recent developments in resilience theory emphasize adaptive capacity and coupled cycles of change that interact across several scales (…). These ideas are useful in a descriptive sense, but are less useful for studying designed systems. How does one design for adaptive capacity? What is the cost of adaptive capacity?”

Resilience is implemented by actors with manifest interests and action frames who act in organizational hierarchies and inter-organizational constellations (such as networks or multi-level governance arrangements). These elements constitute the complex institutional environment in which actors act and respond to external and internal impulses (Hoppe 2011). Hence, in this chapter we seek to identify some of the implications of resilience-policies for bureaucracies, network governance, policies and instruments, public management, and in particular multi-level governance. We discuss it against the background of the governance of city-regions (Scott 2019; Zimmermann 2020).

This is not an empirical paper. However, all the ideas and arguments presented are the results of a regional living lab that was implemented in the context of the ZUKUR project over a period of three years (2017–2020). The living lab “Future of the City-Region Ruhr” (Zukunft-Stadt-Region-Ruhr, ZUKUR),Footnote 1 sought to explore options for the implementation of resilience in the multi–level and multi-actor context of a polycentric post-industrial city-region. The principal question was: which kind of governance mechanisms and instruments are needed in order to improve the ability of a system to govern socio-ecological problems? The methods applied were interviews with stakeholders on the local and regional level of policy-making, group discussions, and workshops to include the wider public as well as the analysis of documents. Being part of this living lab made the critical discussion of some of the core assumptions made in the literature on resilient cities possible.

The chapter is structured as follows. The first section gives a brief overview of the political science literature on resilience and reflexive governance. Based on the literature, we suggest four generic principles of resilience that need to be taken into account when designing a multi-level governance arrangement in city-regions that face the challenge of climate adaptation. These include redundancy, diversity, robustness, and connectivity. We then discuss these design principles against the background of what happened in the living lab. The conclusion takes up some of the issues raised in this introduction.

9.2 Adaptive Governance and Resilience

The lack of governance and policy implementation theory is a weak spot in the resilience literature. This is surprising as the notion of resilience is well known in political science. Policy-analysis and administrative science started using the notion of resilience in the late 1980s (Duit 2016). In principle, scholars were interested in the ability of political-administrative systems to react in situations of change and non-linear dynamics. Among this body of work is Aaron Wildawsky’s book Searching for Safety (1988) and Christopher Hood’s seminal article A public Management for all seasons (1991). In Germany, there is Carl Böhret’s Book Folgen. Entwurf für eine aktive Politik gegen schleichende Katastrophen (1990) (Consequences. Suggestion for an active policy against creeping disasters, own translation).

Aaron Wildawsky’s book (1988) is a contribution to the debate on natural disasters and technology risks. By referring to the unexpected consequences and unwanted side effects of technological innovations he questioned the capability to plan societal development. He contrasted the two notions of “anticipation” and “resilience” and, thereby, demonstrates the weaknesses of a governance model based on anticipation. This implies linear dynamics, clear causalities, and top-down governance with stable and reliable expectations. Resilience, in contrast, describes adaptive patterns of governance in situations with low stability of expectations and disruptive changes. One may also reconsider what Ulrich Beck wrote in his book Risk Society in 1986 (1992). Beck identified an emerging pattern of reflexive politics and governance in post-industrial societies (Beck 1994). Secondary effects, in his words, have become the main drivers for decision-making in politics, in particular in environmental politics. This sounds all too familiar when going through the resilience literature. As we are not able to actively steer climate change, all that remains to be done is to master secondary effects, at least if we have knowledge about them (Lung et al. 2013).

In organization science, one can also find inspirational thoughts for the implementation of adaptive governance for resilience. In their seminal book Managing the unexpected. Sustained performance in a complex world, Weick and Sutcliffe (2001) coined the notion of “mindfulness”. Mindfulness is the capacity of high performance groups to identify even small mistakes in order to adapt to changes in complex environments. From a different angle, Christopher Hood, when writing about public management in the 1990s, mentioned resilience as one of the three core values of public administration (1991):

  1. 1.

