Knowledge brokerage - potential for increased capacities and shared power in impact assessment

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Abstract

Constructive and collaborative planning theory has exposed the perceived limitations of public participation in impact assessment. At strategic levels of assessment the established norm can be misleading and practice is illusive. For example, debates on SEA effectiveness recognize insufficiencies, but are often based on questionable premises. The authors of this paper argue that public participation in strategic assessment requires new forms of information and engagement, consistent with the complexity of the issues at these levels and that strategic assessments can act as knowledge brokerage instruments with the potential to generate more participative environments and attitudes. The paper explores barriers and limitations, as well as the role of knowledge brokerage in stimulating the engagement of the public, through learning-oriented processes and responsibility sharing in more participative models of governance. The paper concludes with a discussion on building and inter-change of knowledge, towards creative solutions to identified problems, stimulating learning processes, largely beyond simple information transfer mechanisms through consultative processes. The paper argues fundamentally for the need to conceive strategic assessments as learning platforms and design knowledge brokerage opportunities explicitly as a means to enhance learning processes and power sharing in IA.

Highlights

► Debates on SEA recognize insufficiencies on public participation ► We propose new forms of engagement consistent with complex situations at strategic levels of decision-making ► Constructive and collaborative planning theories help explain how different actors acquire knowledge and the value of knowledge exchange ► Strategic assessments can act as knowledge brokerage instruments ► The paper argues for strategic assessments as learning platforms as a means to enhance learning processes and power sharing in IA.

Introduction

In the early days Impact Assessment (IA) instruments were conceived to be analytical and technical-oriented instruments, designed to deliver information to decision-making on the potential effects of certain actions on the environment. The institutionalization of IA was needed to ensure effectiveness in implementation, and better and continued practice through the adoption of common rules and normative approaches. But this was also a form of changing practices of power sharing in development decision-making. With IA decisions on development actions were no longer the prerogative of action proponents and sector licensing authorities, but they became also dependent on environmental responsible authorities that would ensure environmental issues would be integrated at early stages. Paradoxically, in some jurisdictions, this changing practice may have led to power being shifted from one elite to another, rather than actual power sharing, in particular where the environmental authorities’ views and position became binding, making the IA process dependent on the IA decision. Generally the engagement of civil society in this IA power sharing versus shifting has been very limited, public participation often being limited to punctual consultation and performed as part of a legal obligation. Only in more recent years has the value of public participation to environmental decision-making been more widely recognized (Diduck, 2001, Fitzpatrick, 2006, Fitzpatrick and Sinclair, 2003, Juntti et al., 2009, Raymond et al., 2010, Sinclair et al., 2008) and the importance of public space and capacities for engagement received greater attention (e.g. Elling, 2009, Habermas, 1989, Stirling, January 2006).

Over the same timescale the issue of governance has become more prominent, i.e. we talk not just of governments governing but of ‘governance’ in recognition that decision-making is undertaken by a range of actors – governments, economic actors/markets, IA consultants, lawyers, civil society, scientists increasingly working in networks and collaborations - along with norms, rights and responsibilities influencing the way decisions are made. A number of driving forces have increased the need to engage the public more in environmental governance, as a response to globalization and the increasing internationalization of decision-making e.g. through the European Union (EU), World Trade Organization (WTO), United Nations (UN) among others. It could seem strange that the public's involvement becomes more important as decision-making becomes less local and more distant; however that is justified by the risk of democratic deficit and loss of accountability without more active means of engaging citizens in decision-making beyond the electoral cycle (van Kersbergen and van Waarden, 2004).

This inclusion of citizens in decision-making also reflects the increasing recognition of the value of knowledge other than expert knowledge to decision-making. We refer to tacit (implicit) or lay knowledge (Polanyi, 1958), arising from concrete experience and active experimentation, especially when issues are contested as is often the case in relation to environmental and sustainability problems. Public involvement is increasingly becoming institutionalized through IA legislation such as the EIA and SEA Directives in the EU, and importantly by the UNECE Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Sheate, 2012, UNECE, 1998).

Notwithstanding the above developments, the perception, and practice, of IA as an informative instrument based on experts’ knowledge, and how it is verified or shown to be ‘true’, is still often dominant. Limited investment – beyond formal consultation - has tended to be made in the IA process or the consideration of societal values and perceptions. However, recent thinking (e.g. Cashmore et al., 2008, Fischer et al., 2009, Jha-Thakur et al., 2009, Owens et al., 2004, Partidario, 2009, Runhaar, 2009, Runhaar and Driessen, 2007) increasingly shows that the effective role of IA is likely to be stronger if it performs as a socio-political, rather than simply informative, knowledge-based instrument. This recognition is motivated by two fundamental reasons:

  • i)

    The causes of negative impacts are often a consequence of improper communication between proponents and authorities, insufficient attention to societal values and consequently deficient understanding and implementation of IA outcomes; and

  • ii)

    The engagement of stakeholders in IA processes has considerable possibilities for improvement as long as stakeholders are made part of the process and not used only as a checking mechanism. The institutionalization of IA is in part, and paradoxically (given its current weak practice), responsible for this encouraging shift in perception.

