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COPYRIGHT 2002 Southern Public Administration Education Foundation, Inc.
Abstract
Almost everybody would welcome at least in a general sense--a transportation policy designed in accordance with the principle of sustainability. But there appears to be insufficient support for moving toward sustainability in transportation policy. The main question this article poses is therefore: How can the acceptance of sustainable transportation policy be improved? We investigate this question using three clusters of measures: transportation management in agglomerations, infrastructure financing for large-scale projects, and combined freight transportation. A comparison of the three clusters in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland shows mixed results: The acceptance of regulatory measures depends more on political-administrative traditions in each country than on the particular policy instrument. Measures designed in a comprehensive manner are not necessarily less accepted, as we had theoretically assumed. On the other hand, our theoretical assumptions regarding the time perspective of the measures were largely confirmed. The main challenge for the acceptance of a sustainable policy is to reconcile specific short-term measures with a long-term sustainable strategy.
Introduction
The concept of sustainability tries to integrate an overarching, long-term perspective on environmental, economic and social development. Policies designed to bring about sustainable development are therefore often inevitably in conflict with the short-term interests of political actors and with the agendas of specific interest groups. This makes acceptance of such a concept in the political process more difficult.
Transportation policy, with its various links to the environment, spatial planning, economics, and society, as well as its increasing internationalization, is particularly acutely confronted with this problem. We argue it would be more accurate to see sustainable transportation policy not as a cluster of more or less environment-, economics- and society-friendly political measures, but rather as an interface of different policy problems, political approaches to problem solving, and various mostly legitimate--interests of diverse political actors. Policy makers and scientists should pay as much attention to the quality of process-oriented as they do to policy-oriented measures (see Widmer et al., 2000: p. 14).
How can the acceptance of sustainable transportation policy then be improved? To answer this question, it does not fulfil the requirements of the concepts of acceptance nor of sustainability to take only the policy outcome and its acceptance (e.g. in public votes or opinion polls) into consideration. Instead, we have to turn our attention to the design of the policy process and consequently to the involvement of different political actors in the individual phases of policy-formulation, decision-making and implementation, as well as to the implementation strategies and the policy design in procedural matters.
Thus, we understand the acceptance of political measures by target groups and the public not as a given value but as a variable, open to the influences of communication instruments and learning processes over a longer term. The acceptance and implementation of rules for process and discourse is therefore often more important than the acceptance of the particular design of the political measure itself. From this point of view, the design of the political process is a concept that overlaps that of the policy, in this case a sustainable transportation policy. In our theoretical considerations we therefore add the quality of the political process as a fourth dimension to the three pillars of sustainability. Our assumptions are consistent with political science research on the practices and activities of the modern state. This research tradition increasingly argues that there has been a change over the last decades from the interventionist state to the negotiating or even cooperating state (Benz, 1994; Grimm, 1994; Voigt, 1995; von Prittwitz 1996; van den Daele and Neidhardt, 1996).
The findings presented in this article are the result of a comparison of transportation policies in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and are based on a research project financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (see Widmer et al., 2000). As part of this research project, we interviewed representatives from the policy-making, administrative, scientific and societal realms in each of the three countries, and also conducted extensive document analysis. The interviews gave us the opportunity to discuss specific implementation problems, improvements in policy-making processes as well as the findings from our own research. Most of our meetings were held at transportation and environment ministries, in administrative offices, and at non-governmental organizations. Based on this research, one of our goals in this article is to determine who can learn from whom. We also wish to uncover how sustainability and public acceptance are understood and why political processes work the way they do in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
The article is structured as follows: In the next section, we derive specific hypotheses based on theories of sustainability and acceptance, and these guide our analysis. Particular emphasis is laid upon actors and their networks, as well as on the use of policy instruments. Then we investigate our theoretical assumptions by means of three clusters of measures chosen from the wide range of possible topics one could address at the national level of transportation policy: transportation management in agglomerations (esp. measures at the national level), infrastructure financing for large-scale projects, and combined freight transportation. Finally, we compare the political processes in these three clusters in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, taking into account political structures and processes as well as the current problems specific to each individual country.
