CCAFS Science Meeting presentation by Ian Christoplos - "Institutional requirements for adapting to a variable and changing climate"

1. Institutional requirements for
adapting to a variable and changing
climate
Ian Christoplos
Danish Institute for International Studies
Presentation for the Third Annual CCAFS
Science Workshop

2. Analysing context before searching for
solutions
• Applying lessons on institutional change from
other sectors, e.g., towards good enough
environmental governance (drawing on Grindle)
• Contextual ”best-fit” instead of ”essentialist” lists
• Research’s contribution should build on
theoretical perspectives on institutional change
before embarking on developing new models
• Agricultural extension is a useful vantage point
(sentinal?) to consider changing norms and roles

3. Innovation amid path dependency
• Innovation theories (which have explicitly or
implicitly guided CC institutional research) are
largely forward looking, i.e., understanding
how institutions, organisations and individuals
adapt and respond to changing conditions
• Path dependency is a reminder that the past
counts too: ”one damn thing follows another”
(David 1985)

4. Why are institutions path dependent
and what are the implications?
• Institution building is expensive, discouraging interest
in overhauling institutions once they are in place
• Impediments are put into place to control and limit
reforms that are seen to threaten the status quo
• As actors learn about a given “policy style” and
decision-making process they tend to feel comfortable
with it and resist approaches that question it
• Any institutional framework creates a given stream of
resources and those benefiting tend to be distrustful of
change
based on Campbell 2009

5. Historical but not deterministic
• Path dependency frames responses to change
and uncertainty, but agency remains
• Old norms/relations/concepts are used to meet
new challenges
• Institutional bricolage perhaps a better concept,
using an existing repertoire in new circumstances
• Suggesting that new tools and information are
unlikely to be ”implemented” but rather
integrated by bricoleurs on the ground

6. Unpacking labels and making sense
• ”Lack of political will and vision”: a black box that
recognises but fails to analyse path dependencies
• Need to instead understand how people (within
organisational processes) make sense of climate
variability and uncertainty
• In CCA, does institutional change occur due to
critical junctures or gradual recognition of
emerging challenges? -research priority
• We need to suspend judgement and look at
empirical evidence to understand these processes

7. Agricultural extension:
A path dependent institution
• Climate researchers at best see extension as
”our tool” at worst as a gatekeeper, obstacle
or just a problem
• But, with a recognition that we may need
extension anyway
• Symbol of failure and successes due to
essentialist methods fixes (T&V, FFS)
• Shift to ”best-fit” thinking

8. Agricultural extension and climate
change?
• Identity as bearers of modern technological
packages
• But climate variability demands incentives and
capacities to unpack the packages
• Relations with research can reinforce lock-in
with technology transfer roles
• But today’s extension is more about
facilitation, brokerage, business advice

9. How might agricultural extensionists
make sense of climate change
• Grounded in identity construction
CC implies reconsideration of identities as providers of ‘expert’ knowledge
when climate variability makes packages based on production protocols of
the past irrelevant
• Retrospective
Decisions about response to ‘new’ climate related hazards is based on past
experience with extreme events, as much as innovative response to new ones
• Enactive of sensible environments
New climate information needs to “make sense” in relation to existing tasks
and mandates
• Social
Sensemaking a social process that takes place within the extension
organisation as a whole, CC efforts need to be part of that process
Drawing on Weick 1995

10. How might agricultural extensionists
make sense of climate change
• Ongoing
Recognition that extension response to CC will not be through ‘project
cycles’ but rather through ongoing iterative processes of learning
about their changing environment
• Focused on and be extracted cues
A disaster or repeated crop failures may (or may not) represent “cues”
indicating that a critical juncture has been reached; by understanding
the nature of such cues we can better understand what triggers a
given type of response
• Driven by plausibility rather than accuracy
More and better climate information and data will not necessarily lead
to better decisions; information is instead considered by extension
based on the implications for different plausible explanations for the
phenomena and plausible response scenarios

11. Climate Change and Rural Institutions
• Elements of a preliminary conceptual
framework for Climate Change and Rural
Institutions
• To be implemented by DIIS, in collaboration
with national parters in Uganda, Zambia,
Nepal and Vietnam 2012-2015
www.diis.dk/ccri