Introduction

The governing of fisheries and coastal zones is not a small challenge. Frequently things go wrong, such as when fish stocks collapse, water quality declines, or when coastal erosion accelerates. In these cases, stakeholders respond predictably. Scientists look for root causes of the problems, managers search for quick solutions, while politicians look for someone to blame. On the other side, resource users wait for help, the general public asks for information, while environmental groups prepare lawsuits. With fisheries and coastal governance, it is easy to be disappointed and calls for change, especially in the way resources are managed, are common; governing systems and practices must become more efficient and effective. More thorough analyses of how these systems work and under what conditions they may be improved is clearly needed, recognizing especially that fisheries and coastal governance is as much a political issue as a scientific one. This requires making hard decisions, and sometimes bold initiatives, including experimentation with new ways of governing.

In our view, part of the problem, and the reason why we so often despair, is that we tend to think of governance from a binary perspective (i.e. it either succeeds or fails). We are much better at distinguishing between success and failure than between relative success and relative failure. Further, it is easier to say what would be ideal outcomes than to determine what we can realistically expect within a specific time frame and/or available resources. Could it then be that we are simply demanding too much from fisheries and coastal governance? People are free to judge governance performance for themselves, and what are good procedures and outcomes for some are not necessarily good for others. Could it also be that there are so many conflicting demands raised by such a great number of stakeholders that it is impossible that fisheries and coastal governance will ever be able to please everyone? It could be argued that the fisheries and coastal governance are what Rittel and Webber (1973) called a “wicked problem”, that is, a problem that is inherently indeterminate, possibly because it is always a part, or a symptom, of a bigger societal problem where there is no right or wrong answer but only good or bad one. Therefore, rather than determining what these model governance standards are, perhaps we should limit ourselves to establishing criteria for what is good enough. Should, for instance, indicators for successful governance be thought of as thresholds, similar to reference points in ecosystem management and precautionary approaches? Should we establish ‘negative’ rather than ‘positive goals’ by concentrating on outcomes that we want to avoid instead of those we ideally want to accomplish but have difficulty realising (cf. Apostle et al. 1998; Jentoft and Buanes 2005)?

Although questions like these are now becoming increasingly imperative in fisheries and coastal governance, they are not new. In fact, they figure among the classic arguments of organisation theory. Herbert Simon in his study of administrative behaviour (1947) argued that rationality in real life is never perfect but always “bounded” because managers as decision-makers are limited by cognitive and psychological factors. They do not know all the opportunities and relevant action alternatives, nor are they able to predict every consequence of their decisions. In other words, managers cannot make a precise estimation of benefits and costs. “Administrative man” is thus a less perfect creature than “Economic man.” Simon claimed that rather than talking about profit maximisation, we need to talk about what he coined “satisficing” (to satisfy and suffice). These ideas were later adopted by many others, such as Cyert and March (1963) in their seminal book on the behavioural theory of the firm, and set the stage for a whole new paradigm in organisation research. Due to the fact that there will always be time and attention scarcity, how do organisations cope? What do they do when they have to let go of the maximisation goal? How do they make things manageable? Organisations do whatever they can do, given the circumstances that they find themselves in, and these circumstances are neither perfect nor stable. Managers also try to make things easy for themselves, by running their organisations on routines and rules of thumb rather than rational calculation, and they adjust their level of aspiration according to what they actually accomplish. Only when a crisis occurs do they search for new alternatives and they stop searching as soon as they find one which is satisfactory. “Thus, alternatives are not compared with each other so much as they are reviewed sequentially and accepted or rejected on the basis of target aspirations for their consequences” (March 1988: 4).

Fisheries and coastal governance research has largely adopted these ideas and expressed them in terms of “governability” (Kooiman 2003; Kooiman et al. 2005). The governability concept rests on the assumption that there are limits to how governable fisheries and coastal systems are and what level of governability they can achieve (Jentoft 2007). Fisheries and coastal systems are inherently complex and dynamic, and their system characteristics are rich and spatially variable. Consequently, they are not fully controllable, their developments are largely non-linear, and information is rarely complete, which all together make system outcomes frequently unintended and generally unpredictable (Degnbol and McCay 2007). Conflicts tend to persist over time and are handled accordingly without the prospect of ever fully resolving them. Goals are not given ex ante but are outcomes of negotiations among a diverse group of stakeholders with incompatible expectations and demands with regard to system deliverables. Under such circumstances, governance is not so much about exercising authority from the top-down as about political brokerage from below, where operating goals are at best imperfect compromises (i.e. goals that (most) stakeholders are willing to live with but few are really happy with).

