DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: A CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH
Layer 3: Epistemic notions
3.2. THE THEORY OF ECOLOGICAL MODERNISATION
Huber (1985:20 cited in Mol, 1995:37), who is argued by Mol to be the father of ecological modernisation, encapsulated the spirit of ecological modernisation when he said that “the dirty and ugly industrial caterpillar will transform into a[n] ecological butterfly”. Here Huber (1985 in Mol, 1995) alludes to the idea that ecological modernisation is an unavoidable stage in the development of an industrial society where, after industrial breakthrough (the industrial revolution of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s) and the resultant establishment of an industrial society between 1848 and 1980, ecological modernisation asserts itself in the need to reconcile
the impacts of industrial activity with the environment (Murphy, 2000). Ecological modernisation is regarded as a contemporary approach to addressing environmental problems.
This approach “assumes that sustainable development can be secured through a process that has come to be termed ecological modernisation” (Blowers and Pain, 1999:265). This process has four main characteristics (Blowers and Pain, 1999), each of which is based on an implicit argument or assumption, and concerns a key element of contemporary society, namely:
processes of production and consumption within industry; the economy; the state; and stakeholder participation. Each of these characteristics is described below as a means of introducing the ecological modernisation concept. Thereafter the mainstream conceptualisation of ecological modernisation is interrogated further.
The first characteristic of ecological modernisation is the argument that through introducing ecological criteria into production and consumption processes, both resource consumption and pollution will be reduced to sustainable levels (Blowers and Pain, 1999). An emphasis is placed on the role of technology in refining these processes so that resource utilisation is made more efficient and pollutants are reduced (Christoff, 1996; Blowers, 2000; Murphy, 2000;
Berger et al., 2001). For example, the introduction of technology to purify wastewater generated by an industry is environmentally beneficial, because it means that pollutants are prevented from entering water systems such as groundwater or streams. It is also beneficial to industry because, by purifying wastewater, an industry is able to recycle the water rather than having to expend energy on extracting and purifying water from an external source to suit its needs. Chemicals or other materials added to wastewater can be extracted and re-used, thereby reducing the need to buy in further stock of that chemical or material. In this way an industry’s environmental concern can have economic benefits. The economic benefits of being more environmentally friendly are the rationale for the acceptance of ecological modernisation.
The second characteristic of ecological modernisation concerns the market economy, which is seen as the “most efficient and effective way of achieving the objectives of sustainability”
(Blowers and Pain, 1999:266). The argument here is that through economic development and the subsequent promotion of a healthy economy, the objectives of sustainability (notably meeting the needs of present and future generations) will be achieved. Blowers and Pain (1999:266) also observe that it is not only markets, but also environmental problems themselves, that can “be seen positively as a resource that can facilitate the creation of wealth”.
This is an interesting argument of particular relevance to the PFM case study. PFM places
considerable emphasis on the economic opportunities to be gained from forests and forest products and also from innovative ways in which the local people can be included in people- forest interactions in a manner that is economically beneficial to both the local people and to the entrepreneurs. In this way, for example, the management of the environmental destruction that resulted from people-forest interactions in the past could become an opportunity for wealth creation through the promotion of community-based eco-tourism ventures.
The third characteristic of ecological modernisation is the enabling role of the state through the provision of a regulating framework for environmental protection (Blowers and Pain, 1999).
Rather than using prescriptive approaches that engage adversarial discourses endorsing a conflictual relationship between the state and business, the state encourages business to undertake voluntary self-regulation. This is achieved through the provision of “a framework of incentives and standards for environmental performance” (Blowers, 2000:378), which encourages collaboration and complementary relationships through the adoption of collaborative discourses. An example of such agreements in South Africa is the Environmental Management Co-Management Agreement (EMCAs) in the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA, Act 107 of 1998). This approach can also be extended beyond business to apply to the state’s relationship with other stakeholders, such as local communities.
For example, the PFM policy is an example of how the state’s role has shifted from enforcement to regulation and monitoring. Rather than enforcing a ‘fences and fines approach’
to indigenous forest management, the state, through PFM, has adopted a participative and collaborative discourse and encourages local communities to work with the state to achieve environmental protection.
