Abstract / Summary:
The Mountlennium project analyzes regional mountain initiatives with the aim of assessing the contribution of regional governance architectures to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs – 7A: integration of sustainable development principles in national policies & 7B: reduction of biodiversity loss). Whereas progress towards meeting the MDGs has focused on the policies and practices of countries and intergovernmental organizations of the UN system, the originality of the project is to look at the role of the regional scale in policy diffusion.
Mountain regions have been recognized as critical human-environment systems on the world’s environmental agenda. They also represent an important empirical domain at the interface of rescaling and governance. Implementing sustainable development strategies through regional initiatives entails processes of rescaling, which impacts governance, collective action, and identity formation. This is particularly relevant for sustainable development strategies, for which mountains have been identified as laboratories for implementation.
The Mountlennium project approaches the worldwide spread of mountain governance – and its potential for diffusing MDG goals – from an interdisciplinary view of the politics of scale involved in creating governance arrangements and processes. The Mountlennium project sheds light on two processes of diffusion – institutional diffusion of regional governance (form) and policy diffusion (function) through regional governance architectures – and the implications of their interplay for the achievement of MDGs 7A and 7B. Three analytical dimensions of diffusion are distinguished: cognitive-cultural diffusion (vision), institutional diffusion (structure) and policy diffusion (tools and practices).
In order to assess the potential of MDG diffusion through regional initiatives, the Mountlennium project focuses on five mountainous areas where regional governance initiatives have been launched: the European Alps, the Carpathians, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The five case studies are analyzed as linked empirical domains in order to assess the institutional diffusion of a “mountain governance” model inspired by the Alpine Convention in terms of sustainable development. In turn, the five mountain governance initiatives are compared on the basis of how MDGs 7A and 7B resonate with prevailing provisions so as to ascertain regionalization`s potential for mainstreaming sustainable development principles and reducing biodiversity loss.
