The circulation of ideas: a discursive deliberative knowledge system for biodiversity policy

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The circulation of ideas: a discursive deliberative knowledge system for

biodiversity policy

Vanessa Liston

[email protected]

Chapter in Governing Biodiversity through Democratic Deliberation

Editors

Mikko Rask, National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki

Richard Worthington, Pomona College, Claremont, California

Abstract

This chapter builds on recent innovations in deliberative systems and discursive

representation. I argue that discrete transnational deliberative events should be one component

of a broader discursive deliberative knowledge system. The proposed system generates open

knowledge on social discourses and their transformations through discursive deliberation

from the local to global level, offering a stronger basis for the democratic governance of

biodiversity than is provided by the current focus on discrete deliberative events.

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Introduction

The recent World Wide Views (WWV) process brings into sharp focus the challenges of

citizen deliberations in global biodiversity negotiations. As a fledgling experiment in the

democratization of global governance, the WWViews process fruitfully reveals by its

limitations opportunities for radically rethinking both the knowledge required to govern

complex systems, and the role of citizens therein. Two limitations of the process are directly

relevant. First, at the level of the deliberation fora, challenges exist with respect to inclusion,

impact and legitimacy which are well documented in the literature with respect to policy in

general and the WWViews process in particular (Reidy & McGregor, 2011). These criteria

are inherent to the deliberative project and derive from an external normative framework

rooted in ideals of equality, justice and freedom. Deliberation is regarded as successful where

these criteria are met.

Second, at a global level, engaging citizens in deliberative processes on complex and

uncertain systemic change raises fundamental questions about knowledge and capacity that

challenge the value of global citizen deliberations from an output perspective. If deliberative

processes actually satisfied the democratic criteria just mentioned, could they substantially

contribute to the governance of complex systems such as the environment? Currently,

knowledge that is required to understand and respond to biodiversity threats is regarded as

being within the domain of scientific community, and the citizen is often regarded as having a

knowledge ‘deficit’ (Wynne, 1996; Petts & Brooks, 2006). As I will argue, both the design

and implementation of the WWViews process, while offering an opportunity for citizen

engagement and solidarity, in effect supported this ´deficit´ model.

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The question of citizen knowledge capacity is important in light of an emerging consensus

that collaborative science-policy interfaces are essential in order to harness multiple

knowledge types required to govern complex systems (UNEP, 2009; Koetz et al., 2012). As

Koetz states: ‘A biodiversity management problem depends so heavily on how the issue is

framed that the results of the scientific analysis cannot be treated as if they were isolated from

their socio-political contexts (2010, p.122).’ The relevance of local framing is highlighted in a

study by Soini & Aakkula, that explores differences in framing biodiversity of the agricultural

landscape among citizens and experts. They find an ‘ecosystem model of thinking related to

biodiversity held by the local residents’ which they suggest may provide promising

opportunities for the framing and bottom up management of biodiversity (2011: 319). This

value in citizen knowledge leads other authors to call for the democratization of science.

Backstrand (2003) claims that as knowledge is socially constructed, a multiplicity of

perspectives is required in order to co-create the knowledge required for biodiversity impact.

But under what conditions and norms can individual citizens or organized groups compete

with established and structured knowledge paradigms beyond the linear expert-lay paradigm?

How can science value and interact in new ways with the input of citizens? What is the role, if

any, of citizen deliberations such as WWViews and can they fulfil an effective and

transformative role at the global level? If biodiversity is as much a social-political issue as a

scientific one (Sarkar, 2005), how can this information be harnessed and combined in a way

that enables new relevant knowledge or ideas to emerge? How would such an approach

compare with the WWViews process? These are the questions of concern in this chapter.

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To begin, I outline the current thinking on the opportunities and challenges of transnational

mini-publics as a normative democratic exercise as relevant to the WWViews process. I then

argue that the epistemic foundations of this approach are in tension with the knowledge and

transformation dynamics needed to support effective biodiversity conservation policies. In the

third section, I move to looking at how deliberations could be re-oriented towards this

knowledge approach, in which citizens can generate and interact with a stream of critical

knowledge through a discursive deliberative knowledge system. This knowledge would

reflect both actualities of how nature is socially constructed across space and time as well how

this construction becomes transformed through discursive deliberation. The discussion

explains how a discursive deliberation system can provide the context, legitimate grounding

and information critical to supporting improved deliberative impact at the transnational level.

