Abstract
Drawing from American pragmatist thinking this chapter knits together European and North American approaches on decision making under conditions of ignorance and uncertainty. By doing so, the chapter develops an experimentalist policy logic based on the writings of early pragmatists as well as the Chicago School of sociology to exemplify an example of experimental governance and strategies for continuously coping with ignorance in the remediation of areas with multiple contaminant sources and plumes related to industrial activities in the former socialist east of Germany. Finally, the chapter fathoms further possibilities and limits of an experimental approach in environmental sociology.
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Notes
- 1.
The environmental social sciences, because of the influence of ecological thinking, which embraces complexity, has produced more recursive approaches (e.g., adaptive management and complexity theory).
- 2.
Data for research on the remediation process come from different sources, ranging from meetings and the observation of activities at the site, minutes of previous meetings, and published material. Semi-structured interviews with 17 stakeholders of the process carried out between February 2006 and November 2007. The analysis of the material was stimulated by grounded theory in the tradition of Glaser and Strauss (1980).
- 3.
Says one major representative: “Early on you have to get the right people to the table, people that trust each other and also have some credibility for actors outside the project.”
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Overdevest, C., Bleicher, A., Gross, M. (2010). The Experimental Turn in Environmental Sociology: Pragmatism and New Forms of Governance. In: Gross, M., Heinrichs, H. (eds) Environmental Sociology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8730-0_16
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