ABSTRACT
Environmental policymaking is a multi-layered process that not only iden-
tifies issues and makes choices, but also identifies decision-makers and defines key terms and concepts. The politics of policymaking are similarly
multi-layered, and include personal, institutional, and ideological politics.
In practice, there is no bright line between these forms of politics, with
personal and institutional politics mixing with ideological assumptions to
shape both processes and outcomes. Conventional policy studies tend to
focus on institutional politics, primarily because policymaking derives its
authority from government and choices are reduced to rules, regulations,
and laws (see, e.g., Susskind and Ozawa 1992). There is, however, another way of thinking about policymaking that gives more importance to personal
and ideological politics, and which generally falls within forms of critical
thinking such as critical policy studies (see, e.g., Wagenaar and Cook 2003).
This chapter is something of a hybrid: it recognizes the importance of
institutional influences on policymaking but also interrogates policymaking
from a critical view that gives considerable weight to its more normative
aspects, and particularly to how ideas, values, and processes are shaped by
policymaking discourses. The specific focus of this critical inquiry into environmental policymaking
is on what have become known as ‘‘stakeholder’’ processes. These have
appeared widely in many public policy practices in recent years, but have
rarely been analyzed for their political influence. As the following discussion
will demonstrate, the stakeholder processes used in environmental policy-
making are not benign or democratic, but have developed through a fairly
recent history as part of a business management theory that has developed
them for purposes of better controlling internal and external business relations. As such, they are disconnected from the idea that policy deliberations
ought to be open and inclusive, or that environmental policy should some-
how prioritize ecological sustainability. The central problem with stake-
holder policymaking is that it acts discursively to interpose corporate
economic values into deliberative policy processes. This occurs because
these corporate-inspired formats come with their own set of assumptions
about who can be authorized to participate and what can be deliberated,
and because the key terms of policymaking are defined before designated
stakeholders are allowed a voice. In keeping with the theme of this book, this chapter also offers a way
forward in gaining some democratic leverage over environmental stake-
holder policymaking by redefining it to be more inclusive and with a greater
potential for representing marginalized human and natural constituencies.
The means to accomplish this goal are present in an alternate but far more
powerful stakeholder discourse that has a much longer and deeply equitable
history in law. Ironically, this alternate discourse is also rooted in business
practices, but in a manner that acts to limit predatory economic interests to ensure that absent interests are recognized and protected when rights and
duties are decided. The history of this alternate discourse is punctuated with
many of the issues that are now excluded from environmental policymaking,
such as the interests of future generations and the non-economic values of
nature itself, based on claims that it is impractical to try to include them in
policymaking.
