Michael Böcher

Michael Böcher is senior researcher in the section Forest and Nature Conservation Policy, Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology. His main interests are in the fields of
(i) National and International environmental, nature conservation, and forest policy, (ii) rural and regional governance, (iii) role of science and expertise in political processes (iv) instrument change and instrument choice in environmental policy.
Key expertise:
• analytical policy analysis with the focus on environmental and nature conservation policy instruments in Germany and Europe

• evaluation research in rural and regional multi-level governance: regional competitions in German and European rural development programs

• research on science-policy interfaces in national and international environmental, nature conservation and climate policy

Selected publications:
Böcher, Michael/Gießen, Lukas/Kleinschmit, Daniela (Eds.) (2009): Discourse and Expertise in Forest and Environmental Governance, Forest Policy & Economics 11, 5-6, (“Special Issue”), Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Gießen, Lukas/Michael Böcher (2009): Rural Governance, forestry, and the promotion of local knowledge: The case of the German rural development program ‘Active Regions’, in: Small Scale Forestry, Volume 8, Issue2 (2009), 211 ff.
Böcher, Michael (2009): Explaining policy change: The role of scientific actors and policy entrepreneurs in theory and environmental policy practice in Germany. Critical Issues in Environmental Taxation VOL. 6, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 283-306.
Böcher, Michael (2008): Regional Governance and rural development in Germany – the implementation of LEADER+, in: Sociologia Ruralis, Volume 48 (4/2008), 372-388.

Böcher, Michael (2008): The role of scientific knowledge in public policy in theory and in political practice - the case of integrated rural development. In: Nico Stehr (Ed): Knowledge and Democracy – A 21st Century Perspective. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 243-261.

Please visit http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/119354.html for more information and a list of publications.

Michael Böcher teaches the following course:
• Policy of ecosystems (The Science-Policy Interface: Society and Research Structures together with M. Krott, R. Finkeldey and W. Hiltscher)