WWViews, transnational deliberation and policy-making

The WWViews process has been a significant experiment and achievement in testing the

bounds and potential of transnational deliberation. Modelled on the mini-public concept, the

standardized WWViews approach across countries aimed to facilitate at a practical level

citizen communications and deliberation with the goal of influencing policy makers at the

Convention on Biological Diversity’s Eleventh Conference of the Parties (COP11). The goal

was to achieve increased democratization of the international decision-making institutions

that are seen as removed from the everyday lives of citizens.

There are strong arguments in favor of transnational mini-publics (Smith, 2009; Baber &

Barlett, 2009). Based on the Habermasian logic of communicative action (Habermas, 1985),

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deliberation provides a public space in which prejudices can be challenged, a plurality of

opinion considered and public judgement reached. The concept of public judgement resonates

with theorists concerned with the functioning of democratic systems (Kornprobst, 2011).

Alexander Hamilton in 1788 suggested it is not public opinion that we need to guide us, but

public judgment. In his words ‘The deliberate sense of the community should govern the

conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs’ (Hamilton et al. 2003:

436). There are practical expectations too for policy. Bohman (1998) claims that mini-publics

might perform better than civil society in transnational contexts because they mitigate against

discourse domination by professional and self-selected activists, which can exclude less vocal

and minority perspectives. Baber (2010) claims that national and local level deliberation can

add significantly to the political legitimacy of natural resource management. As such, in its

goals and design WWViews aimed to achieve the normative standards of democratic

deliberation in terms of diversity of opinion, information and time for respectful deliberation.

However, other authors caution that the limitations of mini-publics as a deliberative format

should be acknowledged and supplemented where required (Smith, 2013). A major criticism

is that discrete deliberative events are isolated from the wider public sphere. Authors argue

that there must be a substantive linkage between those events and the informed opinions of

the general public (Chambers, 2009). The media is a crucial link in this regard as it can

stimulate public debate. However, given media biases and that the media is a ‘difficult friend’

(Rask, 2013) such a link was only weakly achieved in the two WWViews deliberations held

to date (Schneider and Delborne, 2011; Geddes and Choi, this volume). As noted by Rask

(2013), WWViews had no measurable impact on the COP decision process though it achieved

its goal in raising visibility of the issue of citizen participation and indirectly influencing the

spread of deliberation to other countries. Goodin & Dryzek (2006) address this question

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directly and state that though deliberation is unlikely to have a direct impact, there are a

number of ways in which the macro-micro link has been achieved in a range of cases,

including among others, legitimating policy, popular oversight, informing public debates, and

resisting co-option.

Challenges in representativeness also have an effect on the relevance and credibility of output,

potentially weakening the incentive of policy-makers to act upon the outcomes (Smith, 2013).

Cash et al. (2003) note in their analysis of knowledge systems for sustainability that these

limitations can be summarized in terms of legitimacy, relevance and credibility of knowledge.

Rask (2013: 46) notes that during the WWViews process politicians questioned the value of

the output of deliberations, given their small scale, in comparison to opinion polling. The

question remains valid. How can politicians and policy-makers claim to represent their

citizens on the output of bounded knowledge and deliberative output of a tiny fraction of non-

representative global citizens?

This is the point at which the intersection of analysis of deliberation with wicked problems at

the international levels raises new questions. Wicked problems are those which are ‘ill-

defined (no prescribed way forward), involve stakeholders with different perspectives, and

have no “correct” or “optimal” solution’ (Conklin, 2005, 18; see also Rittel & Weber, 1973).

Levin et al. (2012) define super-wicked problems, such as climate change, as having four

features: time is running out; those who cause the problem also seek to provide a solution; the

central authority needed to address it is weak or non-existent; and, partly as a result, policy

responses discount the future irrationally.

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Compared with this complexity and wickedness of the policy questions at hand and the issues

of legitimacy surrounding mini-publics for the wider public sphere, it seems that current

deliberation formats are oriented more to highlighting normative democratic ideals than

contributing substantively to global governance. As Mansbridge et al. (2011 ) note: ‘No single

forum, no matter how ideally constituted, can possess enough deliberative capacity, to elicit

all the information and insights and induce sufficient public reflection and contest, [that are]

necessarily for sound governmental and social decisions or for legitimate democratic

decisions’. Drawing together Parkinson and Mansbridge’s work (2013) with that of Dryzek

and Niemeyer (2008) on discursive democracy and deliberation, the remainder of this chapter

will focus on (1) why we need to think of global mini-publics as a link in a discursive

deliberative knowledge system of human rational and moral reasoning for biodiversity policy

development; and (2) how that could be achieved.

Tensions: positivist versus complex knowledge paradigms

The epistemological basis of biodiversity governance has been changing over the past decade.

