Interactive coastal governance: The role of pre-modern fisher organizations in improving governability Maarten Bavinck a, * , Svein Jentoft b , Jose J. Pascual-Fern  andez c , Boguslaw Marciniak d a Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands b Norwegian College of Fisheries, University of Tromsø, Norway c Department of Anthropology, Universidad de La Laguna, Spain d Sea Fisheries Institute, Gdansk, Poland article info Article history: Received 6 October 2014 Received in revised form 4 May 2015 Accepted 18 May 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Interactive governance Fisher organizations Legal pluralism Regionalization abstract Major efforts to improve the governability of coastal and marine regions, in Europe and the world, are currently under way, with regionalization as a new entry point. This article reconsiders the potential contribution of pre-modern fisher organizations to these processes. Pre-modern organizations have deep historical roots, and anthropologists have highlighted their existence and features in various parts of the world, including Europe. The move toward regionalization raises new queries about the utility of pre- modern organizations in a modern setting. We consider four cases, located in Poland (maszoperias), Spain (cofradías), Norway (fisher cooperation Lofoten Islands), and India (uur panchayat system). Our argument is that pre-modern organizations are relevant and adaptive to new challenges and provide important lessons for regionalization in the modern era. They contribute local knowledge, create social order, solve conflicts, and assist in regulating fishing effort. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Taken in a broad sense, human activity in coastal regions has been governed e for better or for worse e ever since humans began to inhabit shorelines. With the development of political orders (Fukuyama, 2012), modern states have begun to exercise greater control over societal matters. This does not necessarily mean, however, that pre-modern organizations that have a history of involvement in coastal governance no longer have a role to play. Governance, as it is understood today (Kooiman, 1993, 2003; Levi- Faur, 2012; Torfing, 2012), is a complex undertaking, carried out by a range of societal actors, including governments, in mutual inter- action. It is polycentric (Ostrom, 2008), multi-level (Bache and Flinders, 2004), and requires all the legitimacy it can get (Kersbergen and Waarden, 2004). Fisheries and coastal governance are no exception (Bavinck et al., 2013; Kooiman et al., 2005). One of the main challenges in coastal governance has been to create an integrated and holistic perspective on the many competing human uses of resources and space, and thereby improve their governability (Kooiman, 2003). Regionalization is a promising new approach, referring both to ‘territories of marine ecosystems’ and to ‘spaces for policies’ (Soma et al., in press). It is frequently associated with the ‘spatial turn’, by which zoning in- struments are used to separate and regulate various uses (St. Martin and Hall-Arber, 2008). This includes the widespread development of spatial management plans (MSP) and the delimitation of marine protected areas (MPA) (Douvere and Ehler, 2009; Jentoft and Knol, 2014). It is with regionalization that we are particularly concerned. In this paper, we investigate the roles pre-modern organizations have played in coastal governance, what their various strengths and weaknesses are, and what lessons could be learned. Our assump- tion is that in many cases coastal governance is characterized by legal pluralism, or the application of different sets of values, norms, principles and rules to similar situations (Benda-Beckmann, 2002; Vanderlinden, 1972). Such legal systems, and the institutions that they give rise to, may either be formal or informal. Premodern or- ganizations are more often than not informal and are frequently overlooked in formalized policy processes (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004). As St. Martin and Hall-Arber (2008) point out, the ‘social landscape’ of which they are part is a ‘missing layer’ in coastal governance that requires addressing. The evidence provided in this paper derives from four countries * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: j.m.bavinck@uva.nl (M. Bavinck), svein.jentoft@uit.no (S. Jentoft), jpascual@ull.es (J.J. Pascual-Fern andez), b_marciniak@hotmail.com (B. Marciniak). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ocean & Coastal Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.05.012 0964-5691/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Ocean & Coastal Management xxx (2015) 1e9 Please cite this article in press as: Bavinck, M., et al., Interactive coastal governance: The role of pre-modern fisher organizations in improving governability, Ocean & Coastal Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.05.012