Deliberative policy analysis

Environmental Politics, 2018

The main achievements of the debates on deliberative democracy and democratized science are investigated in order to analyse the reasons, meanings and prospects for a democratisation of global environmental policy. A deliberative systems approach, which emphasises the need to explore how processes in societal spheres interact to shape the deliberative qualities of the system as a whole, is adopted. Although science plays a key role in this, its potential to enhance deliberative capacity has hardly been addressed in deliberative theories. The democratisation of science has potential to contribute to the democratisation of global environmental policy, in that it also shapes the potential of deliberative arrangements in the policy sphere. Deliberative arrangements within the policy sphere may stimulate the democratization of science to different degrees.

Environmental Philosophy 2006

The activity of democratic deliberation is governed by the norm of public reason -namely, that reasons justifying public policy must both be pursuant of shared goods and be shareable by all reasonable discussants. Environmental policies based on controversial theories of value, as a consequence, are in danger of breaking the rule that would legitimate their enforcement. I Democratic deliberation is the activity of reason exchange and inquiry regarding what governmental policies should be instituted. Democratic deliberation is different from the market-type of interaction that plague the halls of cynical democratic institutions, such as bartering, bargaining, and economic negotiating, which aim for the preservation or promotion of certain private goods. The collective deliberative context is, instead, directed toward a common or shared public good; and the actors in this deliberation achieve agreement by way of the exchange of reasons instead of goods.

2005

begin their book Deliberative Environmental Politics: Democracy and Ecological Rationality with a review of the scathing indictments that have been made by environmentalists against a view of democracy typically described as "interest-group liberalism." Charged with using language that is "stunted and shallow" (p. 1) and being "virtually obsolete" for the environmental movement (p. 2), how can democracy be rehabilitated from its less than stellar performance in handling the world's most pressing problems? In other words, is green democracy theoretically possible? For Baber and Bartlett, the answer is yes. Trained in the fields of Public Policy Studies and Political Science, respectively, Baber and Bartlett attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice that has plagued environmental politics for so long. For these authors, democracy must take a deliberative turn if it is to avoid being relegated to the trash bin of useless ideas. In chapters one and two, Baber and Bartlett follow others in their respective fields who believe a deliberative approach is "the only way to overcome the failings of interest-group liberalism," contending deliberative democracy has the potential to produce better environmental policy decisions (p. 6). Although Baber and Bartlett acknowledge that "deliberative democracy" is difficult to define, they argue it is a school of political thought that presumes the essence of democracy is "deliberation rather than voting, interest aggregation, or rights" (p. 6). For deliberation to work, participants must also be politically equal and engage one another in the "weighing, acceptance, or rejection of reasons" (p. 6). Of course, the authors also attempt to argue that Horkheimer and Adorno's observations about instrumental reason in The Dialectic of Enlightenment can be addressed by deliberative democracy scholars. In chapter three, realizing different conceptions of deliberative democracy have drastically divergent assumptions, Baber and Bartlett wisely take three models of deliberative democracy as their "points of departure." In chapters four, five and six, Baber and Bartlett explore the ideas of deliberative democracy as it has been articulated by John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and thinkers such as Amy Gutmann, Dennis Thompson, and James Bohman. Rawls represents the "public reason" approach to deliberative democracy, Habermas the "ideal discourse" perspective, and Gutmann, Thompson, and Bohman the "full liberalism" version. It is in these chapters that the authors are at their best. Baber and Bartlett tackle complicated material and make it accessible to readers

Sustainability, 2019

Ecological economics arose as a normative transdiscipline aiming to generate knowledge and tools to help transition the economy toward a scale which is sustainable within the bounds of the earth system. Yet it remains unclear in practice how to legitimize its explicitly normative agenda. One potential means for legitimation can be found in deliberative social and political theory. We review how deliberative theory has informed ecological economics, pointing to three uses: first, to support valuation of non-market goods and services; second, to inform environmental decision-making more broadly; third, to ground alternative theories of development and wellbeing. We argue that deliberation has been used as problem-solving theory, but that its more radical implications have rarely been embraced. Embracing a deliberative foundation for ecological economics raises questions about the compatibility of deeply democratic practice and the normative discourses arguing for a sustainability tran...

