Logo image
Does the use of ‘the public’ in some debates about environmental decision making properly reflect the different publics involved in the decision making process?
Conference paper   Open access

Does the use of ‘the public’ in some debates about environmental decision making properly reflect the different publics involved in the decision making process?

J. Goodie
The Australian Sociological Association (TASA)
The Annual Conference of The Australian Sociological Assocaiton 2012 (The University of Queensland, 26/11/2012–29/11/2012)
2012
pdf
Does_the_use_of_‘the_public’_in_some_debates.pdfDownloadView
Author’s Version Open Access
url
Conference WebsiteView

Abstract

The focus of this paper is a distinction between the public-in-general and publics-in- particular. It first considers Mike Michael’s (2009) argument, focused on the practice of science, that the public-in-general is far too blunt an instrument, then it adopts Michael’s schema to the analysis of debates about environmental decision making, in order to argue that the different publics involved in this decision making might be better analysed and described in terms of their particularity. Secondly, it criticises some contributions to debates about the role of lay legal advocates in environmental decision making for relying too heavily upon a notion of the public-in-general. And thirdly, by way of enhancing their approach, it discusses the advantages of focusing upon particular publics of environmental governance.

Details

Metrics

93 File views/ downloads
66 Record Views
Logo image