Based on emerging recognition of the need for multiple-knowledge systems to support

biodiversity management, science-policy interfaces such as the Intergovernmental Science-

Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) aim to become more

collaborative. By science-policy interface I adopt the Koetz’s definition (2010: 4) as:

‘A combination of cognitive models, normative structures and rights, rules and procedures

that define and enable social practices interrelating science and policy, assign roles to

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scientists, policy-makers, and other relevant stake- and knowledge-holders, and guide their

interactions according to given principles and purposes.’

These changes are partly in recognition of the constructed and contested nature of knowledge,

the concomitant need for multi-level governance approaches, and the limitations of the

positivist scientific method for complex systems such as society and the environment.

Complex systems are comprised of networks of agents, often adaptive, that exhibit self-

organization and/or produce emergent effects. They are generally characterized by non-linear

effects, uncertainty and unanticipated outcomes. Their properties are linked and

interdependent, they are highly context specific and do not have predictable generalizable

responses to stimuli across different times and circumstances (Keshavarz et al., 2010). These

properties lead to the emergence of patterns at different scales (Roux, 2011) that cannot be

understood by studying its parts.

In the search for simple causes of complex effects, scientific methods have moved beyond the

positivist approach of identifying cause and effect relations between observed ‘facts’, to one

of identifying simple generative rules for complex effects. These could be in the form of

models, algorithms and non-linear dynamics that explain how agents would behave over time

in the context of interactions with their environment and other agents (Phelan, 2001). This

field of complexity science is still emerging and evolving, but has raised awareness that

knowledge on complex systems such as the environment is incomplete, uncertain and

unpredictable. As Der Sluijs (2006: .64) notes ‘present day environmental problems exhibit a

number of characteristics that make them hard to tackle with normal scientific procedures.’

Rittel and Webber (1973: 161) state that a scientific-rational approach cannot be applied to

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wicked problems such as social policy, because problems cannot be definitively described and

notions of the common good are varied and contested.

Yet, while the discourse on knowledge requirements for effective biodiversity management

continues to evolve towards a complexity paradigm, practical approaches to how environment

relevant knowledge is sourced and flows through the science-policy interface remains

constrained by established positivist paradigms as exemplified in ‘linear’ cause-effect models

and practices contributing to institutional mismatches1 (Young, 2006; for discussion see

Apostolopoulou, 2012; Koetz et al, 2012).

These linear cause-effect models are built into common mini-public formats. First, there is the

linear flow of information from the expert to the ‘knowledge deficit’ citizen in preparation for

deliberation (see Fischer, 2009). In most major deliberative events such as the WWWViews

process, Canada Citizen’s Assembly, G1000 in Belgium, Pilot Citizen’s Assembly Ireland,

EuroPolis and Tomorrow’s Europe, citizens are provided with ‘unbiased knowledge’

(Bedsted, 2012) in the form of scientific facts relevant to the issue at hand. During

WWViews, information on biodiversity was prepared by the Austrian consultancy

BIOFACTION in cooperation with the Danish Board of Technology (DBT). The information

constituted a one way flow of authoritative information on biodiversity from external sources

to the participating citizens. This approach aligned with best deliberative practice.

Second, popular deliberative designs, such as deliberative polling, are based also on positivist

understanding of opinion and its transformation. This is shown in the practice of gathering

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responses to pre-defined questions on themes related to the complex issue under

consideration. The epistemological assumption is that participants’ underlying values are

already in existence and are revealed through reasoned debate (Burchardt, 2014). The focus is

thus on the capture of objective and comparable facts which exist apart from the subjects and

which enable generalization of knowledge. This approach requires a distance between the

analyst and subject. Although this is not the case in all deliberative formats,2 where there is a

positivist focus, citizens become objects of the research, rather than the substantive and

qualitative issues under deliberation.

Both of these assumptions informed the structure of WWViews. Participants were asked to

deliberate following expert presentations and respond to pre-set questions using multi-choice

options. Frequency reports on the choices were then compared directly across nations. While

this facilitated communication on the complex topic at a global scale, Reidy and Herriman

(2011: 20) note that the method limited citizen deliberation in observing that‘The use of

predefined questions and answers closed down opportunities for participants to reframe issues

or express responses in their own words.’

The limitations of these positivist and linear approaches to integrating the citizen into

biodiversity governance are clear. They privilege the assumption of expert knowledge and the

discrete deliberative action over 1) the uncertainties and lack of knowledge that define our

understanding of the environment as a complex system; 2) the wickedness of the problems at

hand and; 3) the lived experiences and perspectives to which biodiversity impacts, science

and policy responses are directly relevant. In sum, the scientific-lay deficit model, positivist

assumptions about what constitutes knowledge, and the assumptions underlying methods such

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as deliberative polling are dissonant with the role of citizens, implied by the demands of

complexity, in the global governance of biodiversity.

