Abstract

The political project on bioeconomy strives to address multiple societal aspirations, namely combine economic growth with environmental sustainability in some socially acceptable manner. The contradictions between the goals and the concrete plans to increase production, processing, and consumption of forest biomass in Europe have however raised sustainability concerns within and beyond its borders. While political actors articulate such contradictions differently and compete for traction for their viewpoints in the public discourse, little is known about how citizens of urban areas perceive this discourse. Conceptualising perception as a multidimensional construct, data from eight European university cities (Bordeaux, Bratislava, Freiburg, Helsinki, Padua, St. Petersburg, Uppsala, Vienna) are statistically analysed to explore its dimensions, the communities of like-minded citizens forming across those dimensions, and the traits associating with membership in each such community. Five communities across six dimensions from biocentrism through distributional aspects to adherence to political goals are identified: adherent-environmentalist, adherent-governmentalist, critical-reformist, critical -agriculturalist, and indifferent. City of residence and perceived familiarity with bioeconomy clearly interact with perception. There is however considerable variation in communities within and across the eight cities, suggesting deeper social tension beyond the public discourse. Much of the within-community variation remains unexplained, though, calling for more work locally. Implications for forest policy are derived.

Keywords

Lay perception; Legitimacy; Network analysis; Public discourse; Risk perception; Socio-technical transition

Published in

Forest Policy and Economics
2022, Volume: 140, article number: 102749

SLU Authors

• Bernö, Hanna

  • Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Holmgren, Sara

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

• Mark-Herbert, Cecilia

  • Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Nagy, Emil

  • Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
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

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102749

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/117533