New
Models for Struggle:
Environmental Decision Making Through Consensus
David N. Pellow
Abstract
Recent research in environmental sociology indicates that environmental
movement activists continue to engage in radical, disruptive, and
adversarial tactics to achieve their goals. In this paper I propose
that environmentalists are using a new form of protest, specifically
consensus-based decision-making. This new form emerged in response
to profound changes in the political economy and ecology that have
taken place during the last three decades. Consensus-based environmental
decision-making is one method these actors are employing to find
ways to achieve cleaner ecosystems and socioeconomic stability.
Although consensus-building among actors of vastly unequal resources
would appear to challenge traditional adversarial models of decision-making,
I argue that it does not. Based on an analysis of interviews with
environmentalists experienced in consensus-building, I conclude
that activists in fact maintain an adversarial ideological stance
toward industry and state actors and they subsume this stance under
a more cooperative, 'consensus' framework. This is a form of 'infrapolitics'Ņa
covertly subversive act undertaken by subjugated groups in the presence
of more powerful actors.
David N. Pellow, Department of Sociology,
Northwestern University
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