IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v32y2014i4p746-761.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Patterns of Elitism within Participatory Environmental Governance

Author

Listed:
  • John R Parkins

    (Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, 515 General Services Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2H1, Canada)

  • A John Sinclair

    (Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba, Canada)

Abstract

A close examination of venues for participatory environmental governance reveals highly constrained settings for citizen engagement. This situation is documented within the broader social milieu by Skocpol as a narrowing of public life which is characterized in this paper by professional, stakeholder, and elitist forms of participatory environmental governance. Case-study evidence is presented from three different governance settings in Canada (environmental assessment, land-use planning, and forest management) identifying two distinct types of elitism: elite representation by design and elite representation by procedure. Two options are presented as a response to this analysis. One option involves accepting elitism by strengthening the linkages between stakeholders and constituencies, and the other option involves fighting elitism by drawing on modes of community-based decision, deliberative activism, and promoting research that highlights the consequences of environmental elitism.

Suggested Citation

  • John R Parkins & A John Sinclair, 2014. "Patterns of Elitism within Participatory Environmental Governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(4), pages 746-761, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:32:y:2014:i:4:p:746-761
    DOI: 10.1068/c1293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c1293
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c1293?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Magnette, 2003. "European Governance and Civic Participation: Beyond Elitist Citizenship?," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 51(1), pages 144-160, March.
    2. John Parkins, 2006. "De-centering environmental governance: A short history and analysis of democratic processes in the forest sector of Alberta, Canada," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 39(2), pages 183-202, June.
    3. Lars H. Gulbrandsen, 2004. "Overlapping Public and Private Governance: Can Forest Certification Fill the Gaps in the Global Forest Regime?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 4(2), pages 75-99, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erik Glaas & Mattias Hjerpe & Martin Karlson & Tina-Simone Neset, 2020. "Visualization for Citizen Participation: User Perceptions on a Mainstreamed Online Participatory Tool and Its Usefulness for Climate Change Planning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Alex Osei-Kojo & Nathan Andrews, 2016. "Questioning the Status Quo: Can Stakeholder Participation Improve Implementation of Small-Scale Mining Laws in Ghana?," Resources, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-16, November.
    3. Van Assche, Kristof & Gruezmacher, Monica & Summers, Bob & Culling, Joshua & Gajjar, Shaival & Granzow, Michael & Lowerre, Andrew & Deacon, Leith & Candlish, Jared & Jamwal, Abhimanyu, 2022. "Land use policy and community strategy. Factors enabling and hampering integrated local strategy in Alberta, Canada," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    4. Natarajan, L. & Rydin, Y. & Lock, S.J. & Lee, M., 2018. "Navigating the participatory processes of renewable energy infrastructure regulation: A ‘local participant perspective’ on the NSIPs regime in England and Wales," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 201-210.
    5. Healy, Hali, 2023. "Pulp and participation: Assessing the legitimacy of participatory environmental governance in Umkomaas, South Africa," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    6. Katja Mäkinen, 2021. "Scales of participation and multi-scalar citizenship in EU participatory governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(5), pages 1011-1029, August.
    7. Ernst, Anna & Shamon, Hawal, 2020. "Public participation in the German energy transformation: Examining empirically relevant factors of participation decisions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olga Malets, 2017. "Recursivity by Organizational Design: The Case of the Forest Stewardship Council," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(3), pages 343-352, September.
    2. Caroline Patsias & Anne Latendresse & Laurence Bherer, 2013. "Participatory Democracy, Decentralization and Local Governance: the Montreal Participatory Budget in the light of ‘Empowered Participatory Governance’," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(6), pages 2214-2230, November.
    3. Nathan, Iben & Chen, Jie & Hansen, Christian Pilegaard & Xu, Bin & Li, Yan, 2018. "Facing the complexities of the global timber trade regime: How do Chinese wood enterprises respond to international legality verification requirements, and what are the implications for regime effecti," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 169-180.
    4. Bayer, Patrick & Marcoux, Christopher & Urpelainen, Johannes, 2013. "Leveraging private capital for climate mitigation: Evidence from the Clean Development Mechanism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 14-24.
    5. Zoltan GRUNHUT, 2020. "The ‘Expertisation’ of European Studies. A critical perspective on discursive institutionalism Abstract: The paper puts into perspective the conceptual evolution of European Studies and one of its lat," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 11, pages 252-272, June.
    6. Morgan, Edward A. & Buckwell, Andrew & Guidi, Caterina & Garcia, Beatriz & Rimmer, Lawrence & Cadman, Tim & Mackey, Brendan, 2022. "Capturing multiple forest ecosystem services for just benefit sharing: The Basket of Benefits Approach," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    7. Carlsen, Kirsten & Hansen, Christian Pilegaard & Lund, Jens Friis, 2012. "Factors affecting certification uptake — Perspectives from the timber industry in Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 83-92.
    8. Maria Pettersson & Marleen van Rijswick & Cathy Suykens & Meghan Alexander & Kristina Ek & Sally Priest, 2017. "Assessing the legitimacy of flood risk governance arrangements in Europe: insights from intra-country evaluations," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(8), pages 929-944, November.
    9. Janina Grabs & Graeme Auld & Benjamin Cashore, 2021. "Private regulation, public policy, and the perils of adverse ontological selection," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1183-1208, October.
    10. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:47:y:2009:i::p:17-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Cosimo, Luiz Henrique Elias & Masiero, Mauro & Mammadova, Aynur & Pettenella, Davide, 2024. "Voluntary sustainability standards to cope with the new European Union regulation on deforestation-free products: A gap analysis," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    12. Domenico Dentoni & Verena Bitzer & Greetje Schouten, 2018. "Harnessing Wicked Problems in Multi-stakeholder Partnerships," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 333-356, June.
    13. Jonathan S Davies, 2012. "Network Governance Theory: A Gramscian Critique," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(11), pages 2687-2704, November.
    14. FabianG. Neuner, 2020. "Public Opinion and the Legitimacy of Global Private EnvironmentalGovernance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(1), pages 60-81, February.
    15. Fischer, Carolyn & Sedjo, Roger & Jawahar, Puja & Aguilar , Francisco, 2005. "Forest Certification: Toward Common Standards?," RFF Working Paper Series dp-05-10, Resources for the Future.
    16. Louise Briec & Matthieu Mandard, 2016. "The Failure of Forest Certification. The FSC Certification in the Light of the Actor-Network Theory [L’échec de la certification forestière. Le cas de la certification FSC examiné au travers de la ," Post-Print halshs-01298087, HAL.
    17. Dedeurwaerdere, Tom & Krishna, Vijesh V. & Pascual, Unai, 2005. "Biodiscovery And Intellectual Property Rights: A Dynamic Approach To Economic Efficiency," Environmental Economy and Policy Research Discussion Papers 31928, University of Cambridge, Department of Land Economy.
    18. Charline Depoorter & Axel Marx, 2022. "Seeing the trees for the forest: Adoption dynamics of the Forest Stewardship Council," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 1788-1806, December.
    19. Juerges, Nataly & Newig, Jens, 2015. "How interest groups adapt to the changing forest governance landscape in the EU: A case study from Germany," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 228-235.
    20. Andrei MORARU, 2016. "European Union Democratic Governance: A Case Study Of The European Citizens’ Initiative," Europolity – Continuity and Change in European Governance - New Series, Department of International Relations and European Integration, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, vol. 10(2), pages 1-31.
    21. Kleinschmit, Daniela, 2012. "Confronting the demands of a deliberative public sphere with media constraints," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 71-80.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:32:y:2014:i:4:p:746-761. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.