This epistemic question and the tension between linear processes for complex issues, lies at

the core of challenges facing deliberative global governance. This is clear from a practical

example of where this tension is most obvious at a larger scale, in the implementation of

scientific recommendations for biodiversity conservation at the local level.

Case: ‘Growing Places’ biodiversity policy, Dublin.

Current research shows that where science has identified a potential mitigation to a

biodiversity threat, a simple cause and effect dissemination model through policy channels

and media frequently does not result in an improvement in biodiversity indicators. To

illustrate the point, I draw on an example of a biodiversity policy that resulted in public

backlash in the Dublin region of Ireland. A local government developed a ‘Growing Places’

policy which allowed hedgerows and open spaces to turn into wild flower meadows. The

policy was based on scientific advice that increasing coverage of wild grasses and flowers

supports populations of natural species and pollination, critical to providing ecological

services to the region.

However, the policy was met with resistance from citizens partly from a lack of knowledge of

biodiversity, partly due to distrust of the local government, but also due to a lack of effective

consultation with citizens that could have helped tease out the various and opposing beliefs

and values. The consultation process was indeed limited. In an interview3 with a key official it

emerged that the Council only targeted residents’ groups because they did not have

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information on other stakeholders in the general population. This meant that the Council

missed critical opposing perspectives on the issue as well as the opportunity to discuss

implementation of the proposal. On the one hand there was a quiet majority either supporting

or ambivalent to the Growing Places policy. On the other hand, opinions were expressed

online, in the media and during protests that wild areas were unsightly (aesthetic) (Magee,

2010), that children had less play space (impacted amenities) (Manning, 2010), that rat

populations had increased (health issues) (Gittens, 2010) and that anti-social behaviour had

increased in these unregulated areas (social threat) (Farrell, 2010, LeoB, 2010; Shaungil,

2010). Aided by media amplification of opposition views, particularly through talk radio

shows, the policy generated a substantial negative backlash that had an impact on the policy

being rolled out nationwide.4 Since then and due to economic cutbacks the biodiversity

program has been significantly scaled back. In the context of our current argument this

incident was a significant event which generated a stream of important communications on

understandings, interpretations and values concerning biodiversity and conservation policies.

The case is not isolated. Biodiversity policies focused on preservation frequently clash with

local material values, understandings and cultural practices (see Brown, 1998; Zingerli, 2005;

Marshall, 2007). This includes places where citizens or ‘resource users’ face poverty,

insecurity and unstable political systems (Karki, Rai and Worthington in this volume).

Findings suggest support for Young’s argument that:

‘Global resolution of complex issues does not automatically “cascade” down to

regional, national or local level of social organisation, but is subject to a number of

scale related effects: differing socio-economic and political contexts lead to differing

interpretations of priorities and policy instruments, compliance enforcement and

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knowledge systems vary from place to place, leading to different approaches to

implementation’ (in Koetz et al., 2012: 127).

In light of Young’s observation, Koetz et al. (2012: 127) argue that policies developed

without an understanding of the places and knowledge cultures in which they will be

interpreted, implemented and evaluated are more vulnerable to being ineffective. Policy

responses negotiated at the supra-national and global level, therefore need to be sensitive to

local conditions and opportunities, understandings and meanings in the development of

sustainable responses and their dynamics (Peuhkuri & Jokinen, 1999). However, to date, there

is no structured method for capturing this knowledge, essential to both understanding how

nature is constructed and to developing effective policy for biodiversity conservation. We

now turn to a proposal on how discursive deliberations could be harnessed to address this gap.

Towards a discursive deliberative knowledge system

The argument is in this paper is that approaches to biodiversity governance must treat the

ecological, biological and social aspects of contemporary human affairs together. In doing so I

adopt the position of Berkes et al (2000: 4) that social and ecological systems are linked and

that the delineation between both is artificial and arbitrary. Deliberations are critical because

they help bring diverging discourses together and enable a framework for citizens to clarify,

test and transform their own perspectives on the environment. As Lidskog notes ‘Culture and

context are important because the social meaning of a risk and the moral relevance of an issue

are found in concrete sociocultural settings’ (2011:153. Gustafsson (2011) points to studies

that show that residents have the capacity to both critically evaluate scientific knowledge and

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produce useful relevant and important knowledge about uncertain environmental issues. Blok

(2008: 1) concludes that ‘Citizen knowledge does not merely passively reflect science.

Instead, citizens create meaning and construct knowledge by organizing personal experiences

and knowledge claims into coherent narratives.’