This paper explores the relevance of knowledge brokerage approaches in strategic assessment as a mechanism to increase capacities and shared power in IA processes. Within the constraints of the paper it is taken as given that more participatory spaces may make for better knowledge exchange (Habermas, 1989, Stirling, January 2006). We are interested specifically in knowledge brokerage, however, rather than the rationales for public participation per se. Knowledge brokerage is understood here as a mechanism for transferring research evidence into policy and practice (Ward et al., 2009), and as a way of breaking down barriers that impede interaction, healthy communication and collaboration (Sheate & Partidario, 2010). Through knowledge sharing and exchange, mutual learning processes can be stimulated, increasing the potential to build capacity among stakeholders and improve outcomes. These gain considerable relevance within learning theories and constructivist approaches, as a view of learning based on the belief that knowledge is not something that can be simply given by an expert to a group of stakeholders, as apparently advocated by some authors (Michaels, 2009, Weaver et al., 2008). Rather, knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge (Colliver, 2002).

In strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and sustainability assessment (SA) public participation (including the engagement of stakeholders, citizens and non-governmental organizations [NGOs]), in the establishment of visions and identification of priorities that precede the formulation of proposals, is still more the exception than the rule. Practice shows that public participation is required, and conducted, in SEA in very similar ways to environmental impact assessment (EIA), to ensure information provision rather then knowledge creation through learning processes. Current legal requirements for SEA, such as the EU Directive 2001/42/EC (or the Plan's EIA chapter in the China EIA Law), require that SEA be subject to public consultation, but practice reveals quite reactive and late public consultation performance, where consultation is conducted mainly to meet legal requirements, rather than to generate learning processes and active contributions to strategy formation. The reactive nature of such public participation practices does not work for strategic dimensions, may simply increase the problem of participation fatigue, limit the process of learning and reduce power-sharing opportunities. Throughout this paper, illustrative (rather than representative) case examples are used to highlight specific points from practical experience, to illustrate how a broad appreciation of knowledge brokerage in IA could bring real benefits in terms of long-term knowledge creation and power sharing, and break down some of the barriers.

This paper is structured around three important premises that support our argument and proposal for the adoption of SEA/SA as knowledge brokerage platforms:

  • 1.

    Knowledge is a construction process led by learners;

  • 2.

    Knowledge is power, power is knowledge; and

  • 3.

    There is insufficient sharing of knowledge, and power, in IA, amongst stakeholders, and an urgent need for enhancing trust among actors.

Section snippets

Knowledge as a construction process

This section sets the scene with respect to the concept of knowledge, as well as of knowledge brokerage - the central focus of this paper - to allow for further exploration in the context of strategic assessment.

Knowledge is power, power is knowledge in IA?

There is a normative assumption that the integration of knowledge and values is best achieved through involving the widest diversity of actors in the decision-making process that can contribute their respective knowledge and values necessary to make effective, efficient, fair and morally acceptable decisions (Habermas, 1989, Renn and Schweizer, 2009, Webler, 1995). As mentioned above, Innes (1998) emphasized that decision makers are more willing to incorporate knowledge in their deliberation

Enhancing trust through knowledge brokerage and IA

Previous sections have elaborated on the importance to expand the concept of knowledge from something that is given by an expert to a group of stakeholders, particularly policy-makers and other decision-makers. The notion that there are different types of knowledge (Petts and Brooks, 2006, Polanyi, 1958, Raymond et al., 2010) needs to be explored in knowledge brokerage processes to equate the travelling of knowledge to different purposes and target groups.

Many of the obstacles to enlarging

IA - beyond information provision, towards knowledge brokerage

As already noted, for knowledge brokerage to succeed a number of conditions are needed (Sheate and Partidario, 2010, Ward et al., 2009). While it is increasingly likely that a wide range of stakeholders will be engaged in IA, and even good opportunity space presented for sharing and exchange of knowledge, critical areas where real improvements are needed would seem to be the creation of a decision environment conducive for learning, knowledge exchange and willingness (openness of process) to

Conclusions

It is fair to recognize that IA instruments have been enabling learning processes for some time through the exchange of technical knowledge, particularly between environmental consultants, proponents and environmental administrations. But this exchange of knowledge is insufficient for what we have argued in this paper should be the fundamental premises of knowledge brokerage, i.e.:-

  • engage all interested stakeholders in a development process and give them an opportunity to have a voice;

  • act as a

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