In the discussion about what constitutes successful governance, there is a general tendency to resort to a set of performance indicators. For example, efforts by international institutions such as the FAO, the World Bank, the European Union, OECD, ICES and others aim largely at identifying a list of such indicators and developing a framework to assess the performance of governance systems. Although there is every reason to applaud such initiatives, there remains the question of how governance systems should relate to these indicators given that governance objectives, in practice, are rarely fully attainable and, in most circumstances, even contestable. Recognising the restrictions on governance outlined above, we argue for realistic assessment of governance practice, even if the performance of such practice is less than ideal. In other words, we need an assessment framework that can inform governors about how far or how close they are from reaching goals that are within reach and not how they perform with regard to indicators that are beyond their potential capacity. This article is an attempt to provide such framework to assess governability and its limitations.

The governability concept recognises the intrinsic and constructed qualities to fisheries and coastal systems that are conducive to the actual governance, making it in some instances fall short of ideal, preferable and attainable outcomes. The concept is initially presented in Kooiman (2003) and further elaborated by members of the Fisheries Governance Network (http://www.fishgovnet.org), in their book: ‘Fish for Life: Interactive Governance for Fisheries.’ In Chapter 16 of this volume, a methodological outline for assessing governability is proposed (Kooiman and Chuenpagdee 2005). Jentoft et al. (2007) applied the framework to assess governability of marine protected areas, while Kooiman (2008) and Chuenpagdee et al. (2008) continue to explore and refine the concept. The latter is also the first attempt to apply the framework broadly to capture fisheries, aquaculture and coastal zones.

The following article further broadens the governability assessment framework for fisheries and for coastal governance in general. We begin by describing the interactive governance perspective, on which we base our argument. Next, we explain the concept of governability as it applies to fisheries and coastal governance. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the key variables that we consider essential to assess governability and present the governability assessment framework. We conclude by providing an example of the Gulf of Thailand fisheries to illustrate the application of our approach.

Interactive Governance Perspective in Brief

Governance is a concept that dates back to Plato and the Greek verb kubernân, to pilot or steer, which gave rise to the Medieval Latin gubernare (Kjær 2004). Traditionally it has been related to governments and what governments do. In its more recent interpretations within social theory, however, governance has a broader meaning. Here, government is not the only governor. Private enterprises, civic organisations, communities, political parties, universities, the media, and the general public, among others, are all in one way or another involved in governance. Governance is the collective, aggregate and integrated process of all these governing actors, which can be more or less organised and routine, rarely harmonious but typically interactive. Hence, the term “interactive governance,” which Kooiman et al. (2005: 17) define as “the whole of interactions taken to solve societal problems and to create societal opportunities, including the formulation and application of principles guiding those interactions and care for institutions that enable them.”

Governance theory comes in different versions and “schools”, but they all share the view that governance is beyond government. This implies that in fact it is possible to have more governance but less government, and that the solution to many present day challenges does not rest with government alone but must also involve other sectors of society in some form of public–private partnership arrangement. This is due to societal diversity, dynamics and complexity, occurring at different scales, which makes it impossible for the state to be the sole governor. The second element of the definition alludes to another perspective that is also largely agreed upon by governance theorists, that governance is broader than management. The latter is functionally defined and perceived as a technical exercise of employing means to achieve given goals. Governance, on the contrary, includes also the deliberation and determination of basic relevant values and principles that should underpin the way governors define their tasks and roles (i.e. “meta-order” governance). In other words, as a normative theory, values, principles and goals are not exogenous to governance but where it should start. As an analytical theory, however, a researcher is encouraged to discern what these meta-order values and principles are and how they play a role in the way governance is institutionalised and works, while keeping in mind that they may well be implicit in governance practice tacitly agreed upon by those who form the governance system.

Interactive governance would imply that values, principles and goals are expressed and developed as governors, either public or private, engage in social exchange. Goals are then not given but negotiated, and are not stable but vary according to the relative strength of participants who come and go. Furthermore, governance rarely starts from a grand plan. To the degree that it exists, such a plan is an outcome that typically is arrived at through an incremental process of interactive, experience-based learning. As a research tool, governance theory insists that goals are treated as an empirical question rather than assumed: What are they? How do they come about? Whose are they? What do they mean? Do they mean the same thing to all parties? How stable, consistent and precise are they? What makes them what they are (i.e. unstable, inconsistent and imprecise)? Could it be that they are all that for a good reason? Similar questions are asked of the various groups of governors or stakeholders more or less active in the governance process: Who are they? What exactly is it that they have at stake? Who defines who they are? How do they come forward and make themselves heard? How do they actually participate? How powerful are they and what makes some more powerful than others? How representative are they of the interests or claims that they pose? How do they relate to each other and to those outside their groups?