    Sigma type values: Keep it lean and purposeful (effectivenes and efficiency)

  2. 2.

    Theta type values: Keep it honest and fair (legitimacy and good governance)

  3. 3.

    Lambda type values: Keep it robust and resilient (coping with extra-ordinary situations and capacity to learn)

It is obvious that the lambda type values are the relevant one for this chapter although the other values should not be neglected. In the early 1990s, Christopher Hood was unable to consider climate change and adaptation in the way we do today, nor did he define this value more precisely. Lambda type values would refer to qualities such as power of endurance, robustness, adaptivity, but also mindfulness and avoidance of competence traps (Duit 2016; Duit et al. 2010; Hutter and Lorenz 2018; Levitt and March 1988).Footnote 2 As the government is expected to function even in extreme and extraordinary situations, the sustained capacity to act even in extreme and disadvantageous situations is the core value (see the reaction to Hurricane Sandy in New York in 2012; Nevarez 2018).

Governance for resilience also evokes overlaps with reflexive governance, a long-standing theme in the literature on environmental policies and planning (Feindt and Weiland 2018; Voß and Bornemann 2011). Reflexive governance has a double meaning: first, reflexivity refers to the constant evaluation of the success and failure of existing governance arrangements. Hence, adaptation of rules, avoidance of competence traps (Levitt and March 1988, FN 2) as well as the avoidance of what Ostrom called panacea trapsFootnote 3 are common themes in this discourse. Second, and worth considering when thinking about governance of resilience, is the capacity of “participants to gain a reflexive stance toward the construction of governance objects through operational schemes of observation and feedback mechanisms, thereby moving toward reflexivity” (Feindt and Weiland 2018, p. 665). In other words, reflexive governance also refers to the capacity to define and redefine what is governed.

Summing up this short review of the political science literature on resilience and reflexive governance, the standards for success and failure of governance of resilience are learning and reliability on the one side, paralysis, non-learning and disruption on the other. These values may be facilitated through measures that follow some generic design principles that we have taken from the literature on resilience, reflexive governance and institutional thought. These are:

  • Redundancy: Redundancy is generated by the keeping of overcapacities and fallback positions as these enrich the options to react and offer alternatives in a situation formerly unknown (Folke et al. 2005, p. 453). Often, this is also referred to as “requisite variety” (with reference to Ashby 1956; Duit et al. 2010, pp. 365–366). Keeping and storing more ideas than needed when taking an action is also an element of redundancy. With regard to inter-organizational governance we may also think of “overlapping functions across organizational levels” (Folke et al. 2005, p. 53).

  • Diversity: In order to avoid group think (Janis 1972), the autonomy of smaller working units should be maintained. It generates deviating positions and assessments, if necessary, and thus arrives at a multi-perspective evaluation (Folke et al. 2005). Again, this is also known in complexity theories as the requisite variety of institutional responses in complex and dynamic environments (Duit et al. 2010, pp. 365–366).

  • Robustness: Robustness is a very technical term, often used in computer science and engineering. In principle, robustness describes the capacity of a system to keep more resources available than necessary to compensate for failures. Robustness is the ability to cope with errors during execution, keeping the basic functionality of a system even when the breakdown of some of its components occur. Defining robustness in institutional terms is, however, much more difficult (Anderies et al. 2004). We follow the approach of a research group of Elinor Ostrom (Anderies et al. 2004). Among others, this group suggests the monitoring of user behaviour and the state of the socio-ecological system, the possibility of graduated sanctions, existence of conflict-resolution mechanisms and a sufficient leeway to self-organize a decentralized governance arrangement (i.e. a degree of autonomy vis a vis higher governmental layers) as being the relevant elements (Anderies et al. 2004, p. 8).

