Power and Polycentric Coastal Governance: Livelihoods, Equity, and Environmental Change in the Philippines

Abstract

Ocean and coastal spaces are sites of increasing complexity and environmental change, driven by declining resources and a rise in actors seeking to exploit marine environments. In response, recent years have seen a resurgence in scientific interest in polycentric governance as both an analytic tool and solution to coastal resource use and management. Research however has begun to critique polycentric governance’s limited engagement with power, and how this influences the processes and outcomes of governance. Drawing from institutional theory and political ecology, this research explores the role of power in polycentric governance. Specifically, it examines how actors use different types of power to interpret, support, and contest environmental governance processes, and how this impacts the equity, transparency, accountability, and legitimacy of coastal governance. This research adopted a qualitative research approach, combining a qualitative evidence synthesis of existing research and a case-study of coastal governance on Palawan, the Philippines. The research focused on power dynamics within and between a peripheral island community and municipal/provincial meso-scale governance actors, with a specific focus on the rights and livelihoods of small-scale fishers. The research highlights how formal governance processes and outcomes intersect with existing power relations, and the cultural norms, customs, expectations, and obligations that structure the relationships between resource-users, politicians, and state bureaucrats. The research found that elite and marginal actors also construct framings of coastal governance which draw from, and align with, global conservation agendas and the macro-scale political discourse of an oligarchic elite and oppressed rural poor, characterised by narratives of suffering, hardship, corruption, and resistance. This research shows how polycentric governance can be characterised as a fluid system of relational power, as actors both cooperate and compete in pursuit of their respective goals and desired outcomes. Power can be used by dominant and marginal actors to both advance and undermine the equity, transparency, accountability, and legitimacy of coastal governance.