RISK, UNCERTAINTY, AND SPATIAL DISTINCTION: A STUDY OF URBAN PLANNING IN STOCKHOLM

This paper examines urban planning in Stockholm, focusing on the proposal for a new comprehensive plan. It explores the problems urban planning has set out to solve and whether – and if so, how – the concepts of risk and uncertainty form part of the planning discourse. A departure point is that both urban planning ideals and the problems these ideals claim to address are constructed. Explicitly or implicitly, planning creates demarcations that make places and activities appear safe or risky, attractive or problematic, etc. Analysis of the proposal for a new comprehensive plan for Stockholm identifies at least three such boundaries or spatial distinctions: between centre and periphery, green areas and other parts of the city, and risky or unsafe areas and other areas. Likewise, the analysis finds evidence of a tension between rational planning and normative ideas of the “good city” in urban planning.risk; uncertainty; urban planning.

Klimatrisker på planerarnas agenda: Att hantera motstridiga krav och kunskapsosäkerhet

Under 2000-talet har frågan om klimatanpassning fått ökad uppmärksamhet. I Sverige har kommunerna fått ansvar för att ta hänsyn till klimatrelaterade risker i den fysiska planeringen. I denna studie belyses hur klimatanpassning och kunskapsosäkerheten avseende klimatförändringens lokala konsekven-ser hanteras i planeringen. Syftet är dels att diskutera vilka nya krav som klimatfrågan ställer på planerarna, dels att analysera hur planerare förhåller sig till och hanterar det utökade planeringsuppdraget. Tidigare forskning om planering som profession har visat på en förändring mot en ”modifierad expertroll”, där planerarna måste utveckla ny kompetens som samordnare och kommunikatörer. Denna studie visar att klimatanpassning lägger ytterligare en dimension till en förändrad roll där planeraren även fungerar som kunskapsmäklare mellan naturvetenskaplig expertis och andra aktörer. Studien visar också att frågan om klimatanpassning ramas in på olika sätt. Dels som en riskfråga vilket medför ett ökat beroende av extern naturvetenskapligt grundad expertis, dels som en planeringsfråga bland andra där planerarnas egen professionella kompetens betonas. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Ylva Uggla and Sofie Storbjörk: Climate Risks on the Planning Agenda: Conflicting Claims and Uncertainties During the 21st century, adaption to climate change has received increasing attention. In Sweden, the municipalities are responsible for climate related risk in their physical planning. This study analyses how the city planners deal with adaption to climate change and uncertainty and their local consequences. Its aim is to discuss the new demands posed by climate change and analyze how planners manage this new assignment. Previous research has pointed out that there is a change in the role of these planners, in that they take on a “modified expert role”, where they have to develop new competences as coordinators and communicators. This study shows that adaption to climate change adds yet another dimension to the new role of planners; the planners function also as “knowledge brokers” between scientific expertise and other actors. The study also shows that the issue of climate change is framed in different ways. When adaptation to climate change is framed as a risk issue, there is increased dependence on scientific expertise, whereas when it is framed as a planning matter, emphasis it placed on the planners’ professional competence. Key words: Climate change, climate change adaptation, planning, profession

Grüne Gouvernementalität, Responsibilisierung und Widerstand: wie internationale ökologische NRO die Zukunft der Energieversorgung und der Linderung des Klimawandels sehen

