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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]

The author adopts a regional innovation systems approach to examine how subnational governance is implicated in the promotion of multifunctional agricultural strategies in England. Multi-functionality has been advocated as a pivotal concept for orchestrating the promotion of so-called ‘postproductivist’ agricultural policies, with researchers identifying different interpretations in European states based upon national political priorities and production structures. However, to date no attempt has been made to conceptualise the institutional capacities required to deliver this innovative policy mandate, or to assess the challenges confronting regional governance in the translation of opaque multifunctional discourses into concrete, implementable, policies. These critically important research issues are examined with the aid of primary and secondary datasets derived from the English East Midlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors explore the relationship between land-use, or spatial, planning and the environmental sustainability of major areas of public policy. First, the planning - public policy relationship is conceptualised within a framework that challenges narrowly instrumental accounts of the role of planning in the promotion of environmental sustainability, emphasising instead how the exploitation of opportunity structures in planning has impinged over time on dominant sectoral objectives. This framework is then used to analyse reformist pressures on planning, with particular reference to England's ‘modernising planning’ agenda. The argument is developed through a critical analysis of how, in the light of key components of this agenda—rescaling, streamlining, and the introduction of a statutory purpose—planning, public policy, and environmental sustainability might be expected to interact in future. Early signs suggest that the initial reform proposals—to accelerate the delivery of development by restructuring opportunities for participation—were diluted (but not displaced) by strong opposition. Tracing the long-term impacts of the reforms will require research into the relations between the reconstituted tiers of planning and the ability of interest groups to use the new opportunity structures effectively—tasks that should interest analysts of the greening of the state as much as planning researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As environmental concerns press upon public policy so state agencies tend to enter into governmental 'partnerships' with environmental groups. On the one hand, these 'partnerships' allow the state to call upon forms of expertise held by the groups and to gain broad legitimacy for state policies. On the other hand, the development of policy partnerships enables environmental groups to influence policy formulation processes directly. However, it also means that such groups must 'sell' the agreed policy line to local members. Using the case study of the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), we investigate how environmental groups manage the relationship between national policymaking and local support. Through the investigation of three CPRE county branches we reveal an uneven geography of environmental governance and show how this geography affects the diffusion of environmental policy objectives. We argue that the implementation of environmental policies must be set within local economic, political, and social conditions as these conditions ensure considerable variation in modes of environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effect of Regional Development Agencies on sustainable development and environmental policies in England. Theoretical approaches to regional governance; Underdevelopment of regional governments' role in environmental governance; Rescaling of the British state to the regional level.