Negotiating neoliberalism through stakeholders’ engagements with ecosystem service governance in Wales.
Paper Presented at the Challenging Orthodoxies: Critical Governance Studies Conference, WarwickBusinessSchool, December 13th-14th 2010.
Dr. Sophie Wynne-Jones
Lecturer in Human Geography
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences
AberystwythUniversity
Ceredigion
SY23 3DB
01970-622595
Abstract
This paper critically engages with the application of neoliberal governance strategies to the sphere of environmental management, in the form of newly initiated payment schemes for ecosystem services in Wales. Following widelyheldsensibilitiesadvocating the application of market-mechanisms,the scheme in question here reframes the environment as a source of saleable goods and services, rather than something which needs to be regulated through legislation.Tracing the impetus behind this shift, it is notable that whilst neoliberal directives are clearly present within the discourses of government and policy advisors, there has been little coverage of the reaction to such policy programmes from the publics whom they are intended to involve. In particular, the attitudes of rural land-managers are identified as a key area for investigation, in order to attain a fuller perspective on the advancement of market-led governance schemes. Moreover, it is argued that analysis which is solely focused upon official policy and ‘elite’ knowledges, can suggest a top-down reading of hegemony, sidelining the social and subjective processes involved in the negotiation of political-economic programmes. Consequently, this paper details more grounded reflections on the impetus for market-led strategies of governance, by unpacking the way in which land-managers have made-sense of, and subsequently engaged or resisted these processes of neoliberalisation.Specifically, the paper applies methodologies drawn from post-structural feminists Wendy Larner and J.K. Gibson-Graham, in order tolocate the negotiation of neoliberal formations with individuals’ processes of self-reflection, identification, and emotion. As such, providing an important avenue for more in-depth understandings of why neoliberal strategies have continued to endure.
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1. Introduction
“What we call land is an element of nature inexplicably interwoven with man’s institutions. To isolate it and form a market out of it was perhaps the weirdest of all undertakings of our ancestors ...The economic function is but one of many vital functions of land.” (Polanyi 1944 p178)
Over the course of the last thirty years the increasing dominance of neoliberalism has become a central concern for critical scholars, and even in our current time of crises it is apparent thatthese modes of rule have not yet lost their purchase.The continued evaluation of such political-economic processes, and their associated maintenance of hegemony, is therefore seen as an urgent priority - perhaps now more than ever. In this paper I will focus upon the deployment of neoliberal governance for the purposes of environmental management,as an important avenuethrough which neoliberal strategy is continuing to berolled-out. Critically, it is argued that the neoliberalisation of nature represents not only a further colonisation of previous externalities (McCarthy and Prudham 2004), but can also be seen as a critical juncture in the continued advance of neoliberalism, given the potentially fundamental contradictions which are seen to arise from such processes of commodification (O'Connor 1998). As such, whilst we areclearly faced with an increasing imperative to address mounting ecological crises,we also have to grapple with the charge that ecological problems are unavoidably connected to the political-economic system. Here, the apparent acceptability, and indeed necessity of deploying neoliberal mechanisms for environmental management is seen as a key paradox to be unpacked as part of a wider project of critical engagement with neoliberal hegemony.
Working within this framing,this paper focuses upon the issue of payments for the delivery of ecosystem services as a component of recent agri-environment policy reform in Wales(WAG 2009, a). Following wider patternsfor the implementation of market mechanisms in the governance of ecosystem function(Robertson 2004 ; Bakker 2007; Bumpus and Liverman 2008; Schreuder 2009),the schemein question reframes the environment as a source of saleable goods and services, rather than something which needs to be regulated through legislation. As such, through this process of policy reform, the Welsh Assembly Government has acted to commodify ecosystem processes that were previously seen as external to business.
Exploring the impetus behind this change, it is notable that payments for ecosystem services have become an increasing figure within western environmental discourse (Costanza and et.al. 1997; Heal 2000; Daily and Ellison 2002; Swingland 2003; Whitten, Salzman et al. 2003). This has led to increasing pressures on an international level to implement market mechanisms in the management of environmental resources. Here, the conclusions of a recent report, led by the United Nations Environment Programme[i], into ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’ (TEEB 2010), offer a useful example of the discourses now employed to argue for a widespread mainstreaming of the economics of nature. Specifically, they outline that:
“The invisibility of many of nature’s services to the economy results in widespread neglect of natural capital, leading to decisions that degrade ecosystems and biodiversity…[consequently] decision makers…should take steps to assess and communicate the role of biodiversity and ecosystem services in economic activity...