  • Connectivity: Another important factor in particular when considering the multi-level governance of a city-region is connectivity (Hutter and Lorenz 2018; Piattoni 2010, pp. 20–21). Connectivity can refer both to the type and quality of coupling between levels in the sense of multi-level governance (institutional and actor-related) or to connections of an organization with the outside world. Two dimensions seem to be relevant:

    Stability of connectivity: this describes the degree of integration of a decision and information system. Stability in terms of resilience must, according to Orton and Weick, “combine the contradictory concepts of connection and autonomy” (Orton and Weick 1990, p. 216). A minimum of integration must be given, but too close links in turn restrict the collective capacity to adapt.

    Diversity of connectivity: this not only refers to the degree of openness for new actors and knowledge, but also includes a culture of information sharing, i.e. willingness to pass on knowledge and information.

Our understanding of resilience is based on these four generic principles and we seek to discuss them in the context of organizational environments and inter-organizational fields.

9.3 Institutional Environment: City Regions and Multi-level Governance

Although much of the literature on resilience is about cities, it is obvious that climate change adaptation does not stop at the borders of municipalities but requires the coordination of a range of actors in a city-region in order to avoid particularism and fragmentation (Rosan 2016). However, outlooks at the success of city-region governance are, at best, sceptical due to unsolved issues of distribution of resources and collective governance (Jonas 2012; Zimmermann 2020). As highlighted by Scott (2019, p. 16), at least in the majority of city-regions, urban governments have “At the best of times, (…) limited tools and resources at their disposal for confronting internal problems and failures, but in the case of complex, overgrown city regions, weaknesses of overall social management are especially severe. This challenge is exacerbated by the persistent tendency to balkanization of municipal government in probably the vast majority of city-regions, not only as a legacy problem, but also as an effect of the oftenhaphazard lateral expansion of the urban periphery where adjacent municipalities are simply absorbed into the widening geographic orbit of the city-region.”

Problems of metropolitan development can be tackled in various institutional environments. Many public tasks can be organized in different ways such as single purpose associations, inter-municipal cooperation, interventions of upper tier governments, contracts, or multi-purpose organizations and in some cases these governance forms may even overlap. Even the more successful metropolitan governance arrangements such as Stuttgart or Portland can’t serve as role models with regard to general design principles (Rosan 2016; Sager 2006). Scott highlights that “an approximate template is occasionally detectable in the more successful efforts that have pushed in this direction, namely—and in sharp contradistinction to any unitary arrangement—a conglomerate structure made up of loose hierarchical relationships complemented by assorted cross-cutting organizations wherever these can significantly enhance operational effectiveness. There is no compelling reason, moreover, why a well-designed structure of this type could not also enhance the democratic assets of the city-region.” (Scott 2019, p. 17).

While this is often discussed against the background of administrative solutions such as amalgamations or collaborative inter-municipal governance, the generic principles of resilience discussed above call for solutions that reach beyond the sphere of public administration. Especially against the background of cross-organizational learning and social innovation, the mobilization of social commitment and socially embedded knowledge seems to be of utmost importance. Hence, resilience seems to require a decentralized approach. Since the issue is one of eventual affectedness, those groups potentially affected in the cities and districts are called to assert their claims.

At the same time, the capacity to react, adapt and transform depends on administrative capacities and competences that are shared between different levels and units of government. Although a decentralized approach with a focus on the capacities and interests of local communities is a charming idea, protagonists of local self-governance tend to ignore that cities (and city-regions) are embedded into inter-governmental fiscal and functional relationships. In terms of political and administrative decentralization, the degree of autonomy of a city may have a positive effect on the resilience of a community but, at the same time, we need to consider that towns and municipalities—not only in the case of Germany—rely heavily on fiscal and functional inter-governmental relationships—not least in the field of regional and environmental planning (Zimmermann and Heinelt 2016).

