Michael Pregernig

What is new about new forest owners? A typology of private forest ownership in Austria

With structural changes in agriculture, new types of forest owners have become increasingly important. This article develops an empirically-based typology of forest owners in Austria. Based on a representative survey and by means of cluster analysis, seven types of forest owners are identified. These types form a sequence, ranging from forest owners with a strong agricultural background to forest owners with no agricultural background at all. The latter exhibit markedly different behaviour in various respects, e.g. in their interest in forest-related information. The increasing number of ‘new’ forest owners raises important questions for forest policy, especially how policy instruments can reach these owners and how extension services can address them.

Transdisciplinarity viewed from afar: science-policy assessments as forums for the creation of transdisciplinary knowledge

Scholarly discussions on transdisciplinarity have largely been centered on theoretical and conceptual questions. Empirical studies conducted on this topic frequently result in rather negative conclusions as to the degree to which transdisciplinary research projects can live up to their normative expectations. The in-depth analysis of two so-called bioregional assessments indicates that many of the characteristics that make up a ‘successful’ transdisciplinary research effort cannot be determined empirically by merely looking at ‘the project’ itself, but it rather needs a broader conceptual and empirical framework. A distanced look at transdisciplinarity eventually enables one to draw conclusions on what can be expected of the now so popular calls for more and better management and evaluation of transdisciplinary research. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Values of Forestry Professionals and their Implications for the Applicability of Policy Instruments

In the last few years, the European countries have created a whole arsenal of regulatory, financial and informational instruments with the objective of enhancing sustainable forest management (SFM). In the course of this policy development effort, so far, the targets of governance have been more or less neglected. This article argues that a forest managers values have a major influence on the perception of and the reaction to different types of public policy instruments. The results of a mail survey carried out among Austrian forestry professionals show that the persons in charge of putting SFM into practical action can be characterized by specific value patterns. By means of cluster analysis, forestry professionals were classified into six value types. Each of the six types identified is expected to respond to policy instruments in a specific way. Based on these findings, I finally discuss if and how policy instruments can be designed and implemented in a more target-group oriented way.

Imagined citizens and participation: Local Agenda 21 in two communities in Sweden and Austria

Abstract Local Agenda 21 (LA21), which has its roots in the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, aims at fostering processes of sustainable development on a local level. In this article, we compare the LA21 processes of two cities, Helsingborg in Sweden and Vienna in Austria, to seek insight into the varying implementation approaches of common international political commitments. Our focus of analysis is on the social organisation of the two processes, the way local residents are integrated into LA21 work, and especially the political images of citizens—which we call ‘imagined citizens’—that different actor groups hold. The results of the study illustrate two almost diametrically opposed organisational forms of local sustainability governance, the Swedish process relying on a more expert-led, technocratic model of implementation and the Austrian process strongly building on deliberative forms of citizen participation.

Putting science into practice: the diffusion of scientific knowledge exemplified by the Austrian ‘Research Initiative Against Forest Decline’

Abstract The paper deals with the question of how scientific knowledge is put into practicable action (or rather how it is not put into action) and explains what role communicative processes play in passing on scientific know-how. In the theoretical part, some selected communication models are introduced. Accordingly, scientific findings do not enter practical fields via clearly defined ‘transport routes’ of information. Knowledge tends to be disseminated via network structures of communication. The acceptance and diffusion of knowledge generated by the Austrian ‘Research Initiative Against Forest Decline’ is employed to test the hypotheses derived. Data were collected with a standardised, self-administered questionnaire (249 interviews with managers of forest enterprises and persons working in forest extension services in Austria). The empirical survey shows that the traditional channels of transfer (i.e. scientists and extension services) play only a minor direct role in passing on scientific know-how and putting it into practice. Furthermore, we can see that professional and institutionalised channels are supplemented by informal contacts.

Framings of science-policy interactions and their discursive and institutional effects: examples from conservation and environmental policy

Abstract The complex field of forest conservation, like many other areas of environmental policy and management, is considered to be in urgent need of sound scientific expertise. At the same time, the practice of linking scientific knowledge production to political and societal decision-making is a persistent challenge. Rather than attempting to illuminate the (problematic) interaction between science and policy-making in an empirical way, this study adopts a meta-perspective to investigate how the role of science in policy-making is discursively framed. To this end, seven established theoretical conceptualizations of science-policy interactions are presented. For each conceptualization, the underlying rationales are presented first. Then, the ensuing discursive and institutional effects—in the sense of proposed procedural and organizational measures—are discussed. Finally, the study reflects on the question of how practices of scientific policy advice could be shaped in a more productive way if—instead of taking single narrow framings for granted—the role of science in policy-making were perceived, discussed and enacted in a more frame-reflective way.

Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung als kulturgebundene Grenzarbeit Vergleich der Interaktionsmuster in den USA und Österreich

Die effektive Verbindung von substanziellem Wissen und verbindlichen politischen Entscheidungen stellt seit langem eine der grosten Herausforderungen politischer Steuerung dar (Guston 2001a). Dass selbst in Bereichen, in denen hinsichtlich der grundsatzlichen gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungsrichtung ein normativer Konsens besteht, die erfolgreiche Kopplung von Wissenschaft und Politik nur masig effektiv ist, deutet auf grundlegende Barrieren und Lucken in Wissens-Handlungs-Systemen hin (Cash et al. 2002). Solche Hindernisse finden in den altbekannten Problemen ihren Ausdruck, dass politische Entscheidungstragerinnen nicht jene Informationen bekommen, die sie brauchen wurden, und dass umgekehrt Wissenschafterinnen Wissen produzieren, das gesellschaftlich ungenutzt bleibt.

Legitimacy of informal institutions in contemporary local forest management: insights from Ghana

Many studies have recommended more conscious consideration of informal local norms in the pursuit of officially-recognized local forest management. The justification is that management systems grounded in local norms are well suited to local realities and correspond better with the interests and capacities of local forest users than expert-knowledge systems, which generally require a lot of external support to function. In Ghana, as in many other postcolonial countries, informal local norms were effective in regulating forest resource use before they were pushed into the background following the centralization and formalization of forest management by the colonial administrations. It is however unclear if and to what extent the local norms have retained their legitimacy in the face of massive institutional changes and breath-taking land use dynamics. Based on empirical study of five Ghanaian local forest contexts, this paper explores the role of informal local norms in contemporary local forest management, building theoretically on the concept of institutional legitimacy. Two forms of informal local forestry norms were identified: taboo norms and non-taboo norms. While the non-taboo norms had legitimacy in the present day local communities, some of the taboo norms no longer had legitimacy. The findings indicate that due to modernization, including adoption of Christianity, formal education and commercialization, sacred myths alone do not provide legitimacy for the taboo norms any longer. It is inferable from the findings that to have legitimacy and be useful in contemporary local forest management, both the taboo and non-taboo norms require legitimacy from process and output justifications such as their presumed fairness or instrumental relevance for achieving what local people want to do with their forests.

Zwischen Alibi und Aushandlung — Ein empirischer Blick auf die Interaktion zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik am Beispiel der österreichischen Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik

Dieser schwerpunktmasig empirisch orientierte Beitrag gibt einen uberblick uber die allgemeine Rolle und die spezifischen Funktionen von Wissenschaft in der Politik, wobei das Feld der osterreichischen Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik als Beispielsfall dient. Die Analyse zeigt, dass wissenschaftliche Politikberatung in einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher organisatorischer Formen und Foren stattfindet, dass die Interaktion zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik differenzierte, phasenspezifische Muster aufweist und dass wissenschaftliche Expertise im politischen Alltag ein breites Spektrum an Funktionen zu erfullen hat. Grundsatzlich lasst wissenschaftliche Politikberatung in osterreich starke Muster strategischer Handlungsorientierung bei allen involvierten Akteursgruppen (einschlieslich der Wissenschaft)erkennen. Als durchgangig bedeutungsvoll kann auch der Einfluss institutioneller Faktoren herausgestellt werden, wobei insbesondere die zentrale Rolle, die der Verwaltung in allen Formen und Phasen wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung zukommt, auffallt. Augenscheinlich ist zuletzt die (immer noch)starke Prasenz neo-korporatistischer Interaktionsmuster. Zusammenfassend lasst sich damit konstatieren, dass Wissenschaft und Politik im Kontext der osterreichischen Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik in einem im Titel angedeuteten Spannungsbogen zwischen Alibi und Aushandlung aufeinander treffen.

Whose look into the future? Participation in technology assessment and foresight

Technology assessment and foresight are instruments that aim to anticipate future developments and conditions and, therefore, are intended to provide orientations for present decision-making. Although to different extents, both instruments procedurally and methodologically rely on participatory procedures for anticipation. Building on the analytical concepts of co-production and boundary work, we analyze the practices of participatory knowledge production in ten technology assessment and foresight projects in Austria. In the first step, we examine the conceptualization and realization of participation by identifying their underlying rationales. In the second step, we show how different rationales influence the selection of participants and their interactions. We then show how particular actors and related role expectations are assigned to specific modes of anticipation. Finally, we highlight the covert domination of experts and project managers in the overall framing of problems and the challenges that they face when their framings are questioned by other participants.