The fourth characteristic of ecological modernisation is the emphasis placed on public participation in policy-making/decision-making (Blowers and Pain, 1999). Here it is argued that by achieving participation and consensus through the involvement of diverse groups in society in, for example, decision-making and policy-making forums (bottom-up approaches), the outcomes will be more sustainable than conventional top-down approaches to policy- making/decision-making (Blowers and Pain, 1999). Connelly (2002; Richardson and Connelly, 2005) is critical of the assumption that participation leads to greater sustainability planning.
Similarly, this study is also critical of the implicit link between participation and sustainability, and it reveals the difficulties associated with translating the rhetoric of participation in PFM policy into legitimate participatory practices at a local level.
This research investigates the nature of participation that has taken place during the PFM implementation process in a local space. Through discourse analysis, this investigation is able to analyse the policy process in terms of the concept of ecological modernisation. Both co- management and ecological modernisation literature acknowledge that there are differing degrees of participation. It is important to emphasise here that the kind or degree of participation discussed as a feature of mainstream ecological modernisation is conventional participation; a common feature of countries, such as South Africa, that have a liberal democracy (Carmody, 2002) as opposed to an expansive democracy (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003).
Ecological modernisation as a body of theory asserts that in the context of the environment- development debate, ‘you can have your cake and eat it’. In other words, societies can continue along the path of modernisation whilst simultaneously overcoming the environmental crises that result from progression along that very path (Gibbs, 2000). One of the principal tenets of ecological modernisation theory is that it “breaks with the idea that environmental needs are in conflict with economic demands; it argues instead that economic growth and the resolution of ecological problems can, in principle, be reconciled” (Hajer, 1996:248). Ecological modernisation “advocates a continuation of the changes which it perceives as already occurring in industrial society” and “makes a virtue of the seemingly inevitable and aligns itself with contemporary trends in the economy, society and politics” (Blowers, 1997:859). In this way, ecological modernisation could be understood as reflexive modernisation, because it is a form of modernisation that uses itself (the process of modernisation), industrialisation, and science to solve the problems that they created in the first place (Buttel, 2000).
Ecological modernisation constitutes a conservative view of social change, described by Blowers (1997) as a “moment of transition”, as society continues to pursue the project of modernisation while taking due care and paying attention to environmental constraints. Holm and Stauning (2002:2) regard Jänicke as the inventor of the concept of ecological modernisation and consider his view of ecological modernisation to be a “strategy or belief system of moderate, incremental adjustments to institutions and behaviour”. In other words, the environmental problematic is accommodated into the process of modernisation whereby care for the environment is internalised into existing social and political institutions (Hajer, 1995) rather than acting as an instigator of interventions that are conflictual and transformative, and that advocate radical and revolutionary changes in industrial society. Put
succinctly, ecological modernisation theory is a “celebration of contemporary capitalism with a greener face” (Blowers, 1997:854). Similarly Spaargaren (2000:325) notes that “EM [ecological modernisation] theory does not plead for a dismantling of ‘capitalism’ altogether”
but rather regards modes of production and consumption as sources of environmental problems and as elements that could be adjusted to minimise these problems. Although often criticised for this conservative view, the ecological modernisation approach, if nothing else, has introduced industry and government to the realm of environmental awareness and protection, and presented it to them in an economically appealing ‘package’.
Christoff (1996) distinguishes three broad categorisations of how ecological modernisation is used, namely descriptively, analytically and normatively. Each of these is discussed briefly as a means of elaborating the concept. It should be recognised, however, that the ethos is the same in all three; it is just that the focus shifts to different aspects of how contemporary society resolves environmental problems.
Firstly, ecological modernisation is used to describe technological developments with environmentally beneficial outcomes. The emphasis here is on fine-tuning or adapting technologies to produce a win-win solution. The environment benefits from improved, cleaner technological performance. Industry also benefits, because technological developments are implemented with the aim of maintaining or improving one’s economic advantage.
Increasingly, society is demanding cleaner technology and ‘environmentally friendly’ products and processes.
Huber (2000) distinguishes between two interpretations of sustainable development. The first interpretation predominates amongst non-governmental organisations and is an “anti-industrial and anti-modernist strategy of ‘sufficiency’” (Huber, 2000:269), whilst the second predominates amongst industry and business and is a strategy to enable “further economic growth and ecological adaptation of industrial production [and business systems] at the same time” (Huber, 2000:269). Huber (2000) describes this as the ‘efficiency revolution’. This latter interpretation of sustainable development relates to Hajer’s (1996:249) remark that
“environmental pollution is framed as a matter of inefficiency”.
