Abstract

Two obstructionist ways of doing politics on contentious wildlife management issues currently reflect a legitimacy deficit in official channels for public engagement. The first is that of a pernicious "direct-action" politics, in the form of resort by hunters in rural Sweden to illegal killings of protected wolves over whose policy they contest. The second obstruction is when environmental non-governmental organizations routinely file appeals in higher-level courtrooms contesting democratically mandated wolf cull decisions. Although markedly different when it comes to their categorically deliberative values as well as fidelity to the law, we argue both extra-legal and the litigative phenomena reflect disenfranchisement with the participation channels in which such controversies may be resolved through a public dialogue. We also argue that both possess negative systemic deliberative value inasmuch as they frustrate goals of reaching deliberative consensus, by contributing to a stalled public communication on wolf management. We address this deficit by appeal to recent developments in the theory and practice of mini-publics that promote both the categorical and systemic deliberative value of channeling contestation. In particular, we appeal to a novel conception of hunter-initiated, but citizen controlled, mini-publics as a vehicle for re-starting stalled public communication on wolf conservation

Keywords

Contestation, obstructionism, illegal hunting, legal appeals, poaching, legitimacy, mini-publics, wolves

Published in

Environmental Communication
2017, Volume: 11, number: 5, pages: 654-666

SLU Authors

• von Essen, Erica

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels


UKÄ Subject classification

Sociology (excluding Social work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Law and Society


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2016.1269821

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/79739