Communication requires explicit attention to the role of language and therefore social relations,
as communication is based on social relations rather than ‘things’. This centering of relation-
ships through communicative strategies dissolves the traditional reliance on cause and effect reason-
ing in environmentalism as ‘absence’ can be a ‘cause’, but in a different, non-physical relational
sense. With their emphasis on communications, and consequently language and relationships,
transdisciplinary orientations seek critical self- reflective theory rather than objective theory.
These transdisciplinary themes when applied to policy constitute discursive approaches that focus
explicitly on values that underpin various argu- ments and therefore promote diverse disciplinary
involvement in the policy process. Without the capacity for discussion of differing value-based
assumptions, arguments representing a broader range of disciplinary and special interest insights
are largely devoid of potential for direct policy engagement.
Communicative strategy requires that the con- cept of sustainability be articulated through par-
ticipatory context-dependent processes for the development of shared meaning. In this respect
the culturally derived, context-dependent meaning of sustainability becomes the focus for collective
attention. So that sustainability can be defined as a process for defining meaning in environmental
policy engagements and from this process emerges environmental strategy Meppem and Gill, 1998.
We believe that a transdisciplinary approach to sustainable policy development will be cognisant
of the shortcomings of self-referential disciplinary approaches, which by their structure, thinking,
and orientation, have led to sustainable develop- ment being a largely inoperable concept. It is
further postulated that a transdisciplinary propen- sity is a way of thinking that broadly encompasses
many discourses which interact to invent and define creative approaches to understanding issues
within a discourse. As Costanza puts it, disci- plinary borders prevent problems being inter-
preted
in ‘their
broadest possible
sense’ Costanza, 1991.
At this point an alternative conception of sus- tainability is formulated that relies on the devel-
opment of
‘discursive communities’
of stakeholders
to articulate
context-dependent strategies for sustainable development. This posi-
tion rejects all forms of universal dictate for sus- tainability. Instead it promotes the development
of discursive practices for articulating shared meaning. This questioning orientation for think-
ing is different, we think, from a truth. It is argued that sustainability is the embodiment of
processes for developing shared meaning, and from these processes emerge environmental strat-
egy. This is proposed as an alternative to conven- tional ‘truth’ seeking contests of sustainability
with their implicit power inequities which have largely demonstrated complicity in the mainte-
nance of ineffective environmental policy.
5. Background to discursive practice in planning
The purpose of this section is to provide a supportive argument as to why an alternative
communicative approach is more suitable to envi- ronmental planning than instrumentally rational
disciplinary-based planning approaches. Through- out the discussion the term instrumentally ratio-
nal IR will be used to describe a style of thinking that focuses specifically ‘on relating
means how to do things to ends what could be achieved in logical and systematic ways’ Healey,
1997: 9. However, this ‘means to ends’ paradigm relies very heavily on a predetermined set of val-
ues, the supposition of a neutral language, the belief in an unproblematic objective reality and a
reductive ‘positivist’ strategy for discovering this essence. Best and Kellner 1991 provide an exten-
sive survey of philosophical critiques of this way of thinking and these ideas will be elaborated on
in support for an alternative communicative ap- proach to sustainability.
Early communicative planning theory raised concern about instrumental rational approaches,
suggesting that policy was being reinterpreted throughout the implementation process Pressman
and Wildavsky, 1984. Additionally this has been a persistent criticism of environmental impact as-
sessment, the conventionally dominant environ- mental policy framework see Therivel and
Partidario, 1996. In contrast, communicative ap- proaches to planning will reflect critically on plan-
ning practice throughout the planning process, to learn ‘in progress’, and therefore raise awareness
of such concerns. Those who support this commu- nicative prominence for planning argue that the
‘policy analysis tradition is seeking both to escape from its predominant emphasis on instrumental
reason and scientific knowledge to incorporate greater understanding of how people come to
have the ways of thinking and ways of valuing that they do, and how policy development and
policy implementation processes can be made more interactive’ Healey, 1997: 28. Such her-
meneutic approaches are being labelled argumen- tative, reflective, communicative or interpretative
planning theory see Friedmann, 1987; Fischer and Forester, 1993.