The concept of multi-level governance, which originates from European integration research, is an equally analytical and heuristically suitable concept for addressing these questions of collective capacities to act while still keeping the autonomy of units. Units of a multi-level system constantly oscillate between losses of autonomy and jointly exercised competencies and can also compete with each other, even if they are actually interlinked. Multi-level governance, being a generic concept for policy-making and decision-making in a context characterized by shared and overlapping competences and decision-making spaces, gives us some indications for the design of city-regional governance. However, the discussion on multi-level governance has also developed in many different directions. If one chooses Schmitter's definition of multi-level governance, for example, the core contents, such as the absence of exclusive policy competence, become clear:

“Multi-level governance can be defined as an arrangement for making binding decisions that engages a multiplicity of politically independent but otherwise interdependent actors—private and public—at different levels of territorial aggregation in more-or-less continuous negotiation/deliberation/implementation, and that does not assign exclusive policy competence or assert a stable hierarchy of political authority to any of these levels” (Schmitter 2004, p. 49).

Piattoni, on the other hand, notes that this definition is not sufficiently concrete, especially for empirically oriented studies (Piattoni 2010). She therefore suggests to go beyond the definition of multi-level governance as decision-making and coordination and to see multi-level governance through the lenses of different dimensions. One of these dimensions is political mobilization and this refers to new forms of policy-making which explicitly no longer use the formal channels of parties or political-administrative interest mediation, but apply unconventional methods of political articulation and mobilization in order to make claims in the sphere of politics (Piattoni 2010, p. 18). In the context of city-regions and local self-government, this means that the potential for social and political mobilization in cities and even neighbourhoods must be included in conventional and unconventional ways of policy-making.

With regard to policy-making, i.e. the implementation of political programs, Piattoni highlights that in the context of multi-level systems, the policy-makers are no longer separated from the policy-receivers (Piattoni 2010, p. 20). The improvement of policies during the process of implementation does indeed require new formats, the design of which we do not know much about in the context of urban and regional resilience policy but it is likely that the conventional wisdom on network governance is instructive (McGuire and Agranoff 2011). Last not least multi-level governance stands for the permanent adaptation of institutions and regulations. Particularly under the influence of the two aforementioned changes in the dimensions of politics and policy, polity-making remains open to institutional changes (Piattoni 2010, p. 23). For the aspect of mobilizing potentials for resilience-related as well as interactive policy-making, these changes may refer to increased citizen participation or administrative, political or fiscal decentralization. At least hypothetically, the resilience of a city-region may increase with the extent of fiscal and administrative decentralization as this increases the overall capacity to react in a variety of ways.

9.4 City-regional Governance in the Ruhr—Prepared for Resilience?

The following sections seek to describe the institutional pitfalls and issues as well as solutions that emerged when the above-mentioned principles of resilience guide the discussion of pathways for resilient city-region governance. We followed the method of a living lab where a group of researchers and practitioners tried to develop perspectives and solution for the implementation of resilience in a city-regional context over period of 36 months. The living lab constitutes a new form of experimentalist cooperation between practice and academia, allows to test and experiment, trying to avoid the panacea trap (Ostrom 2007, FN 3), by strongly referring to the local context. However, this method does not replace empirical social research but constitutes a different method of knowledge generation.

While implementing our own living lab, we did an analysis of the institutional context, stakeholder interviews, workshops, joined writing of academics and practitioners, and group discussions in order to identify arenas and networks suitable for collaboration on different levels of planning and politics (regional, city, neighbourhood). We were looking for steering committees, working groups, working units, coordination procedures and programmes that a) deal with climate resilience at least marginally and/or b) demonstrate a responsibility or commitment for regional cooperation. Part of the governance analysis was also an examination of informal governance mechanisms. During the course of implementation of the living lab, we distinguished an organizational and inter-organizational dimension of resilience and preparedness—a perspective that is quite common in the literature on cross-organizational learning (Hutter and Lorenz 2018, p. 194). Without organisational embedding and a corresponding shift in relevancies (in the sense of framing and political priorities) at the level of the organizations being the constituent elements of multi-level governance, multi-level governance that promotes resilience cannot function. Organizational aspects refer to internal measures (teams, cross departmental steering groups, knowledge sharing but also aspects of decision-making and accountability), while inter-organizational aspects refer to networks, joined working groups or platforms.