Theoretical Framework
From a theoretical point of view, two concepts form the core of our argument: sustainability and acceptance.
Sustainability
Over the past decades, increasing mobility has become an ever-heavier burden for the environment and human beings to bear. However, increasing mobility can also be explained by phenomena which in themselves are neutral: a) societal developments such as emancipation and individualization, b) economic developments such as internationalization and new structures in the organization of production, and c) technological developments, for example in the fields of new infrastructure and methods of transportation (Baggen, 1994: pp. 22-6; Button, 1993; Dunn, 1994). Obviously, mobility has both positive and negative effects. Increasingly, the danger is that negative effects on the environment may neutralize (or even overcompensate for) the positive economic and social effects.
The concept of sustainability attempts to resolve the contradictions inherent in these developments. Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, there have been extensive efforts to implement the concept of sustainability by governments, international organizations, local authorities, businesses, citizen groups and individuals. But contrary to many of today's discussions, the concept of sustainable development is not primarily ecological in nature. Its strengths lie in its cross-sectional character that integrates economic, ecological and sociological aspects. Theoretically, these three dimensions are of equal importance, but the political reality is that the three aspects are not balanced. The environmental dimension, in particular, is yet to be integrated into all of the policy issues. Despite the conceptual success of sustainable development in many fields during the last decade, there is a distinct paucity in actually implementing sustainability into specific political measures. The clever and easily remembered concept of sustainability, one fears, is too similar to a good commercial slogan (Thierstein and Walser, 1997). Apart from the difficulty in translating a long-term perspective into current political action and its evaluation (Widmer 2002), the difficult thing is that the three dimensions of sustainability are comprised of three problem dimensions with three different focuses, which complicate the political negotiation on political measures seriously. From the perspective of economy the complexity of the problem can be described as follows (Thierstein and Walser, 1997; see also Daly, 1992):
The problem of efficiency (economic dimension) dictates the necessity of optimal use of resources and emphasizes allocation.
The contingency problem (ecological dimension) describes the necessity of limiting the overall use of non-sustainable resources (focus on scale).
The problem of distribution (social dimension) defines the necessity of a relatively equitable distribution of resources so that social and spatial cohesion is guaranteed (focus on distribution).
Because of the different problem dimensions, the plurality of goals that are subsumed under the concept, and the heterogeneity in political and societal actors' involvement in negotiations, there is a stronger need for cooperation and consultation in sustainability than is true for some other policy goals. It is particularly important here to establish political priorities and select appropriate evaluation methods, for it is often forgotten that sustainability in essence is a normative concept. Neither science nor politics can devise a generally applicable definition (see Ernst Basler+Partner, 1998). Therefore, we suggest complementing the concept of sustainability by adding the quality of the process as a fourth, overlapping dimension to the three existing pillars of sustainability provided by environmental, economic, and societal criteria (see Figure 1).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Bringing together environmental, social and economic developments are likely to create conflicts which cannot be resolved in a simple manner. By this view, the criteria for a sustainable transportation policy--as listed in the three pillars of sustainability in Figure 1--will not be sufficient, and variables for a sustainable policy process will need to be developed. Thus, sustainability must provide long-term learning processes that leave scope for establishing ethical and moral values. Learning oriented network management (Kickert et al., 1997), non-hierarchical steering within open and cooperative policy processes (Weidner, 1993 and 1996) and permitting uncertainty (Cameron and Wade-Gery, 1995) are all concepts which address this need (see also Baker et al., 1997).
Of course, a well-established concept of sustainability does not automatically guarantee its acceptance and implementation. On the contrary, establishing the acceptance of comprehensive, long-term concepts such as sustainability should be viewed as a particular challenge. A strong process perspective can make a contribution by identifying the critical independent variables for the degree of acceptance of a sustainable transportation...
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