Involving stakeholders in governance is often seen as a way of increasing governability of fisheries and coastal systems (Dubbink and van Vliet 1996). While this may generally be the case, it is not very hard to imagine a situation where increasing the number of participants may complicate rather than facilitate better governance (Mikalsen and Jentoft 2003). As will be discussed later, there are also other qualities of participation and representation that will determine governability.

Governability

Governability is defined as the overall capacity for governance at any societal entity or system (Kooiman 2003). Governance theory argues that fisheries and coastal systems are inherently diverse, complex and dynamic and that these traits challenge their governability. In other words, the more diverse, complex and dynamic they are, the more difficult it is to govern their functioning. Diversity regarding resource units or relevant stakeholders is about the heterogeneity of system elements and variability. This calls for fine-tuned, particularistic governing approaches. For instance, governance must occur in proximity to where the problem is felt or where the opportunity appears, and in cooperation with concerned stakeholders, in order to fully comprehend, represent and control the issue at hand. Complexity raises the problem of handling interrelationships, interdependencies and interpenetrations; any intervention into the system will have an effect on these linkages and thus may change the way the whole system works. One problem is to anticipate systemic, secondary effects. Another is that systems also have latent functions, which are often hard to discern and account for. Thus, there is a risk of unforeseen consequences and feedbacks. Dynamic refers to the fact that systems do not find themselves in a steady state but change over time, sometimes linearly but frequently unpredictably and unexpectedly. Governability here would then be expressed as the capacity of systems to adapt and respond to internal and external pressure or demand. For instance, a system that tends to lag behind development that is occurring within its environment will suggest low governability. Further, fisheries and coastal zones as natural systems, and the social and governance systems related to them, come in varying spatial and temporal scales. The matching of scale in the operation of these systems is therefore another important aspect determining governability. Notably, a certain degree of overlap among natural, social, economic, and political boundaries is expected for the system to function. The extent to which this overlap occurs, particularly in the case of multiple jurisdictions, is a governability issue.

At a general level, governability is a function of processes that occur within and between the governing system and the system to be governed, as well as the interactive system that these two systems form together or their governing interaction. Governance theory thus broadens the perspective on governability as something that is not solely an issue and a responsibility of the governing system, such as a government agency. Rather, governability depends on the ability of all these systems to respond—individually and in concert—to the challenges and demands that their diversity, complexity, dynamics and scale bring up. Hence, in order to enhance governability, the institutions, instruments and mechanisms would be drawn from and applied within all of them as they are all potentially conducive to governability. The aim of governance is basically about promoting governability, and governability as a whole or any of its components can be influenced by acts of governance.

It should be noted that governability is not a capacity that is given once and for all. Rather, it changes with time depending on external and internal system factors, sometimes unexpectedly, and sometimes through deliberate action. Many of these external factors cannot be controlled or influenced by governors, except through efforts such as collective action and institution building. A system that is highly governable at a given time or place may not be so at others. Governability thus comes not only with limitations but also with potentiality that may or may not change, as when crisis hits or an opportunity arises. Governance must therefore involve learning on how to cope with uncertainty and risk, and how to be flexible enough to change with demand.

Several approaches and frameworks have been developed and applied widely by a range of agencies and institutions at various levels, to improve fisheries and coastal governance. An ecosystem-based approach to fisheries and an integrated management method are the two most common (Chuenpagdee and Bundy 2006). Various types of indicators are often used to help with the implementation of these programs as well as to measure their success. For fisheries, for example, the use of indicators has been largely promoted by the scientific community in the ongoing ecological monitoring and stock assessment, and in setting reference points for harvest rates (see Cury and Christensen 2005; Rochet and Rice 2005; ICES 2006). Social and economic indicators, on the other hand, are typically phrased at various levels of generalisation and therefore essentially applicable to specific fisheries and coastal contexts. In the case of governance performance, indicators such as efficiency, effectiveness, legitimacy, and justice are commonly used to assess the program components of institutions, authorities and civil society (See Kaufmann et al. 2007; Arnt and Oman 2006; UNESCO 2006).