But to fully realise the potential of citizens’ knowledge and engagement in environmental

policy, we need to go beyond thinking of deliberations as bounded and discrete global events

towards a multi-scalar and polycentric deliberative system. As Ostrom (2010: 550) states in

the context of global warming:

‘Instead of focusing only on global efforts (which are indeed a necessary part of the long-term

solution), it is better to encourage polycentric efforts…... Polycentric approaches facilitate

achieving benefits at multiple scales as well as experimentation and learning from experience

with diverse policies.’

Jane Mansbridge, John Parkinson and other deliberative theorists elaborate the rationale for a

system-approach, calling for deliberation at multiple scales (Parkinson & Mansbridge, 2013).

A deliberative system is one where talk-based approaches to political conflict and problem

solving are distributed in society, as distinguishable and differentiated but to some degree

inter-dependent parts. These parts are connected to form a complex whole. The burden of

legitimacy or decision-making does not fall on one part, but is distributed across the system.

Finally, the system is probabilistic rather than determinative. This means that not all parts

have a function, nor that there is a consistent cause and effect relationship between any set of

parts. Deficiencies in one part can be compensated by other parts of the deliberative system

(Mansbridge, 2011; Parkinson & Mansbridge, 2013).

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Other scholars are also calling for a deliberative approach that links the macro to the micro

systematically (Dryzek & Niemeyer, 2008; Dryzek, 2010). In the context of climate change,

Stevenson & Dryzek (2012) provide a strong and compelling argument for a new

understanding of democracy that de-emphasises formal institutions and operates in the

informal realm of the engagement and contestation of discourses in the global public sphere.

Discourses are defined by Dryzek & Niemeyer (2008: 481) as ‘a set of categories and

concepts embodying specific assumptions, judgments, contentions, dispositions, and

capabilities.’ By representing the range of discourses on an issue in deliberation, opposing

perspectives have the opportunity to engage, opening knowledge on different beliefs, values

and preferences as well as the possibility of transformation of each discourse. Discursive

deliberations, in this view, are scalable to the global level and are directly relevant not only to

WWViews and other transnational deliberations, but because of its transformative potential

and empirical basis, are particularly relevant to complex environmental systems.

From local to global?

So far I have discussed the need for creating a flow of knowledge on public discourses

regarding biodiversity as these affect the understanding, development and implementation of

biodiversity policy. I have also argued for the need to go beyond the discrete mini-public

format and deliberative polling, towards a discursive deliberative knowledge system

distributed across multiple sites at all scales of governance. Yet, the challenge to realizing this

new framework for transnational deliberations such as WWViews is that there is currently no

systematic method by which a stream of natural social knowledge and opinion streams from

these sites can flow among them at multiple scales to create transformative and systemic

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effects. This information is critical for a complex system of multiple information types and

engagement to emerge, moving beyond the linear science-lay paradigm. Yet, a core challenge

in bringing scientific and lay knowledge together is the imbalance between the knowledge

coherence of the scientific community and the unstructured, localized and un-communicated

knowledge of the citizens. This results in problems at the science-policy-citizen interface

which, as one among many factors, is undermining trust in scientific establishments and

effectiveness of global policy initiatives. But how can social perspectives on biodiversity be

captured in a structured way? Can information on transformation dynamics also be captured?

What can be done with this information? Identifying social discourses and how they transform

during deliberation and broader social engagement holds promise to respond to authors’

claims that ‘The social is both central yet pretty well invisible’ (Szerszynski and Urry, 2010:

3). To illustrate a method for capturing societal perspectives on biodiversity in a structured

way, I turn to the discursive innovations of John Dryzek and Simon Niemeyer who have

drawn out the potential of Q-methodology as a basis for enabling discursive representation

from the local to the global level.

Q-methodology for discursive deliberation

Social discourses can be identified according to Dryzek and Niemeyer (2008), using Q-

methodology, originally developed by William Stephenson (1986). It identifies shared beliefs

by investigating patterns in natural flows of communication (every day conversation,

commentary, news reports, magazine articles, visual, musical and media) in which it claims

the natural structure of social discourses exists. Q-method normally is conducted in four key

stages. First, the researcher establishes a ‘concourse’ of opinion statements (Stephenson,

1980: 882) on the issue of interest.5 Statements can be drawn from sources such as semi-

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structured interviews and statements in the media, public discussion boards, and written

reports. These can be published for public information and interaction.6

Second, the large set of statements is condensed to a set of no more than 60 statements which

a diverse set of participants will be asked to rank-order in the third stage. The condensed set

can be determined using structured sampling and should be a comprehensive representation of

the range of opinion in a society on a particular question. This opinion stream lays no claim to

informed opinion or valid knowledge. It only represents the natural expression of the total

range of expressed opinion identified through a comprehensive collection process.

