To Örebro University

Broadly, this is a study about issues of power relations played out in the context of nature resource management. Specifically, this study looks at procedural justice in the consultant process of establishing marine nature reserves. 

The concept of sustainable development highlights the importance of equity between and within generations, as a condition to achieve social, economic and ecological sustainability. Participatory governance is framed as contributing to equity ambitions. It can be questioned, however, if multi-stakeholder approaches can deal with uneven power relationships between stakeholders or if existing power relations are reproduced through such processes. In these processes weaker actors may risk getting ignored, neglected, manipulated or even abused. There is still much to understand and to enact regarding what justice and equity might or ought to mean in relation to environmental governance, not the least concerning the way in which power relations are reflected in conflicting discourses about environment and development. The focus of this project, democratic aspects of environmental governance of the Baltic Sea, is especially understudied. By employing the procedural justice concept over time in this novel empirical setting the project aims to develop new understandings and formulations of justice and thereby contribute to the literature on participatory environmental governance, marine governance, nature protection, and environmental justice. 

The theoretical discussion will be illustrated with empirical material of local and regional marine governance in the Baltic Sea. Since local environmental situations seldom is explained by only local processes, but has to be seen as a product of political economy at local, national, regional and international scales I seek to investigate explanations across spatial and temporal scales. 

The dissertation will be presented in a form of a compilation thesis. The articles are organized from regional/general/abstract to local/specific/concrete. Articles: 1) Participation and Justice 2) Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations and Transnational Collaboration in two regional contexts: Baltic Sea and Adriatic Sea Region 3) Regional Management vs. Local Justice 4) Procedural Justice in Marine Nature Reserve Establishment 5) Localism and meaning of place.