EPA Brown Bag Lunch Series & Adaptive Governance cluster jointly present

1. EPA Brown Bag Lunch Series & Adaptive Governance cluster jointly present Farhad Mukhtarov Can Elephants Fly? Policy Translation and Travel of Ideas in Water Management Trans-national travel of policy ideas/innovations is ubiquitous today in environmental governance and beyond. The conventional theories and models, i.e. Policy Transfer (Dolowitz and Marsh 2001; Stone 2004), Policy Diffusion (Tews 2005); Diffusion of Innovation (Rogers 2003); Policy Learning (Hall 1992); Lesson-Drawing (Rose 2003) fail to conceptualize and explain this process by committing two fundamental fallacies: a) assuming that ideas/innovations do not change as they travel, and b) that strategic action is often possible on the part of agency in such processes. I draw on policy translation as a new and promising alternative. It embraces modification of ideas in their travel, and views the ensuing politics as driven not only by instrumentality of agency, but inherent uncertainty and sheer possibility of multiple interpretations of reality. This emerging school is highly eclectic, drawing from linguistics, public policy, public health, cultural studies, nationalism, and sociology (Freeman 2009; Lendvai and Stubbs 2007; Clarke 2008). By drawing on in-depth empirical case studies of Integrated Water Resources Management in England, Turkey and Kazakhstan, I propose innovative heuristic and analytical models to apply policy translation to water governance and beyond. When and where Upcoming EPA Brown Bag Lunches March 21stBelinda McFadgen, Learning from Experiments in Adaptation Governance: Design, Implementation and Effectiveness April 18thAgni Kalfagianni, The Effectiveness of Transnational Rule-Setting Organisations I n Global Sustainability Politics May 16thEleftheria Vasileiadou, The Impact of IPCC on Science: Anything to Worry about? June 20th              EPA Roundtable, Hot Topics: Environmental Policy Currents Date: Monday February 21, 2011 Time: 12.00 – 13.00 hrs. Place: Room C543 IVM, W&N building, VU Campus (entrance via De Boelelaan 1085) Contact Constanze Haug/Thijs Etty constanze.haug@ivm.vu.nl thijs.etty@ivm.vu.nl IVM INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES VU University Amsterdam      De Boelelaan 1085 (visiting address) De Boelelaan 1087 (postal address) 1081 HV Amsterdam t +31-20-5989 555 f +31-20-5989 553 e info@ivm.vu.nli http://www.ivm.vu.nl