Third, participants are selected using purposive sampling with the aim of ensuring that all

potential perspectives on the issue are represented. Respondents are given 40-60 cards7 with

the sample of statements. They are asked to place these statements on a scale from (for

example) ‘most agree with’ to ‘most disagree with’ according to an inverted bell-shaped grid.

This grid accepts the lowest number of statements at its extremities (gradually accepting more

as one moves towards the centre of the grid). For example, where statements are numbered 1-

20 a person might place the statement cards as follows:

Figure 1: Sample Q-sort

Scale -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3

----------------------------

7 9 5 20 6 1 2

19 16 4 8 13 3 12

11 15 10 18 14

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This pattern is known as the participant’s Q-sort. To identify similarities between Q-sorts,

factor analysis is conducted on the data. This identifies clusters of a few Q-sorts that are

‘typical’. Usually less than six coherent discourses are identified.

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Finally, the patterns of statements of the typical sorts are interpreted and verbally stated as a

discourse. Robbins and Krueger (2000) note that the merit of Q methodology is that ‘by

allowing the categories of the analysis to be manipulated by respondents, the researcher loses

the exclusive power to signify the reality of the researched’ (in Cuppen et al., 2000: 645).

A growing literature is revisiting Q methodology to identify public discourses related to a

policy issue, clarify stakeholder perspectives, identify stakeholders for deliberation and find

new solutions to challenging policy problems through discursive deliberation (Ray, 2011;

Niemeyer, 2011; Niemeyer et al., 2013). Van Eeten (2001) shows how Q-method is

particularly useful for policy makers in stakeholder dialogue on wicked problems in his study

of a controversy over the expansion of Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport that was frozen in a

familiar opposition between partisans who saw the project as an economic necessity and those

who viewed it as a misuse of public funds. Commissioned by the Dutch Government, Van

Eeten uncovered three additional perspectives on transportation policy through a Q-study

with stakeholders: a concern that the project be aligned with wider social goals, improved

ecological performance in air travel, and finding ways of meeting a growing demand for

mobility. By identifying these concerns and delineating the Schipol project and the larger

transportation policy issues, the debate moved beyond polarization toward a new agenda for

transportation policy in the Netherlands.

Discursive deliberations: new data, new opportunities

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While Q-method has been primarily used for academic research, its benefits to public policy

are clear. On any issue, a public opinion data stream (or concourse) on biodiversity issues can

be collated. Stakeholders can rank order a set of most representative statements to enable the

main social perspectives on an issue to be identified. These will in every case be relevant to

the political and cultural context from which they emerge. These social discourses form the

basis of public deliberation. In engaging social perspectives, the multiplicity of knowledge

types and frames becomes explicit. Representative legitimacy as each member of the public is

likely to subscribe to one or more of the deliberated discourses.

Revisiting the above example of the ‘Growing Places’ policy in Dublin, the potential for

discursive deliberation at the local level is clear. It can be argued that the opinions raised in

protest against the policy were developed very much in isolation from biodiversity

considerations. If the opportunity for a discursive deliberation had been provided, a

comprehensive opinion stream would have been developed, the full range of discourses on the

issue would have been identified both for and against the policy, and citizens from diverse

discourses would have deliberated with promoters of the policy. Opinions such as ‘Long grass

attracts rats’ for example, would not only have to be justified in experience/fact, but would

also have to be justified by the person holding the opinion in terms that people from other

discourses would understand and accept as credible. Information on the full process would be

public, increasing the potential for greater awareness, discussion and debate on the issue. This

bringing together of discourses through a process of information sharing and justification can

lead to discourse transformation as shown by Niemeyer (2004, Niemeyer et al., 2013).

Open discursive data

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Beyond the effects of the deliberation, there is the potential for further large scale and system

effects where this information is shared as open data. Freely available public opinion and

social perspectives can enable the accumulation of spatially grounded opinion patterns and

transformation dynamics that can be used to better understand the landscape of discourse that

is relevant to biodiversity policy development and implementation at broader scales.

Recording and sharing this data and linking it to decision making and science on biodiversity

has two main benefits. First, new information and ideas can emerge as evident in the

emerging collective intelligence capacities on the internet (Wikis, open-source code/data etc.).

Second, new patterns of governance and policy development can emerge through both the

construction and use of this data. Creating and linking citizen perspectives and deliberative

dynamics from local and national levels with biodiversity offers a way to pull in citizens’

knowledge and capacities for collective intelligence that can inform policy at all levels.

