Realizing more effective invasive species management through network governance and management: understanding and activating latent governance capacity

The diversity and spread of invasive species in marine waters is increasing due to climate change and international trade. The management and control of invasive species is therefore also gaining in importance, but seems to suffer globally from a lack of shared problem perception among stakeholders, conflicting social and commercial interests, a lack of political and social salience, and a lack of funding for the organizations responsible for executing action in the area. As an underutilized research perspective in the field, the analysis and improvement of latent network governance capacity have potential to make invasive species management more effective. Overall improvements to network governance capacity arise as individual actors become more aware of the network within which they are functioning and as structural strategies for network management are refined. This paper demonstrates how the methods of social network analysis (SNA) and participative social network analysis can be applied to unlock this potential. The social network of invasive species management in the German North Sea and Wadden Sea is scrutinized as a representative case. The analysis reveals how (1) structural understanding of the network, (2) the analysis of its governance mode, and (3) the participatory development of change plans for the set of institutions and individual actor strategies for network management can unlock latent governance capacity and increase overall network governance capacity. The results show the utility of (participative) social network analysis for local, regional, and national actors seeking to boost the effectiveness of existing efforts to understand, organize, and scale up invasive species management and control. In particular, the participative social network analysis clarified the need to expand the current set of institutions and network management strategies. The governance mode analysis suggests the introduction of a centralized coordination entity. In addition, it was important to learn that for invasive species management, the entire network does not need to be constantly active, governed, or connected. Improvements to overall network governance are, on the contrary, more likely to result from understanding how different sets of institutions need to conduct different network management strategies during a dynamic process of monitoring, implementation, evaluation, education, and ethical debate.