The Collaborative Management of Sustained Unsustainability: On the Performance of Participatory Forms of Environmental Governance

n modern democratic consumer societies, decentralized, participative, and consensus-oriented forms of multi-stakeholder governance are supplementing, and often replacing, conventional forms of state-centered environmental government. The engagement in all phases of the policy process of diverse social actors has become a hallmark of environmental good governance. This does not mean to say, however, that these modes of policy-making have proved particularly successful in resolving the widely debated multiple sustainability crisis. In fact, they have been found wanting in terms of their ability to respond to democratic needs and their capacity to resolve environmental problems. So why have these participatory forms of environmental governance become so prominent? What exactly is their appeal? What do they deliver? Exploring these questions from the perspective of eco-political and sociological theory, this article suggests that these forms of environmental governance represent a performative kind of eco-politics that helps liberal consumer societies to manage their inability and unwillingness to achieve the socio-ecological transformation that scientists and environmental activists say is urgently required. This reading of the prevailing policy approaches as the collaborative management of sustained unsustainability adds an important dimension to the understanding of environmental governance and contemporary eco-politics more generally

Rauminformation und Demonstrativität. Am Beispiel des Deutschen

Der vorliegende Aufsatz geht von der öfters vertretenen These aus, dass Rauminformation in der Sprache weniger wichtig sei als Zeitinformation. Ein genauerer Vergleich der grammatischen und lexikalischen Mittel zur Kodierung dieser Informationsarten deutet jedoch darauf hin, dass eine solche Behauptung nicht aufrecht zu erhalten ist. Zeitinformation wird mit Hilfe der grammatischen Kategorien des Verbs, Tempus, Modus und Aspekt (TMA), kodiert, während für die Kodierung von Rauminformation die nominalen Kategorien Determination, Kasus und Quantifikation (DCQ) zuständig sind. Daneben stehen für die Kodierung beider Informationsarten reichhaltige lexikalische Mittel zur Verfügung. Aus ähnlichen Gründen wird der Vorschlag abgelehnt, das Deutsche als eine eher raumorientierte denn zeitorientierte Sprache zu betrachten. Anhand der deiktischen Adverbien hier, da und dort und der Determinantien dieser, der und jener wird das Zusammenspiel von Raum- und Diskursrollensemantik im Rahmen eines an Reichenbach angelehnten Relationenmodells untersucht. Das überraschende Ergebnis lautet, dass die relevanten Oppositionen zwischen den Demonstrativa des Deutschen nicht die Lokalisierung des Referenten, sondern die Lokalisierung des Sprechers betreffen. In Bezug auf den Referenten sind alle Demonstrativa des Deutschen Nahdeiktika, was sich unter anderem in ihrer anaphorischen Verwendbarkeit zeigt. Abschließend wird im Sinne einer zweckmäßigen und ökonomischen Arbeitsteilung zwischen sprachlichen und nicht-sprachlichen Zeichen die Funktion von Zeiggesten beim situationsdeiktischen Gebrauch der deutschen Demonstrativa erklärt und ausbuchstabiert. Dadurch können traditionelle Beschreibungsprobleme für da und der aufgelöst und eine bisher noch kaum erkannte Schwierigkeit bei der Beschreibung von dort vermieden werden.This article proceeds from a hypothesis defended by several authors, according to which spatial information is less important in language than temporal information. Such a claim is shown to be unsustainable, if we compare the grammatical and lexical means available for the encoding of these types of information. Temporal information is encoded by the grammatical categories of the verb, tense, mood and aspect (TMA), while the encoding of spatial information falls within the responsibility of the nominal categories of determination, case and quantification (DCQ). In addition, all languages possess a wide range of lexical means for the encoding of both types of information. For similar reasons, I reject the proposal that the German language should be regarded as more space-oriented than time-oriented. Focussing on the demonstrative adverbs hier, da and dort and the determiners dieser, der and jener, the interplay between spatial relations and discourse roles is investigated within the framework of a Reichenbachian semantics. The discussion leads to the surprising result that the relevant oppositions among German demonstratives do not pertain to the localization of the referent, but rather to the localization of the speaker. As to the referent, all German demonstratives indicate proximity, which explains why they all can be used anaphorically. In the last section, it is shown how the use of pointing gestures accompanying German demonstratives in situational deixis exemplifies an efficient and economical interaction of verbal and non-verbal signs in discourse. This approach makes it possible to resolve some traditional problems with the semantic description of da and der, as well as to avoid a problem with the description of dort which, up to the present, has not even been noticed

Deixis und Deiktika in der deutschen Gegenwartssprache

Der vorliegende Aufsatz stellt eine unter kommunikations- und kognitionsfunktionalen Gesichtspunkten entwickelte Definition des Deixis-Begriffs vor und klassifiziert auf der Grundlage dieser Definition das Inventar der Deiktika im Gegenwartsdeutschen.This paper develops a definition of deixis which takes account of its communicative and cognitive functions. On the basis of this definition, it goes on to classify the inventory of deictic elements in present-day German

The legitimation crisis of democracy: emancipatory politics, the environmental state and the glass ceiling to socio-ecological transformation

The democratic legitimation imperativeof the modern state has been conceptualised as the barrier that stops the environmental state from developing into a green or eco-state–and thus as the glass ceiling to a socio-ecological transformation of capitalist consumer democracies. Here, I suggest that this state-theoretical explanation of the glass ceiling needs to be supplemented by an analysis of why democratic norms and procedures, which had once been regarded as essential for any socio-ecological transformation, suddenly appearas one of its main obstacles. I conceptualise the new eco-political dysfunctionality of democracy as one dimension of a more encompassing legitimation crisis of democracy which, in turn, has triggered a profound transformation of democracy. Ultimately, exactly this transformation constitutes the glass ceiling to the socioecological restructuring of capitalist consumer societies. It changes democracy into a tool for the politics of unsustainability, in which the legitimation-dependent state is a key actor