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responsibilities for meeting certain national needs. However, once the
game is afoot, its principal role would be to act in a refereeing capacity.
As overseer of decision-making activities, its responsibility would be to
ensure that objectives of national importance are achieved or, at least,
adhered to, and that standards of importance to the state as a democratic
institution are observed by other participants in decision-making. In this
respect, the state would not be
'
just another actor in the game of resource
.
41
It would also be
'
the umpire in that game, with a unique
authority resting on regulations and enforceable sanctions
governance
''
'
.
42
I consider
the capacities that the state should possess and the different parts that it
would need to play in a system of ecological governance if this is to
function effectively in the following sections.
'
4.4.1 A guiding state
It is implicit in the concept of metagovernance that the state, whilst it
devolves power to other governmental levels and non-governmental
actors, would retain an ability to in
uence their deliberations in the
hope that these will result in outcomes that advance nationally preferred
objectives.
43
This presupposes that, although separate levels of authority
have been established, they would operate within an overarching system
of governance which lays down the ends that participants in decision-
making processes should aim to accomplish, the criteria that should be
observed in decision-making, and the relationships between levels of gov-
ernment including the circumstances in which it would be permissible for
one to challenge the conclusions reached by another. Accordingly, the
rst
way in which the state can employ its powers to promote ecologically
desirable change is by seeking to put in place a framework which, whilst it
confers a level of autonomy on regional and local bodies, also binds them to
pursuing speci
ed goals.
44
The primary means by which the state can structure relations between
itself and other actors in government to promote favoured outcomes
is by using its executive authority to put forward and pilot through
41
Lundqvist,
42
'
A Green Fist
'
, 459.
Ibid
.
43
Haughton et al.,
'
The New Spatial Planning
'
,pp.11
-
12; Haughton and Counsell,
'
Regions,
Spatial Strategies
'
, p. 35; J. Meadowcroft,
'
Planning, Democracy and the Challenge of
Sustainable Development
'
(1997) 18 International Political Science Review,184.
44
Blowers,
in J. Pierre
(ed.) Debating Governance: Authority, Steering and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), p. 31.
'
TheTimeforChange
'
,p.14;P.Hirst,
'
Democracy and Governance
'
