Environmental state and information politics - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 155

policy measures that are introduced only for rhetorical matters, often
with the aim of satisfying certain parts of the electorate without having
any serious intention for real implementation. Also within the field of
environmental politics and governance, symbolic policies have been
identified frequently among scholars (e.g., DeSombre, 2000 ; Matten,
2003 ), often sharply criticising the symbolic nature of measures
and policies in which stringent implementation and enforcement are
necessary.
Recently, however, symbolic environmental politics has been inter-
preted differently, by including the more beneficial or at least ambiva-
lent sides of symbolic politics. Especially through the work of
Hansj urgens ( 2000 )onsymbolic environmental politics, more empha-
sis has been put on symbols and on the way symbolic elements and even
symbolic measures in politics are essential in communicating, moti-
vating and activating environmental reform paths. Although symbols
and symbolic politics might at first glance prove ineffective in directly
and immediately addressing problems through concrete and adequate
actions, there is increasing acknowledgement that they do play a critical
role as an orientation and motivation around which ideas, perceptions
and actions converge. Especially in situations with high transparency,
visibility and significant public commitment symbolic politics and reg-
ulations do influence industries and consumers towards behavioural
change. Under conditions of widespread environmental awareness and
increasing information flows, interpreting symbolic politics just as an
easy way to mislead the electorate and public does no longer stand. The
media and other information and communication channels, in all their
variety, play a crucial role in transferring, articulating and empowering
these symbolic measures into actual actions and behavioural change.
In that sense, interpreting symbolic environmental politics only in the
conventional - critical and rhetorical - way has to be seen as a typical
product of the pre-Information Age, in which transparency, visibility,
accountability, information disclosure and time-space compression of
information flows were largely absent or insignificant.
One step further would then be to interpret and apply symbols in
environmental politics in a much more positive way. Signs, symbols
and tokens (that is, information codified in a specific way) address and
mobilise actors in a way that is often not possible via more conventional
information channels, media and forms. Green colours, ecolabels, the
WWF Panda logo and many other signs and symbols communicate