The Ruhr region is situated in the west of Germany and covers an area of 4,400 km2 with roughly 5.1 Mio. inhabitants. Its settlement structure is polycentric with major cities such as Duisburg, Essen, Bochum and Dortmund and a larger group of medium-sized and smaller towns that are part of the counties (in total 53). The perimeter of this city-region, recently branded as a “city of cities”, is the result of the common history of steel production and coal mining. Whether this common history of steel and coal is still a source of cohesion or constitutes a basis for joined post-industrial transformation is debatable. In any case, until today, the experience of being a less favoured region facing the long and thorny structural transformation of a post-industrial region is present in public debates on all levels of policy-making. At least the density of settlements and transport infrastructures may justify to still speak of a functional city-region, partly confirmed by commuter relationships and other functional interrelationships. At the same time, the cities and towns that constitute the city-region present a growing diversity of growth and shrinkage (Dembski et al. 2019). Increased polarization is expected to be the eventual result of this ongoing transformation process.

With regard to the governance structures, the rules and regulations of German local self-government apply (Zimmermann and Heinelt 2016). The Ruhr region has not the status of a jurisdiction, i.e. it is not a county or province. Its major constituent parts in terms of local self-government are the 11 county exempt cities and the four counties. However, the city-region has a long and ongoing history of city-regional collaboration with regional planning and watershed management being the main functions that found institutional anchors. In 1899 the Prussian government created the Emschergenossenschaft (hereinafter Emscher Association), an association responsible for waste water treatment, the sewage system and flood control. Members of this (until today existing) association were the waste water producing actors: municipalities and the industry. The Emscher Association gained prominence from the late 1990s onwards as the association was responsible for the construction of a new sewage system and, in parallel the regeneration of the Emscher River, formally used for a period of more than 100 years as an open sewer for large parts of the region. This new sewage system is one of the biggest infrastructure investments currently under way in Germany. The Emscher Association made investments of in total 5.4 billion Euro until 2020 and is also involved in the management of the Emscher Landscape Park (together with the Regional Planning Authority). As the river Emscher crosses several cities in the Ruhr, some urban and regional development projects are also part of the portfolio of the association.

The precursor of the current Regional Planning Authority was founded in 1920 as a reaction to the rapid urbanization in the industrializing region. Main responsibilities were the protection of green spaces for recreation and agricultural land use, provincial streets and rough indications for settlement planning. In the 1960s, during the post-war period, the association took over the responsibility for the statutory regional plan. However, in 1979, this competence was taken away and the association was renamed to Kommunalverband Ruhr. Functions that remained in the competence of the Kommunalverband were recreational facilities of regional relevance (regional parks), marketing and voluntary master plans. In conjunction with a political change of the state government in 2004, the planning association was strengthened again and renamed to Regionalverband Ruhr (Regional Association Ruhr, hereinafter RVR). In 2009 the competence for statutory regional planning was given back to the RVR that is now also the owner of a regional development agency under private law. In 2015 the parliament of the state of Northrhine-Westfalia passed a law that allows for sharing of competences between the Regional Association and the counties and cities. As a result, the RVR presents itself as multipurpose association that is active in collaboration with the municipalities in fields such as tourism and industrial heritage, environmental and regional planning and regional development. In addition, the direct election of the regional assembly has been introduced with the local elections in 2020. Also the state spatial plan for Northrhine-Westfalia clearly acknowledges the metropolitan region “Ruhr”.