Environmental protection is interpreted as a positive sum game where pollution prevention ultimately pays (Hajer, 1995; Seippel, 2000; Berger et al., 2001). According to Dryzek
(1997:142) “there is money in it [ecological modernisation] for business” and by this he means that it is economically beneficial for business to become greener, or more environmentally sound. Seippel (2000:290) summarises Dryzek’s four stated benefits to business as follows:
“Pollution prevention pays, it becomes more expensive to solve the problem in future, a better environment is achieved, and there is money to be made in selling green goods and in prevention products”.
It therefore makes financial sense to transform industrial processes. In a similar vein, Huber (2000) distinguishes between three types of reasons for a firm to become greener. These are legal reasons (the need to comply with the law and administrative regulations); economic reasons (such as preventative cost reduction, cost competitiveness and the pollution and risk prevention to avoid liability charges); and thirdly, social reasons (which includes image, stakeholder demand for firms to be greener, and a good reputation, which is attractive to prospective staff, banks and insurers). This places pressure on industries to maintain or improve their niche in the market by keeping apace with such demands.
In many cases, business and industry would only need to improve their environmental performance by, for example, refining their production systems and/or their technology to make more efficient use of energy and materials and thus enhance their resource productivity (Huber, 2000). Christoff (1996) notes that these technological developments involve remedial or anticipatory strategies and do not reflect or require any meaningful change in corporate, public or political values. This application of ecological modernisation is viewed as a narrow/weak version of ecological modernisation because of its narrowly industrial application that is directed towards adaptation and not transformation. This descriptive application of ecological modernisation differs from Christoff’s second categorisation, which is described below because it is pro-ecological modernisation. Ecological modernisation is seen as the answer to the environmental crisis and this view is markedly different to Hajer’s approach below, which is more critical.
Secondly, according to Christoff’s categorisation of the applications of ecological modernisation, the theory of ecological modernisation is utilised to analyse the policy process and detect changes that come about within environmental policy discourse (Christoff, 1996;
Hajer, 1995; Buttel, 2000). The focus has shifted away from technological developments and to the policy arena. Hajer (1995) regards ecological modernisation as a policy discourse, a way
of talking about and understanding the changes in environmental policy resulting from the environmental movement in the mid 1980’s (Buttel, 2000).
In addition to ecological modernisation being simply a scientific and technical solution to environmental problems (as with the descriptive use of the concept), it is also seen as “a strategy of political accommodation of the radical environmentalist critique of the 1970’s”
(Christoff, 1996:483; Hajer, 1995; Blowers, 1997). The radical environmentalist critique could be described as anti-modernist and anti-industrial; what Huber (2000:269) terms “the red-green current of the ecology movement”. This critique proposes an alternative society that is characterised by the ethos of self-limitation of material needs, industrial disarmament, withdrawal from the free-world market, and an egalitarian distribution of scarce resources (Huber, 2000). This radical environmentalist critique of society could be construed by the state as a threat to national economic imperatives. At a time when environmental awareness is increasing in society, at a global and local level, it would be inappropriate for governments to disregard environmental concerns. Thus Hajer (1995, in Christoff, 1996:482) suggests that ecological modernisation is a “discursive strategy useful to governments seeking to manage ecological dissent and to relegitimise their social regulatory role”. Hajer (1995) alludes to the idea of cultural politics, where certain issues are problematised over others, and certain courses of action are chosen over others for particular political reasons, perhaps to manage ecological dissent or influence the social order. How governments address issues is a function of their political agenda and social goals.
Brosius (1999) shares Hajer’s (1995) scepticism about the efficacy of environmental institutionalisation in addressing environmental problems. To regard ecological modernisation as a policy discourse is to acknowledge the presence of power in the policy network and its influence on the policy process. According to Buttel (2000:58-50), Hajer’s view is that ecological modernisation:
“may serve to dilute the political impulse for environmental reforms by obscuring the degree to which economic expansion, growth of consumption, and capital-intensive technological change compromise the ability of states to ensure a quality environment”.
