Discursive Practices and Legitimate Power in Forest and Nature Policy

Panel Chairs:

Bas Arts (Wageningen University, Netherlands)

Jelle Behagel (Wageningen University, Netherlands, jelle.behagel@wur.nl)

Helga Pülzl (University of Salzburg, Austria)

Abstract:

The social sciences are witnessing a 'practice turn', of which traces are also found in the policy sciences. Policy discourses are for example conceptualized as: (1) the result of 'messy practices'; (2) only loosely embedded in democratic practices; (3) hardly related to social practices; and (4) the opposite of 'what is really happening'. This panel wants to identify how the practice turn impacts the field of forest and nature conservation policy, specifically relating it to accounts of politics, legitimacy, and power in general. Conceptually, the relationship between discourse and practice will be particularly key. This relationship can range from discourse as one of the many components of a practice to discourse as constituting practice. Methodologically, we want to discuss whether a practice turn gives primacy to ethnographic techniques, or that other methods retain equal value. To discuss these, and related issues, we call on you to write papers on the following topics:

• The relation between forest and nature discourses and management practices. Is policy 'what is happening'?
• The politics of policy discourse. How do we retrieve the politics and power of policy discourses from policy practices?
• In forest and nature conservation policy, public participation and transparency are often expected to contribute to democratic legitimacy. Do these also constitute democratic practices?
• The methodological consequences of a practice turn. How do we research green policy practices and in what ways do we present our findings?