Adapting institutions: exploring climate adaptation through institutional economics and set relations

- Nexus between climate adaptation and integrative institutions
- Focus on interdependencies in resource management by local public administrations
- Trade-off between integration and segregation costs
- Integrative institutions are individually sufficient conditions for integrative adaptation.

This paper looks at climate adaptation from the perspective of institutional economics, focusing on local administrations and exploring their role as bureaucratic organizations dealing with nature-related systems where climate change is creating new interdependencies. The central aim is to reveal under what circumstances such adaptation takes place in a coordinated fashion, as opposed to adaptation by individual administrative units within their respective competences. Applying the concept of integrative vs. segregative institutions, the paper draws upon evidence from fourteen climate-sensitive municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The analysis, based on set-theoretic methods, finds that integrative institutions constitute a sufficient but not necessary condition for “integrative adaptation”. State administrations may thus avoid additional climate-related burdens for citizens and conflicts among resource users by providing local administrations with means for additional coordination.