A Procedural Idea of Environmental Democracy: the 'Débat Public' Paradigm within the EU Framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-106
Author(s):  
Alberto Nicòtina
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
National Level ◽  
Research Subject ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Legislative Framework ◽  
Débat Public ◽  
Environmental Democracy ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Environmental Decision

The aim of this paper is to analyse the 'débat public' procedure, which finds its roots in the Canadian legal system and its most defined formulation in France, and which more recently has been circulating to Italy – first at the regional level and, since 2016, at the national level. The first part of the paper will thus be devoted to a historical overview of the débat public and to how it is implemented in each of the two legal systems. The second part will subsequently distil the 'paradigm', i. e. those distinctive traits that make the débat public an autonomous research subject, within the multi-layered legislative framework of environmental governance in Europe. Three main features of the paradigm will be pointed out (Participation, Effectiveness, Authority), thus highlighting how it can respond to the needs in light of which it has been designed, namely dealing with proximity conflicts and providing a forum for the construction of shared rational decisions in environmental decision-making. The paper eventually leads to the conclusion that the débat public, with its codified rules and procedures, represents the first and probably the most noticeable attempt towards the institutionalisation and generalisation of deliberative practices in environmental decision-making, thus towards developing a procedural stance in environmental democracy.

scholarly journals On the Modern and the Nonmodern in Deliberative Environmental Democracy

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 64-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kersty Hobson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Cultural Bias ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Green Political Theory ◽  
Environmental Democracy ◽  
Environmental Decision

The “deliberative turn” in green political theory and applied environmental decision-making is now well-established. However, questions remain about the applicability of its concepts and methods to non-Western or “nonmodern” contexts, to use a term from Gupte and Barlett's 2007 article in this journal that is the stimulus to this article. In such places the societal pre-conditions of modernity deemed theoretically necessary for “authentic deliberation” to occur are mostly absent. Yet, authentic deliberation does take place, prompting questions about the geographical and cultural bias of the deliberative environmental democratic project. This article takes up such questions, arguing that in deliberative theory modernity is more than a bias, which is highlighted when the nonmodern is counted in. Instead, in its noun-form modernity suggests a particular type of deliberating subject, replete with specific capacities and knowledge, which the nonmodern is, in true binary fashion, deemed to lack. This article draws on qualitative data from deliberative workshops in northern New Mexico, USA, to argue that such categorizations do not hold up to empirical or conceptual scrutiny, particularly in light of Bruno Latour's work on modernity and the Modern. Thus, this article argues that deliberative environmental democracy research should therefore be recast as an ethnographic and context-based project, and explores how such a project could be carried out.

Legitimising activism in democracy: A place for antagonism in environmental governance

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lillian Fougère ◽  
Sophie Bond
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Fluid Shifts ◽  
Environmental Decision

Despite the appearance of a range of opportunities for formal participation in environmental decision-making in Aotearoa New Zealand, postpolitics is very much present, annulling dissent, upholding dominant neoliberal ideals and delegitimising other voices. Through our analysis of a consent decision about a proposed coal mine on the West Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand and the experiences of opposing environmentalists, we offer empirical evidence that illustrates the fluid shifts between antagonism and agonism (after Mouffe) throughout this ‘democratic’ process. We argue that while aspirations for agonism should remain, it is important that planning theory pays attention to the role that power and hegemony play in what could otherwise be considered agonistic planning. Antagonism, the undesirable in Mouffe’s radical democracy, has a critical role in neoliberal contexts, rupturing postpolitics and creating spaces of dissent so that agonistic contestation can provide for robust and rigorous debate in environmental decision-making.

Risk today, certainty tomorrow: The influence of construal level on environmental decision-making

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Sweeney ◽  
Amanda Hamilton ◽  
Ashley Beck ◽  
Brian Detweiler-Bedell ◽  
Jerusha Detweiler-Bedell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Decision
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