Hello I am Bert Enserink: your teacher for this subject.
So, in this step on interdependence we make an inventory of the resources of the actors
that may in one way or another help to solve the issue or may be a stumbling block to get
things done.
Typical examples of categories of resources are:
- information - knowledge (and skills)
- manpower - money
- authority / formal power - position in the network: access to other
actors - legitimacy (and moral authority)
- organization (ability to mobilize and use resources effectively and efficiently)
- and many others, which you can think of yourself.
When you think back to the examples of the Brent Spar and the dispersed pollution policy
making you will realize that indeed some of these resources were used by actors to change
the situation by either enabling or blocking policy implementation.
When you know what the resources of the actors are you can rank them according to their importance
for problem solving and the extent to reach the resources or if means of one actor can
be replaced by those of another actor.
Take a look at this grid.
You will see that import means that are owned by one actor only,
for instance the permit to build your wind park at a specific location
which is owned by the ministry of infrastructure and environment results in a high dependency
on this ministry while, for constructing the piles,
although of great importance too, you can turn to many competing offshore construction companies.
Filling out this table shows who you are really depended on for what.
We now move to a new table tied in to find critical actors of those who have critical
resources for problem solving.
To do this analysis in a structured way it is best to fill out this matrix by listing
for each actor what her import resources are.
If this actor and her means can be replaced by other actors or not and how depended you
are on this actor for solving the problem.
If you are very depended on such an actor, it is categorized as a critical actor.
If an actor is the only one holding important resources she is categorized critical.
Well, let's fill out this table for the wind at sea case.
We have listed the number of actors, typically the ministry of economic affairs,
two directorates of the ministry of infrastructure and environment:
water and space and environment and international, and the wind power industry.
In the second column we list their important resources,
which we learned from our analysis.
For retrieving this information, we went to their websites,
we read through policy documents and reports and distilled these means and also determined
their importance.
In the next three columns we asses whether these means are unique or may be replaced
by other means.
And in the final row, for instance you can see that one windmill
producer can be replaced by any other one.
In the third row, we learned that international climate policy
is not critical for wind parks at sea.
Now we know who the critical actors are we have to determine who have a real interest
in solving the issue; in other words who are the dedicated actors who want to invest in
the new policy and are prepared to put in their means and who are the non-dedicated
ones, who have little or no interest in the issue.
And we want to assess whether they will support us or are opposed to the plans of our problem owner.
So we look at their perception of the policy issue: do they consider the problem and its
potential solution in the same way as we do, or do they hold completely opposing views?
Knowing about their dedication and perception allows us to distinguish friends and foes
and to assess our chances for success and helps us to design an analysis and decision
making process in such a way that makes our chances for success as big as possible.
We now return to our Wind at Sea case and we ask:
What does the problem owner want? Well she wants more windmills at sea.
We can then ask ourselves the question: Do other actors want that too?
How important is this objective for the other actors?
Per now, we know who are the critical actors and we ask ourselves: who are the dedicated
ones and who are the ones holding the same or conflicting views? We can summarize and
organize these findings in one final matrix which is shown in this slide.
You should take some time to study this matrix.
You see the main distinction in the columns between dedicated and non-dedicated actors
while in the rows we distinguish actors holding the same interest and objectives and those
with conflicting interest.
The columns are subdivided in critical and non-critical.
This leads to eight categories of actors with strong allies and strong opponents in the
red column, as they hold critical means,
and the indispensable allies and potential blockers are in the green column.
They are the ones who show little interest but at the same time own important means that
may lead to either success or failure of your policy.
Then there are two columns of non-critical actors,
they are for now of less important players in the game.
Look at the bottom row and you see the qualification of the character of these actors.
They can be biting dogs, barking dogs,
sleeping dogs or stray dogs.
Now remember the Brand Spar.
One could say that Greenpeace moved from the category of barking dogs to the category of
biting dogs.
And by barking loud it woke up the sleeping dogs: the consumers in Germany and even activated
some stray dogs like the ministry in Germany and the Netherlands who were criticizing the
Scottish government.
So this can be a very dynamic situation.
Parties can move from one place to another in the matrix.
Let's rest the old spar case and fill out this matrix for the wind at sea case.
Our critical and dedicated actors are the Ministry of Infra and Environment especially
the directorate on Water and Space and of course TenneT,
the network administrator and the Energy companies.
These are all dedicated supporters of windfarms at sea.
They are opposed by the harbor authorities and the shipping sector representatives as
these parties want to have free access to the North Sea.
Other dedicated actors but having little means show up in the next column.
Now we turn to the non-dedicated actors; they typically hold different interest and
have other things on their mind and hold other priorities.
Here we see the banks and private investors.
Luckily for our problem owner they are potential allies if only the business proposition is
attractive to them.
In the last column we find the non-dedicated, non-critical actors.
They may become important at a later stage, but for now we won't pay much attention to them.
We now have concluded our analysis.
This does not mean we are finished.
In fact, we now come to the most important step:
Determining the consequences of our newly acquired insights.
Determining these consequences is the subject of our next clip.