IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v41y2004i13p2669-2690.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Policy Beliefs in Spatial Decisions: Contrasting Core Beliefs Concerning Space-making for Waste Infrastructure

Author

Listed:
  • Maarten Wolsink

    (Department of Geography and Planning, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands, M.P.Wolsink@uva.nl.)

Abstract

In planning the existence of structural differences in policy, beliefs among stakeholders are crucial. This study concludes that the most salient contrasts in beliefs about spatial and environmental planning concern the way the process is managed. Some of those contrasts reflect fundamental assumptions about the possibilities for reaching consensus and the relevance of involvement of actors in the process. The beliefs of the key actors involved in six siting decisions about waste infrastructure were identified and analysed by using Q methodology and cultural theory. This revealed that core beliefs about choices in environmental policy and waste management are connected with beliefs about spatial planning. The contrasts mainly concern issues of scale linked to competences regarding decision-making. The belief system of dominating actors is mainly hierarchical, combined with a technocratic approach to waste management prioritising incineration. Two alternative belief systems emphasised prevention as priority and egalitarian views on spatial decisions. Although the hierarchical approach of dominant coalitions was far from effective, the tendency remains of increasing top-down planning. Facility siting is increasingly framed in terms of larger areas and the reliance on hierarchical planning fits the authoritarian bias that emerges in such rescaling processes.