Hunold and Dryzek (2001:4) share Hajer’s view when they refer to ecological modernisation as a “compromise oriented discourse”. This theoretical perspective has resonance in the South African context, because it provides an understanding of how ecological modernisation
discourse could be used by the government to manage or counter the more radical (red-green) approaches to indigenous forest management (Kiel and Desfor, 2003). For example, in theory PFM has the potential to be a more radical approach in that it could encourage considerable bottom-up, deliberative and inclusive decision-making approaches to address conservation issues that arise from the people-environment interface. In addition, PFM is framed in a way that is politically and socially acceptable, such as meeting people’s social and economic needs and conserving biodiversity through participatory approaches - and in so doing advancing the government’s political agenda (i.e. the macro-economic Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy). Therefore, because of its potential and the manner in which it is framed, PFM could win support as the way forward for forest management in South Africa, making “a virtue of the seemingly inevitable and [aligning] itself with contemporary trends in the economy, society and politics” (Blowers, 1997:859). However top-down, consultative, weakly participative decision-making approaches (weak ecological modernisation) could take place in the name of PFM (this scepticism is the focus of investigation in this thesis). The difference between the theory of PFM as a co-management regime, and the reality of implementing such approaches in the South African context could result in the promise of PFM as a radical approach being compromised or attenuated. For the state to commit significant budget to policy development and implementation in one direction, it could reduce the scope for alternative approaches to be implemented. If this scenario is found to be true for the South African context then the state could be perceived as adopting an ecological modernisation approach to indigenous forest management because they are compromising or reducing the radical (social) approach and simultaneously, by having the PFM policy in place, they are moving away from a position that would support hard-line ecological protection which may not be socially or politically acceptable in contemporary South Africa.
Hajer (1995) refers to six realms within policy-making where shifts in talking about business and the environment have taken place. The first realm where this shift has taken place is where techniques or strategies have shifted from remedial and reactive to anticipatory and preventative. The second realm is the shift in the role of science, where science plays a more pro-active and critical role in environmental policy-making. The third realm is the shift in the way nature is conceptualised. Nature is reconceptualised at the macro-economic level and is regarded more as a public good or resource than a free good. The fourth realm in policy- making is shift in existing participatory practices in policy-making processes towards an acknowledgment of new actors in participatory environmental organisations and, to a lesser
extent, local residents. The fifth realm is a shift in thinking at the micro-scale away from the idea that environmental protection increases cost, towards the idea that pollution prevention pays. The sixth and final realm that Hajer (1995) refers to is a shift in the legislative discourse of environmental politics with polluters having to bear the burden of proof rather than the recipients or damaged parties. These realms shall be discussed later in relation to the application of ecological modernisation to PFM in South Africa.
Thirdly, ecological modernisation is used normatively as a belief system. Christoff (1996:484) suggests that ecological modernisation “represents a new belief system that articulates and organises ideas of ecological emancipation”. Of all the ways in which the concept of ecological modernisation is used, this is the most radical. It pushes the limits of conventional thinking in that, although it is still concerned with the economic importance of environmental efficiency, it is not purely on the grounds of a sound financial decision that environmental externalities are internalised, but also a moral attitude which results in environmentally aware behaviour. Here the definition of ecological modernisation broadens to incorporate a moral dimension.
Ecological modernisation in this sense is “an ideology based around, but extending beyond, the understanding that environmental protection is a precondition of long-term economic development” (Christoff, 1996:484). An ideology is a worldview that has been socially constructed and become a fundamental way in which the world is perceived to operate.
Ecological modernisation as an ideology includes the belief that exercising due care for the environment will be beneficial to people in the long run. This is based on the ideological assumption that ‘if we look after the earth, it will look after us’.
In its most rudimentary sense, ecological modernisation is a term which implies that the process of modernisation can proceed unimpeded by ecological problems; it implies ecologically sensitive modernisation. Seippel (2000:300) asserts that “to use the term
‘modernisation’ implies an empirical assertion that the environment has not contributed to a break with modernity”.
It has been shown that there are a number of ways in which the concept of ecological modernisation has been used. The descriptive and normative categorisations of how the term ecological modernisation is applied, frame the concept positively. In both cases ecological modernisation is regarded as the answer to the environmental crisis. However, whereas the former categorisation is solely concerned with economic efficiency and the pursuit of