Citizens then become not passive receivers of scientific information but, as situated humans-

in-nature (Apostolopoulou, 2012; Harden, 2012), they can contribute to the emergence of new

knowledge, behaviours and social constructions of nature.

In order to illustrate the argument, let us return to a repositioning of WWViews in this

context. In a discursive system, transnational deliberations such as WWViews become a final

step in a longer term and broader deliberative system. At any point and governance scale in

the network the natural flow of public opinion on a specific issue (e.g. biodiversity policy) can

be captured. For example, at a national level the flow of opinion would be taken from

statements at a national level. At public consultations a range of diverse stakeholders Q-sort

the range of public statements, which enables the identification of social discourses on the

issue. Public deliberations including representatives from each discourse and other

stakeholders can also be held, and the output made openly available to share across nodes in

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the network (Liston et al., 2013). This process can be repeated from the micro to the

transnational level in accordance with Dryzek’s (2010) proposed deliberative system.

For global level deliberations, the process provides an information source on the social

discourses on each issue under consideration and micro-level deliberated output per nation.

For fisheries conservation policy for example, scientists, policy makers and citizens have both

scientific knowledge and critically, a source of information on the main discourses on it in

their country, drawn from natural opinion flows. The role of transnational deliberation such as

WWViews can then provide a legitimate space for deliberation on global policy questions that

have specific and contested national implications that can be deliberated also across nations.

The aim in this model shifts from aggregating sampled individuals’ normative opinions on

biodiversity questions, to drawing out policy considerations per nation based on the flow of

natural opinion. Participants are representing social discourses that have emerged from their

own complex system and engaging in discursive accountability (Dryzek, 2010). This

approach provides a more representative approach to deliberation, one that can generate a

stream of valuable knowledge for scientists and policy makers.

To summarize, in reviewing the challenges of global and national level deliberations for

improved governance, there is a need to shift focus from deliberation as a normative exercise

to one that includes deliberation as a defining characteristic of an open democratic knowledge

production process. This requires going beyond single transnational events, to multi-scalar

and polycentric sites of deliberation. These sites of discursive deliberations provide not just

the space in which citizens of different social discourses can interact, demand mutual

justification and come to decisions, but also the opportunity to transform the social

22

construction of nature itself. The implications are that policy makers and citizens can learn

from other discursive struggles over particular policies and have a structured way for

accessing citizens’ shared knowledge. As Young notes, citizen knowledge flows are relevant

to the claims for biodiversity governance across scale-dependent environmental and resource

regimes (2006). ‘Knowledge that is useful – and used – is knowledge that emerges within a

particular social and institutional context’ (Sarewitz in Hulme, 2010: 29).

Conclusion

In this chapter I have focused on the question at the core of this book: does examining

biodiversity and deliberation together, rather than in isolation, generate new controversies or

insights? Based on the arguments put forward above I suggest the answer is a resounding yes.

Halting biodiversity loss is one of the most pressing and intractable problems of our age.

Deliberation is argued to be an essential innovation in engaging citizens in the complex issues

involved in its governance. To date, however, deliberations have been implemented in

discrete and bounded events that are challenged by assumptions surrounding random

sampling and publicity as the sole method for claiming political legitimacy. This view seems

to resonate with other scholars concerned with challenges to transnational and national

deliberative processes (see Rask, 2013: 49).

To this end, I have argued that the real value of deliberation will be in its evolution as a

system, based on natural opinion flows and structured social discourses. In this regard, I draw

on recent theoretical developments in deliberative systems (Parkinson and Mansbridge, 2012),

discursive representation (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008), deliberative systems (Dryzek, 2010),

23

global democratic governance (Stevenson, 2013), and Q-method (Stephenson, 1986; Brown

(1980), as well as the many authors who are demonstrating the value of Q-based discursive

knowledge for policy processes. This knowledge framework combined with an open-data

policy can significantly contribute to realising new benefits from the poly-centric approach. In

Hulme (2010: 563) words:

‘A geography of global environmental change knowledge therefore demands, rather

paradoxically, that attention turns away from the globalising instincts that so easily erase

difference and which seek consensus. Instead, attention should focus on understanding the

changing relationships between knowledge-making, institutional practice and human culture

in evolving places. We need kinds of knowledge which are ‘liquid’ –i.e. mobile and

responsive –rather than ‘brittle’ – i.e. thin and flat. These kinds of liquid knowledge will

accommodate more easily – and emphasise more readily – the ambiguities, voids and blind

spots in our understanding of the world’s complexity. And in a pluralistic, poly-centred world

they may prove fitter for a wider range of purposes.’

