ENVIRONMENT AND THE POST-MODERN SOCIETY
Guest Editor: Maarten Mentzel
Editorial
Maarten Mentzel
The environment in New Social Perspectives
Abstract
Policy
makers often face the dilemma whether or not to include
unwelcome findings in a policy process. The paper starts with
a recent example of the interaction between research and
policy making: the complex problem of greenhouse gases.
Research has demonstrated a relationship between a slow rise
in temperature on earth, the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere and
societal circumstances. The author argues that what are
usually seen as "social" facts are actually based on
politically charged assumptions. The example allows us to
point out at new aspects of the relationship between scientific
research and policy development. These aspects are discussed
in the light of recent literature:
-
political
and systemic uncertainty;
-
dynamics
and interaction of social-scientific research and politics;
-
experts,
their knowledge production and their acting as mediators.
Ørnulf Seippel
Political Environmentalism: Class Interests, Modern
Values or Postmodern Feelings?
Abstract
Political
environmentalism has conventionally
been understood as representing class interests or
modern left-libertarian values. However, there have also been
attempts to see environmentalism as a political expression
typical of postmodern society. This article takes the
‘cleavage’ concept as its theoretical starting point and
goes on to suggest what postmodernism and environmentalism
should be taken to mean within such a political sociological
framework: a distinct constellation of structure, culture and
organisation. The empirical part applies a set of Norwegian
survey data, and presents two main findings: (i) postmodern
values seem to represent a distinct and autonomous set of
values which (ii) influences environmental attitudes (positively
and negatively) and environmental political action (only
negatively).
Papers
Christopher A. Rootes
The Transformation of Environmental Activism: Activists,
Organizations and Policy-making
Abstracts
The
increasing institutionalisation of environmental movement
organisations (EMOs) across Europe has given them improved
political access and increased resources but it has created
new problems for EMOs and their interlocutors alike. As
constructive contacts have developed with more powerful actors,
official and corporate, so relations between EMOs and
activists have become increasingly problematic. Frustration at
the increased moderation and caution of established EMOs
contributes to organisational and tactical innovation among
activists. This and the anxiety of EMOs to respond to the
popularity of the radical direct action of environmental
activists such as anti-roads protesters has in turn made
problematic the reliability of EMOs in the eyes of those
responsible for the formulation and implementation of policy.
This article outlines the rationale for the major EC-funded
cross-national study of the transformation of environmental
activism (TEA) which commenced in March 1998.
Carlo C. Jaeger, Ralf
Schüle and Bernd Kasemir
Focus Groups inIntegrated Assessment: A Micro-cosmos
for Reflexive Modernization
Abstracts
Like
every society, today’s global society has a body of
knowledge which is taken for granted in everyday life. This
knowledge, which is organized around the prospect of
modernization, is currently challenged in several ways. One of
these challenges concerns the risks of global environmental
change. We investigate the hypothesis that the conceptual
machinery of modernization is experiencing a far-reaching
transformation whose outcome may be labelled as reflexive
modernization. For this purpose, we propose a new methodology
based on focus groups embedded in a process of integrated
environmental assessment. The methodology yields promising
results which are consistent with the hypothesis. They point
to further implications of the hypothesis of reflexive
modernization which are both interesting for theoretically
oriented research and relevant for policy making.
Open Contribution
Marianne Penker and
Roman Tronner
Towards Sustainable Law: Deriving a Planning Tool for
Legislation
Abstract
This
paper outlines a legal-ecological assessment method which can
help administration and legislation to take into account
ecological criteria in the planning process of new legal
instruments. It argues that sustainable development of legal
instruments can be based only on a profound analysis of
legislation and policy implementation and its impact on the
various fields of the entity defined by ”cultural landscape”,
in other words, the human-dominated natural environment. On
the basis of the Pressure-State-Response model of the OECD the
paper focuses on the area of societal response. As the
response area remains mostly a black box in the discussion
about environmental indicators, the paper sheds light onto
this field and describes the determinants that have to be
taken into account when it comes to the derivation of
indicators from mechanisms of legislation and legal
administration.
