Social theories of environmental reform - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 74

rationality, on the other (Habermas, 1981 ), also seem to have lost some
of their significance. Civil society actors are working increasingly (also)
within - and thus become part of - the 'official' system. Here we can
see environmental NGOs acting as multinational companies, trading
in environmental liability or credibility (WWF), and actively creating
'sub-political arrangements' in direct negotiations between NGOs and
market actors (see, for instance, Pattberg, 2005 ; Oosterveer, 2005 ).
Sometimes nonstate actors fill the gaps, which are left open by offi-
cial institutions that cannot keep up with the forces of globalisation
(e.g., in nature conservation in developing countries; in ecolabelling of
wood and fish products). 17 Consequently, such forms of hybridisation
show significant continuities with (and sometimes further radicalisa-
tions of) the notions of political modernisation, regulatory reinvention
and subpolitics, which prevailed in the second generation of environ-
mental reform studies.
The environmental sociology of networks and flows emphasises and
conceptualises such shifting boundaries and pays special attention to
hybrid arrangements in the field of (global) environmental reform. Such
arrangements can be interpreted in terms of specific combinations of
global networks and scapes, around particular environmental flows.
The relevant questions are of course where and when do we see, expect,
need or want these kinds of hybrid arrangements, what are the network
and scape characteristics of these arrangements (for instance, in terms
of infrastructures, power, inclusion and exclusion), how these hybrid
arrangements are related to globalisation, and what the consequences
are of such arrangements for governing environmental flows in terms
of, for instance, environmental effectiveness and democracy.
There is, however, a second manner in which hybridisation makes
sense in the context of the environmental sociology of flows. With John
Urry, one can argue that in sociology one of the most commonly used
and cherished dichotomy, that of the social and the material, needs to be
reconsidered and reformulated. In the tradition of Callon and Latour
and the by now well-established Actor Network Theory (ANT) school,
Urry criticises mainstream sociology - especially the structuration

17

In Surinam, the NGO Conservation International runs a national reserve
covering close to one-quarter of the country's surface (Mol, Mol and van Vliet,
2004 ). The Forest Stewardship Council and the Marine Stewardship Council
labels are often quoted examples of nonstate activities in a domain
conventionally run by the state (Oosterveer, 2005 )