According to the so-called Bellagio principles and guidelines, general criteria for selecting indicators include policy relevance and usefulness, credibility and concreteness, measurement and accessibility, practicality and discernability, coherence, and cost effectiveness (Hardi and Zdan 1997). Yet, it is still largely unclear whether a governance system that meets all these criteria is necessarily desirable or attainable. There is therefore a need for systematic thinking with regard to what really constitutes effective governance in the first place, and how it can then be made applicable for fisheries and coastal systems. In what follows, we will draw on the ‘interactive governance framework’ to illustrate what governability assessment of fisheries and coastal systems would entail.

From the interactive governance perspective, governability is a measure of how governable fisheries and coastal systems are, given the particular features of the natural and social systems to be governed, the governing system(s), and the interaction between them. Analytically, one can take the desired governance performance outcomes (e.g. efficiency, effectiveness, legitimacy, and justice) as a point of departure (Fig. 1). In order to understand what may affect these outcomes, we look at the inherent and constructed qualities of each system. The key dimensions to be assessed from a governability perspective are diversity, complexity, dynamic, and scale. As will be later described, different questions pertaining to governability are required to assess the qualities of the system to be governed, the governing system, and the governing interactions.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Governability model

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For the system to be governed, we distinguish between two sub-systems, the natural system and the socioeconomic system. From a governability perspective, we focus on their separate inherent qualities as well as the relationship and interaction between them. The social system affects change in the natural system, but it is also dependent and therefore affected by these changes, since they set limits to resource users’ potential. The governing system aims to influence the interaction between the ecosystem and the socioeconomic system that it governs. To halt ecological degradation, for instance, the governing system must work with and through the socioeconomic system by influencing user behavior such as fishing patterns. This is done through some forms of intervention, for instance, regulatory measures and institution building that induces users to cooperate.

Governance theory argues that the systems to be governed and the governing system must be compatible in order to be mutually responsive. Thus, diversity within the systems to be governed would require that the governing system be contextually sensitive and therefore structurally diverse. Similarly, the systems’ complexities, dynamics and scales demand an adequate response causing the governing system to mirror those traits. Hence, governability will hinge upon the extent to which the governing system responds (cf. Jentoft 2007). This is not a matter of natural adaptation but of deliberate intervention, planning and institutional design by societal actors such as legislative bodies, planning agencies and civic organisations. This can happen alone or, preferably, in concert, as governing capacity and interaction is enhanced through collaboration. Governing interactions identify the various ways in which the governing system is made aware of and sensitive to the diversity, complexity, dynamics, and scale issues within the systems to be governed, and the ways in which it reacts. The connections explain how information is collected and communicated, how representation is organised, and how stakeholders participate, as well as the manner that learning occurs among the actors involved in both systems. Furthermore, governing interactions can enable adaptation and capacity building and reveal how goals and objectives are negotiated, conflicts resolved, and how compromise is achieved. Governance theory assumes that the governing interactions are also inherently diverse, complex, and dynamic and that they work at and across different scales.

Governability Assessment Framework

What could be gained from a systematic and detailed assessment of governability? We argue that by examining each component in terms of its inherent and constructed qualities referred to above in all dimensions and as part of the systems that they are related to, one would get a sense of what contributes to the desired governance performance and what hinders it. The governability assessment framework provides a means to evaluate governance analytically by posing questions dissecting the key variables that help understand how and why governance implementation falls short of achieving desirable outcomes. Importantly, it helps governors and stakeholders accept what governance outcomes are “good enough,” given the limitations that they are facing in real situations. Behind each question is a hypothesis stating how a particular system property might limit or augment governability. While detailing what these hypotheses are is beyond the scope of this article, we will illustrate the proposed assessment framework and present some of the governability issues using the Gulf of Thailand marine ecosystem. The Gulf of Thailand is an example of a tropical multi-species fisheries ecosystem that has experienced changes and development in fishing technology, largely through the modernization of fishing fleets and gears. The ecological, social and economic impacts of fishing and other coastal activities are challenges facing the governance of the Gulf of Thailand marine ecosystem.

In the following, we first provide some examples of the types of questions that must be asked in order to assess governability of the systems to be governed, the governing system and the governing interactions (Table 1). At the empirical level these would need to be translated into specific research questions, taking into account the particular context within which a study is undertaken. We then present key features of the Gulf of Thailand marine ecosystem to illustrate the application of the framework and indicate some of the governability issues related to the natural system, the socioeconomic system, the governing system, and the governing interactions that require further assessment. Finally, we conclude with remarks about the likely level of governability, based on the described characteristics of each system. As suggested by Chuenpagdee et al. (2008), a qualitative evaluation of governability of a system is the first step towards a comprehensive understanding of the potentials for improving governance.

