Objective 1: Students understand and evaluate current Sustainability Governance approaches (e.g. partnerships and network governance) on various levels (i.e. local, regional, national, supranational).
Objective 2: Students apply and evaluate different Sustainability Governance approaches at different levels in a concrete domain of Sustainability Governance (e.g. water or food).
Objective 3: Students understand and evaluating efforts to integrate sustainability governance across different actors, sectors, levels and domains (e.g. through multi-level or meta-governance).

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.

This course is in transition.
See the Master Education and Examination Regulations for more information.

The following rule applies to master Sustainability Science, Policy and Society students who started the programme prior to academic year 2023-2024.

TRANSITIONAL REGULATION (SSP2041):
In 2024-2025 students are allowed to repeat the examination and resit.
Use AskSBE to register.


PREREQUISITES:
Exchange students should refer to the International Relations Office via email in case they would like to register for this course: iro-incoming-sbe@maastrichtuniversity.nl. Only limited spots available, first-come first-serve principle.