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- Abram, Simone, et al.
(författare)
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Six controversies in search of an epistemology
- 2005
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Public engagement in planning and siting policy has been a political priority for some time, and there are various arguments as to why successful participation consistently proves to be an elusive goal. Emphasis is often laid on the incompatibility of local knowledge and technical knowledge, on the failure to invite "public" involvement at an early stage, and so on. In this paper, we examine a set of controversies about the siting of an upgraded railway line and associated stations in six neighbouring municipalities in western Sweden. Using parallel focus group discussions with different parties to the process, we draw two main conclusions. Firstly, local knowledge may equally be technorational, yet the positioning of actors determines when and how alternative arguments may emerge. This suggests that arguments over the necessity of social capital for successful participation may be a red herring. Secondly, policy processes are long and drawn-out, and new participants appear all the way through these processes. The category of "the public" is a fictional remainder category which undermines participative approaches. We suggest that opposition should be understood as an eternal factor in participative democratic policy processes, rather than a preliminary obstacle which can be alleviated early on. Hence we challenge assumptions about the rightful temporal positioning of participative practices and query the notion that early participation leads to "public ownership" of plans.
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- Caspers, Lena, et al.
(författare)
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How could Expert Involvement Compensate for an Incomplete Capability of Legitimization through Democratic Representation? Debating the Grounds for Political Legitimacy in the EU
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Review. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 1062-7987 .- 1474-0575. ; 27:2, s. 275-299
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article contributes to the scholarly as well as societal decades-long debate on the state of democracy in the EU. The objective is to problematize, discuss, and come up with constructive ideas on the role of expert groups in the processes of legitimization of decision-making within the EU. The analysis is guided by a general research question: how could expert involvement compensate for an incomplete capability of legitimization through democratic representation? The empirical analysis of expert influence in decision-making is guided by a new modelling of the so-called Epistemic Community approach. The case chosen to illustrate the model is the authorization process of the emergency contraceptive ellaOne, within the institutional setting of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) at the European Medicines Agency. The empirical material consists of interviews with eight members of the CHMP. To guide the empirical analysis the paper introduces a two-dimensional model of the epistemic community approach, which distinguishes between the institutional preconditions and the ideational motivations of expert groups. The results indicate that the experts within the CHMP had an influence on the policy-making process thanks to favourable institutional preconditions as well as ideational motivations of the experts themselves. Our conclusion is that there is a need for 'institutional engineering' as regards the involvement of experts in decision-making, to sustain the legitimacy of expert involvement, and level out the institutional conditions for experts' influence on policy-making within the EU.
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- Grinell, Klas, 1969, et al.
(författare)
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Expressions, Mediations, and Exclusions in Post-secular Societies: Introduction
- 2012
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Ingår i: European Review. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 1062-7987 .- 1474-0575. ; 20:1, s. 68-76
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Modernist theories of development and democratization predicted that secularization would lead to the disappearance of religion. This has not happened. But contemporary democratic states are secular and define religion as a private matter. At the same time, a politics of recognizing religiosity is deeply rooted in the modern state, and it is obvious that intangible values play an important role and have a valid claim to public spaces. On the metaphorical agora, the square that constitutes the middle ground between the cathedral and the parliament, commitment born in the cathedral is transformed into rational arguments that can be presented in parliament. But who governs the square? Do spiritual values need a public defence? Can or should all religious commitments and expressions be transformed into profane arguments? How could public spaces be designed and maintained to promote peaceful mediations between profane, sacred and other principled commitments? By assembling artistic and academic thinkers who do not confine themselves to intellectual analysis, but demand our involvement and our realization that we are part of the processes we are considering, this Focus contributes to a discussion of religiosity and public spaces in post-secular societies.
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