Table 1 Governability assessment matrix
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System to be Governed

Natural System

For the natural system, questions regarding diversity concern issues such as biological diversity, species abundance, and ecosystem health. Notably, the composition of the species assemblage in these ecosystems, the species richness, and the status as rare, endangered, endemic or keystone species have to be identified. Complexity, on the other hand, is related to how the natural system interlinks, how species interact, and how particular habitats (such as mangroves and coral reefs) contribute to the productivity of the system as a whole. As to the dynamics of the natural system, the focus is on the alterations that occur over time, in the short as well as the long term, resulting from both internal and external factors. Examples are climate change (e.g. temperature, weather patterns, storm frequency and intensity), presence of invasive species, migration and dispersal of species, and other natural disturbances. The last dimension, scale, is about the size, range and boundary of the ecosystem, taking into consideration its uniqueness (i.e., how different this particular ecosystem is from the other systems in the area).

Example

The Gulf of Thailand is located in Southeast Asia, adjacent to the South China Sea. The majority of the area belongs to Thailand and is bordered by Cambodia in the east and Malaysia in the southwest. The Gulf is very shallow in the inner part, but with an extending depth to about 50 to 80 m in the outer part. The fisheries in this tropical system are very diverse, with a mixture of species such as demersal and pelagic fish, squid, cuttlefish, shrimp, shellfish and crab. Major changes in the catch compositions occurred since the late 1960s after the introduction of trawlers. As shown in the analysis by Pauly and Chuenpagdee (2003), the ‘fishing down the marine food web’ phenomenon, indicating a significant shift in the marine ecosystem through time, was observed in the Gulf of Thailand. Large areas of mangroves used to line the coasts along the Gulf of Thailand, but they have been mostly removed for coastal development including for shrimp farming, notably tiger prawns (Penaeus monodon). The Gulf of Thailand contains 0.48% of the worlds’ coral reefs (Sea Around Us 2007), but the coral conditions were severely affected due to the major warm event that caused coral bleaching in 1998 (Yeemin 2004). Some of the key governability issues related to the natural system of the Gulf of Thailand are about the resilience of this marine ecosystem, whether recovery or restoration is possible, and whether the fishing down the food web trend is reversible. The careful examination of the ability of the system, e.g., to resist, restore and recover, is part of the understanding of the limits to governability of this natural system. On a whole, the Gulf of Thailand fisheries is overexploited and the marine ecosystem is generally degraded due to long-term heavy fishing pressure, exposure to climate variation, and anthropogenic pressure from various coastal activities and development. The governability of this natural system is relatively low compared, for example, to systems that are more pristine.

Socioeconomic System

For the socioeconomic system, the issues of diversity pertain to the composition of stakeholder groups in terms of their demographic profile, their organisation, vested interests, property and access rights, and political orientation. Their capacity to influence the way this system works is determined by the power they exercise on the functioning of the social system, including their institutions, which may or may not enable governability. Thus, what constitutes power (to ignore, exclude, marginalise or mobilise other groups) is an issue of concern. How complex this socioeconomic system is depends on the interactions among the actors involved, their interdependency, collaboration, and integration, which rests partly on their “organic solidarity” (Durkheim 1964) and the normative ties that exist among them. Socioeconomic system dynamics regard the drivers and consequences of change in stakeholder composition, interactions, and relationships, of which conflict and power are assumed. This includes internal drivers such as changes in peoples’ interactions with the natural system, such as use patterns or variations in levels of extraction. Finally, scale in the socioeconomic system is about size, range and dispersion of stakeholder groups, and their origin and mobility within the system. Notably, boundary defines the range of economic and livelihood operation, and the range of operation defines scale. For instance, globalisation provides opportunities for social actors to expand their range of operation and thus redefine the scale of the system that needs to be governed.

