Opportunities for increased conflict management : a cross-case study at the Department of Policy Implementation at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
Abstract: Managing conflicts within natural resource management is important for sustainable development, and one of the issues within this research area concerns key relationships between agential and structural factors, desk officer’s space of action, and competence. Based on Hay’s Strategic Rational Approach, this study analyses the opportunities and challenges in the management of natural resources at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The analysis is based in a qualitative and abductive methodology with 13 interviews from purposively sampled cross cases. Key conclusions include that desk officers perceive expert knowledge as the key competence for successful natural resource conflict management; how an experienced gap between hierarchical levels and horizontal functions results in non-optimal communication and inhibited learning; how strategic actors can influence structure and how structure influence the decisions of strategic actors.
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