Deliberation as a catalyst for reflexive environmental governance

John DRYZEK, Jonathan Pickering

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    Abstract

    Ecological or ecosystemic reflexivity involves the capacity of social-ecological systems to reconfigure themselves in response to reflection on their performance. In this paperwe argue that deliberation is central to reflexive governance, mainly because it can reconcilemany if not most of the sometimes contradictory claims that are made in the literature about its drivers. We take four key dimensions along which reflexivity may be sought, each of which features a binary that puts two plausible drivers of reflexivity in tension with one another: (i) sources of knowledge (public participation versus expertise); (ii) composition of public discourse (diversity versus consensus); (iii) institutional architecture (polycentricity versus centralization); (iv) institutional dynamics (flexibility versus stability). In each case, we demonstrate that deliberative ideas can manage the tension between the two plausible drivers of reflexivity.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)353-360
    Number of pages8
    JournalEcological Economics
    Volume131
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017

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    DRYZEK, John ; Pickering, Jonathan. / Deliberation as a catalyst for reflexive environmental governance. In: Ecological Economics. 2017 ; Vol. 131. pp. 353-360.
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    DRYZEK, J & Pickering, J 2017, 'Deliberation as a catalyst for reflexive environmental governance', Ecological Economics, vol. 131, pp. 353-360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.09.011

    Deliberation as a catalyst for reflexive environmental governance. / DRYZEK, John; Pickering, Jonathan.

    In: Ecological Economics, Vol. 131, 01.01.2017, p. 353-360.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

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    DRYZEK J, Pickering J. Deliberation as a catalyst for reflexive environmental governance. Ecological Economics. 2017 Jan 1;131:353-360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.09.011

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