Example

The traditional users of the Gulf of Thailand are small-scale fishers who, until the introduction of trawlers in the 1960s, were able to sustain themselves and support their families through food and income from fishing using fixed gears to catch small pelagic fish species such as Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger spp.) and anchovies (Stolephorus spp.). The use of highly mechanized gears such as trawls and other mobile gears brought new stakeholders to the fisheries whose entry was facilitated by cheap loans provided by the Thai government with support from agencies such as the Asian Development Bank (Mannan 1997). Other key coastal stakeholders are rural and urban dwellers, shellfish and shrimp farmers, and owners, developers, and employees of various industries, including fish processing, refineries, steel manufacturers, textiles and tourism. Use conflicts occur across stakeholder groups, most pronouncedly between small-scale fishers and industrial fishers. For example, the rapid exploitation rate of the latter and the non-selectivity of their gears have resulted in a massive decline in catches and degradation of the ecosystem, which the former rely upon heavily for their livelihoods. Shrimp farmers are also responsible for some of the mangrove destruction and the pollution problems faced in the Gulf of Thailand (Dierberg and Kiattisimkul 1996). Tourist operators, on the other hand, are regarded as important providers of employment in the region and generate foreign income for the country, despite their environmental impacts. Recent developments in ecotourism and cultural tourism, including home-stays in fishing villages, have received favorable consideration due to their potential to support community development and conservation (Thadaniti 2000). Nevertheless, some issues that need to be examined in assessing the governability of the socioeconomic system in the Gulf of Thailand are related to the social capital of the local fishing communities in sustaining their livelihoods given the internal and external pressure, and in their adaptive responses to changes in institutions, as well as changes due to climatic variations and natural hazard. The multiple stakeholders, the conflicting uses, and the overall vulnerability of the Gulf of Thailand coastal communities are challenges faced in governance, causing the system to be less governable.

Governing System

The diversity of the governing system is related to the types of modes, institutions, and policy instruments applied to a particular fisheries and coastal system. Governance theory identifies three types of modes: hierarchical, collaborative, and self-governance. Institutions can be formal and informal, established through top-down or bottom-up processes, and can be based on various levels of participation involving government, market and civil society organisations or their representatives (Jentoft 2004). Examples of policy instruments include marine protected areas, gear restriction, individual quotas, licensing, and bycatch restriction. For the complexity of the governing system, consistency is the key variable to measure the relationship of the governing institutions and whether they differ, conflict or cooperate. These institutions also interact with external agencies such as in their commitments to the international and global agreements and conventions. Additionally, there is a horizontal dimension where complexity arises from the fact that governing institutions operating in fisheries and coastal governance are often defined along sector lines, causing conflicts, overlapping of jurisdictions, and a need for coordination. At issue here is also how power plays a role in forming institutions, setting agendas and prescribing solutions. Power is a main driver causing governing systems to become unstable and dynamic. For instance, a shift from the traditional food production system to export orientation may suggest a concentration of power in the hands of internal and external economic elites. This raises issues of how goals, objectives and priorities are set and negotiated, by whom, and at whose expense. These answers, in turn, raise questions pertaining to the legitimacy of the institutional setup of the governing system. The final issue of scale concerns both spatial and temporal dimensions. Spatially, the nested system of local, national, and regional governing institutions described by Ostrom (2007), by which jurisdictional and political boundaries are determined, fits here. To understand a particular design of a governing system, we also need to understand the historical context of the establishment of the governing institutions within and outside fisheries and coastal areas.

Example

The Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, had long been the sole agency responsible for the management of the Gulf of Thailand fisheries. Two recent institutional reforms, however, have changed its role. First, the Decentralization Act in 1999 brought about the most systematic decentralization reform, locating a range of decision-making powers with the sub-district government units, Tambon Administrative Organizations (or Au-Bor-Tor, an acronym well-known to Thais). Members of the Au-Bor-Tor, elected from the communities, play an increasingly important role in the governance of local resources. The decentralization process has also resulted in a high level of community participation and local capacity building, leading to community-based initiatives such as local marketing cooperatives. The second reform was at the national level with the establishment of the new Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in 2002. The mandate of this ministry, which focuses on conservation and protection of natural resources, requires the implementation of different policy measures and programs, such as marine protected areas and mangrove reforestation. Regulatory measures, such as licensing, closed season and prohibition of trawls and pushnets within 3 km from shore, are still the key instruments employed by the Department of Fisheries to control fishing efforts. Although there is no transboundary issue in the Gulf of Thailand, as a member of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Thailand has endorsed the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries using the regional guidelines developed through consultation with other countries in the region (SEAFDEC 2003). This implies that the fisheries sustainability goal will be promoted, while recognizing the traditional and cultural importance of fish and fisheries for the people. The institutional reforms, the increased involvement of stakeholders in resource management and the international mandates impose great challenges for governability, particularly to achieve goals such as efficiency, legitimacy, and justice. Some of the issues that need to be examined are related to the overlapping of jurisdiction between the two ministries, the effectiveness of the Au-Bor-Tor, and the applicability of principles and regulatory measures promoted elsewhere.