Still, metropolitan governance in the Ruhr area is complex and confusing. A databank of the RVR mentions more than 300 inter-municipal cooperations. These cooperations show different institutional formats and most of them do not cover the whole Ruhr area but only parts. This makes it difficult to evaluate the overall situation in terms of effectiveness. Without a doubt, the RVR is one of the dominant players but there are other inter-municipal associations such as the Emscher Association or the Ruhrverband (the latter being responsible for fresh water management), creating a situation of multipolar governance. Regional governance in the Ruhr is best described by the term “fragmegration” introduced by political scientist James Rosenau (1997) to find a proper description for the emerging Global Governance regime in the 1990s. Although a certain degree of integration and coordinated action can be observed, political polycentrism is still considerable (Schmidt 2013). There is more than one institution but there are many that stand next to each other with different actors, different purposes and different rules and logics for cooperation.

9.5 Bringing Resilience In?

During the implementation of the living lab, we tried to identify possible access points in the described governance arrangement that would allow to give higher political relevance to resilience measures and strategies. The interviews and analysis of documents clearly demonstrated that socio-ecological resilience is an emerging topic in the network of environmental experts and planners of the city-region Ruhr, though largely interpreted through the lens of climate change and adaptation. Due to the low ground level elevation, which is a long-term effect of intensive mining (land subsidence), the risk of floods in some parts of the Ruhr region is high. Extreme weather events tend to happen, causing damage and disruption, in particular (but not only) for the public railway system in 2007 (winter storm Kyrill) and 2014 (convective storm Ela). In fact, climate change and adaptation have been an issue for local governments in the Ruhr region for more than a decade. The impacts of climate change were also a concern during the preparation of the statutory regional plan in 2019. The regional planning authority has a dedicated unit working on climate related data that supports cross-municipal working groups of planners and environmental experts. This unit also fed in expertise and data on climate change and eventual risks in the course of the plan preparation process. Besides the formal plan approval procedure with many events and participatory procedures, working groups of municipal planners supported and moderated by the staff of the regional planning authority are a relevant building bloc of regional governance in the Ruhr, though largely being an informal instrument of exchange between experts.

In addition, the Emscher Association strengthened its role and identity as a regional think tank in the field of flood prevention and watershed management over the years. Besides its legal responsibilities and role as a technical service provider for the member municipalities and firms, the association did much in terms of raising awareness for climate change and invites municipal planners for educational purposes and knowledge sharing. With regard to instruments and mechanisms that contribute to the development of multi-level governance for climate resilience, the “Future Initiative: Water in the City of Tomorrow” should be highlighted.Footnote 4 This network, initiated, supported and organised by the Emscher Association brings the topic of water, including heavy rainfall events and climate resilience, into plans and projects of the municipalities of the region. While on the one hand it is located at the regional level and involves the heads of planning departments of the municipalities, the initiative has created a basis with the help of contracts for the contents discussed at regional level to become relevant for action at municipal and district level as well. These contracts, to be signed by the Emscher Association and the respective municipality, include agreements for the achievement of a defined overall objective. While the municipalities commit themselves to take measures and concretise this overall objective at local level, the Emscher Association supports the municipalities financially and with expertise. The Initiative “Water in the City of Tomorrow” is an ideal starting point for the integration of climate-relevant aspects in the sense of a multi-level governance approach, preserving the autonomy of communities but still following a cross-municipal approach. The commitment certainly is the result of incentives and not of potential sanctions.

