Thomas Block

A discourse-analytical perspective on sustainability assessment: interpreting sustainable development in practice

Sustainable development is a ubiquitously used concept in public decision-making: it refers to an ideal vision of global society where human development and environmental quality go hand in hand. Logically, any decision-supporting process aiming at facilitating and steering society toward a sustainable future then seems desirable. Assessing the sustainability of policy decisions is, however, influenced by what sustainable development is believed to entail, as different discourses coexist under the umbrella of the sustainable development meta-discourse. This paper proposes a typology of sustainable development discourses, and, subsequently, applies a discourse-analytical lens on two practical cases of sustainability assessment in different institutional and geographical contexts (in Belgium and in Benin). The results indicate that sustainability assessments tend to be influenced mainly by the consensual ‘sustainable development as integration’ discourse, while also providing a forum for dialogue between different discourses. The results shed light on context-specific discursive and institutional dynamics for the development and application of sustainability assessment. Acknowledging these dynamics as well as sustainable development’s inherent interpretational limits can lead to an improved use of sustainable development as a decision-guiding strategy.

Unravelling urban sustainability.: How the Flemish City Monitor acknowledges complexities

Abstract In this article we argue that the City Monitor for Sustainable Urban Development in the Flanders (Belgium) acknowledges two kinds of complexities. Firstly, the set of almost 200 SDIs (Sustainable Development Indicators) is positioned in complex and strategic decision-making processes in Flemish cities. In this respect, this learning instrument contains actor-exceeding and policy-exogenous information, which is relevant for governance settings involved in the urban (sustainable) development of their city. The City Monitor is meant to enhance and sharpen the quality of strategic urban debates and, as a consequence, it has to be regarded as only one single element in complex urban decision-making processes. Secondly, the design methodology of the City Monitor also aims at addressing typical tensions brought about by such catch-all terms as urban sustainability. Because of the complex and normative character of the concept we opted for an intensive co-design approach with hundreds of urban stakeholders. The case of the City Monitor shows that this ‘complexity-acknowledging’ perspective and approach can be complementary to more traditional monitoring approaches.

When strategic plans fail to lead : a complexity acknowledging perspective on decision-making in urban development projects : the case of Kortrijk (Belgium)

Nowadays, cities formulate long-term strategies to address the challenges and opportunities they face. Numerous strategic plans or planning instruments are developed for this purpose. In this article, we would like to examine the role, impact and relevance of these types of plans in decision-making processes concerning urban development projects (UDPs) in the Flemish Region of Belgium. To what extent do strategic plans succeed in capturing and steering the complexity of spatial interventions in contemporary urban contexts? We argue that a complexity-acknowledging perspective provides a more realistic and adequate view here by seeing strategic plans as only one among many elements in the set of tangled inter- and intrastrategic processes which together determine UDPs. A comparative and qualitative case study was carried out in the city of Kortrijk. The decision-making of three UDPs was studied thoroughly. Interviewing key actors and analysing policy documents helped us to (re)construct the complex decision-making processes and to stipulate the meaning of all involved formal plans and planning tools.

Team Work or Territorial War

Abstract This article studies the extent to which the newly created figure of the management team in local government in Flanders might lead to changes in administrative conduct. It uses a new institutionalism perspective in three worlds of action to study the mediating effect of meso-organizational and micro-individual factors on macro-constitutional reform. The empirical analysis (based on an assessment of the reform by the key acting municipal secretaries) highlights the importance of meso-factors for change. Especially the extent to which integrative thinking and independence from politics are present in the administrative logic of appropriateness seems to matter. This is complemented by micro-individual assumptions on the overall improvement of the macro-constitutive framework of reform.

An exploration of sustainability change agents as facilitators of nonformal learning: mapping a moving and intertwined landscape

We explore the variety of ways in which change agents try to contribute to sustainable development and how, by doing so, they enable different forms of learning. Drawing on research literature as well as empirical studies, we distinguish a diversity of change agency roles. We then describe and develop an ideal typology of change agents according to how they relate to two fields of tension: that between instrumental vs. open-ended approaches to change and learning, and that between personal detachment vs. involvement. Finally, we compare the developed ideal types, i.e., Technician, Convincer, Mediator, and Concerned Explorer, with empirical examples and suggest a dynamic reading of the typology as a landscape in which change agents move between and across different positions according to changing and shifting contexts.

Using policy discourses to open up the conceptual space of farm education : inspiration from a Belgian farm education network

Abstract Farm education organized by farmers and directed towards students and groups of citizens is a relatively new practice often considered as one specific business strategy to diversify farmers’ income. Although we endorse the importance of an economic rationale we argue that this conceptualization undermines a diversity of perspectives on educative processes that address societal transformation and the political role of intergroup and interpersonal deliberation. In this paper, we start from the observation that on the European level three different competing policy paradigms or discourses are being advocated. Reasoning from a discourse-analytical perspective these policy discourses cannot be considered as mere ideas floating in abstraction but constitute interpretative frames that have concrete implications for practices in the agro-food domain. Along these lines, we reveal three analytically distinct educative practices by specifying how each discourse articulates meaning to make sense of farm education in terms of goals, relations and actions. Our theoretical assumptions on education are informed by John Deweys pragmatist conception of education which starts from the idea that the mutual recognition of social interests are co-constitutive for the experience of learning. We use a case study on a regional farm education network in Belgium to illustrate how farmers educative efforts can be enrolled differently in educational practices according to different discursive frames and how these different educational practices enable or constrain social and educational arrangements that promote a sustainability transition. We conclude that farm education is a multifaceted educational practice and reflect on its potentialities and pitfalls to foster (emancipatory) agency to re-balance conflicting interests towards sustainable development.