The structure of environmental governance: How public policies connect and partition California's oil and gas policy landscape.

In this paper, we ask how the written composition of public policies structure an environmental governance system. We answer this question using semi-automated text analyses of 22 state-level policies governing oil and gas development in California between 2007 and 2017. The findings portray an environmental governance system that is both partitioned and connected into different focal areas (called "targeted action situations") through certain actors, issues, and rules. We conclude with substantive insights about California's oil and gas governance system, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions for analyzing the composition of public policy to advance knowledge about hybrid governance.