Polycentric governance of cruise environmental impacts

Abstract

Rapidly growing cruise ship tourism in northern regions has been a double-edged phenomenon, bringing monetary benefits to otherwise limited economic futures but also undesirable environmental impacts such as air pollution, wastewater discharge, and noise. This paper examines responses from five northern communities to these challenges, using a polycentric governance lens characterized by multilevel and overlapping decision-making centers. This study adds to a growing body of empirical research on how polycentricity is practiced, finding that affected communities display a variety of institutional adaptations in response to authority fragmentation. European destinations have stronger collaborative arrangements and higher legitimacy to address environmental impacts relative to US case studies, which rely more on conflictual approaches, but both are significantly impacted by locally experienced effects.