Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
or information consumption. This democratisation, transparency and
easy access of a constantly growing amount of environmental informa-
tion from less and less easy traceable and verifiable global sources poses
new challenges to governance. Kobrin ( 2001 ), for instance, details how
cyberspace and the information flows linked to that presents a unique
set of new governance problems, as cyberspace is inherently transna-
tional, and distance, place, territoriality and borders have become irrel-
evant. Following the idea of 'governance without government' (Rose-
nau and Czempiel, 1992 ), Kobrin ( 2001 : 697) claims that cyberspace
results in an absence of a central or 'overarching' governing authority
of information.
Fourth, and finally, the emergence of informational governance is
strongly related to the disenchantment with science, a tendency widely
discussed in the social sciences. The fact that science has lost its auto-
matic monopoly position as trustful and credible institution, which
generates reliable and indisputable information, makes knowledge and
information an object of power struggles and a resource for a wide vari-
ety of interests in (environmental) governance. Generation of informa-
tion and knowledge related to governance is thus no longer restricted
to or legitimately monopolised by science and scientists. The almost
undisputed authority natural science and scientists once had for lay
actors becomes increasingly questioned and debated, making scientific
information as much vulnerable to countervailing views as, among
others, information from state authorities or environmental NGOs. By
that, information gains in importance in environmental struggles and it
multiplied. Scientific litmus tests to distinguish right from wrong prove
less and less possible, whereas the growing amount of and better access
to information demands clear quality labels on environmental infor-
mation. This further relates to environmental and risk uncertainties of
an 'ever' globalising and increasingly complex society. With decreas-
ing abilities of conventional institutions (of science and the state) to
solve or manage these uncertainties by scientific litmus tests and qual-
ity labels (see also Chapter 6 ), other mechanisms appear on stage.
Accountability, transparency and openness, participation, procedural
requirements and social and political processes of coalition building
are some of the information-based mechanisms that replace science in
legitimising decisions and building trust, as we will see throughout this
volume. Informational and knowledge processes play thus a key role
in dealing with uncertainties, in (re)building trust and in legitimising
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