Polycentric climate governance – insights of a systematic literature review

In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in polycentric governance among researchers and practitioners, from a variety of perspectives. In polycentric governance, multiple, overlapping decision-making units operate with a fair amount of autonomy, yet also evince a degree of coordination as they take one another into account in decision‐making processes. This study is part of a broader project comparing the policy performance of different kinds of polycentric governance in different empirical settings. In this project, we developed a framework for polycentric governance that is designed to improve knowledge cumulation by providing a guide for empirical inquiry. The framework builds on Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework.
Here, we focus on polycentric climate governance and present insights from our systematic review of the existing literature. We present the methods used, the geographic locations and levels that have been studied, the governance scales, and show trends in how this literature has developed over time. One particular focus is how the studies evaluate the performance of polycentric climate governance. Further, we mapped our findings to show which aspects of polycentric climate governance have been well-studied and to identify areas where additional empirical research is particularly critical for further cumulation of knowledge.