Creative governance. Opportunities for fisheries in Europe

Creative governance. Opportunities for fisheries in Europe:

This book is the result of a series of workshops organised within the context of the TERM (Tackling Environmental Resource Management) scientific programme launched in Autumn 1995 by the European Science Foundation. This study on fisheries, the problems and opportunities in governing fisheries in Europe will make a contribution to the major research themes of the programme.

The book is divided into four parts. The first sets the scene, looking at the governance of fisheries and discusses the existing state of the literature in terms of the major modes of governing as practised in European fisheries. The second reports on four research projects that together constitute the empirical part of the book. The section ends by analysing these case studies using a governance analysis of Europe's fisheries. The third part investigates opportunity-creation in European fisheries by presenting four essays about different types of opportunities. Two of the chapters take a biological point of view, while two look into governing opportunities and problems related to them. The fourth part closes the book with two more conceptual chapters, both dealing with important opportunity aspects: learning and action.

The editors focus on opportunities rather than problems, arguing that in an industry such as fisheries, the only way to devise a governance strategy that attempts to create opportunities is to cross institutional boundaries. They argue that although fisheries in Europe have their particular characteristics which set the industry apart, the theoretical approach and the conceptual issues raised in the book can be fruitfully applied to other resource-based industries. They conclude that the governance of fisheries may serve as a model for other traditional industries facing modernisation and globalisation.