Governing Interactions

It is assumed that governability of both the systems to be governed and the governing system would largely hinge upon the way the two interact and what institutional mechanisms and relationships are installed to facilitate interaction. The hypothesis is that the governing interactions within fisheries and coastal systems are also diverse, complex and dynamic because they reflect the traits of the systems to be governed and the governing system between which they mediate. Governability research would then ask questions about these interactions and relationships (cf. Buanes et al. 2005). Are they hierarchical or cooperative? How transparent are they? How accessible, accountable and adaptable do they make the two systems? How reliable is the statement that more participatory and transparent governing interactions are more legitimate and have a more effective administrative system, leading to an entire governance structure that is simply more governable? Other important queries address how governing institutions and interactions enable stakeholders to be informed about what and why decisions are made, and to make their voices heard and to be influential. Similar questions would highlight to what degree the mechanisms to facilitate the flow of information, knowledge, and power are internally and externally consistent and accountable. Thus, questions pertaining to issues such as the diversity of channels of communication, representation and participation would be emphasised. The complexity issue is, as Table 1 suggests, about the consistency of these interactions. Do they leave gaps in the sense that they discriminate against certain interests and knowledge? The dynamics are largely about interactive learning and adaptation. To what extent are the governing system and the system to be governed able to learn from these interactions and to change ways of operation accordingly? Again, this would depend on how these interactions are functioning, and that largely hinges upon the institutions that enable them. The issue of scale refers to the governing interactions that occur between different governance levels. In fisheries and coastal governance, processes that occur at the local level are often heavily influenced by those that occur at regional, national and global levels. In fact, there is hardly anything global these days that does not also have a local manifestation (cf. O’Riordan and Curch 2001). Likewise, many of the governance problems that occur at the local level would have to be resolved at a higher level. Such a phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “scaling up” and “scaling down” problem (Keohane and Ostrom 1995). The degree to which this works in a manner that is mutually supportive is a major governability issue.

Example

In each coastal province in Thailand, there is a provincial fisheries office, under the Department of Fisheries, responsible for management and regulations, enforcement, data collection and extension services. The extension services include dissemination of information and knowledge about fishing methods, new technology, processing techniques, and fisheries laws and regulations. Information is generally provided through printed materials such as handbooks and pamphlets. The Department of Fisheries also establishes regional research stations in key areas to conduct innovative research and development, related, in many instances, to coastal aquaculture. The extension service is the key unit that interacts closely with the fishing communities, although this interaction is largely one-way. Communities present issues and problems to the Department of Fisheries through a formal process of requests and appeals. Consultation and discussion forums where government officials and community members exchange ideas and explore options are not traditionally common, except when facilitated by research institutions or non-governmental organizations. Nowadays, stakeholder meetings are frequently held on various issues and serve as opportunities for communities to provide feedbacks to the government and to share knowledge. The roles of universities and non-governmental organizations in resource management are notable, not only in facilitating discussion, but also in engaging communities in research. The incorporation of local knowledge, for example, in research and management is gaining importance (see for example, Anuchiracheeva et al. 2003). Similarly, the first complete system of comanagement is being applied in Ban Don Bay, in the southeast of the Gulf of Thailand through a collaborative 5-year project between the Thai government and the European Commission (CHARM 2007). The project ended in late 2007, leaving questions and issues about the sustainability of such comanagement programs, and hence raising concerns about governability. Specifically, an assessment of the quality of participation and representation in comanagement and the outcomes of the process is required. The effectiveness of the activities of the extension service is another area where improvement can be made, especially with the availability of modern communication and interactive tools. Compared to the challenges faced in governing the natural and socioeconomic systems and the complexity related to the governing institutions, the governability of the governing interactions in this example is relatively high.

Summary and Conclusion

The analytical framework for assessing governability presented in this article and exemplified by the Gulf of Thailand marine ecosystem, identifies what we hold to be key factors in explaining why governance systems often under-perform according to expectations. In political discourse, the blame is often on those who govern, particularly the government(s), who does not seem to be able to deliver as promised. This perspective implies that management failure is government failure. Interactive governance theory suggests that this is a shallow analysis and that we should also look outside government for performance failures (cf. McCay and Jentoft 1998). It argues that governors, be they individuals or agencies, operate within systems that are inherently diverse, complex and dynamic, restricting what they can possibly achieve. Thus, governance systems are doomed to fall short of what is suggested by the performance indicators endorsed by various international agencies.

However, these limitations are also opportunities; they are not necessarily fixed but may be subject to governance initiatives and reforms such as institutional redesign, organisational innovation, and the development of new management tools. Sometimes marginal adjustments of routines will suffice, which Kooiman (2003) labels as “first” order governance. Sometimes they require a more thorough overhaul (“second-order” governance), such as institutional reform. In some instances, however, governors must start over again, as when governance failure becomes critical, by rethinking the basic principles and values that are underpinning governance in the first place and how they are providing guidance for institutions and their way of operation (“meta-order” governance). To make governance work requires a systematic search for possible malfunctioning among the diversity of parts and their complex connections that make up the system. Governance is often a slow process because it involves multiple stakeholders who often need to be convinced that there is a problem and that there is a need for change.