Yet, arguments can be made against the practical feasibility of such a system. First, Q-

methodology as a basis for identifying discourses is a little known methodology, is complex

and is not without its critics. There are also the well documented practical challenges of

deliberation such as: legitimacy; ensuring complete discursive representation and enabling the

free and equal exchange of ideas where participants with “entrenched” viewpoints are

admitted (Hobson and Niemeyer, 2013). Furthermore, deliberation, with its exclusive and

rational focus, is often seen to be apart from party politics and not oriented towards mass

engagement (Mair, 2006).

24

However, assuming that these challenges could be overcome, there are other, practical

challenges to the possibility of achieving an open discursive knowledge system. Key among

these is the question of drivers to change. Specifically, what is the driver that could propel

governments and decision-making bodies to innovate towards the vision proposed here in

their public consultation and engagement processes? While there is broad normative

consensus on the benefit of public participation, policy and projects can be fraught with

conflict. Using a discursive model means opening communication and actively engaging with

conflict through deliberation. This can be perceived as increasing the risk and exposure of

governments and enterprise.

The argument for needed resources can also prove a barrier. New skills are required both for

implementing these innovations in public consultation and for using the data. This in turns

requires organizational change. Deliberation also introduces the need for more time in the

consultation period, which can be problematic in multi-phase consultations, as can requests

for novel budgetary appropriations such as consultation resources. In sum, without strong

external/internal drivers, and evidence of tangible benefits in the short and long term,

perceptions of risk and cost diminish the likelihood of a discursive deliberative knowledge

system, both in terms of innovation adoption and diffusion. Future research on this proposal

would need to address these questions directly.

However, there are reasons for optimism on its prospects. Deliberative processes are

increasing in frequency across established democracies (Leighninger, 2012). WWViews has

managed to significantly raise the profile of global citizen deliberation (Chhetri & Grossman,

2012). A discursive deliberative system has been developed (Dryzek, 2010) and Q-method

25

studies of social discourses are showing increasing influence on policy (van Eten, 2001;

Rutherford et al., 2009). Local level initiatives to experiment with the challenges of a bottom

up discursive system are also emerging (SOWIT, 2014). Dryzek and Stevenson (2011) have

shown how elements of a deliberative system are already in place at the global level of

governance on climate change. They conclude with the need for ‘lessons of experience’ (Ibid.:

1873)

Building on these advances, progress can be made by small changes to current deliberative

processes. For example, the natural opinion flow of public deliberations that are on-going can

be shared as open data. A further step would be change in how deliberations are

communicated, with a stronger focus on discourses, their sources in the broader public sphere

and as Niemeyer (2011) argues a stronger focus on communicating reasons. Another advance

would be to move away from a sole focus on the significant deliberative events towards more

fluid, small scale deliberations.

To conclude, the proposal of a discursive deliberation knowledge system is ambitious. The

contribution of this paper has been to put forward a reasoned argument to justify its pursuit,

motivated by both the achievements and challenges of the WWViews process. Drawing on

the range of democratic innovations in the field of deliberative democracy, the proposal draws

out implications for new avenues of research and experimentation. One fruitful line of inquiry

is to demonstrate the potential feasibility and tangible benefits of a discursive deliberation

knowledge system in collaborative research with stakeholders. Further research, would assess

the impact of open discursive data flows and multi-level deliberation for complex systems

governance. To these ends, WWViews has taken an important step, pioneering transnational

citizen deliberations to articulate the vision of a new approach to environmental governance

26

that elevates the role of citizens’ knowledge and their rational and moral reasoning. There is

no doubt that the continuing environmental crisis and the challenge of its effective governance

calls on us to advance this achievement with creativity and boldness.

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1 A mismatch in this case is defined as incompatibilities between the nature of a governance problem and the

institutional arrangements established to address it. 2 Other deliberative formats resist this approach. Formats such as the consensus conference and citizen jury do

not use pre-defined questions. They resemble more Habermas’ claim that the “process is constitutive of

participants’ values, not a means of articulating them as pre-existing facts” (Burchardt, 2014: 359). However,

these methods are also subject to the linear flow of expert information to citizens noted above. 3 Interview with Senior Biodiversity Officer, Fingal County Council, to discuss the status of the Fingal

Biodiversity Policy, their approach to the participatory process and the implications of the public protests, 1st

May 2013. 4 See note 3. 5 The concourse can also be collected collaboratively when it is made public for citizens to add opinions. 6 For example, CiviQ (2014) publishes Q-based analysis of public opinion on debates at local government level.

The aim is to inform the public on the various discourses on an issue when reporting and surveys can position

issues as polarized. The aim of the organization is to embed Q-methodology for supporting discursive practices

in local governments, public sector and private organizations. 7 The Q-sorting process can also be completed using software, though the original method is card based.