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The discourses of incidents: cougars on Mt. Elden and in Sabino Canyon, Arizona

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  • David Mattson
  • Susan Clark

Abstract

Incidents are relatively short periods of intensified discourse that arise from public responses to symbolically important actions by public officials, and an important part of the conflict that increasingly surrounds state wildlife management in the West. In an effort to better understand incidents as a facet of this conflict, we analyzed the discourses of two incidents in Arizona that were precipitated by the intended removal of cougars by managers in response to public safety concerns. We used newspaper content, 1999–2007, to elucidate seminal patterns of public discourses and discourse coalitions as well as differences in discursive focus between incident periods and background periods. Cougars were mentioned in newspaper articles 13–33 times more often during incidents compared with background periods. State wildlife agency commissioners and hunters were part of a discourse coalition that advocated killing cougars to solve problems, blamed cougars and those who promoted the animals’ intrinsic value and sought to retain power to define and solve cougar-related problems. Personnel from affected state and federal agencies expressed a similar discourse. Environmentalists, animal protection activists, and some elected officials were of a coalition that defined “the problem” primarily in terms of people’s behaviors, including behaviors associated with current institutional arrangements. This discourse advocated decentralizing power over cougar management. The discourses reflected different preferences for the allocations of power and use of lethal versus non-lethal methods, which aligned with apparent core beliefs and participants’ enfranchisement or disenfranchisement by current state-level management power arrangements. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. (outside the USA) 2012

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  • David Mattson & Susan Clark, 2012. "The discourses of incidents: cougars on Mt. Elden and in Sabino Canyon, Arizona," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 45(4), pages 315-343, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:policy:v:45:y:2012:i:4:p:315-343
    DOI: 10.1007/s11077-012-9158-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michael J. Manfredo & Tara L. Teel & Kimberly L. Henry, 2009. "Linking Society and Environment: A Multilevel Model of Shifting Wildlife Value Orientations in the Western United States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(2), pages 407-427, June.
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    1. Ryan CL Bullock & E. Carina H. Keskitalo & Terhi Vuojala-Magga & Emmeline Laszlo Ambjörnsson, 2016. "Forestry administrator framings of responses to socioeconomic disturbance: Examples from northern regions in Canada, Sweden, and Finland," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(5), pages 945-962, August.
    2. Cedar Morton & Murray Rutherford, 2023. "The Columbia River Treaty’s adaptive capacity for fish conservation," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 43-75, March.
    3. J. Michael Angstadt, 2020. "Applying Stone in a Western Landscape: Ranchers, Conservationists, and Causal Stories in the “American Serengeti”," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 37(2), pages 244-259, March.
    4. Zachary Bischoff-Mattson & Amanda H. Lynch, 2016. "Adaptive governance in water reform discourses of the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 49(3), pages 281-307, September.

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