The governability assessment framework enables the governor(s), including researchers, to identify how a system works, and what might possibly explain why it does not. As when purchasing a vehicle, there is a certain expectation as to how it should perform. When it does not, some mechanical adjustment is required, but no amount of adjustment can make a regular car go as fast as a racing car. Here the limits of governability suggest that it is the expectation of the car owner that needs to be readjusted, if he/she insists that it should perform better than it is designed to do.

Panaceas are often brought up in the fisheries and coastal management discourse as a quest for simple, standardised solutions (Degnbol et al. 2006). Panaceas typically prescribe a solution before they assess the problem in depth. They also expect quick results. However, we recognise the fact that fisheries and coastal systems are far too diverse, complex and dynamic for simple, preconceived, blueprint formulas. If for instance, the ecosystem-based management is applied to the traditional worldview of the trophic pyramid with humans at the top, then it is foreseeable why it may become a universal remedy for resource overexploitation. On the other hand, if ecosystem-based management operates on the image of an inverted pyramid with humans at the bottom, as described by Bundy et al. (2008), then it is not a panacea because humans will be perceived as having limited influence on the ecosystem. In other words, the system appears to be less governable through the human intervention, because we are not the ones with the full control. The governability assessment framework allows empirical penetration of the problem that is causing a particular outcome, such as resource degradation, rent dissipation, or biodiversity loss experienced in the Gulf of Thailand. It stresses the need to understand the problem in all its dimensions in order to prescribe certain solutions that, given the characteristics of the systems to be governed, are likely to be multidimensional. Thus, it departs from the approach that begins with a certain idealised conception of what the solution is. Instead it provides governor(s) with some clues as to where to look for possible causes of the problem. For example, ecosystem-based management operationalised by means of marine protected areas may well be a solution to a specific ecological problem. But that we cannot know in advance. We can only be sure that a protected area is the answer after performing a thorough assessment of how the systems to be governed and the governing system operate and interact under the conditions imposed by the protected area (cf. Jentoft et al. 2007).

To situate our contribution in the current discourse on the governance of natural resources, we refer to a recent publication by Ostrom (2007). In her diagnostic approach for going beyond panaceas to problems of natural resource overexploitation, she introduces the linked socioecological system analysis and suggests the need for the study of complex multivariable, non-linear cross scale and changing systems. Her methodology parallels what we are presenting here except for the conceptual framework and focus underpinning the analysis and the operationalisation that follows from it. The interactive governance approach, and the governability assessment framework that derived from it, look at the totality of system interactions. The unit of analysis is primarily the interactions within and between systems, the inherent and constructed relations that form these systems, and the impact of their function with regard to governability. Whereas Ostrom’s approach, as we understand it, assesses how the governing system and the systems to be governed are affected by interactions, ours works from the opposite direction. It assesses how these interactions are affected by the inherent and constructed (institutional) make-up of these systems. Outcomes are largely external to our model, whereas interactions are analysed as part of the system. In other words, interactions between the governing system and the systems to be governed exist regardless of governance outcomes, although through mechanisms of feedback and learning, which are essential in resolving the typically “wicked” problems that fisheries and coastal governance must deal with (Rittel and Webber 1973).

Within the governability assessment framework presented here, the goals of governance are assumed to be negotiated internally as part of these interactions, not predetermined as something that the system necessarily tries to achieve. Goals are thus to be assessed empirically, as we anticipate that they are themselves outcomes of the interactions structured by the particular systems under scrutiny. In these interactions, power is assumed to play an important role. To put it simply, for us the governing system does not have to be established to achieve a certain goal—at least not the goal of a particular (inter-) action. Rather it is established to correspond with the properties of the systems to be governed, the structural features of the governing system, themselves an issue of governance, and the ways these systems are designed to interact. It is precisely for this reason that governability assessment is about the understanding of the governance system as an integrated, patterned and patterning totality as opposed to the measurement of governance performance as such and whether it fits with predetermined goals that seem logical from some inherent but externally perceived panacea (i.e. some conceptually constructed ideal with regard to what the systems should look like and deliver). Ultimately, the analysis that we propose here implies that it is more important to recognise and assess the limits of governability of particular systems (governing systems, systems to be governed and their governing interactions) before expecting them to perform beyond what they can actually and potentially do.