A clear case of ‘doublespeak’: the Swedish governmental SEA implementation discourse

Abstract

Discourse serves as a fundamental prerequisite for human action – as is displayed by the implementation in Swedish local spatial planning of the EU ‘Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive’ which forms the focus of this paper. The national Swedish SEA policy discourse, following from the EU Directive, presents a clear case of ‘doublespeak’. The major mobilising metaphor emerging from the discourse analysis is the concept of efficiency backed by the pronouncement of continuity. Major benefits for local spatial planning are outlined while at the same time assurance is given that no new efforts or added costs are foreseen for the municipalities. The role of the SEA is downsized in relation to sustainable development and to the Environmental Impact Assessment of projects. In order to fully interrogate this debate the current paper combines a policy implementation approach with a discourse perspective.

Keywords:

• Strategic Environmental Assessment
• EU Directive
• discourse
• planning practice
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on work undertaken in the context of the PhD thesis ‘Implementing SEA in Sweden – from EU Directive to municipal comprehensive planning’ by Ann Åkerskog, financed by the Department of Urban and Rural Development (SoL), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) (Doctoral thesis 2009:2) and is associated with the MiSt research programme (www.sea-mist.se). The authors are grateful to Adam Pain and Mat Cashmore for their useful comments on earlier versions. However, they are solely responsible for the contents of the final version.

Notes

1. This part draws upon the description made in Bjarnadóttir (2008).

2. Doublespeak: deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure language (Oxford dictionaries 2010)