The starting point for this paper is the increasing shift towards green governmentality as a particular mode of governance in the Western world, implying a shift from state-centered regulation to market-based mechanisms. In this paper, we are particularly interested in the role of environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) in this form of governance. The central question concerns how international ENGOs’ approaches to energy supply and climate mitigation can be understood as aligned with or dissenting from green governmentality. To approach this issue, we analyze the major energy reports of three international ENGOs – i.e. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and WWF – focusing on their issue framings of future energy supply and climate change mitigation. We conclude that these ENGOs’ issue framings are aligned with green governmentality to varying degrees, involving the economization of environmental issues and the responsibilization and moralization of economic actions. These ENGOs also to varying degrees express opposition or resistance to this mode of governance, for example, by opening up the discussion of various aspects of responsibility, including both remedy and culpability.Ovaj se rad temelji na sve jačem zaokretu vlada Zapada prema zelenom guvernmentalitetu kao posebnom obliku upravljanja, pri čemu dolazi do pomaka od državne regulacije prema mehanizmima kojima upravlja tržište. U radu naglasak stavljamo na ulogu koju unutar takvih oblika upravljanja imaju ekološke nevladine organizacije (ekološki NVO-i). Ključno je pitanje priklanjaju li se međunarodni ekološki NVO-i zelenom guvernmentalitetu po pitanjima energetske opskrbe i ublažavanja klimatskih promjena. Kako bismo to istražili, analizirali smo ključne energetske izvještaje triju međunarodnih ekoloških NVO-a: Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace i WWF, pri čemu smo se usredotočili na način na koji shvaćaju budućnost energetske opskrbe i ublažavanja klimatskih promjena. Zaključujemo da je način na koji ovi ekološki NVO-i shvaćaju navedena pitanja u skladu sa zelenim guvernmentalitetom u nekoliko aspekata, među kojima su ekonomizacija ekoloških pitanja, responsibilizacija te moralizacija ekonomskog djelovanja. Međutim, ovi se ekološki NVO-i u određenoj mjeri i razlikuju od zelenog guvernmentaliteta kao, primjerice, po pitanju preuzimanja različitih tipova odgovornosti poput popravljanja štete i preuzimanja krivnje.Diese Arbeit beruht auf einer zunehmend starken Umkehrung westlicher Regierungen in Richtung grüne Gouvernementalität als eine besondere Form der Verwaltung; dabei kommt es zu einer Verschiebung von der staatlichen Regulierung zu den Mechanismen, die vom Markt geregelt werden. In der Arbeit setzen wir den Akzent auf die Rolle, die innerhalb von solchen Verwaltungsformen ökologische Nichtregierungsorganisationen (ökologische NRO) haben. Die Schlüsselfrage ist, ob internationale ökologische NRO sich in puncto Energieversorgung und Linderung des Klimawandels der grünen Gouvernementalität anpassen. Um dies zu prüfen, haben wir die wichtigsten Energieberichte von drei internationalen ökologischen NRO analysiert, uzw. von: Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace und WWF, wobei wir uns auf die Art und Weise konzentriert haben, wie sie die Zukunft der Energieversorgung und der Linderung des Klimawandels sehen. Wir kommen zum Schluss, dass die Art und Weise, wie diese ökologischen NRO die erwähnten Fragen verstehen, in einigen Aspekten mit der grünen Gouvernementalität übereinstimmt, darunter sind die Ökonomisierung ökologischer Fragen, die Responsibilisierung und die Moralisierung der ökonomischen Tätigkeit. Diese ökologischen NRO unterscheiden sich jedoch im bestimmten Ausmaß von der grünen Gouvernementalität, z.B. bei Fragen der Übernahme verschiedener Typen der Verantwortung, wie Schadenbehebung oder Schuldübernahme

Conditions for transformative learning for sustainable development: a theoretical review and approach

Continued unsustainability and surpassed planetary boundaries require not only scientific and technological advances, but deep and enduring social and cultural changes. The purpose of this article is to contribute a theoretical approach to understand conditions and constraints for societal change towards sustainable development. In order to break with unsustainable norms, habits, practices, and structures, there is a need for learning for transformation, not only adaption. Based on a critical literature review within the field of learning for sustainable development, our approach is a development of the concept of transformative learning, by integrating three additional dimensions—Institutional Structures, Social Practices, and Conflict Perspectives. This approach acknowledges conflicts on macro, meso, and micro levels, as well as structural and cultural constraints. It contends that transformative learning is processual, interactional, long-term, and cumbersome. It takes place within existing institutions and social practices, while also transcending them. The article adopts an interdisciplinary social science perspective that acknowledges the importance of transformative learning in order for communities, organizations, and individuals to be able to deal with global sustainability problems, acknowledging the societal and personal conflicts involved in such transformation

Taking back control : Minimalism as a reaction to high speed and overload in contemporary society