” (ibid, p25).
“Economic incentives including market prices, taxes, subsidies and other signals play a major role in influencing the use of natural capital.” (ibid p27)
Within Wales, the Assembly Government has taken up this challenge with the development of the new agri-environment scheme; as shown in the following outtakes from their 2008 consultation and 2009 press releases:
“for the current [schemes] the economic model is seen as being the appropriate one to take in developing land management schemes since it emphasises the relationship between land management and the production of outputs…” (WAG 2008).
“The purpose of [this] agri-environment scheme [is] to enable WAG to buy environmental goods and services from farmers that are not supplied through normal market mechanisms. WAG is therefore the customer and the farmer is the supplier.” (WAG 2009, b, p11).
“We have deliberately used the term ‘supply contract’ to describe the agreement that WAG and farmers will sign under [the new scheme]… WAG is therefore the customer and the farmer is the supplier. The contract that will be put in place for [the new scheme] will reflect this relationship.” (WAG 2009, a)
Given these aspirations, it is argued that the advance of neoliberal ideals can be clearly identified as an outcome of the Welsh Assembly Government’s ambition to restructure their rural payment schemes[ii]. Nevertheless, it is equally acknowledged that the State is only one site and instrument through which neoliberal discourse is developed and deployed. As Larner and le Heron (Larner and Le Heron 2002b) have argued, there are multiple dimensions and processes through which neoliberalism(s) are constituted, which are in need of attention. In order to conduct a fuller analysis, it is therefore argued that we need to explore a wider network of mechanisms and procedures, built around collective norms of behaviour and identity, which are mediated through individuals (Cloke and Goodwin 1992 p325). Equally, it is argued that analysis which is solely focused upon official policy and ‘elite’ knowledges, can suggest a top-down reading of hegemony, sidelining the social and subjective processes of negotiation involved. Following Larner (2000 p4), it is argued that:
“analyses that characterise neoliberalism as a policy response to the exigencies of the global economy…run the risk of under-estimating the significance of contemporary transformations in governance. Neoliberalism is both a political discourse about the nature of rule and a set of practises that facilitate the governing of individuals…”
Consequently, we need to ask more precisely how hegemony becomes manifest, in order to explore the mechanics and sometimes fraught negotiation of such practises of governance. Following this impetus, this paper attends to the experiences of land managers who have been involved in the development of new conservation strategies, in Wales, which have recently culminated in the proposals for the new agri-environment scheme. The details of these case studies are outlined in section 3. Here it is argued that land-managersprefer market-style modes of governance as a seemingly common-sense persuasion, hence evidencing a ‘bottom-up’ push for the development of neoliberal policy programmes.
In order to gain more critical insights into these assessments, the paper then applies the methodologies of post-structural feminists Wendy Larner (2000) and J.K. Gibson-Graham (2006). That is, to developa more in-depth analysis of how such sensibilities have become sedimented,by focusing upon the way in which hegemony is achieved through the negotiation of internalised desires and sensibilities, rather than assuming the unquestionable logic of the economic bottom line as a primary rationale. This approach is outlined in section 2, before being applied in section 4 following the introduction of the case studies in section 3. In the analysis of section 4, I discuss how neoliberal subjectivities are formulated within land managers’ current conduct, and processes of self-assessment and representation; as well as outlininghow the emergence of a new payment scheme for ecosystem services could further enhance this shift.
In summary, it is argued that in order to understand the presumed suitability of market solutions to the emerging challenges of environmental governance, the formation of hegemony needs to be traced through to individuals, and their more deep-seated negotiations of neoliberalism. That is, to unpick the ways in which neoliberal policy formations are co-constituted with and through particular understandings of the self, which are then mobilised and (re)enacted through the apparatus of governance.
