ABSTRACT
Since the inception of strategic environmental assessment (SEA), scholars and practitioners have devoted much attention to the development of techniques to facilitate its implementation in the upstream decision contexts that characterize strategic initiatives. As such, significant attention has been given to documenting practical experiences with case studies, establishing so-called ‘best practice’ guidelines, and making comparisons of SEA implementation rules across different nations. In contrast, despite regular calls to that end, very little attention has been paid to the conceptual development of SEA (Cashmore, 2004; Cashmore et al, 2004). While SEA has drawn significant lessons from the experience with project-level environmental impact assessment (EIA), it faces a number of fundamentally different challenges at higher levels of decision-making. In particular, uncertainty and value conflict associated with developments ranging from transport planning to energy policy indicate that the knowledge and techniques traditionally relied upon to ‘solve’ environmental problems are no longer adequate to the task (Wallington, 2003). These challenges suggest that SEA must move beyond the ‘impact assessment mindset’ (Bina, 2003), which in turn indicates the need for renewed attention to be paid to the theoretical development of SEA.
