Regional climate policy networks and media visibility: Multilevel governance and discursive dynamics in Atlantic Canada

Regional governance is a critical yet underexplored dimension of multilevel climate governance. In federal systems such as Canada, provinces hold substantial authority over energy and environmental policy, making the regional scale a pivotal “missing middle” in climate action. This study examines climate governance in Atlantic Canada through an integrated social network and media discourse approach, combining survey data from policy actors with an analysis of regional newspaper coverage. We assess how actors across local, regional, national, and international levels are positioned in networks of influence, scientific information exchange, and collaboration, and how these positions align with media visibility and climate policy discourses. Findings reveal that regional actors are highly central in collaboration networks and prominent in media coverage, yet less often mentioned as influential or as sources of scientific information compared to national and international actors. Notably, regional actors exhibit the strongest alignment between network connectedness and media visibility, suggesting that media exposure functions as a governance resource that reinforces collaborative capacity. Discourse network analysis indicates broad support for climate science and green growth narratives, with more limited engagement on climate justice. These results underscore the importance of incorporating the regional scale into climate governance research and policy design. The study contributes to understanding how multilevel governance dynamics and discursive processes shape climate policy outcomes in decentralized political systems.