Potentially, many of the existing arenas and professional networks offer the opportunity to bring the issue of climate change adaptation and institutional resilience more strongly onto the political agenda. However, although the two regional associations (Emscher Association and RVR) as well as many local governments took their responsibilities in their respective spheres of competence, attempts to discuss and create a resilience in multi-level governance structure met some obstacles. We are referring to the generic principles mentioned above in Sect. 9.2. Certainly, it cannot be said that the experts and political decision-makers in the Ruhr region are not well connected. However, the quality in terms of redundancy, diversity, robustness, connectivity and thus the resilience of the informal relationships is questionable for the following reasons:

  • The stability and diversity of connectivity is not given, which potentially limits resilience. For one, the arenas for cooperation and knowledge exchange largely gather municipal planning officers and experts, resulting in closed expert communities. Stability is sometimes hampered by change of personnel, not least because of retirement. In principle, administrative actors consider professional cooperation and exchange across municipalities to be better than cooperation and exchange in the sphere of politics. There seems to be a siginficant knowledge gap between politics and administration which restricts the creation of a shared relevance for action. The connectivity of professionals (experts) and power promoters (politicians) has increased strongly at the intermunicipal level, but communication is still uncontrolled. The coexistence of the networks of professionals and power promoters may also create disruptions and disparities in terms of priority setting (not least between smaller and bigger municipalities).

  • With regard to the organizational level, it also appears that the departmental principle is reproduced in the informal arenas and thus minimizes diversity. This means that in the various arenas and working groups, experts of similar disciplinary background and of similar status meet. The workings groups of environmental officers, round of deputy mayors, or planners reproduce the silo-mentality of public administration and this hampers diversity.

  • A further concern are unclarified role distributions, in particular within the group of high level decision-makers. Who is expected to take the lead and who would be considered as a competent leader in the regional arena? Is it one of the two regional organisations (the regional planning authority and/or the Emscher Association) or the biggest cities that in a way claim to be policy leaders?

  • The role of network management is rather weak. The fact that there are quite a number of bodies, networks and arenas, which in part exist for several years and to some extent overlap in terms of persons and content, could prove disadvantageous. Interview partners praised the collegial exchange, but the relevance of the individual networks can hardly be weighed against each other. At least, there is a lack of strategic coordination and agreement on the overall responsibility and the policy priorities. It is not clear at all which arena is the appropriate one to discuss issues of resilience and climate change adaptation in a more strategic way. Hence, the question is whether these informal arenas are actually capable of inserting climate resilience as a new political and technical relevance or policy priority into existing structures of city-regional policy and politics. Without a doubt some of the informal arenas can function as seedbeds for innovation and sustained collaboration. However, there is no reference from the past that could show that this has already been done in other fields of action. Some municipalities showed more interest, also in conjunction with federal funding programs, others are less interested.

  • Among the reasons that seem to hinder the implementation of resilience were budget problems and limited staff capacities, in particular in smaller municipalities. This is relevant for the criteria of redundancy and robustnes as these cause costs. Keeping of overcapacities and fallback positions enrich the options to react and offer alternatives when needed but in a situation of strained budgets this is almost impossible. Many municipal planners hardly have time and resources to try new pathways next to their daily routines. Temporary funding programmes of upper-level government seem to be a pragmatic solution for this problem, but there is a lack of continuity and stability.

  • Robustness is not very strong. While there is an increasing amount of knowledge about the state of the socio-ecological system and the eventual risks of climate change, the possibility of graduated sanctions and the existence of conflict-resolution mechanisms is not given.

  • In addition, the degree of autonomy of German municipalities vis a vis higher governmetal layers is high but the mentioned budget problems prevent a sufficient leeway to self-organize a decentralized governance arrangement.

The last point refers to multi-level governance and the aspect of mobilization and joined policy-making in particular. The regional planning authority is not responsible for detailed spatial specifications but flood events are considered local events. Hence, the question of the appropriate level of intervention arises. In terms of mobilization, climate resilience seems to be more of a local matter. The regional living lab met difficulties to clarify that resilience is also in need of a regional perspective and, as a consequence, inter-organizational structures of knowledge sharing and decision-making. In terms of multi-level governance, this is less a problem of mobilization but of making the regional relevance plausible. This calls for intensified boundary-spanning and coupling of levels. A further obstacle was the absence of an overall binding political goal for the subject area of interest here. The absence of a quantitatively or qualitatively formulated political objective at state level gives little incentive for municipalities to become active and start collaboration with the other actors in the region. The conditions of ambiguous policy goals and a mix of symbolic and experimental policy-making may result in non-decisions—or radical change once a window of opportunity opens.

