Informational governance - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 91

similarities and overlap, and constructive cross-fertilisations between
the informational regulation literature and what I label informational
governance, the former concept distinguishes itself from the latter in:
(i) a stronger emphasis on the legal foundation of information dis-
closure, 7 and less so on more 'voluntary' and/or nonlegal disclosures;
(ii) a more narrow interpretation of information disclosure in terms
of policy instruments or tools, as alternatives for strict regulatory or
strict economic policy instruments; (iii) a framing of information use
strongly related to the environmental state, or the relation between
state and civil society (that is, neglecting informational developments
in economic networks); (iv) a rather nation-state-centric perspective,
instead of bringing informational regulation in relation to processes
and dynamics of globalisation; (v) a less strong emphasis of infor-
mational processes in relation to the new dynamics enabled by ICT;
(vi) a rather unproblematic (simple-modernity) analysis of environ-
mental knowledge and information, instead of interpreting these as
part of the disenchantment with science; and (vii) a legal 8 and eco-
nomics approach to understanding informational regulation (cf. Case,
2001 ), rather than a political science or sociological perspective. With
the concept of informational governance of the environment we aim
to develop a sociological/political science perspective on the key role
of information and informational processes in environmental reform,
closely linked to wider developments in the transformation of the late
modern order (as referred to earlier).

3. What about ecological modernisation?

Until now, I have aimed to understand the emergence of informational
governance from more general developments of modernity and modern
societies, without paying too much specific attention to environmen-
tal considerations and backgrounds. But the growing importance of
knowledge and information in practices and processes of environmen-
tal reform also can be understood and interpreted from a more specific

7

Often strongly related to the U.S. Toxics Release Inventory, following the 1984
Union Carbide accident at Bhopal in India (cf. Case, 2001 ; Sand, 2002 ), and
other national and EU Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers.

8

The contributions to informational regulation in the so-called reflexive
environmental law approach especially relates to the argument developed in this
topic (cf. Orts, 1995 ; Stewart, 2001 ).