Palgrave Communications

Putting the recently adopted global Sustainable Development Goals or the Paris Agreement on international climate policy into action will require careful policy choices. Appropriately informing decision-makers about longer-term, wicked policy issues remains a considerable challenge for the scientific community. Typically, these vital policy issues are highly uncertain, value-laden and disputed, and affect multiple temporal and spatial scales, governance levels, policy fields, and socioeconomic contexts simultaneously. In light of this, science-policy interfaces should help facilitate learning processes and open deliberation among all actors involved about potentially acceptable policy pathways. For this purpose, science-policy interfaces must strive to foster some enabling conditions: (1) "representation" in terms of engaging with diverse stakeholders (including experts) and acknowledging divergent viewpoints; (2) "empowerment" of underrepresented societal groups by codeveloping and integrating policy scenarios that reflect their specific knowledge systems and worldviews; (3) "capacity building" regarding methods and skills for integration and synthesis, as well as through the provision of knowledge synthesis about the policy solution space; and (4) "spaces for deliberation", facilitating direct interaction between different stakeholders, including governments and scientists. We argue that integrated, multi-stakeholder, scientific assessment processes-particularly the collaborative assessments of policy alternatives and their various implications-offer potential advantages in this regard, compared with alternatives for bridging scientific expertise and public policy. This article is part of a collection on scientific advice to governments.

2010

We discuss the recent emergence of ‗deliberative ecological economics', a field that highlights the potential of deliberation for improving environmental governance. We locate the emergence of this literature in the long concern in ecological economics over the policy implications of limited views of human action and its encounter with deliberative democracy scholarship and the model of communicative rationality as an alternative to utilitarianism. Considering criticisms over methods used and the focus of research in deliberative decision-making, we put forward a research agenda for deliberative ecological economics. Given the promising potential of deliberative processes for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of environmental decision-making, work in this area could help advance both theory and practice in environmental governance.

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 2001

This article explores some important recent instances of increased participation in environmental law, focusing on those developments which seek close citizen involvement in decision-making. It is argued that these developments are best explained in terms of a new understanding of the public's potential contribution to environmental decisions. In particular, there are signs that participation is regarded as likely to lead to better decision-making. Borrowing from theories of deliberative democracy, the article explores the idea that citizen deliberation may contribute to enhanced problem-solving, especially on questions of environmental risk. Since deliberative theory has generally been concerned with legitimacy rather than problemsolving, the article further explores the implications of emphasizing problem-solving as the basis for participation. * Faculty of Law, University of Southampton. I am very grateful to Andrew Halpin and Liz Fisher for comments on an earlier draft of this article. 1 See nn 3-5 below. 2 See for example B. Doherty and M. de Geus, Democracy and Green Political Thought (Routledge, 1996); A. Dobson, Justice and the Environment (Oxford University Press, 1998); Freya Mathews (ed), Ecology and Democracy (Frank Cass, 1996). 3 See for example the mandatory consultation processes absorbed into UK planning law through the requirement for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs): Directive 85/337/EEC and Council Directive 97/11/EC; Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988 (SI 1998/1199); Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/293).

This paper intends to highlight the intensity of the use of deliberative democracy in the policy making process. It assists policy makers to understand the significance of deliberative democracy and the preliminary conditions to conduct effective and successful deliberation for the purpose of producing best quality decisions. This paper stressed the relationship between deliberation and citizen's satisfaction of government decisions. It indicated that deliberative democracy helps citizens to directly influence on the quality of the decision and better represent their preferences by proposing their agenda and views on policy alternatives and issues. Deliberative democracy is a technique that stabilizes citizens' interests by diminishing domination, despotism, and better assessing public choices. This paper found that deliberation legitimizes government decisions and maximizes the outcome of the policies. This article defined several advantages of deliberative democracy in the public policy making process which pursues equality, mutual interest; reason based discussion, public goods, the decision focused and agreement on disputed preferences. It also concluded that deliberative democracy facilitates free and fair participation and creating opportunity for discussion and information sharing between participants prior to the implementation process of government policies. Keywords: Public deliberation, deliberative democracy, public participation, decision making, public policy

2010

Lehtonen, M. 2010. Deliberative decision-making on radioactive waste management in Finland, France and the UK: Influence of mixed forms of deliberation in the macro discursive context . Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences 7(3): 175-196. Abstract This paper analyses the nature and role of recently established deliberative and participatory mechanisms of planning and decision-making on radioactive waste management in three countries that

How can and should risk managers incorporate public preferences, integrate public input into the management process, and assign the appropriate roles to technical experts, stakeholders and members of the public? Which trade-offs should be used for risk management? Which concerns should be adopted in decisions that may determine life or death of many people?