Introduction Part One: Interconnectedness, Participation and Problem Scale

Abstract

As explained in the introductory chapter, a careful attempt to consider the link between participation and the quality of environmental decision-making — with particular concern for the functional perspective and thus societal survival – needs to deal with the issue of ‘level’, in the sense of the location, scale, and jurisdiction over which environmental decision-making is to be effective. Whether the issue is global warming, producing impacts over the entire planet, or a seemingly local matter, like the siting of a hazardous waste facility or the regulation of noise pollution in a municipality, effective decisions would seem to require a sensible connection between the scope and impact of an environmental challenge, on the one hand, and the relevant institutions and stakeholders – including the broad public –, on the other. There is no such thing as the problem scale for environmental questions. As mentioned in the first chapter, such issues can appear at local, regional, national, fluvial, continental, or global levels. ‘Thinking globally, acting locally’ is thus not a very helpful general action principle. Rather, it can be sensible only if the decision-making incorporates some strategy for associating local involvement and action with forces and actors that can have causal impact at the appropriate points on the real problems that demand attention. Otherwise, participation may be a sop, or a chimera, little more than a form of unintentionally symbolic politics. Efficacious participation requires more than appropriate motivation, tools, and involvement. It demands the right kind of articulation between the scale and methods of participation, on the. one hand, and the requisite causal levers, on the other.