Generating Knowledge on Networks in Environmental Governance

This paper introduces the special issue on “Generating Sustainability-Supporting Knowledge on Social Networks in the Governance and Management of Social–Ecological Systems.” Understanding the interactions of actors and institutions is important for successful governance of human–nature relations. Social network analysis is able to capture and analyze these governance and management interactions, and there is a range of existing tools for collecting, visualizing, and modeling data on social and social–ecological networks. This introductory paper aims to give an overview of the collected papers as well as an outlook of new arising topics in the field. After presenting the single contributions to this special issue, we share our thoughts on network types and performance, network states and dynamics, limits of network studies, new conceptual focuses in network analysis, and methodological innovations (mixed methods and new tools). We conclude with a reflection of the contribution of this special issue to environmental governance.