In conventional instrumentally rational plan- ning and strategic management approaches the
continued belief in a knowable ‘truth’ that can be discovered through techniques relying on posi-
tivism, results in the creative discursive practices of policy formulation being generally ignored see
Dryzek, 1987; Mintzberg, 1994. This is an issue of concern since positivism is, as Gustavsen 1992:
7 points out, a school of thought which is ‘dead in theory’. This position is supported in a critique
of contemporary philosophy by Baynes et al. 1987 who mark the complete disappearance of
philosophers who rely on self-evident givens or ultimate foundations characteristic of positivism.
McCarthy 1996 additionally notes that all of the assumptions of positivism have been undermined
by contemporary philosophy; these include the idea of the neutral language; of the disinterested
observer; of the unequivocal observation point; of the binding logic linking knowledge fragments in
the formation of unified theories; and of essential- ism where ‘truth’ is said to be systematically dis-
coverable. Rejecting this, most contemporary philosophy treats with disdain any practice which
asserts the possibility of achieving an objective and panoptical overview. The idea that we can
achieve an ideologically free objectivity has been dismantled by thinkers such as Foucault 1980,
who by constructing histories of the ‘objectifica- tion of objectivities’ dissolves the apparent unity
of seemingly self-evident concepts with which so- cial scientists and environmental policy theorists
usually begin. In fact, the real legitimacy of posi- tivism lies in its ability to contribute to a particu-
lar context and not as a superior epistemology for dealing overall with complex problems see
Adorno, 1983.
The conventional approach to developing prob- lem definitions in the environmental discourse
relies on IR approaches that incorporate a range of implicit assumptions and consequent value
judgements which includes how the solution will be evaluated. This greatly impedes the potential
for different ways of thinking about environmen- tal problems. The problem – solution paradigm
proposed by instrumentally rational approaches has led problems to be seen primarily in terms of
pre-determined solutions see Hajer, 1995a. The ‘technocratic’ policy analysts who support such a
framework have been socialized to work within the worldview of a particular institutionalized dis-
course or discipline. This has led to the reliance on the technical tools of experts to resolve value-
based issues. This fragmented and skewed inter- pretation has led some policy theorists to suggest
that ‘policy analysts should balance their atten- tion to technique with a more reflective contem-
plation
of the
rationales underlying
their interventions in the policy process’ Bobrow and
Dryzek, 1987: 3. Insights into practical planning contexts from Innes 1995: 185 have led her to
claim that the linear stepwise model of instrumen- tal rationality, where policymakers set goals and
ask questions and experts and planners answer them, is an abstraction designed to fit predeter-
mined theoretical constructs that do not apply in practice. In contrast communicative approaches
suspend the closure of a problem definition through a focus on a process designed to ‘tease
out’ the multiplicity of dimensions of complex issues.
Support for communicative approaches can be found in the broadly based ‘linguistic turn’ of
philosophy. These include postmodern philoso- phers who have vigorously attacked the type of
epistemological rigidity which underscores the methodology of instrumental rational approaches.
They insist that ‘meaning’ is a highly negotiable
entity and is capable of changing under certain social and historical conditions. They insist that
‘meaning’ like that of sustainability is subject to external conditions and power relations which
have become encoded in contemporary lan- guage. This linguistic approach emphasizes the
social construction of meaning and consequently rejects assumptions of a neutral language. In
this respect a broad range of contemporary phi- losophy repudiates the epistemological basis of
‘positivism’. Leading the way, the archaeological and genealogical investigations of Michel Fou-
cault’s ‘history of the present’ have provided an historical analysis of fundamental ideas and in-
stitutionally
supported power
relationships which constitute our relationships with ourselves
and our environment. Recognising the power relations encoded in
discourse, Jurgen Habermas, a very significant contemporary critical philosopher, has concerned
himself with how such power can be effectively harnessed, and how the notion of a communica-
tive rationality can disestablish the hierarchies of idiom and create an environment that allows for
the
prospect of
a participatory
democracy. Habermas 1984 proposes this be done through
processes which illuminate the ‘life world’ or the context in which cultures, social relations and
individuals are formed and interact. Such an emphasis is closely aligned with communicative
planning theory and its search for the creative reconstruction of a social and political agenda;
however, communicative planning is also influ- enced greatly by postmodern approaches that
emphasize being cognisant of power relations and social diversity in structuring communica-
tive relations. An alternative and more complex conception of sustainable development can be
articulated
through transdisciplinary
insights gained from postmodern philosophy, discourse
theory, critical theory, cultural theory, ecological economics and communicative planning theory.
