Building adaptive Capacity in the informal settlements of maputo - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 28

table 2.2 Characteristics of conventional and adaptive governance (adapted from
Brunner and Lynch 2010, in particular re-interpreted from a participation perspective)

Established regime Adaptive governance

Centralized power in decision-making Power sharing in decision-making

Top-down: The important decisions are
made by central authorities at the top of
international and national hierarchies.

Bottom-up: Facilitated processes support
diverse actors (including the voices of the
weakest) to share perspectives; enables
authorities to allocate resources to
support what works on the ground.

Bureaucracies: Policies are implemented
uniformly and with little reference
to local contexts by subordinates
accountable to the central authorities.

Networks: Case studies of local policies
and actions that worked can be diffused
by networks for voluntary adaptation by
other communities.

Expertise: Disinterested experts develop
technologies and integrated scientific
assessments for the central authorities.

Experience: Local communities working
in parallel can adapt and field test policies
and actions in their own contexts;
diversity is an asset.

Technical knowledge systems Procedural knowledge systems

Formal planning: Policy process is
discrete, relying on formal methods and
metrics to evaluate planned alternatives
and avoid failure.

Appraisal: Learning is at the centre of
policies and actions; appraisals allow
building on success and moving on from
failure.

Targets: Comprehensive policy depends
on science-based technologies to realize a
given target efficiently and above politics.

Interest: knowledge sharing integrates
or balances interests in a community to
advance its common interests; politics
and power are necessary.

Linear: Unfettered basic research
to reduce scientific uncertainty is a
prerequisite for rational and cost-
effective decisions.

Cooperative: Scientists, policymakers
and communities work together toward
overlapping practical aims, sharing
differently informed insights.

Generalized experimentation and testing Contextualized experimentation and testing

Generalized: Research generalizes across
human or natural systems for results of
broad national or international scope.

Contextualized: Inquiry follows action
research modalities, focusing on
understanding single cases and relies on
community participation.

Predictive: Stable and standard parts are
integrated into numerical predictions to
reduce uncertainty.

Integrative: Each factor is contingent
on a working 'model' of the whole case;
gaps and inconsistencies in it prompt
revisions.

Reductive: Research selects from diverse
systems separate parts relevant to a stable
relationship or standard measure or
method.

Systems perspective: situated inquiry
strives to cover all the major interacting
factors, human and natural, shaping
outcomes in the single case.