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The relationship between governance and representation is examined using the development of river basin management plans (RBMPs) in Scotland as a case study. We used a longitudinal ethnographic approach to explore the (1) remit and rationale for representation choices; (2) representative characteristics and claims; and (3) influence of nonparticipating interests on representatives. The invite-only 'advisory group' members represent a network of state, private, and third-sector interests. The members make claims to represent others on the basis of authority, accountability, shared identity, and epistemic values. These claims are made for specific although often multiple and overlapping constituencies. These representation claims suggest that representative, rather than traditional, legitimacy is being defended. However, members were also concerned about how the RBMP advisory groups coexisted with traditional and direct democratic processes. The results need to be considered within the overall system of environmental governance within Scotland, the UK, and Europe. The findings are relevant to multiple fields of environmental management, including protected area management and coastal management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is based on a research project that engaged with and intervened in flood risk management in national policy and in two localities. Building on recent work in STS, we develop a framework for political analysis that complements existing understandings of environmental governance by focusing on the materiality of an issue and the ways in which it is articulated through various sites, shifting between different political modalities (its political trajectory). Each modality represents a different way in which an issue is framed such that it is opened to questioning and contestation, or subject to closure and containment. We conclude that differing understandings of what makes an environmental issue political mean that researchers need to pay close attention to how their own work is political and to different meanings and constitutions of 'the public', as well as looking for more ways of engaging with the politics of environmental issues in different modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a gap in our understanding of how links between states and nonstate actors intersect with North-South dynamics. It draws together the literatures on NGOs with the debates on privatised forms of global governance to provide a deeper understanding of the growing role of nonstate actors in managing transnational environmental issues. I argue that the inclusion of nonstate actors can serve to reinforce and deepen existing global inequalities. I use the example of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to shed light on the complex dynamics that surround (apparently) interstate environmental governance mechanisms. The CITES is one of the earliest examples of engagement with nonstate actors as shapers and drivers of environmental governance. As such, it provides us with important lessons about the problems associated with including a wider range of actors in global environmental governance mechanisms, especially engagement with Southern partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the middle of the 1990s two international environmental management standards became available for European companies: the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) and the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 14001. Companies that wanted to implement a standardized environmental management system were confronted with the choice between their national standard, the European standard, or the international one. In the past decennium, the national standards have been abolished and the number of 150 14001 certified companies has outnumbered the number of EMAS-registered organizations. The speed at which and the extent to which ISO 14001 has outnumbered EMAS differs, however, between countries in the EU-15. We argue that a country classification based on the degree of statism of the collective agency on the one hand, and the degree of corporatism of society's organization on the other, offers a valuable perspective for analyzing the evolution of the uptake of both standards in a country. We present the cases of Germany, the UK, France, and Sweden, and conclude that in countries characterized by a more societal organization of authority, private alternatives for national regulations like 150 14001 are welcomed and adopted with enthusiasm. In countries characterized by a rather statist organization, such alternatives are looked upon with more suspicion resulting in delayed uptake. Whereas ISO 14001 is a purely private initiative, voluntary registration to the EMAS regulation creates a link between the company and the authorities. In contrast to corporatist settings, this frightens off business participation in associational countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that environmental policy research could benefit from developing an understanding of how the concepts of ‘scale’, ‘scalar strategies’, and ‘struggles over scale’ play out empirically in processes of environmental policymaking and planning. I emphasise how scale, as an issue in environmental governance, is not merely an independent variable causing specific outcomes; rather, it is negotiable, allowing actors to adopt different strategies in order to pursue their varying agendas. I show bow a local struggle can be represented as a global struggle: a case study concerning the domestic use of natural gas in the Norwegian city of Stavanger, and how this metamorphosed into a struggle about what was the appropriate geographical scale at which the environmental and climatic consequences of a natural gas project should be assessed, is described. By framing climate change as a global issue, local actors were able to portray the natural gas project as environmentally friendly. I argue that the realisation of this natural gas project should be seen in light of how strategies over scale—which were developed in the debate—fitted with climate discourses institutionalised in national policy and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author identifies lessons about bridging the science-policy divide to be learned from two studies of attempts to encourage public participation in the process of local air-quality management in urban areas in England. These studies were concerned with exploring the potential for public engagement with technical environmental matters as a means of connecting scientific expertise with publicly accepted policymaking. The studies differed in that the first was primarily an attempt to use citizen forums as a form of extended peer review for official air-quality modelling and monitoring procedures; the second was an exploration of novel techniques for allowing local citizens to express their knowledge of local geographies of air pollution. The author compares the underlying conceptions of public consultation or participation and draws lessons about the most practicable and appropriate role for public participation in the business of bridging the science—policy divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade there has been an upsurge in governmental interest in evidence-based policy, coupled with an emphasis on a utilitarian view of research. This emphasis on research for the benefit of policy has contributed to the highly selective nature of the construction of knowledge on urban environments, with those areas that have not been regarded as a policy problem failing to attract investment in research. Strategic waste planning has been a striking example of such policy areas. The first part of this paper provides an overview of the disjuncture between policy and evidence and argues that the lack of research has contributed to the underdevelopment of intellectual capital in this field. This overview sets the context for the second and third parts of the paper which draw on a case study of recent attempts to improve the evidence base for urban waste policy at the regional level. The author examines the interface between the technical and the social dimensions of knowledge production and knowledge transfer as experienced in the work of the Regional Technical Advisory Body (RTAB) in the North West of England. By drawing on five basic tenets of technical rationality, the author provides a critical analysis of how the NWRTAB's adoption of a predominantly technical—rational approach affected the dynamics of knowledge—policy interplay. It is argued that technical rationality proved to be inadequate in satisfying some of the rhetorical expectations that are often associated with it, and which help perpetuate its continuing popularity among professionals and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological restoration is an expanding area of science and practice for environmental management, but in urban environments in particular its challenge to traditional approaches can be limited because it is seen primarily as a scientific or practical endeavour rather than a social one. In general, the restoration literature, especially on the scientific and practitioner side, suffers from the ‘deficit model’ of public understanding and from a lack of fit between the expectations of restoration and policy workers and those of their local publics. Hence, the irony is that, although restorationists may be seen as radical in scientific and policy terms because of their challenge to the tradition of the ‘hard engineering’ of rivers, they are not radical in social science terms because they fail to challenge the tradition of technocratic environmental management of the public and its deficit model. We illustrate this through two examples of urban river restoration in England—the Alt and the Brent—and we conclude by suggesting how such problems might be addressed through more emphasis on and integration of social science within research and practical agendas for urban restoration projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance based on partnerships has become a characteristic of late capitalist societies. This paper explores how this new collaborative approach to environmental regulation creates challenges for existing technocratic policy networks, drawing on an organisational ethnography of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Our findings suggest partnership working is embraced for four reasons—to improve understanding of problems, to develop resource-efficient management solutions, to improve implementation of these solutions, and to improve communication and trust within the policy network. However, there appear to be three areas of difficulty. First, decisionmaking appears to be dominated by technocratic public servants; second, practical reasons for partnership, rather than embracing the normative arguments for discursive democracy, motivate most participants; and, third, participants are yet to experience the benefits of partnerships. We suggest three key areas which might address these problems and contribute towards a more successful implementation of the collaborative approach to regulation, namely to provide incentives for partnership working (demonstrating how the perceived benefits outweigh costs), developing interorganisational trust and providing organisational support (resources). We conclude with an analysis of the constraints that must be overcome to develop effective partnerships for environmental management, particularly the need to extend the network beyond the ‘usual suspects’ and to embrace the normative dimensions of participatory democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]