2. Theorising Neoliberal Subjectivity
In this section I will outline the theory behind the analytical approach employed in the paper. Specifically, this paper draws upon the work Wendy Larner (Larner 2000; Larner and Le Heron 2002a; Larner and Le Heron 2002b; Larner 2003; 2007) and J.K. Gibson-Graham (Gibson-Graham 2006; Gibson-Graham 2008), as a means to unpack the way in which different people make-sense of, engage, and / or resist, neoliberal ways of knowing and doing. Putting this mode of analysis in a wider context, it can be seen as a distinctly feminist and post-structural approach to the analysis of neoliberalism. That is, one which grounds the negotiation of neoliberal formations with individuals, and the processes of self-reflection, identification and emotion, through which they enact or refute neoliberal ways of being. Given this focus, such analyses are seen to provide an important means of exploring how neoliberalism becomes manifest through both ‘rational’ economic assessments, as well as more subconscious, intuitive, or reactive, emotional responses. As such, an understanding of the more unconscious, deep-seated, and potentially irrational embraces of neoliberal policy is taken forward as a key insight of this paper, in order to provide a means of explaining the lack of more visible contestation to neoliberal hegemony in ecosystem management.
However, before we begin to outline the particulars of this approach it is important to reflect further upon why such analysis is necessary. That is, to outline why a shift to neoliberal modes of governance could be seen as problematic. Here, a number of concerns can be raised. In the first instance, one is alerted to the long tradition of critical scholarship that has identified the problematics of uneven development associated with neoliberal capitalism (eg. Smith 1984; Harvey 1996). This is particularly applicable in the analysis of agricultural and wider rural development patterns, which have been formative in the need for new governance mechanisms (Bonanno, Busch et al. 1994; Buttel 2005; Potter and Tilzey 2007). Specifically, it is argued that rural Wales has suffered from serious economic marginalisation, associated with a struggling agricultural sector that is unable to compete on the global market (Midmore and Hughes 1996; Midmore and Moore-Colyer 2005). Moreover, it is noted that similar processes of rural marginalisation and decline have resulted in outright resistance to the advance of neoliberal policy programmes from a number of communities outside of Wales (Bové and Dufour 2001; Guzmán and Martinez-Alier 2005; McCarthy 2005; Shiva 2008), promoting the question of why resistance is not more popularly articulated in this context. Critically, it is argued that in place of a rejection of neoliberalism, the move towards paying for ecosystem services within Wales can be understood as a means to rejuvenate the struggling agricultural sector through increasing neoliberalisation, as much as it is a strategy to address ecological decline. This provokes the question of how a wider application of neoliberal development models improve the prospects of farmers already struggling as a consequence of such competitive and polarising influences, as well as reinforcing concerns over such uncritical acquiescence.
Beyond this key paradox, the enthusiastic embrace of payments for ecosystem services is also brought into question by following the insights of critical scholarship on the neoliberalisation of nature (McCarthy and Prudham 2004; Heynan, McCarthy et al. 2007). Specifically, it is argued that strategies such as the development of payments for ecosystem services serve to further extend the logics of commodification and capitalisation, in order to exploit previously untapped resources, as a means to maintain the potential for capital accumulation. Here, work such as Robertson (2006a; 2007b) and Bakker (2002; 2005)are exemplary in their demonstration of the difficulties associated with the operationalisation of such markets, by evidencing the various ways in which nature is resistant to the application of economic measure and processes of exchange. Equally, it is argued that the extension of neoliberal rule to previously un-enclosed aspects of the environment has been as fraught with conflict as earlier rounds of enclosure (De Angelis 2001; Heynan, McCarthy et al. 2007; Mansfield 2007). Moreover, the neoliberalisation of nature is argued as a wider continuation of crisis remediation, with ecological degradation presented as the second contradiction of capitalism (O'Connor 1998; Foster 2002). In these terms, the extension of neoliberal governance is not seen as a benign strategy to internalise and apply ‘proper’ value to natures’ goods and services, but a means of maintaining the overall legitimacy of a fundamentally crisis prone system.
