Governance for resilience: Assessing how governance influences implementation of resilience measures in nature areas

This research concerns the relationship between resilience of protected areas and the governance of these areas. Five case studies were analysed to understand the dynamics of the governance processes and to see how governance influences resilience. The main research questions that guided each case were: How is resilience observed and what are the threats in the area? What measures are envisaged to increase resilience in the selected areas? And what governance factors support or hamper implementation of adaptive measures to increase resilience in the chosen areas? The analytical framework used to study the cases in a comparative approach is the contextual interaction theory and the governance assessment tool. In the contextual interaction theory, the full complexity of the governance system is covered by a model in which the final outcome is explained by the interaction process between involved actors in interaction with three layers of context. The governance assessment tool outlines how the interactions between the five dimensions of governance support or impede the implementation of measures for resilience by the actors involved in the interaction process. The patterns between governance qualities and process outcomes in the cases indicate that it is essential to monitor governance qualities and the constituting five dimensions of governance and their interactions.