9.6 Conclusion

In this chapter, we argued that multi-level governance must, in the context of polycentric city-regions, ensure the increase of the overall organizational capacities for resilience. Despite the detailed insights described in the previous section we want to highlight some more general insights. The first one refers to epistemic stability in a situation of pluralistic network governance, the second one to environmental justice.

Uncontrolled and multipolar communication creates redundancy, shared knowledge and a variety of options. This type of connectivity increases resilience in the sense of exchange of knowledge and experience. But this can also result into a situation of contingency, i.e. where everything is possible but nothing is mandatory, with the eventual risk of doing nothing. Rob Hoppe characterized this type of networked governance as “open issue networks”. These networks are pluralistic, unstable and they allow new actors to enter the network relatively easily and thus to introduce new relevancies and knowledge claims. The more open and emergent arrangements may also facilitate citizen participation as well as (competing) scientific perspectives to be recognized. However, an alternative scenario would be rapid topic and content changes as a consequence of macropolitical changes. The result is a pluralistic knowledge order and an incremental mode of problem-solving (“random-evolutionary processes”; Hoppe 2011, p. 135) that resembles a garbage-can-like problem and goal finding (Cohen et al. 1972). What is more likely, however, is the emergence of coalitions of convenience that take options for opportunistic action whenever possible (Hoppe 2011, p. 135). Expert knowledge is predominantly used by the actors to underpin their own position, which tends to harm the trustworthiness of the expertise. In normative terms, resilience in such a context implies that a range of knowledge problems needs to be solved. These problems result from:

  • the uncertainty associated with climate change regarding the probability of occurrence of extreme weather events or disruptions;

  • the question of which people (in which area) will be affected most;

  • and the contested assessments of the situation and the evaluation of possible (or impossible) options for action (Lung et al. 2013).

The challenge is one of mobilizing expertise and resources and finding appropriate (inter-) organizational forms to share them. One suggestion that emerged in the course of the living lab was the establishment of a competence centre or regional think tank for climate resilience, equipped with sufficient organizational and financial autonomy and being responsible for data management, knowledge sharing, awareness raising, or in more theoretical terms mindfulness, preparedness, and network management. This solution may be implemented without deep institutional or organizational changes. Rather, the competence centre would bundle and support existing initiatives and facilitate joined problem-solving.

On the other hand, resilience poses a quite different challenge for multi-level governance: Climate resilience must consider that climate change adaptation will raise the issue of socio-ecological inequality as climate related harms will be distributed unevenly. Even when not investigated on household level (socio-spatial polarization) it was rather obvious that there are powerful differences between smaller municipalities und bigger cities (the latter ones determining the agenda, also in terms of non-decision-making), between those cities with higher risks and the ones less exposed to climate related risk and between those cities with severe budget problems and those in a better financial situation.

Hence, we see two essential requirements for multi-level governance, which are completely different in character. The reduction of socio-ecological inequality usually generates distribution conflicts that are the result of an unequal distribution of risks, burdens as well as resources. This is in particular relevant in a city-region with moderate economic resilience, still facing the structural change of deindustrialization (Cowell 2015). We would argue that economic resilience and social-ecological resilience constitute two different types of action frames with partly competing or even contradictory goals and rationalities. If negotiations and mediations take place, however, a well-functioning multi-level governance can formulate the rules for compensations for unequal burdens and thus ensure acceptance. The multi-level governance of the European Union provides a rich illustrative material for such rules with positive as well as negative examples. The second essential requirement is about finding and validating knowledge about the temporal and spatial distribution of climate-related risks in an inter-organizational environment. Here, the rich literature in policy analysis and organization science has much to offer.