Institutional complexity of transboundary water, energy and food systems in the Yukon River Basin

This paper explores the challenges associated with developing transboundary governance institutions for water, energy, and food (WEF) systems in the Yukon River Basin (YRB). We draw on institutional diversity and institutional robustness concepts to demonstrates how cross-sectoral, cross-scalar, and cross-cultural institutions and their functions are sometimes performed in a modular manner for governing WEF sectors. The study demonstrates that the institutions currently in place to manage WEF systems in the YRB function under a high degree redundancy and modularity, indicating higher degree of policy capacity. This capacity can be better utilized by developing an integrative transboundary WEF governance arrangement. The transboundary governance could be achieved by the agentic interventions of resourceful institutional actors for the functional coordination of the institutions, with the adoption existing transboundary agreements involving non-government agencies.