10.3.4.2 Public and Private Decision Making
Decision analysis largely addresses both sustainable development and climate
change at their most aggregated level as government policy. The implicit assumption
of the government as a single decision maker has resulted in scant attention
(even neglect) being paid to how government policies and decisions are connected
to lower hierarchical levels at which policies must be implemented. This issue
raises two interconnected questions: the first concerns the view of the government
as a homogeneous and unitary decision-making actor, and the second relates to
the links of government policies to everyday decisions by concerned stakeholders.
Regarding the first question, government structures involved in the decision-making
process vary considerably among countries. Some governments have established
interministerial committees to co-ordinate sustainable development policies,
including climate change strategies, while others have assigned responsibilities
to more formal permanent commissions or even to a ministry created specifically
to handle sustainable development policies. With many different institutions
involved in sustainable development issues, considerable confusion often exists
regarding who has the responsibility for policy formulation, where the authority
for making day-to-day decisions resides within the government, and how channels
of communication and decision making should be achieved between the different
actors involved. Institutional articulation remains one of the critical factors
affecting the consolidation of an effective decision-making process related
to sustainable development. Even if there exist rules and regulations that assign
competence, tasks, and responsibilities among the institutions involved, a considerable
gap exists between what might be desirable and what, for the most part, is practised.
Concerning the interface between macro-policies and the real decision-making
levels, the situation is no more encouraging. It is true that sustainable development
and climate change are primarily the responsibility of the government system
simply because national economy-wide policies have widespread effects on the
regulation of societal processes. As discussed above (Section
10.3.2.2), government policies shape structural changes in the production
systems, affect the spatial distribution patterns of population and economic
activities, influence behavioural patterns of the population, and regulate interaction
with the environment and resource-base system. However, as recognized (Jaeger
et al., 1998; Rayner and Malone, 2000) all too often, especially in developing
countries, the levers of state power have a small impact on or even no connection
with the local level, at which policies must be implemented by ordinary people
living in face-to-face communities.
Recent tendencies at different levels are emerging as appropriate responses
to increase the legitimacy and competence of local communities, associations,
movements, and NGOs in the public decision-making process. Increasing concern
of local populations directly affected by environmental problems, together with
current tendencies towards decentralization and weakening of authoritarian practices,
especially in many developing countries, have opened a new political scenario
for a more active participation of civil society in the public policy formulation
and decision process. Present trends towards reassigning the setting of rules
from government to the markets, together with the process of transferring the
provision of services from the public sector to private ownership, have redefined
the roles of social stakeholders. Within this context, sustainable development
policies are no longer seen as a hierarchically, government-controlled chain
of commands, but as an open process in which the principles of “good governance”—transparency,
participation, pluralism, and accountability—are becoming the key elements
of the decision-making process.
Public involvement in decision making is not a completely new phenomenon. For
instance, traditional participatory mechanisms, such as public hearings, notice
and comment procedures, and advisory committees, have been practised extensively
by US government agencies (Beierle, 1998). However, it is only lately that participatory
forms of decision making have acquired legitimacy and prominence in environmental
issues, mainly because of their complexity, uncertainty, large temporal and
spatial scales, and irreversibility (van den Hove, 2000). As discussed in Section
10.3.4.3, innovative mechanisms such as regulatory negotiations, mediations,
stakeholder consultation, collaborative decision-making techniques, community-based
methods, and others, are currently being applied by governments, institutions,
and local administrations, as well as by intergovernmental organizations. Rayner
and Malone (2000) conclude that, whether policy innovation and behavioural change
are led locally or nationally, “they will be marked by a process of institutional
learning that either moves presently peripheral concerns about climate change
to the core of people’s daily concerns or, at least, palpably and convincingly
links climate policies to these everyday concerns.”
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