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1. Levers and leverage points for pathways to sustainability

   https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10124  

   Chan, Kai M. A. ; Boyd, David R. ; Gould, Rachelle K. ; Jetzkowitz, Jens ; Liu, Jianguo ; Muraca, Barbara ; Naidoo, Robin ; Olmsted, Paige ; Satterfield, Terre ; Selomane, Odirilwe ; et al ( July 2020 , People and Nature)

   Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly accepted framework of interventions that could ignite the transformations needed to achieve these desired targets and goals.

   As a component of the IPBES Global Assessment, we conducted an iterative expert deliberation process with an extensive review of scenarios and pathways to sustainability, including the broader literature on indirect drivers, social change and sustainability transformation. We asked, what are the most important elements of pathways to sustainability?

   Applying a social–ecological systems lens, we identified eight priority points for intervention (leverage points) and five overarching strategic actions and priority interventions (levers), which appear to be key to societal transformation. The eightleverage pointsare: (1) Visions of a good life, (2) Total consumption and waste, (3) Latent values of responsibility, (4) Inequalities, (5) Justice and inclusion in conservation, (6) Externalities from trade and other telecouplings, (7) Responsible technology, innovation and investment, and (8) Education and knowledge generation and sharing. The five intertwinedleverscan be applied across the eight leverage points and more broadly. These include: (A) Incentives and capacity building, (B) Coordination across sectors and jurisdictions, (C) Pre‐emptive action, (D) Adaptive decision‐making and (E) Environmental law and implementation. The levers and leverage points are all non‐substitutable, and each enables others, likely leading to synergistic benefits.

   Transformative change towards sustainable pathways requires more than a simple scaling‐up of sustainability initiatives—it entails addressing these levers and leverage points to change the fabric of legal, political, economic and other social systems. These levers and leverage points build upon those approved within the Global Assessment's Summary for Policymakers, with the aim of enabling leaders in government, business, civil society and academia to spark transformative changes towards a more just and sustainable world.

   A freePlain Language Summarycan be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

    

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2. Contexts shaping misdemeanor system interventions among people with mental illnesses: qualitative findings from a multi-site system mapping exercise

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-023-00219-8  

   Wood, Jennifer D. ; Watson, Amy C. ; Pope, Leah ; Warnock, Amanda ; Nelson, Veronica ; Gesser, Nili ; Zern, Adria ; Stagoff-Belfort, Aaron ; de Bibiana, Jason Tan ; Compton, Michael T. ( April 2023 , Health & Justice)

   People with mental illnesses are disproportionately entangled in the criminal legal system. Historically, this involvement has resulted from minor offending, often accompanied by misdemeanor charges. In recent years, policymakers have worked to reduce the footprint of the criminal legal system. This paper seeks to better understand how misdemeanor systems intervene in the lives of people with mental illnesses.

   System mapping exercises were conducted with misdemeanor system stakeholders from the jurisdictions of Atlanta, Chicago, Manhattan, and Philadelphia. Narrative detail on decision-making and case processing, both generally and in relation to specific types of behavior, including trespassing, retail theft/shoplifting, and simple assault, were coded and analyzed for thematic patterns. Based on the qualitative analysis, this paper offers a conceptual diagram of contexts shaping misdemeanor system interventions among people with mental illnesses.

   All four sites have been engaged in efforts to reduce the use of misdemeanor charges both generally and in relation to people with mental illnesses. Decision-makers across all sites experience contexts that shape how, when, and where they intervene, which are: (1) law and policy environments; (2) location of the behavior; (3) expectations of stakeholders; (4) knowledge of mental illnesses; and (5) access to community resources. Law and policy environments expand or constrain opportunities for diversion. The location of offending is relevant to who has a stake in the behavior, and what demands they have. Clinical, experiential, and system-level knowledge of mental illnesses inform a chain of decisions about what to do. The capacity to address mental health needs is contingent on access to social services, including housing.

