Assessing socio-technical resistance to public policy instruments: Insights from water performance indicators in the Grenoble area (France)

Thomas Bolognesi, Antoine Brochet and Yvan Renou
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Antoine Brochet: INRAE, France

Environment and Planning C, 2021, vol. 39, issue 7, 1407-1435

Abstract: This article puts forward the notion of socio-technical resistance with an application to the regulation through performance indicators in the water sector. Governance failures are mainly explained by concentrating on governance design, considering regulation as a set of control mechanisms. We propose an alternative perspective by putting the emphasis on socio-technical resistance to take into account both human and non-human actors in the governance process. We observe the misuse of performance indicators by local actors in urban water systems in Europe to highlight the empirical significance of socio-technical resistance. Results support that socio-technical resistance is frequent and reduces significantly the reliability of the information gathered through performance indicators. Drawing on a new typology of resistance, we show socio-technical resistance is a dynamic combination of cognitive, interpretative, territorial, strategic, technical and structural factors. These results and the proposed notion underline a crucial limitation of public policies and regulation in the process of policy-instruments implementation and compliance. Empirically, it reveals particularly relevant to provide new insights on New public management and performance-based regulation, where measurement are crucial.

Keywords: Public policy; water management; mixed method; performance indicators; governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:39:y:2021:i:7:p:1407-1435

DOI: 10.1177/2399654420986561

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