Urban transport, the environment and the network society:a call for deliberative approaches?

Abstract

Based on the conclusions of a completed Ph.D. thesis and post doctoral research activities, this paper describes and analyses environmental objectives and strategies have materialised in three cases of local transport policy making and planning; in the urban areas of Lund (Sweden), Groningen (The Netherlands), and Aalborg (Denmark). The cases illustrate how local political goals and strategies for environmentally oriented transport solutions have been influenced by international environmental discourses as well as by national strategies and plans. The paper provides insight into the possibilities of renewed public policy, mainly in terms of collaborative approaches. The cases show the importance of open-ended discursive interactions as well as of more flexible institutional arrangements across sectors and political levels. Interactive and more network-based policymaking practices seem to have succeeded over conventional and more hierarchical ways of public policymaking. As such, these cases offer illuminating examples of collaborative dialogue, expressed through networks in which argumentative approaches and increased reflexivity about the ´rules of the game´ have been central elements. Finally, the paper discusses the extent to which this should amount to a call for deliberative approaches and new policy procedures. ho