   People making decisions along the criminal legal continuum are critical to illuminating the dynamic, inter-related contexts that facilitate and frustrate attempts to address defendants’ mental health needs while balancing considerations of public safety. Multi-sector, scenario-based or case study exercises could help identify concrete ways of improving each of the contexts that surround whole-of-system decisions.

    

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3. Ascertaining Intergovernmental Coordination Mechanisms

   https://doi.org/10.5064/F6QHVGUI  

   Milman, Anita ; Milman, Anita ( January 2023 , QDR Main Collection)

   Project Overview Jurisdictional boundaries of governmental agencies often do not align with the geographic or social boundaries of the policy issues they are tasked with addressing. This spatial mismatch is especially common in relation to natural resources and the environment. Where it occurs, achievement of policy goals may require coordination across jurisdictions, which can lead to mutual benefits. Yet, governmental agencies may view coordination as costly or as leading to a loss of autonomy. This project examined coordination decisions made by local level governmental agencies in California, as they formed Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) and subsequently coordinated development of their first groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The project addresses the question of how agencies make decisions and manage interactions when under a coordination mandate that allots agencies the discretion to decide how to coordinate. More specifically, it investigates:What factors influence decisions regarding the geographic extent of and parties involved in development of new formal agencies for groundwater management,How do concerns about the potential risks of coordination affect the choice of coordination mechanisms,How does the structure of agency interactions affect their achievement of the objectives of the coordination mandate, andHow do agencies make sense of a coordination mandate and how does that sense-making process influence the decisions agencies make when deciding how to respond to the mandate? 

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4. Resilience organizing: a multilevel communication framework

   https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqac027  

   Doerfel, Marya L. ; Kim, Minkyung ; Kwestel, Melanie ; Yoon, Hyunsook ; Quow, Justine ( September 2022 , Journal of Communication)

   This study advances communication-centered resilience theory by examining adaptive capacity of nonprofit networks impacted by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Data show how formal structures set up conditions for adaptive/informal organizing. This highlights a quandary for disaster planning: improvising emerges from organizations having plans in place. Iterative processes between formal and informal structures expanded capacity, building a foundation for work processes to scaffold from individual to organizational to interorganizational networks. Yet some employees were personally vulnerable, revealing a multilevel dilemma: organizations were resilient even if employees were not. This study also theorizes time as an endogenous mechanism. As workers perceived less urgency, process experts broadened communication across levels, integrating more complex work processes. Resilience differed between organizations that lacked process experts, revealing their critical role across levels. Findings point to a policy-making dilemma: successful resilience processes undermine pressure on policy-makers to mitigate threats that necessitate improving resilience processes to begin with.

    

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5. Governance structure affects transboundary disease management under alternative objectives

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11797-3  

   Blackwood, Julie C. ; Malakhov, Mykhaylo M. ; Duan, Junyan ; Pellett, Jordan J. ; Phadke, Ishan S. ; Lenhart, Suzanne ; Sims, Charles ; Shea, Katriona ( October 2021 , BMC Public Health)

   The development of public health policy is inextricably linked with governance structure. In our increasingly globalized world, human migration and infectious diseases often span multiple administrative jurisdictions that might have different systems of government and divergent management objectives. However, few studies have considered how the allocation of regulatory authority among jurisdictions can affect disease management outcomes.

   Here we evaluate the relative merits of decentralized and centralized management by developing and numerically analyzing a two-jurisdictionSIRSmodel that explicitly incorporates migration. In our model, managers choose between vaccination, isolation, medication, border closure, and a travel ban on infected individuals while aiming to minimize either the number of cases or the number of deaths.

   We consider a variety of scenarios and show how optimal strategies differ for decentralized and centralized management levels. We demonstrate that policies formed in the best interest of individual jurisdictions may not achieve global objectives, and identify situations where locally applied interventions can lead to an overall increase in the numbers of cases and deaths.

   Our approach underscores the importance of tailoring disease management plans to existing regulatory structures as part of an evidence-based decision framework. Most importantly, we demonstrate that there needs to be a greater consideration of the degree to which governance structure impacts disease outcomes.

    

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