The implementation of the Agenda 2030 and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) requires collaboration between actors from different sectors. One way of facilitating exchange between different actors are forums. This article investigates the contribution of different types of forums for SDG implementation. We use the case of Switzerland's implementation of SDG 6 in the Global South to explore this question and rely on a small-N comparison of four forums. Based on a broad set of different empirical sources such as interviews, document analysis, and survey data, we characterize the forums according to important dimensions emphasized in forum research and use the forum characteristics to explain three types of first-order forum outputs: participation patterns, information exchange, and trust and procedural fairness. We observe that a mix of different forum characteristics accounts for different forum outputs. One forum that is actively promoting networking opportunities, for example, manages to reach many participants that are not reached by other forums. Furthermore, our results indicate that new types of forums that focus more on the implementation of the Agenda 2030 in general rather than single SDGs might become crucial to foster information exchange among actors.

Water systems are experiencing dynamic societal demands and extreme environmental changes. The integration of modular water systems into existing centralized infrastructures, creating hybrid systems, could mitigate these challenges by enabling more resilient water management. However, the existence of technological alternatives has not changed the continuous reliance on centralized water infrastructure. Supportive policy instruments are key to foster the operation of modular technology within hybrid water systems. This article focuses on the role of substantive and procedural policy instruments for the successful operation of modular water systems within a hybrid water infrastructure. Based on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), we can confirm the claim in the literature that relying on regulatory instruments is relevant for operating modular technology within hybrid systems. However, we also find combinations of policy instruments where regulatory instruments do not matter. Furthermore, we find that procedural instruments emphasizing stakeholder participation interplay with different substantive policy instruments to support the successful operation of modular systems.

Social network analysis (SNA) is a versatile and increasingly popular methodological tool to understand structures of relationships between actors involved in governance situations. Given the complexity of the set of stakeholders involved in the governance of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and the diversity of their interests, this article proposes SNA to the WASH sector. The use of SNA as an appropriate diagnostic tool for planning Citywide Inclusive Sanitation is explored. Missing data is a major problem for SNA in the studies of governance situations, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Therefore, a novel validation methodology for incomplete SNA data, relying on information from internal and external experts is proposed. SNA and the validation method is then applied to study the governance of decentralized wastewater treatment in four cities of India. The results corroborate key differences between mega and secondary cities in terms of institutions, community engagement and overall sanitation situation including aspects of decentralized wastewater treatment plants, based on the city types.

Developed to be interconnected by design, the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets have attracted a growing scientific community committed to exploring the systemic interactions inherent to the 2030 Agenda. Understanding which SDGs influence one another (positively or negatively) is critical to prioritize and implement policies that maximize synergies between goals while navigating trade-offs. In this way, the need for informed decision-making urgently requires knowledge of context-specific SDG interactions. Drawing on an extensive literature review (including scientific reports and scholarly articles), we collected, synthesized, and analyzed data about negative and positive interactions among SDG goals and targets. Based on this unique dataset, our analysis focused on three key elements of the resulting network of SDG interactions: First, we identified the most dominant SDGs in the network. Second, we identified systemic multipliers, defined as nodes with higher weighted amounts of outgoing than incoming influence. Third, we identified critical sub-networks of strongly interconnected SDG targets, highlighting possible virtuous cycles that could serve as concrete entry points to realize the 2030 Agenda. Building on our results, a collaborative effort to add and refine data on behalf of an open-knowledge platform could provide a solid basis for further analysis and enhanced usability in concrete contexts.

Existing research emphasizes interdependencies between social and ecological systems in climate change adaptation. Ecological systems are often complex and span several issues that are not integrated in the social governance system. In order to increase the fit between social and ecological systems, understanding factors that promote the integration of interdependent issues is crucial. In this paper, we consider 11 issues related to flood risk management, e.g., technical flood protection and habitat loss, which are typically addressed in different policy sectors but exhibit ecological, functional, or geographical interdependencies. We analyze two bases for issue integration: a) political actors connecting issues and, b) the legal framework cross-referencing issues. We propose a network method for systematic comparisons between issue integration based on actors and integration based on laws. For the case of Swiss flood risk management, we find that actor- and law-based issue integration co-vary and might be self-reinforcing. We further find that issue integration mostly rests on laws, although cases exist where actors are the main basis of integration. Results promote our understanding of potential bases for the integration of policy issues, thereby contributing knowledge about adaptive governance capacities in social-ecological systems that buffer the effects of climate change.

Horizontal cooperation among political systems is crucial for addressing large-scale and boundary-crossing policy problems. This article introduces and analyzes policy-specific factors that help to explain horizontal cooperation among subnational-governments. It thereby builds on but specifies arguments from the literature on horizontal federalism that has usually been focusing on general institutional and societal factors to explain cooperation. These factors capture how a given policy problem unfolds (problem pressure), the ways in which subnational governments are exposed to and experience its consequences in similar or unequal ways (functional interdependencies and their symmetry), and how the issues are treated domestically (problem awareness). We illustrate the potential importance of these factors by analyzing treaties among Swiss substates in the water domain and relying on network analytic methods. We find that problem awareness and functional interdependencies and their (a)symmetries are important, whereas problem pressure has a mixed influence, depending on the issue area.

Prominent current policy problems such as climate change, migration, or the financial crisis embrace a multitude of issues that are tackled within single- or multiple-policy subsystems. However, interdependencies among actors that arise due to their multi-issue engagement are often discounted when studying policy processes, including learning dynamics and alliance or trust formation among actors engaged in multiple issues. Various issues compete for actors' attention, and actors need to choose an appropriate set of issues to deal with given their scarce resources. In this, why do actors engage in multiple issues? We present an innovative inductive approach that identifies policy issues related to Swiss water politics and actors involved therein. We use a two-mode exponential random graph model to estimate actors' multi-issue activity. Results show that 39% of actors engage in more than one water-related issue and that cross-subsystem and homophily clustering and clustered issue popularity drive this issue engagement.

We review the literature examining collaborative governance processes from a network perspective and evaluate the extent to which it tackles important conceptual and methodological challenges. In particular, we assess whether scholars clearly identify the boundaries of the network, define nodes and the nature of ties, and examine how they deal with missing data, account for tie strength, take tie multiplexity into account, and study networks over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for the collaborative governance literature and ways to address the shortcomings in existing research.

Sustainable land governance in a telecoupled world is currently a challenge. Distant actors, institutions, and interactions shape local land uses and are assumed to affect sustainable development in critical ways as they exert new and often additional claims on land and trigger adverse local impacts like displacement. Action towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is urgently needed, as are agents of change that will initiate sustainability transformations. However, empirical studies on transformation pathways towards sustainable land governance remain scarce. Moreover, very few studies have addressed the identification of actors through whom such transformation might be achieved. To address this gap, we analysed the likelihood of actors becoming agents of change based on their aims, resources, and relational profiles in the land governance network. Our study focused on Madagascar, a country that manifests unsustainable land governance, with distant actors increasingly influencing local land use. We combined an analysis of agency with social network analysis to disentangle attributes and the transformative potential of different actors involved in land governance in northeastern Madagascar. Our results show that actors have different combinations of aims, resources, and relational profiles. Combined analysis of their agency and social networks enabled us to identify potential agents of change and yielded options for transformation actions through which they can become operational agents of change. Our research contributes to promoting pathways to sustainability transformations where actors with various agency levels and social network assets are empowered to establish sustainable land governance. The combination of agency analysis and social network analysis is an innovative method that helps to advance sustainability science.