Landscape Democracy in a Globalizing World: The Case of Tange Lake

Abstract

The main topic of the article is the question of landscape democracy in a world where local issues are seldom just local. This topic is treated both in general terms and in relation to one particular case: the artificial Tange Lake in Denmark. The first part narrates the story of Tange Lake. It identifies the most important international drivers that have influenced landscape development in the area directly or indirectly through the actions of a variety of local actors with conflicting conceptions of landscape quality. The variety of drivers, actors and conceptions present at Tange as well as in a great number of similar cases raises questions concerning levels and models of landscape democracy. This is the main theme of the second part. First, three basic democratic values are identified together with three orders or levels of impartiality. Second, the relation between levels of democratic decision-making is discussed with the principle of subsidiarity and the concentric circle theory as guiding lines. In the final section, these general considerations are discussed in relation to the Tange case.

Key Words:

• democracy
• ethics
• impartiality
• landscape convention
• water framework directive

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Peter Howard, Tom Mels and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments to previous versions of the manuscript, and Mette Reiche Sørensen for help with the language.