Suggested Citation

  • Maarten Wolsink, 2004. "Policy Beliefs in Spatial Decisions: Contrasting Core Beliefs Concerning Space-making for Waste Infrastructure," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(13), pages 2669-2690, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:41:y:2004:i:13:p:2669-2690
    DOI: 10.1080/0042098042000294619
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/0042098042000294619
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0042098042000294619?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maantay, J., 2001. "Zoning, equity, and public health," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(7), pages 1033-1041.
    2. Thomas C. Beierle & David M. Konisky, 2000. "Values, conflict, and trust in participatory environmental planning," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 587-602.
    3. Minehart, Deborah & Neeman, Zvika, 2002. "Effective Siting of Waste Treatment Facilities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 303-324, March.
    4. Jane L. Price & Jeremy B. Joseph, 2000. "Demand management - a basis for waste policy: a critical review of the applicability of the waste hierarchy in terms of achieving sustainable waste management," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(2), pages 96-105.
    5. Toddi A. Steelman & Lynn A. Maguire, 1999. "Understanding participant perspectives: Q-methodology in national forest management," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(3), pages 361-388.
    6. Dan Durning, 1999. "The transition from traditional to postpositivist policy analysis: A role for Q-methodology," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(3), pages 389-410.
    7. Maarten Wolsink & Paulien De Jong, 2001. "Waste Sector Structure: Institutional Capacity for Planning Waste Reduction," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 92(2), pages 148-163, May.
    8. Judith Petts, 2004. "Barriers to participation and deliberation in risk decisions: evidence from waste management," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 115-133, March.
    9. Dryzek, John S. & Berejikian, Jeffrey, 1993. "Reconstructive Democratic Theory," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 48-60, March.
    10. Nicholas A Phelps & Mark Tewdwr-Jones, 2000. "Scratching the Surface of Collaborative and Associative Governance: Identifying the Diversity of Social Action in Institutional Capacity Building," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(1), pages 111-130, January.
    11. Tore Sager, 2001. "Planning Style and Agency Properties," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(3), pages 509-532, March.
    12. Judith Petts, 2000. "Municipal Waste Management: Inequities and the Role of Deliberation," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(6), pages 821-832, December.
    13. E Quah & K C Tan, 1998. "The Siting Problem of Nimby Facilities: Cost – Benefit Analysis and Auction Mechanisms," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 16(3), pages 255-264, June.
    14. Upreti, Bishnu Raj, 2004. "Conflict over biomass energy development in the United Kingdom: some observations and lessons from England and Wales," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 785-800, April.
    15. Gunnar Grendstad & Per Selle, 2000. "Cultural Myths of Human and Physical Nature: Integrated or Separated?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 27-40, February.
    16. James Tansey, 2004. "Risk as politics, culture as power," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 17-32, January.
    17. Ellis, Richard J. & Thompson, Fred, 1997. "Culture and the Environment in the Pacific Northwest," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(4), pages 885-897, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wolsink, Maarten, 2007. "Wind power implementation: The nature of public attitudes: Equity and fairness instead of 'backyard motives'," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 1188-1207, August.
    2. Tampakis, Stilianos & Τsantopoulos, Georgios & Arabatzis, Garyfallos & Rerras, Ioannis, 2013. "Citizens’ views on various forms of energy and their contribution to the environment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 473-482.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boschetti, Fabio & Richert, Claire & Walker, Iain & Price, Jennifer & Dutra, Leo, 2012. "Assessing attitudes and cognitive styles of stakeholders in environmental projects involving computer modelling," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 247(C), pages 98-111.
    2. Branden B. Johnson & Brendon Swedlow, 2021. "Cultural Theory's Contributions to Risk Analysis: A Thematic Review with Directions and Resources for Further Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 429-455, March.
    3. Swedeen, Paula, 2006. "Post-normal science in practice: A Q study of the potential for sustainable forestry in Washington State, USA," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 190-208, May.
    4. N. Exel & G. Graaf & P. Rietveld, 2011. "“I can do perfectly well without a car!”," Transportation, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 383-407, May.
    5. Ching Leong & Raul Lejano, 2016. "Thick narratives and the persistence of institutions: using the Q methodology to analyse IWRM reforms around the Yellow River," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 49(4), pages 445-465, December.
    6. Astari, Annisa Joviani & Lovett, Jon C., 2019. "Does the rise of transnational governance ‘hollow-out’ the state? Discourse analysis of the mandatory Indonesian sustainable palm oil policy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 1-12.
    7. Shackley, Simon & Mander, Sarah & Reiche, Alexander, 2006. "Public perceptions of underground coal gasification in the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3423-3433, December.
    8. Brendon Swedlow & Joseph T. Ripberger & Li‐Yin Liu & Carol L. Silva & Hank Jenkins‐Smith & Branden B. Johnson, 2020. "Construct Validity of Cultural Theory Survey Measures," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2332-2383, October.
    9. Garrone, Paola & Groppi, Angelamaria, 2012. "Siting locally-unwanted facilities: What can be learnt from the location of Italian power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 176-186.
    10. Thomas Webler & Seth Tuler, 2021. "Four Decades of Public Participation in Risk Decision Making," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 503-518, March.
    11. Michel J.G. van Eeten, 2001. "Recasting Intractable Policy Issues: The Wider Implications of The Netherlands Civil Aviation Controversy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 391-414.
    12. Hoogstra-Klein, Marjanke A. & Permadi, Dwiko B. & Yasmi, Yurdi, 2012. "The value of cultural theory for participatory processes in natural resource management," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 99-106.
    13. MacDonald, Patricia A. & Murray, Grant & Patterson, Michele, 2015. "Considering social values in the seafood sector using the Q-method," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 68-76.
    14. Branden B. Johnson & Brendon Swedlow, 2024. "Scale reliability of alternative cultural theory survey measures," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 527-557, February.
    15. Ya Li, 2015. "Think tank 2.0 for deliberative policy analysis," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(1), pages 25-50, March.
    16. Cuppen, Eefje, 2012. "A quasi-experimental evaluation of learning in a stakeholder dialogue on bio-energy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 624-637.
    17. Stefan Ambec & Yann Kervinio, 2016. "Cooperative decision-making for the provision of a locally undesirable facility," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 119-155, January.
    18. Setiawan, Andri D. & Cuppen, Eefje, 2013. "Stakeholder perspectives on carbon capture and storage in Indonesia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1188-1199.
    19. Buckwell, Andrew & Fleming, Christopher & Muurmans, Maggie & Smart, James & Mackey, Brendan, 2020. "Revealing the dominant discourses of stakeholders towards natural resource management in Port Resolution, Vanuatu, using Q-method," 2020 Conference (64th), February 12-14, 2020, Perth, Western Australia 305231, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    20. Dinica, Valentina, 2009. "Biomass power: Exploring the diffusion challenges in Spain," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1551-1559, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:41:y:2004:i:13:p:2669-2690. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.