Does discourse matter? Discourse analysis in environmental policy making [Introduction to the Special Issue]

This Special Issue is concerned with theories and methodologies of discourse analysis and their contribution to environmental policy research in particular. It is a response to three theoretical challenges in the field of environmental policy and public management of natural resources: (i) environmental policy problems are obviously the effect of social constructions although they concern 'natural' objects; (ii) struggles about concepts, knowledge and meaning are an essential element of environmental policy; (iii) environmental discourse has material and power effects as well as being the effect of material practices and power relations. These three challenges question to what extent is environmental policy about 'nature' and the 'environment'? After shortly explaining these challenges, this introduction will sketch out particularities of the discursive perspective and distinguish between a Foucaultian and non-Foucaultian perspective. Following this, it will be shown how the contributors to the Special Issue use discourse analysis to treat nature and environment as contested concepts. The paper concludes with a discussion concerning achievements of and challenges to discourse analysis in environmental policy and planning

OVERHEATED SECURITY? The Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security

Since the mid-2000s, climate change has become one of the defining security issues in political as well as academic debates and amongst others has repeatedly been discussed in the UN Security Council and countless high level government reports in various countries. Beyond the question whether the characterisation as ‘security issue’ is backed up by any robust empirical findings, this begs the question whether the ‘securitisation’ of climate change itself has had tangible political consequences. Moreover, within this research area there is still a lively discussion about which security conceptions apply, how to conceptualise (successful) securitisation and whether it is a (politically and normatively) desirable approach to deal with climate change. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on these issues and particularly to contribute to a more thorough understanding of different forms or ‘discourses’ of securitisation and their political effects on a theoretical and empirical level. Theoretically, it conceptualises securitisation as resting on different forms of power, which are derived from Michel Foucault’s governmentality lectures. The main argument is that this framework allows me to better capture the ambiguous and diverse variants of securitisation and the ever-changing concept of security as well as to come to a more thorough understanding of the political consequences and powerful effects of constructing issues in terms of security. Empirically, the thesis looks at three country cases, namely the United States, Germany and Mexico. This comparative angle allows me to go beyond the existing literature on the securitisation of climate change that mostly looks at the global level, and to come to a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of different climate security discourses and their political consequences. Concerning the main results, the thesis finds that climate change has indeed been securitised very differently in the three countries and thus has facilitated diverse political consequences. These range from an incorporation of climate change into the defence sector in the US, the legitimisation of far-reaching climate policies in Germany, to the integration of climate change into several civil protection and agricultural insurance schemes in Mexico. Moreover, resting on different forms of power, the securitisation of climate change has played a key role in constructing specific actors and forms of knowledge as legitimate as well as in shaping certain identities in the face of the dangers of climate change. From a normative perspective, neither of these political consequences is purely good or bad but highly ambiguous and necessitates a careful, contextual assessment

Stadt - Raum - Natur : Die Metropolregion als politisch konstruierter Raum

Vor dem Hintergrund grundlegender Wandlungen, die auf Globalisierungsprozesse und Entgrenzungseffekte zurückzuführen sind, widmet sich dieser Tagungsband mit Neuinterpretationen der Kategorie Raum aus verschiedenen fachwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven. Begriffe wie Stadt, Wirtschaftsraum, Metropolregion, Freizeit- und Naturraum kennzeichnen alltägliche Raumerfahrungen und -repräsentationen, die die Vorstellung von Welt und Umwelt maßgeblich beeinflussen und strukturieren: Das dynamische Konzept ‚Raum‘ offenbart sich damit in seinen symbolischen, materiellen und regulativen Gehalten. Diese Mehrdeutigkeit macht nicht nur einen reflexiven Umgang mit Raummetaphern, sondern auch eine Differenzierung und kritische Begleitung politischer Prozesse notwendig, die hier anhand der Metropolregion Hamburg aus politisch-planerischer wie auch (wirtschafts-, kultur- und medien-)wissenschaftlicher Perspektive beleuchtet werden. Der vorliegende Band versammelt die Beiträge eines interdisziplinären Workshops zum Thema »Stadt – Raum – Natur: Die Metropolregion als politisch konstruierter Raum«, der am 15. und 16. Juni 2001 an der Universität Hamburg stattfand.Against the background of fundamental changes caused by processes of globalisation and the effects of demarcation, this conference proceedings with new interpretations of the category of space from different scientific perspectives is dedicated to. Terms such as city, economic area, metropolitan region, leisure and natural space characterize everyday experiences and representations of space, which have a decisive influence on and structure the conception of the world and the environment: The dynamic concept of \u27space\u27 thus reveals itself in its symbolic, material and regulatory contents. This ambiguity requires not only a reflexive treatment of spatial metaphors, but also a differentiation and critical accompaniment of political processes, which are examined from a political, planning, economic, cultural and media-scientific perspective on the basis of the Hamburg metropolitan region. This volume collects the contributions of an interdisciplinary workshop on the topic "City - Space - Nature: The Metropolitan Region as a Politically Constructed Space", which took place on June 15-16, 2001 at the University of Hamburg

Considering planned change anew: stretching large group interventions strategically, emotionally and meaningfully

Large Group Interventions, methods for involving “the whole system” in a change process, are important contemporary planned organizational change approaches. They are well known to practitioners but unfamiliar to many organizational researchers, despite the fact that these interventions address crucial issues about which many organizational researchers are concerned. On the other hand, these interventions do not appear to be informed by contemporary developments in organizational theorizing. This disconnect on both sides is problematic. We describe such interventions and their importance; illustrate them with extended descriptions of particular Future Search and Whole‐Scale™ change interventions; summarize research on strategy, emotion, and sensemaking that may inform them; and suggest questions about the interventions that may stimulate research and reflection on practice. We also discuss conditions that may foster effective engagement between Large Group Interventions practitioners and organizational researchers. Our approach represents a way to conduct a review that combines scholarly literature and skilled practice and to initiate a dialog between them