Review: Deliberative
Environmental Politics: Democracy and Ecological Rationality
By Walter F. Baber and Robert V.
Bartlett
Reviewed by Govind
Gopakumar
Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Troy, USA
Walter
F.Baberand Robert V. Bartlett. Deliberative Environmental
Politics - Democracy & Ecological Rationality. Cambridge MA: The MIT
Press, 2005, 276 pp. ISBN: 0-262-52444-9. US $ 24.00 paperback, alkali paper.
Deliberative
democracy has with unusual alacrity become a popular shibboleth within such diverse
fields as science and technology assessment, international development practice
and, crucially, global environmental protection efforts. Multilateral aid
donors, national governments, and public agencies who frame public policies in
science, technology and the environment, have all sought to incorporate
deliberation within their programs with the hope that it translates into
"better" democratic implementation than characterized by
"business as usual" liberal democracy. This frame shift in public
policies, according to the authors, is matched within "the theory of
democracy ..... [by] a strong deliberative turn in recent decades" (p. 6).
This book successfully brings a strong analytical focus to bear on the
potential of deliberative democratic instances to foster the development of an
ecological reasoning. The authors categorize the disparate "participants
within this theoretical dance" into at least three significant models -
"one anchored in the theory of justice of John Rawls; a second derived
from the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas; and a third advanced by Bohman,
Gutmann and Thompson ... that embraces and seeks to
realize the traditional tenets of liberal constitutionalism" (p. 6-7).
The
book is divided into two sections, each of which maps the threefold
classification of deliberative democracy the authors have assumed. The first
section, composed of chapters 3-6, launches an intense theoretical inquiry by
subjecting each typology of deliberative environmental democracy to a menu of
analytical queries: what are the prerequisites? What counts as success in
deliberation? What is the style of reasoning for public deliberation? What are
the roles of experts? (p 33). The second section, consisting of chapters 7-11,
adopt as less theoretically demanding style sprinkled with illustrative
examples in order to outline the insertion of the theoretical project of
environmental deliberation within established liberal democracy and
institutions of the administrative state (p 121). The authors assemble architectures
of institutional arenas, with roles assigned for citizens, experts and social
movements as per the three-fold schema, which attempt participative
environmental deliberation and adjudication. Various strategies such as
political decentralization, administrative partnerships such as policy dialogs
and citizen juries, and arenas for enhanced civic politics are some examples of
the institutionalization of environmental deliberation that the authors feel
are required (p.125-142). Experts and social movements, according to the
authors, are "problematic but still desirable participants" (p.185)
who require special arrangements to be integrated into the deliberative process
without damaging the reasoning process that is central to it.
Through
some lucid theoretical reasoning, and pertinent examples of deliberative
institutions and expertise, the authors have presented an excellent and
optimistic exposition of the challenges and requirements in designing
architecture of deliberated environmental decision making. The authors do
acknowledge that their overly optimistic characterizations of the incipience of
discursive designs ignore its existence within a hostile landscape of markets,
bureaucracies and established political institutions (p 203) but believe that constructing
durable deliberative arenas of collective will-formation is entirely possible
(p. 232). This well-crafted work on environmental deliberation will be of
interest to advanced students of political philosophy, environmental politics,
and public administration in general, but will also enlighten public policy
practitioners, environmentalists and decision makers.
Govind Gopakumar <gopakg@rpi.edu>PhD Candidate, Dept. of
Science & Technology Studies, 5th Floor Russell Sage Laboratory,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th St., Troy, NY 12180.
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Electronic
Green Journal,
Issue 25, 2007
ISSN: 1076-7975