Objective 1: Students have a comprehensive understanding of key concepts (e.g. multi-actor, multi-level, multi-domain) and current forms of Sustainability Governance (e.g. partnerships and network governance).

Objective 2: Students apply the key concepts of Sustainability Governance to current sustainability issues and governance approaches.

Objective 3: Students evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various levels (e.g. transnational, regional and local) of Sustainability Governance from a multi-level and meta-governance perspective.

Steering for a sustainable society challenges state-centered political-institutional systems. Next to ‘hierarchical governance’ new forms of ‘collaborative governance’ have emerged, reflecting the overall fragmentation of governance and the changing role of governments. Like sustainable development, governance is a contested concept. It’s about new relations between actors from different societal domains, such as the state, the market, and the civil society. It’s about collective action by multiple actors, involving multiple sectors at multiple scale levels. It’s about new multi-actor constellations, and their structures, institutions, processes, resources and instruments. It’s about different modes of governance, depending on prevailing world views and perspectives. In this course, governance practices at transnational, regional, national and local level are examined. New governance approaches which play a pivotal role in the social process towards a more sustainable world will be discussed, such as networks and partnerships. For integrating sustainability governance at these different levels, the course will discuss multi-level and meta-governance approaches. An important element of this course is the link between theoretical concepts and their practical relevance, illustrated by three application domains: food, water and energy governance.

Exchange students can only register for this course provided they previously took the course SSP2011 Sustainable Development or SSP2031 Sustainability Science.