Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
6.2.3 Catalysing value formation
Public engagement with deliberative processes in which equal partici-
pants provide relevant knowledge, make known their views and values,
and have opportunities to persuade each other with a view to identifying
outcomes that would address matters under consideration, is regarded as
the mechanism through which the goals of internalisation and citizen-
ship are most likely to be realised.
32
A cornerstone of arguments made in
favour of deliberative participation is that having an understanding of
the positions held by others and the values underpinning themmay help
people to examine their own values and preferences andmake judgments
with the bene
.
33
In this regard, commenta-
tors on deliberation have noted the scope it creates for participants to
alter their views on hearing those held by others.
34
Steele refers to the
belief that
tofan
'
enlarged mentality
'
citizens have the capacity, through deliberating, to amend
their views and expectations
'
.
35
Barton concurs that involvement in
deliberation can result in personal preferences being
'
'
shaped and modi-
.
36
Deliberation is thought to be particularly effective for transforming
preferences because participants are encouraged to identify outcomes that
command common support through reasoned argument about what would
be in the public interest. In Jacobs
ed by the processes to which they are subjected
'
'
view, the process of reasoning about
interests other than one
'
s own is fundamental to developing public good
values.
37
These
'
do not come fully formed into the world from within the
breast of each individual
'
but are
'
articulated through the public processes of
.
38
Other commentators agree that public disputation
debate and argument
'
32
For example see Jacobs,
'
Environmental Valuation
'
,pp.219
-
21; Barry,
'
Rethinking
Green Politics
'
, pp. 214
-
21; Smith,
'
Deliberative Democracy
'
,pp.61
-
6; Lundqvist,
'
Ecological Governance
'
, p. 17; Meadowcroft,
'
Deliberative Democracy
'
,pp.184
-
9.
33
Smith,
'
Deliberative Democracy
'
,pp.25
-
6, 59
-
60; S. Benhabib,
'
Toward a Deliberative
Model of Democratic Legitimacy
in S. Benhabib (ed.) Democracy and Difference:
Contesting the Boundaries of the Political (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1996), pp. 71
'
-
2; M. Cooke,
'
Five Arguments for Deliberative Democracy
'
(2000) 48
Political Studies,950
-
2; Smith,
'
Democratic Innovations
'
,pp.24
-
5.
34
Jacobs,
'
Environmental Valuation
'
, pp. 220
-
1; Smith,
'
Deliberative Democracy
'
,pp.63
-
5.
35
J. Steele,
Participation and Deliberation in Environmental Law: Exploring a Problem-
solving Approach
'
'
(2001) 21 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies,428.
36
B. Barton,
Underlying Concepts and Theoretical Issues in Public Participation on Resources
Development
'
in D. N. Zillman, A. R. Lucas and G. Pring (eds) Human Rights in Natural
Resource Development: Public Participation in Sustainable Development of Mining and
Energy Resources
'
'
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 97.
37
38
Jacobs,
'
Environmental Valuation
'
,p.219.
Ibid
.p.221.
