Change in Governance as Collective Learning Process

Organized by IDDRI, the Center for Philosophy of Law, the AgroParisTech-ENGREF, and the Regional Council of Lorraine, the International Symposium "Change in Governance as Collective Learning Process" will take place in Nancy from the 21st to the 24th of June 2009. This conference is organized within the framework of the RefGov project.

Problem Statement
Following the international dialogue linked to globalisation, the past 20 years are marked by an evident shift in the decision making procedures in all public sectors, including in forestry, with a change from government top-down regulations to interactions introduced by governance mechanisms. However, at the same time, the economic globalisation may have limited the real space of decision at both levels.
The intensity and quality of this progressive process of change work differently depending on social, cultural and political contexts, even if they have been triggered by the same global process. If the concepts and principles look well defined and shared in international statements, there is a huge gap between the discourse and it’s concrete implication. Policy formulation and implementation can be understood as a reflexive governance process, based on the interactions between different actors and stakeholders whereas their demands, positions, reactions and alliances are being permanently re-constructed through mutual learning and consequent adaptation. The way the changes emerge from this learning process, and the way this process determines changes in forest governance are addressed by this conference.

The presentations of plenary and parallel sessions are available for download:

MONDAY, 22 JUNE