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This review provides a fresh look at the strengths and weaknesses of four distinct generations of research on water policy travels. Studies on policy diffusion explicate patterns of adoption across large-n units and are interested in tipping points, early and late adopters, and which policies spread more easily. Diffusion research privileges structural forces such as globalisation and competition over diffusion agents and national-level politics. Policy transfer scholarship is based mainly on small-n case studies and interrogates the ‘what’ and the ‘who’ of policy transfer as well as asks into what conditions a policy is transferred. The key premise of this school of research is that transfer decisions are made rationally based on voluntary learning, coercion, or some negotiated motivation. Policy translation scholarship developed as a critique of diffusion and transfer studies. It posits that policies undergo significant transformation when moving through various settings and that this process is intensely political and power-laden. Policy branding is an offshoot of policy translation research. It focuses on branding of policies and policy agents by establishing an explicit link with places and projects. The key focus is on the power of ideas and neoliberal underpinnings of policy travel. These four generations of research are based on contrasting premises about what travels, how and why it travels, and to what effect. The review offers an appraisal of this large and diverse literature and proposes potential complementarities.

Recent advances in behavioural and communication sciences generated enthusiasm in public policy for new ways of ‘framing’ messages and ‘nudging’ individual behaviour. Wide research and practice of behavioural interventions that have since ensued triggered the rise of a new sub-field called Behavioural Public Policy (BPP). At the same time, nudges – a part and parcel of BPP, have received criticism for being paternalistic, non-democratic and lacking evidence of long-term effectiveness. More recently, the whole project of BPP has come under criticism as construed too narrowly. Critics have argued for a new approach to BPP that is pluralistic, multi-disciplinary and multi-method. One key pillar of it is a ‘policy mix’ – a combined application of behavioural and non-behavioural policy tools. Little is known, however, about ‘policy mixes’ in practice. This paper conducts a scoping non-exhaustive review of the academic and policy literature published between 2008 and 2020 that discusses policy mixes of behavioural policy tools (defined in this paper as ‘nudges’ and ‘frames’) and reflective policy tools (defined in this paper as ‘deliberative’ events and incentives for individuals to ‘think’) employed within environmental policy. Two questions guide this review: (a) what are the characteristics of policy mixes in terms of their types, geography, sectors of application, and empirical detail of exposition?; (b) to what extent do existing policy mixes include broader governance aspects of politics, awareness of contextuality and flexibility? By taking stock of experiences of empirical place-based policy mixes of behavioural and reflective tools, we provide insights into a fast-developing body of scholarship and point to ways forward with policy mixes. The paper is also relevant to policy studies beyond the domain of the environment.

Collaboration among multiple stakeholders is crucial in decentralised governance settings. The success of such collaboration hinges upon collaborative learning–the acquiring, translating, and disseminating of policy-relevant knowledge. However, despite much research, a knowledge gap persists in the public policy literature on the relationship between learning and policy change. It is debated whether learning is necessary and sufficient for policy change, and if so, under what conditions. To contribute to this debate, this paper examined whether collaborative learning has had any impact on the emergence and implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) in Leicester, England. We first examined implementation of SuDS in Leicester, and then study collaborative learning focused on SuDS. We found that implementation of SuDS in Leicester is marginal despite active collaborative learning that has resulted in the change in beliefs and attitudes towards SuDS among all policy actors in the setting. Social dynamics factors and leadership of two SuDS champions proved crucial for collaborative learning. We conclude that collaborative learning, while essential for legitimacy of a policy innovation, is not sufficient for policy change and a national legal and institutional framework is required to incentivise broader SuDS practices in Leicester and England.

Although social learning is a key element of multilevel flood risk governance, it is hardly studied. This paper addresses this knowledge gap. The paper aims to identify enabling conditions for social learning in multilevel flood risks governance arrangements. We first conceptualize social learning and draw up a conceptual framework consisting of enabling conditions for social learning, using the literature on adaptive co-management, sustainable land and water management, and integrated flood risk management. Next, we apply this framework to analyze social learning in the context of the Dutch Room for the River program. Our interview results reveal that social learning about integrated flood protection measures took place at multiple levels. We found that a strong personal commitment to learning and mutual interpersonal trust in working groups are key conditions for successful social learning. Based on our analysis, we conclude with some recommendations for enhancing social learning processes in future flood protection programs.

Cleaning wastewater and using it again for secondary purposes is a measure to address water scarcity in urban areas. However, upscaling of recycled water schemes is challenging due to the possible emergence of various barriers. Based on a review of the governance literature we suggest that a set of five governance conditions is necessary for a successful upscaling of recycled water schemes; (1) policy leadership, (2) policy coordination, (3) availability of financial resources, (4) awareness of a problem, and (5) the presence of a public forum. In order to elaborate on the practical relevance of these conditions we studied a recycled water scheme currently being upscaled in Sabadell, Spain. We reviewed policy documents, conducted a set of 21 semi-structured interviews, and attended two policy meetings about the subject. Our results suggest that Sabadell meets the required conditions for upscaling reused water to a certain extent. However, the presence of a public forum is lacking. We discuss the implications of the absence of the venue and procedures for public participation in Sabadell and how it could be strengthened. Following this discussion, we conclude with some lessons for other cities that plan to upscale their recycled water schemes.

In the face of energy security and climate change, and with technological advances, many industrial countries have embraced the transition to a bioeconomy – an economy based on energy, chemicals and materials obtained from biomass. However, the policy and academic discourses on a bioeconomy transition suggest growing controversy around its social, environmental and ethical impacts. In this article, we apply an epistemic forms framework to better understand the scope and extent of the bioeconomy debate. We find that industry and governments take a narrow approach to a bioeconomy and tend to view it exclusively as a technical concept. We argue that the discursive and practical dimensions of the transition would shed light on the issues of what type of a bioeconomy to strive for, through which procedures and with what impacts for diverse stakeholders. We conclude with a set of recommendations related to a bioeconomy transition.

A currently burgeoning literature in planning and policy studies engages with the travel of policy models across countries and sites through novel concepts such as policy translation, policy mobility, and mutations. Increasingly, this literature calls for ethnographic methods to study the travel of policy models. Such methods require various degrees of researcher’s participation in the policy process. As a result, ethnographers become entangled in complex webs of relationships during and after their fieldwork, which introduces political and ethical dimensions to ethnographic fieldwork. The literature on policy mobilities and translation, however, has provided few practical guidelines regarding the politics and ethics of conducting ethnographic research. Based on two vignettes from our research experiences in China and Turkey, we discuss the politics and ethics of applying ethnography to policy translation and offer a number of hints for future researchers.

With this paper, we examine the current state of global governance of biofuels and assess the potential regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms for such governance. We ask two questions: a) what are the current efforts and initiatives towards the global governance of biofuels; and b) which form of global governance is more likely to emerge in the field of bioenergy. We come to the conclusion that institution building through private governance and non-state actor partnerships can offer a viable and effective means of governance. However, the primacy of partnerships and networks in global governance also means a number of pitfalls to avoid, especially with regard to legitimacy and inclusion. Drawing lessons from the fields of forest and marine policy, we close with a number of policy recommendations for better private initiatives and partnerships for global governance of biofuels., Bio-based and Applied Economics, Vol 3 No 3 (2014): Feeding the Planet and Greening Agriculture: Challenges and opportunities for the bio-economy