The Perfect Storm? : A communication lobbying perspective on management and design of the EU Common Fisheries Policy
Natural resource pool management problems are still not resolved globally. Various calls for transformational change are prevalent and crosscutting across various areas such as climate, food security, health and biodiversity. This dissertation contributes to the literature on the mechanisms and processes that hinder the development of efficient and effective policies, using the European Union Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) as a case study. Through social network analysis, the role of informational lobbying, its interaction with formal institutions and legislative rules using non-cooperative legislative bargaining models were explored. Communicational lobbying impact on policy learning through policy belief updating, as well as knowledge aggregation processes were measured . We also simulated scenarios of how different factors can shape fisheries opportunities decisions by the EU AGRIFISH Council of ministers. Our findings reveal that informational lobbying network of the CFP plays a role in policy belief updating processes preferences, intensifying belief biases and limiting adaptive policy learning. Additionally, stakeholders predominantly rely on their initial beliefs, suggesting that future studies should explore belief formation mechanisms, as well as path dependency and institutional inertia to better understand why some actors rely more on observational learning than are receptive to communicational learning. Scientific uncertainties may exasperate these belief biases when insufficient measures to address potential errors are put in place. Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management , context-specific harvest control rules, as well as improved communication network structures and additional governance mechanisms have been highlighted as potential solutions. Future research could integrate bio-economical and meta-modeling, and further unravel mechanisms driving belief biases and improve effective policy learning.
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