D4.1 deliverable: Developing the Multi-layered Collaborative Marine Governance Model

This deliverable presents the Multi-layered Collaborative Marine Governance model (MLCMG model). It is an analytical model that brings together different components to understand the enabling and constraining conditions for a successful implementation of the EU Green Deal (GD) objectives for the 4 PERMAGOV regime complexes (Maritime Transport, Marine Life, Marine Energy and Marine Plastics). The MLCMG model, together with the indicators for assessing governance capabilities (WP5), will result in PERMAGOV’s Marine Governance Performance Assessment Framework.

The MLCMG model is developed from existing social scientific approaches and theories (including Sociology, Political Science, Public Policy and Governance, and Planning) and includes several components that affect change, innovation, and performance of marine governance arrangements:
• the institutional context/setting and structural conditions affecting collaborative processes;
• the multi-level dynamics of marine decision making and implementation of marine policies;
• marine governance arrangements (comprising actors/coalitions, rules of the game, resources and discourses);
• the characteristics of the collaborative process in which governmental actors (public agencies) in deliberation with non-state actors (e.g., representatives of maritime sectors, non-governmental organizations) are engaged in decision-making of marine policies;
• the governance capabilities of state and non-state actors to attain societal goals; and
• the role of e-governance to enable the effective implementation of the Green Deal.

In practical terms for implementing the EU GD, the MLCMG model offers a simplified representation of how marine governance arrangements change and innovate over time. We conceive marine decision-making and implementation of marine policies as a collaborative process structured by institutions, constrained by institutional barriers, enabled by governance capabilities of actors, and facilitated by marine e-governance. We consider performance as the capacity of marine governance arrangements to solve societal problems and create societal opportunities.