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In-Depth Information
are best handled at the local level.
63
Their decisions would be left undis-
turbedunlessthereissomepositivebasisforinterventionbycentral
government. However, opportunities for devolution on this scale in a
system of ecological governance would be limited because of the nature
of the problems to be addressed and the objectives to be achieved. These,
as I argued in the preceding section, would require that the state be
involved as a coordinating body with identifying possibilities for reducing
levels of ecological stress based on a nationwide knowledge of resource
availability and demands placed on ecosystems by all of the country
s
communities. In circumstances where the state takes on this coordinating
role, and, in association with it, the ultimate authority for the approval of
strategic plans, a capacity for formal intervention in decisions made else-
where would not be required.
The democratic renewal and the enhanced perception of governmen-
tal legitimacy which, in Dorf and Sabel
'
'
s view, would result from adop-
tion of a democratic experimentalist model of governance, would be
provided in this system primarily by improved opportunities for local
and regional levels of government to collaborate with national govern-
ment in the formation of strategic plans. The latter should not have free
rein to depart from their proposals. It would undermine the legitimacy of
the system of governance if the state were to use its coordinating role to
engage in the micromanagement of regional and local affairs.
64
Rather,
it should work constructively with regions and localities to develop
solutions which are conducive to alleviating threats of ecological harm.
This need to cooperate could be reinforced by requiring the state to give
reasons for departing from recommendations made to it by local and
regional bodies, and to provide an explanation of how revisions it proposes
to make to their proposals would advance the objectives of the system of
governance.
65
The requirement to provide justi
cation for its contrary
views would provide a means of restricting the state
'
s interventions to
63
Dorf and Sabel,
'
Democratic Experimentalism
'
,283
-
9; O. Gerstenberg and C. F. Sabel,
'
Directly-deliberative Polyarchy: An Institutional Ideal for Europe?
'
in C. Joerges and
R. Dehousse (eds) Good Governance in Europe
'
sIntegratedMarket(Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002), pp. 291
-
2.
64
J. Meadowcroft,
Leary
(eds) Environmental Governance Reconsidered (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004),
pp. 210
'
Deliberative Democracy
'
inR.F.Durant,D.J.FiorinoandR.O
'
-
11.
65
Jacobs,
, p. 225. Jacobs argues that, for the creation of
deliberative democracy, there would need to be in place a culture in which it is dif
cult
for politicians to ignore recommendations unless
'
Environmental Valuation
'
'
overriding reasons can be given in
terms of the public good
'
.
