ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that authority in the political sense — legitimated power — is in the sphere of nature uniquely contingent on authority in the discursive sense. State claims to managerial authority in nature rest overtly or covertly on knowledge claims legitimated by science. The conceptual flattening of science to state claims of authoritative knowledge joins the reductivist flattening of a complex and robust nature to “natural resources,” both buttressing the case for localism. Social science views on institutional desiderata are easier to dismiss as interested and ideological than are prescriptions from the natural sciences; yet all politically authoritative statements about public goods in nature and means of attaining them are rooted in ecological science. Scientific tradition founded in positivism isolates and elevates a singular “real” knowledge built upon independently confirmable tests of theory-driven hypotheses. Ideologies of empowerment for poor people and goals of social equity converged with heightened respect for local knowledge, conservation ethics, and administration by communities.