The emphasis in these coalitions is on enhancing the
understanding of
the relationships
that derive meaning as a process for sustainable pol-
icy development.
5
.
1
. Communicati6e planning approaches The recognition of the constitutive role of
language within social relations has led analysts such as Innes 1995: 185 to conclude that the
‘information that influences is information that is socially constructed in the community where it is
used’. Communicative approaches recognize that knowledge and value do not have some kind of
external existence but are actively constituted through social relations, and thus demand a more
self-reflexive orientation for policy Berger and Luckman, 1967; Latour, 1987; Shotter 1993. Such
thinking promotes discursive practices which provide the potential for people to learn about the
multiplicity of available points of view and to more closely reflect on their own. Healey 1997: 37
describes
this approach
as being
culturally informed, moving beyond the notion of value as
‘individual subjective preferences’. In this respect, ‘practical discourse starts with the very terms in
which the participants themselves construe the issue in question, their respective interests, and
their moral commitments’ Kettner, 1993: 167. This discursive practice, of course, invites scientific
and economic participation into the reflective stakeholder
framework, but
questions the
hegemony of conventional hierarchy through critical
questioning of
the assumptions
underpinning ‘truth claims’. Such a learning framework for interaction is aimed at the
development of strategy to address complex and integrated environmental problems Meppem and
Gill, 1998.
This focus leads to the pursuit of a ‘discursive community’
by advocates
of communicative
planning approaches as the basis for policy formulation. A communicative emphasis aims to
position policy to explicitly deal with motivations, assumptions, values and power relationships. The
ability of the environmental discourse to come to understand community, not as an autonomous
‘thing’ but as something constituted from culturally relative and contingent social interactions, will
influence the ability and capacity of policy processes
to scrutinise
and revise
social relationships and conventions through a focus on
culturally relevant processes. Hayden 1995: 382
recognizes this as an ‘arduous policy task, but the alternative is the destructive approach of
adopting criteria external to contextual reality’. A call for participatory decision making in
the search for a shared meaning for sustainabil- ity, through the development of a ‘discursive
community’, is aimed at surfacing the hidden assumptions and myths of disciplinary-based
‘truth claims’ to reveal value-based positions. ‘Such public and articulated acknowledgment of
conflicting and pressing values does not solve a problem; it works ritualistically to re-build rela-
tionships and to prepare the social basis for fu- ture practical action’ Forester, 1996: 329. This
ideal of a ‘discursive community’ is embraced cognisant of the power conflicts, special inter-
ests, institutional structures, unreflective cultural conditioning and limits to governance systems
that constitute the complexities of the environ- mental discourse. This alternative approach is
aimed at collectively ‘asking questions about ap- propriate modes of governance, our arenas and
forms of governance, who these privilege and who these marginalize; what they are effective in
achieving and what they seem unable to cope with; and to evolve modes of governance more
appropriate to the ways we now think about economics, social life and nature’ Healey, 1997:
201. The imperative of developing a ‘discursive community’ to derive meaning for sustainability
is supported by contemporary trends in philoso- phy, and aims to re-establish the thinking be-
hind an ‘idealized community’ that co-opts and distorts the potential for alternative coalitions to
evolve.
6. Conclusion
