An overview of policy instruments for sustainable peri-urban landscapes : towards governance mixes

Abstract

Peri-Urban Landscapes (PULs) are transitional areas composed of a mix of natural and anthropogenic land covers. The unsustainable character of many PULs is widely recognised, but their governance is particularly challenging. The paper moves from the hypothesis that addressing some of the sustainability challenges of PULs requires the combination of multiple Policy Instruments (PIs), i.e., a policy mix. An online survey was developed to collect cases of PULs governance with a twofold purpose: i) to identify and describe existing PIs implemented in PULs, and ii) to investigate which combinations of PIs are adopted to address specific categories of sustainability challenges. Fifty valid answers describing 47 cases of PULs governance from 26 countries were collected and analysed. The results confirm the presence of a policy mix approach, suggesting the need for a plurality of PIs to govern the dynamics and complexities of PULs. Moreover, the results indicate an important role of the regional governance level, a dominating presence of top-down instruments, and a need for more effective inclusion of citizens into policy-making processes related to PULs. A reflection on the findings considering the existing literature on governance experimentation suggests governance mixes for PULs as potential approaches to address some of the shortcomings of the analysed policy mixes.