Is local participation always optimal for sustainable action? The costs of consensus-building in Local Agenda 21

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

卷:129

Article

Brandt, Urs Steiner¹  Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard² 

[1] Univ Southern Denmark, Dept Environm & Business Econ, Esbjerg, Denmark

[2] Aarhus Univ, Dept Polit Sci & Govt, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

关键词: Sustainability;    Local Agenda 21;    Community participation;    Self-organisation;    Consensus-building;    Free riding;    Information gathering;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.07.020

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Is local participation always optimal for sustainable action? Here, Local Agenda 21 is a relevant case as it broadly calls for consensus-building among stakeholders. Consensus-building is, however, costly. We show that the costs of making local decisions are likely to rapidly exceed the benefits. Why? Because as the number of participants grows, the more likely it is that the group will include individuals who have an extreme position and are unwilling to make compromises. Thus, the net gain of self-organization should be compared with those of its alternatives, for example voting, market-solutions, or not making any choices at all. Even though the informational value of meetings may be helpful to policy makers, the model shows that it also decreases as the number of participants increase. Overall, the result is a thought provoking scenario for Local Agenda 21 as it highlights the risk of less sustainable action in the future. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free