Introduction: new frontiers of environmental governance - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 8

first approach focuses on information dissemination following a basic
attitude-behaviour model (in line with the original ideas of Fishbein
and Ajzen, 1975 ). Basically, environmental information is considered
essential for changing individual environmental attitudes, and attitudes
are believed to be fundamental for behavioural changes (with respect
to for instance mobility, consumption, waste handling). The spread-
ing of environmental information on causes, consequences and alter-
native behaviours is often linked to voluntary programs that invite
polluters to rearrange their daily routines of production and con-
sumption into more sustainable directions (cf. Moxen and McCulloch,
1999 ). 3
The second, more policy-oriented perspective has a more legal and
economics background and emphasises the necessity of producing
and collecting knowledge and information by environmental experts
and authorities to develop a solid - natural science - basis for envi-
ronmental policies and reform. Starting from the 1970s information
gaps, transactions costs and private ownership of information have
been identified as distortions of effective and efficient environmental
policy making, implementation and control. Information is seen as of
crucial importance for overcoming regulatory failures, and according
to these scholars better information, more information and cheaper
information improve environmental decision making. 4 Environmen-
tal governance is then seen as solidly based on expert knowledge and
information, strongly in line with the conventional rationalist policy
theories and pluralist state theories (cf. Ham and Hill, 1984 ). Nthunya
( 2002 ) and Burstr om and Lindqvist ( 2002 ) are recent examples in this
perspective. Recent ideas on and quests for data-driven policy making
to bring rationality in decision-making processes (cf. Esty and Rushing,
2006 ) are modern, intelligent versions of the same school.
Both schools within this tradition interpret environmental knowl-
edge and information rather straightforwardly, as unproblematic cat-
egories, in which more knowledge and information is positively and
causally related to better environmental governance. The application

3

Arguably, the analyses of the use of information by environmental NGOs in
their media strategies and campaigns are among the relatively more
'sophisticated' studies in these traditions.

4

Esty ( 2004 ) provides a full overview of the literature on information
obstructions and information needs in environmental policy-making processes,
ranging from problem identifications to enforcement and evaluation.