Gatekeepers of local environmental progress? Self-referencing practices of urban bureaucracy

ABSTRACT

We argue that contemporary debate on innovative urban environmental governance underestimates the influence of bureaucratic self-referencing practices. Informed by organisational and institutional theories, we define them as mechanisms for strategic incorporation of new environmental rules while keeping former administrative structures stable. Analysis of new units in Polish cities identified three such practices: defining bureaucratic identity, translating environmental issues, and managing external actors. Thus, urban bureaucracy is ‘a gatekeeper’ that can soften or strengthen the administrative boundaries of environmental progress. We, therefore, recommend the careful evaluation of innovative administrative forms to determine whether they meet social and environmental expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Bureaucratic discretion
• environmental governance
• post-bureaucracy
• public officials
• boundary organisations

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the Polish National Science Centre for funding our research as well as the interviewees for contributing their time and sharing their thoughts on the investigated issues. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

Due to ethical concerns, supporting data cannot be made openly available yet. Further information about the data and conditions for access are available on request from research team.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article: This work was financially supported by the Polish National Science Centre [PRELUDIUM grant number 2018/31/N/HS6/03357]