Skip to content

Deliberation as a catalyst for reflexive environmental governance

Dryzek, John S., Jonathan Pickering. 2017. Deliberation as a catalyst for reflexive environmental governance. Ecological Economics, 131: 353-360. Online first.

Abstract

Ecological or ecosystemic reflexivity involves the capacity of social-ecological systems to reconfigure themselves in response to reflection on their performance. In this paper we argue that deliberation is central to reflexive governance, mainly because it can reconcile many 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.

Keywords: reflexive governance; reflexivity; environmental governance; deliberation; deliberative democracy; polycentric governance

Link to full article here.

You might like these publication categories

Recent publications

Earth System Governance – Volume 24

We are delighted to present the twenty-fourth volume of Earth System Governance, the open-access journal for all those interested in…

The Politics and Governance of Decarbonization: The Interplay between State and Non-State Actors in Sweden

This book examines how, and under what conditions, states – in collaboration with non-state actors – can govern a societal…

Sustaining Development in Small Islands: Climate Change, Geopolitical Security, and the Permissive Liberal Order

The viability of small island developing states (SIDS) is threatened by three distinct processes – a backlash against globalisation; rising…