Performing failure in conservation policy: The implementation of European Union directives in the Netherlands
Abstract
We investigate the impact of performances of failure in nature conservation by means of a detailed reconstruction of the implementation of European Union conservation directives in the Netherlands. We distinguish performance and performativity, whereby the latter is the reality-effect of discourses affecting policy, and partly the result of deliberate performance. It is argued that the implementation history in the Netherlands reveals that even long-standing traditions of deliberation and spatial planning can be disrupted as an unintended consequence of international policy implementation. What was intended as a tool to promote long-term planning for nature conservation can in effect undermine both nature conservation and long-term planning. Only a high degree of reflexivity in the planning system can diminish the chances of misconceiving the spaces for negotiation and deliberation that are left open by the EU directives. Otherwise, a combination of unexpected events and unreflected routine responses will in all likelihood produce results highly diverging from the initial ambitions.
- Publication:
-
Land Use Policy
- Pub Date:
- March 2013
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 2013LUPol..31..280B
- Keywords:
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- Nature conservation;
- EU directives;
- Performativity;
- Implementation;
- Netherlands