Governance in fisheries

The focus of the project is governance in fisheries with special emphasis on the role of management institutions in the decision-making process and the conditions under which management institutions work effectively and cost-efficiently. Associated questions of participation and representation of interests in fishery management, levels of decision‑making, factors influencing compliance/ non‑compliance behaviour, legitimacy and what is considered a valid knowledge base for management will be addressed by focusing on the following five research questions:  

User-groups or broader stakeholder involvement - how are stakeholder interests voiced and mediated in management institutions?The rationality of fisheries management - what is the overall rationality of the management institutions in terms of managing society's utilisation of its natural resource base and sharing access for interest groups?The cost-effectiveness of fisheries management - how are transaction costs reflected in the design of management institutions? The embeddedness of management institutions - to what extent are management institutions consistent and integrated with the cultural and social references of user and stakeholder groups?The cognitive basis for management - how is knowledge about the resource system and other systems (e.g. the policy system) generated and used in management institutions, and what constitutes the social validity of such knowledge?

The research will eventually lead to submission of an anthology entitled: "Governance in fisheries - an institutional approach to management of fisheries" undertaking a structured analysis of the 5 research issues mentioned above. The aim is to disseminate the results to both the scientific community and policy‑makers in order to improve the performance of fisheries management systems in both developed and developing countries.