Minimizing the Blind Spot of Public Institutions

One of the most profound sustainability challenges faced by democratic regimes within modernity is how to include the full spectrum of social rationality in the development and subsequent evaluation of public policy. Nowhere is this challenge more profound than in the natural resource management (NRM) sector, which has experienced severe pressure on its legitimacy during the past two decades. Institutional responses to the legitimacy crisis in NRM provide a timely opportunity to examine an emergent subject-oriented approach as an alternative to traditional bureaucratic responses.

We analysed two national programs - from Sweden and U.S. that attempt to incorporate non-instrumental, and explicitly value-based rationalities into the policy arena by positioning NRM professionals as subjects who may choose to act as agents of change, rather than as components of institutional structure. We examined the programs and the professional self-identities of their participants to evaluate changes in individual professionals':

1) understanding of the role and tasks of NRM;

2) reflexivity concerning available modes of rationality;

3) identify the rationalities motivating institutional practices associated with participation in the programs.