Announcements

The venia legendi lecture of Monika Suškevičs, the candidate for the professorship of participatory environmental governance, will take place in Metsamaja, room 2C5 on October 19 at 14.15. The lecture is also accessible online (https://videosild.emu.ee/b/kal-kmu-fkx)

 The title:

Climbing up Arnstein's ladder, or co-creating change? Learning from theory and participatory environmental governance practices in Estonia and other Eastern European countries

Participation in environmental governance has long been understood as a „ladder“, conceived by American political scientist S. Arnstein in 1969. But is participation such a uni-dimensional continuum – with different levels distinguished, according to the degrees by which decision-making power is shared – as is often depicted in policy discourses?  Is the ultimate ideal in practice a widely empowered citizen? Since then, alternative framings of the concept have emerged, which question the usefulness of the “ladder” concept, e.g. democracy “cube” (Fung 2006), “split ladder of participation” (Collins & Ison 2009), or “ecologies of participation” (Chilvers & Pallett 2018). This talk will give a short overview of different contemporary concepts and debates on public and stakeholder participation in environmental governance. It will also discuss their application in exploring participatory practices in Estonia and other (Eastern) European countries. Examples will be given from spatial planning, renewable energy, and nature conservation policy sectors.