1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction Democracy is not a universal and pre-existing condition of society. We continuously challenge each other in the question about how we want to govern and be governed, and democracy is continuously changed and developed in interaction with society developing. Some people regard democracy primarily as a set of procedures to aggregate a plurality of interests into policy on which society can be governed (Ross 1967), whereas others regard democracy as a way of life (Koch 1981) that is exercised and kept alive through citizens’ active participation and construction of political life (Kristensen 1998; Sørensen 1995). The premises of democracy changes. The Danish society has changed from the 1950-60s' economic growth and technology optimism to the 1970s' oil crisis and pollution problem, financial restrictions on private consumption in the 1980s and modernisation of the ever growing public sector, to the 1990s’ debate about sustainable development. Our knowledge base and technological opportunities have increased tremendously over the last 50 years. This causes a range of options, each of which is connected with more or less well-known risks, where someone has to make the necessary choices, with its more or less well-known distributions consequences. The main challenge by year 2000 seems to be how to ensure a qualified but also democratic decision process for making these choices. In the same period, political participation has changed. The grassroots movements of the 1960s and 1970s were gradually replaced by corporate safeguarding of interests along with the public sector’s introduction of user boards and enhanced freedom of choice to ensure a more efficient public service. By the end of the 1990s, political focus groups, consensus conferences and deliberative polls appear to enter the stage to assess the ‘common citizen’s attitude towards concrete political questions. But how do the Danes participate today, and what do they think about it? Danish state forest management is an interesting example for investigating political participation and the development of different discourses on ’participation’, i.e. how ’participation’ is given meaning and content by different stakeholders through time. It is interesting for two reasons: First, participation and public involvement was specifically given priority in the 1994 ministerial strategy for sustainable forest management, apparently in order to fulfil international forest policy obligations (Miljøministeriet 1994). Same year, the Forest & Nature Agency established user councils at all state forest districts with the aim to enhance local users’ influence on state forest management and utilisation. These user councils provide an opportunity to study participation in an institutionalised setting. Second, forestry is characterised by forests being of immediate interest to people while the forest sector as such is professionalised and expected to be rather distant in people’s mind. One the one hand forest and nature is an integral part of all people’s every-day life, as a physical element but also as a part of our mind set. Forests cover around 10 % of the land area and only a few hectares originate from pristine forest. Still, they create room for half of all threatened species in Denmark (Asbirk & Søgaard 1991), they are considered important for groundwater protection, to avoid soil erosion and as carbon sinks. Forestry contributes only by 0.1 % to GDP (Statistics Denmark 1997) and the financial situation of the 20,000 forest owners is poor, the 1996 average surplus from forestry per se only being 312 DKK per ha for private forests and –489 DKK for state forests (Dansk Skovforening 1997; Miljø- & Energiministeriet, Skov- & Naturstyrelsen 1997). Instead, forests are considered of major recreational value to society, as e.g. 90 % of the population between 15 and 76 years visit the forest at least once a year, the median Dane visiting the forest 10 times per year (Jensen & Koch 1997). The multiple values of forests have been captured and, partly, articulated through the all-encompassing concept of sustainable forest management, as reflected in 2 international and national forest policy agreements and strategies. From that perspective, forests should hold good opportunities of being of public concern. Also, it becomes clear that forests by today are claimed to be of legitimate, but also potentially conflicting interests on local and national as well as global scale. On the other hand, forest management is a professionalised, physically and administratively delimited sector. It operates with complex decision processes where silvicultural management is characterised by a long time horizon of ‘production’, up to 200 years, and a high degree of uncertainty conditioned by the internal bio-physical dependencies between forest stands as well as fluctuations in climate and other environmental factors (Helles et al. 1984). At the same time, the market demand for wood and other products as well as the social/political demand for non-market benefits, has proved to change within a few years. The short-term ability to adapt forests to meet the changing demands is therefore quite restricted, whether it is a demand for high quality-wood or a demand for, e.g. more biodiverse forests. However, considering the numerous potential - and often conflicting – interests in forests, operationalisation of sustainable forestry cannot be based on the assumption of consensus between utilisation and protection of forests. There is no ‘one best way’ to ensure sustainable forestry. There is likely to be disagreement not only on what the output should be, but also on what processes and structures are agreeable and appropriate, and who should bear the costs and have the benefits, respectively, from forest resources management. Therefore, the concept of sustainable forestry implies forest policy formulation. Operationalisation of the concept provides a common framework for discussing the distribution of scarce resources within forestry and in relation to society. From that perspective, the question is who should take part in decision-making related to forest resources management. Who is perceived to have a legitimate interest in participating, who actually participates, how, and why, and what strategies do they use to gain influence. What is perceived as opportunities and barriers? 3 1.2 Aims of the dissertation One aim of the present dissertation is to develop a conceptual framework for participation as a phenomenon and policy instrument by year 2000, with Danish state forest and natural resources management as an example. A second aim is to evaluate the user councils’ function and whether they fulfil the aim of enhancing local users’ influence on state forest management and utilisation. Participation in state forest decision-making is investigated in two cases and a survey: (1) Analysis of a state forest user council. This case was chosen to study the particular form of participation called ’user democracy’ in a formerly closed management bureaucracy; (2) Analysis of participation in relation to a planned state afforestation project. This case was chosen to study participation across the sectoral and administrative borders between forestry and agriculture/the countryside, and between state forest district, county and municipality. Also, the case represents major investments and major change in the landscape, but with a long time horizon of realisation; (3) Analysis of a user council survey carried out by the Forest & Nature Agency among all state forest user councils. Together with the user council case, this survey analysis serves to evaluate the state forest user councils’ function. The dissertation is based on understanding ’participation’ as a dynamic, changeable concept, where the meaning is partly derived from the context. Throughout the dissertation it is therefore sought to uncover and understand the meaning and how meaning is constructed, rather than aiming at discovering ’facts’ in a (nature) scientific sense. The dissertation is based on three types of studies to conceptualise participation in a theory, policy and practice based context, respectively: (1) A literature review of participation in forest and natural resources management as well as in other social contexts. The aim is to provide an overview of the different theoretical approaches to understand, interpret and evaluate participation; (2) Analysis of conventions, strategies and other documents in Danish and international forestry to uncover the development in the meanings that are derived from and ascribed to the concept ’participation’; (3) Empirical case studies of a state forest user council and a planned state afforestation project. The aim is partly to establish an empirically founded understanding of ’participation’ as a practice in forestry, partly to evaluate whether state forest user councils have worked to fulfil the aim of enhancing local users’ influence on state forest management and utilisation. 4 1.3 Delimitations The empirical part of the present study has been designed to gain the broadest possible understanding of participation in relation to state forest management and afforestation, as perceived by the participants. The case studies have been chosen as 'critical case studies', examples that each can tell something different about the research questions. Similarly, the case study informants were selected with the aim at maximum variation, gaining most possible information relevant to the research