The persistence of IUU fishing in Indonesia A multi-level governance perspective

Why does illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing persist? To answer this question, this doctoral thesis conducts an investigation into the effectiveness of multi-level natural resource governance in Indonesia. The extant research literature on the effectiveness of environmental regimes mainly focuses on the Global North. Moreover, research addressing these issues in the Global South tends to be divided into studies that focus on either the sub-national, national or international levels. Few studies exist that cross these scales. The present thesis addresses these gaps, both on a theoretical and an empirical level.
On a theoretical level, the thesis develops a novel analytical framework which integrates the literature on international regime effectiveness with theories on multi-level governance. The result is a more comprehensive analysis than seen in previous studies.
On an empirical level, the thesis contributes by conducting an in-depth analysis of natural resource governance in the Global South. It thereby redresses the international regime literature’s persisting “Northern bias”. Based on extensive fieldwork, the analysis reveals how governance effectiveness is not only, or even primarily, dependent on the strength of monitoring and enforcement instruments. Instead, it shows how governance measures need to be appropriate, implementable and complementary to contribute to solving the problem on the ground. In the case of Indonesia, the effectiveness of the fisheries regime to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is thereby shaped by the specific characteristics of the measures at each level of governance and their interplay across scales, both horizontally and vertically.