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Abstract
How does steering for sustainability work within the world of contemporary politics, where roles are increasingly ambiguous and power dispersed? This paper explores this question empirically by studying the practice of reflexive governance—a mode of steering that encourages actors to scrutinize and reconsider their underlying assumptions, institutional arrangements and practices. The practice of reflexive governance has been conceptualized in various ways: as a strategic process of opening up and closing down, as a state-led activity of facilitating socio-technological transitions, and as a mode of network co-ordination to promote system innovation. What all these accounts underplay is the political context of reflexive processes, and the politics that they generate. This paper offers an alternative conceptualization of reflexive governance that situates sites of reflexivity within a broader discursive system composed of multiple arenas, actors and forms of political communication. Applying this framework to a Dutch case study reveals a host of struggles involved in enacting reflexive governance, particularly as actors try to reconcile the demands of reflexivity (being open, self-critical and creative) with the demands of their existing political world (closed preferences, agenda driven, control). The analysis sheds light on the work—and indeed politics—involved in legitimizing more reflexive modes of governing for sustainability.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on research conducted within the Dutch knowledge Network on System Innovations (KSI; www.ksinetwork.nl <http://www.ksinetwork.nl/>). For their comments, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, Nicholas Buchanan, Jochen Monstadt, Jens Newig, Jan-Peter Voß, Lydia Sterrenberg and participants of the Governance for Suatainable Development Workshop in Berlin, February 2006 (organized by the Sozial-ökologische Forschung).
Notes
1. Our consideration of ambiguity is broader than that of other scholars in this contribution. In addition to ambiguity over knowledge claims and definitions (for example of ‘sustainability’), we are also referring to ambiguity over the roles of actors, institutions and structures.
2. For details on the distinction between weak and strong forms of ecological modernization, see Christoff Citation(1996).
3. We support the idea that reflexive governance for sustainability requires a broader over-arching strategic process (see Voß & Kemp, Citation2006), but believe that in practice these are rare. The starting point for our discussion is thus empirical rather than normative.
4. In one comprehensive inventory, Lynch Citation(2000) identified six broad categories of reflexivity: mechanical, substantive, methodological, meta-theoretical, interpretative and ethnomethodological. In relation to sustainability, reflexivity is applied mostly in its substantive sense (as a social phenomenon of late modernity) and in a methodological sense (as a cognitive process of reflection/self-reflection).
5. See www.ksinetwork.nl.
6. For our purposes here, a regime is best understood as the dominant socio-technological structure.
7. For example, Rotmans et al. (2001, p. 25) described how the state should assume “a leading role … [n]ot by acting as the great commander, enforcing change, but by inspiring a collective learning process and encouraging others to think along and participate”. Others stress how the state should modulate ongoing developments (Kemp & Rotmans, Citation2004) or create transition partnerships with autonomous and creative thinkers (Loorbach & Rotmans, Citation2006). Other accounts of ‘steering’ towards sustainability, particularly those interested in the development of innovative technologies, emphasize partnerships and collaboration amongst actors. Authors here explicitly acknowledge that steering: “… is not just something for governments: industry and NGOs are well placed to initiate and run niche projects” (Kemp et al., Citation1998, p. 189).
8. In their discussion of transition management, Rotmans et al. (2001, p. 30) asserted that: “All social actors look to the government to take the lead”.
9. See note 1.
10. In contrast, Jane Mansbridge Citation(1999) conceptualized the deliberative system as a spectrum. This idea has been extended into a system of interconnected discursive spheres, for reasons elaborated on elsewhere (see Hendriks, Citation2006b).
11. These pressures might be generated by one-off crises (e.g. the BSE crisis) or they might emerge slowly over time (e.g. climate change).
12. This understanding of discourse is perhaps closer to Habermas' earlier sociological diagnosis of the public sphere in late capitalism, what Benhabib (Citation1992, pp. 84–95) labelled as his “discourse model of public space” in contradistinction to his later work on the “moral theory of discourse ethics”. Our usage of discourse also overlaps with certain interpretations of Hannah Arendt's concept of public discourse, which highlight expressive and communicative modes of action (Benhabib, Citation1992, pp. 74–81; 2003, pp. 123–30; d'Entréves, Citation1994, pp. 84–5).
13. Here the concept of the ‘discursive sphere’ is broader than the notion of ‘public sphere’ which is used commonly in political theory to refer to those arenas where issues are brought into the public domain, that is, ‘made public’ (Benhabib, Citation1992; Fraser, Citation1992). Discursive spheres encapsulate much more than this by including both public and non-public venues of discussion.
14. Although responsibility for the following discussion is fully ours, we are indebted for discussion of this project by Anne Loeber, who analysed documents internal and external to the project, and conducted interviews with members of the project team, the Rathenau Institute, and stakeholders involved in the project (see Loeber, Citation2004).
15. The team comprised two university groups (a STS and a public policy studies group) from outside the agricultural domain, as well as a young, independent institute at the fringes of that domain, CLM (the Centre for Agriculture and Environment). One of the authors of this paper (Grin) was a project leader of this team.
16. This approach (see Grin & van de Graaf, Citation1996) was inspired by Guba & Lincoln's (1989) method of constructivist evaluation.
17. Additional selection criteria included that participants should: represent a variety of positions on the issue; stem from various parts of the economic chain; stem from different agricultural sectors; and be prepared to accept deliberative norms.
18. Minutes from an advisory board meeting, 12 December, 1995. Internal document, Rathenau Institute.