Given such vehement critiques, the continued dominance of neoliberalism has become a central conundrum for scholars wishing to unpack contemporary governance models. Exuding a frustration that is common in such enquiries, Peck and Tickell (2002 p381) have argued that neoliberalism is “as compelling as it is intangible”, whilst Beck (2000 211) goes as far as to describe it as “an ideological thought virus”. Grasping at this compulsion, critical scholars have aimed to map the construction of an apparently extant hegemony. There-in tackling the awkward paradox that neoliberalism is seemingly all powerful and everywhere, and yet a large proportion of society either doesn’t realise this, or just accepts it unquestioningly – despite the many clear difficulties that have arisen in conjunction with neoliberal governance reforms.
It is here-in, that the work of Wendy Larner and J.K. Gibson-Graham is similarly aimed; but before we can appreciate the impetus of their post-structural approaches, it is necessary to outline how their work departs from more structuralist, Neo-Marxist,accounts of hegemony. The work of David Harvey is often considered to be exemplary here, with his account of the rise of neoliberalism from the theorising of Hayek and Friedman(Hayek 1960; Friedman 1962 ), through to the political manifestations of the Reagan and Thatcher governments. Following Antonio Gramsci’s notion of hegemony (1971)his account sets out to reveal how the ‘common-sensical’ nature of neoliberalism was created and maintained by particular individuals and institutions to serve their own political-economic ambitions, and gain wider public support, without the need for aggressive coercive measures. Diane Rochelau (2007 p222) describes this as the Trojan horse approach, in which neoliberalism has not breached the city gates, but entered the imagination and re-structured our sense of our selves - thus, directing the practise of willing subjects.
In particular, Harvey (2005)suggests that neoliberal policies have been accepted by a wider populous due to their association of neoliberalism with ‘freedom for the individual’. His invocation of hegemony, therefore, suggests that the acceptance of particular political-economic positions can be achieved through a process of careful negotiation. Not by trying to enforce obviously objectionable policies, but by placing an emphasis upon the way in which they can be beneficial, to draw attention away from more problematic aspects. As such, the achievement of hegemony through consent rather than coercion offers an important avenue for the analysis of ‘irrational’ advancements of neoliberal policy programmes.
It is here that Wendy Larner (2000) interjects a more post-structural reading. Specifically, whilst sheconcurs with the Gramscian notion of hegemony,as a culturing of ‘norms’, she suggeststhat some Neo Marxian readings – such as the work of Jessop (1990) and Hall(eg. Hall 1985 ; Hall 1988)- can be critiquedfor their theoretical incoherence and over relianceupon an abstracted force of capitalism (see also Bonefield 1993; Murdoch 1995; Barnett 2005). In particular, she has aired concerns that scholars are too ready to recognise neoliberalism, rather than taking the complexity of contemporary governance as a starting point. Specifically, she has argued that:
“If we do indeed live in an era in which neoliberalism has been normalised, we need to take seriously the complexity of real examples…The task of neoliberals has been to present their unwieldy and contradictory political assemblage as a coherent geographical and institutional formation with necessary outcomes. Are we… also unintentionally contributing to these ambitions…”(Larner 2007 p220).
Consequently, her work has argued for a more nuanced understanding of neoliberal-type governance formations and goes as far as to ascribe the label of ‘after-neoliberalism’ to some emerging strategies (Larner, le Heron et al. 2007). Equally, these arguments are echoed by post-structural feminists Gibson-Graham (1996, p ix) who suggest that we need to depict social existence at loose ends with itself, rather than reproducing everything as part of the same monolithic complex (ie. neoliberalism). In these terms, economic practises are considered to comprise a rich diversity, which we are otherwise in danger of loosing if we ascribe everything as neoliberal.
Given thesetensions, Larner has sought to explain hegemony through a more grounded and subject-centred reading. Specifically, she has applied the concept of ‘governmentality’, from the work of Nikolas Rose (1999) and Foucault (1991), who have developed governmentality as a means of explaining how the problematic of government in liberal democracies can be addressed. That is, as a means to control ‘the conduct of conduct’, whilst appearing not to intervene; resolving the puzzle of action versus in-action, which the State is confounded by in a political regime that prioritises the autonomy of the individual (Murdoch and Ward 1997). As such, the neoliberal emphasis upon liberty is ‘paradoxically’ maintained in conjunction with continued State authority.