Informational governance - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 90

activities and decisions in a post-positivist science period. Thus, the
increase - and increasing role - of information flows and information
processes are not only a consequence of growing uncertainties caused
by the disenchantment with science, but also a cause.
In conclusion, the growing role of information and informational
processes in environmental governance is strongly embedded in a num-
ber of wider social developments, which make informational gover-
nance tendencies no 'accidental' one-night stand - they are there to
stay.
Informational governance and informational regulation
Within the literature on environmental governance, various scholars
have emphasised the growing importance of information in environ-
mental regulation and reform, especially vis- a-vis conventional regu-
latory instruments and strategies of governance. The growing appli-
cation of voluntary agreements, of education programs, of product
information and labels, and of disclosure of environmental information
have received considerable attention through case studies and more
general analyses. And we will use these contributions in substantiating
the claim of an emerging informational governance in Chapters 5 to
10 . Arguably, most close to the notion of informational governance
comes one particular school of thought, which has brought several of
these cases and experiences together under one common denominator:
informational regulation. Particularly in the United States (e.g., Konar
and Cohen, 1997 ; Kleindorfer and Orts, 1999 ; Sunstein, 1999 ; Case,
2001 ;Tietenberg and Wheeler, 1998 ; Karkkainen, 2001 )-but also
beyond that (e.g., Dasgupta and Wheeler, 1996 )-informational reg-
ulation has been coined to refer to the growing importance of freely
available information in environmental regulation. Following Tieten-
berg ( 1998 ) and Kleindorfer and Orts ( 1999 ), Case ( 2001 : 10775) has
defined informational regulation as “rules requiring mandatory dis-
closure of information on environmental operations or performance
of regulated entities to third parties. Such regulation seeks to enlist the
aid of such nongovernmental forces as economic markets and public
opinion either in complement to, or as a substitute for, traditional reg-
ulatory strategies of government standard setting and enforcement.”
Does informational regulation refer to the same developments as
informational governance? Although there are significant relations,