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv</p

Framing and visualising biodiversity in EU policy

This study seeks insights into how biodiversity is framed and visualised in EU policy. The paper presents analysis of both the visual content and written text of two brochures summarising two central EU biodiversity policy documents. The study illustrates how the two modes of communication differ. First, the written text primarily presents an anthropocentric and economic framing of biodiversity values, whereas the visual material generally features the beauty and wonders of nature. Second, the written text strongly emphasises the threats to biodiversity and the detrimental side of human activity, whereas the visual material generally shows close relationships between humans and nature, with humans engaged in small-scale outdoor activities. The analysis illustrates how various representations of biodiversity intersect in the same context, and that the visual representation decontextualises the issue of biodiversity loss from the human exploitation of natural resources and the concrete actions and processes causing it

Risksamhälle och trygghetskultur : Föreställningar om politikens möjligheter och uppgift

Risk society and culture of safety. Understandings of the task and possibilities of politics This paper analyses three different periods with the Swedish Social Democratic Party in office (1960-1965, 1970, 1975 and 1995-2000). The paper analyses how questioning of modernity and the role of science and technology is dealt with in policy documents, such as speeches from the throne, governmental declarations and party programmes. In this discussion the environmental issue is of special interest, since it in a special way challenge the modernistic ideas of progress and possibility to control the future. The analysis shows an increasing emphasis of the modern in the late 1990s. This could be defined as a modernistic answer to the challenges modern society and its institutions have met during the latest decades. Furthermore, environmental protection work - by aid of science and new technology - is defined as a springboard to economic prosperity, which in turn is seen as the basis for the safety of the citizens. In this line the politics of the 1990s is a reminiscens of the 1960s optimistic belief in progress.Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv</p

Environmental protection and the freedom of the high seas: The Baltic Sea as a PSSA from a Swedish perspective

In 2005, the Baltic Sea, except for its Russian waters, was designated as a particularly sensitive sea area (PSSA) by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The previous designation of the Western European waters as a PSSA--intensely debated within the IMO--had repercussions for this process. Reviewing the case exposes the conflict between the fundamental principles, territorial sovereignty, and freedom of the high seas that international law seeks to balance. Likewise, review indicates that the PSSA concept is under almost constant reconceptualization as it is put to test in practice.Particularly sensitive sea area The Baltic Sea Environmental protection

The values of biological diversity: a travelogue

Biological diversity is an abstract, scientific concept and both evaluating its condition and, to great extent, justifying its conservation requires expert knowledge. Accordingly, regulating and managing biological diversity presupposes standardisation and methods for managing uncertainty. To be acted on, the concept must be promoted, passing, in this process, through various institutions, such as intergovernmental organisations and national administrations. This paper examines how the principle of biological diversity conservation is defined, focusing on the values of biological diversity and how this notion has 'travelled the world'. The paper includes a study of how the principle of biological diversity was applied in a specific case of insect control in Sweden.biological diversity, intrinsic value, instrumental value, sustainable development, insect control,

The practice of settling and enacting strategic guidelines for climate adaptation in spatial planning : lessons from ten Swedish municipalities

Spatial planning is increasingly expected to address climate change adaptation. In a Swedish context this has meant a predominant focus on risks of flooding, erosion and sea-level rise. Gradually, regulatory mechanisms and concrete strategies are evolving to support practical mainstreaming. The aim of this paper is to analyze how frontline planners approach climate change adaptation in an urban context, emphasizing the process of settling and enacting strategic guidelines in spatial planning. The study suggests that municipalities are being preactive i.e. preparing to act by settling guidelines rather than proactively implementing change when planning for new settlements. Further the process of accommodating climate risks involves problems. Settling strategic guidelines and determining appropriate levels for what to adapt to are but the start of approaching climate change. Guidelines represent more of an endeavor than settling absolute limits and actually applying the guidelines involves challenges of accessibility and aesthetics where the new waterfront limits meets older city structures. Further, guidelines are seen as negotiable since an overarching principle is to maintain flexibility in planning to allow for continued waterfront planning. Pursuing this path is motivated by current demand and previous urban settlement patterns. Also, as future protective measures are needed to secure existing urban areas at risk of flooding and erosion planners see no use in preventing further waterfront development. Although settling guidelines are important in preparing to act, their practical effectiveness all fall back to how they are actually implemented in daily planning. This leads us to problematize the role of strategic guidelines to secure a climate-proof spatial planning.Funding: Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS) [214-2006-146]; Department of Environmental Change at Linkoping University; FORMAS research project CLIPP "Climate change policy integration in local policy and </p