Suchergebnisse

Efforts to include a broader set of actors, knowledges and values in environmental decision-making have been promoted as a key remedy to technocratic decision-making and environmental degradation, and as instrumental for better decisions and democratic empowerment. Yet, such inclusive efforts yield uncertain results and entail various theoretical and practical problems, not least when environmental problems are increasingly complex and transgress political-geographic boundaries. We therefore need to take a step back from the normative presupposition that public involvement will enhance environmental governance with a more agnostic approach to its outcomes in terms of legitimate actors and issues: How are alliances created between issues and actors in relation to specific problems? How are stakes recognized as legitimate and tied to specific groups of actors and scales? What is the relation between governments' inclusive approaches and visions of socio-technical progress and alternative socio-technical imaginaries of the future? This paper will discuss the contributions in this special issue in relation to these questions. The examples brought up by the authors can all be seen as practices in which legitimate participants and stakes are made real and with various scaling effects and possible futures as a result.

This article explores processes of articulation in the controversies over third-generation mobile phone transmitters and the interrelated phenomenon of "electrosensitivity." The argument is that the search to fix public image and public concerns tends to alienate the public from technology discussions. An alternative political epistemology of articulations is suggested to explore the dynamics among prereflexive motives, public engagement, and institutional requirements for public deliberations.

The starting point for this paper is the increasing shift towards green governmentality as a particular mode of governance in the Western world, implying a shift from state-centered regulation to market-based mechanisms. In this paper, we are particularly interested in the role of environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) in this form of governance. The central question concerns how international ENGOs' approaches to energy supply and climate mitigation can be understood as aligned with or dissenting from green governmentality. To approach this issue, we analyze the major energy reports of three international ENGOs – i.e. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and WWF – focusing on their issue framings of future energy supply and climate change mitigation. We conclude that these ENGOs' issue framings are aligned with green governmentality to varying degrees, involving the economization of environmental issues and the responsibilization and moralization of economic actions. These ENGOs also to varying degrees express opposition or resistance to this mode of governance, for example, by opening up the discussion of various aspects of responsibility, including both remedy and culpability. ; Ovaj se rad temelji na sve jačem zaokretu vlada Zapada prema zelenom guvernmentalitetu kao posebnom obliku upravljanja, pri čemu dolazi do pomaka od državne regulacije prema mehanizmima kojima upravlja tržište. U radu naglasak stavljamo na ulogu koju unutar takvih oblika upravljanja imaju ekološke nevladine organizacije (ekološki NVO-i). Ključno je pitanje priklanjaju li se međunarodni ekološki NVO-i zelenom guvernmentalitetu po pitanjima energetske opskrbe i ublažavanja klimatskih promjena. Kako bismo to istražili, analizirali smo ključne energetske izvještaje triju međunarodnih ekoloških NVO-a: Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace i WWF, pri čemu smo se usredotočili na način na koji shvaćaju budućnost energetske opskrbe i ublažavanja klimatskih promjena. Zaključujemo da je način na koji ovi ekološki NVO-i shvaćaju navedena pitanja u skladu sa zelenim guvernmentalitetom u nekoliko aspekata, među kojima su ekonomizacija ekoloških pitanja, responsibilizacija te moralizacija ekonomskog djelovanja. Međutim, ovi se ekološki NVO-i u određenoj mjeri i razlikuju od zelenog guvernmentaliteta kao, primjerice, po pitanju preuzimanja različitih tipova odgovornosti poput popravljanja štete i preuzimanja krivnje.

International audience ; The new centrality of "the public" to the governance of science and technology has been accompanied by a widespread use of public consultation mechanisms designed to elicit from citizens relevant opinions on technoscientific matters. This paper explores the configuration of legitimate constituencies in two such exercises: the UK "" public debate on food biotechnology, and a Swedish "Transparency Forum" on the risks of mobile telephones. We consider the apparently paradoxical combination in these two examples of a tendency to produce static images of the public with a high valuation of mobility—of citizens and their opinions—as the key outcome of deliberation. We discuss the organizers' careful delineation of a distinction between "stakeholders" and the "general public," and their aversion to any sort of "eventfulness" in public deliberations. Finally, we introduce the classical notion of the "idiot"—the individual who minds exclusively his or her own private affairs— and argue for the need to develop a new vocabulary to evaluate the politics of "listening to the public."

The new centrality of "the public" to the governance of science and technology has been accompanied by a widespread use of public consultation mechanisms designed to elicit from citizens relevant opinions on technoscientific matters. This paper explores the configuration of legitimate constituencies in two such exercises: the UK "GM Nation?" public debate on food biotechnology, and a Swedish "Transparency Forum" on the risks of mobile telephones. We consider the apparently paradoxical combination in these two examples of a tendency to produce static images of the public with a high valuation of mobility—of citizens and their opinions—as the key outcome of deliberation. We discuss the organizers' careful delineation of a distinction between "stakeholders" and the "general public," and their aversion to any sort of "eventfulness" in public deliberations. Finally, we introduce the classical notion of the "idiot"—the individual who minds exclusively his or her own private affairs— and argue for the need to develop a new vocabulary to evaluate the politics of "listening to the public."