PISCES WORKSHOP 2: FORMULATING GUIDELINES
Miss Heather Ritchie, LLB. MSc
School of the Built Environment, University of Ulster
Jordanstown Campus
Shore Road, Newtownabbey , Co. Antrim ,
Tel: 028 90 366676
Email: [email protected]
Overview of my research
 Stakeholder Engagement in Marine Spatial Planning
 Unappreciated in terms of academic research in the
field
 Objectives of MSP - heavily influenced by the
effectiveness of the stakeholder engagement practice
 Gathered & analysed stakeholder perspectives
 Investigated an alternative direction for using
stakeholder perspectives to inform the engagement
process
Starting Point for Engagement
 Stakeholder Engagement in the marine environment is
different to land! More complex!
 Physically and dimensionally different - no fences!
 Concept of Mare Librum – curtailed by MSP
 Starting points different – motivations, rationale and
context:
land= post war development (1947) – social science
sea = sustainable development & ecology - science
 Marine property rights – exist – but different manner
 Complex mix of public property rights
Stakeholder Engagement in the
Marine Environment
 Government articulating system of MSP that replicates LUP
 Stakeholder
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engagement in MSP seeks “stakeholder
involvement and consultation” = statutory mechanism
Have adapted mechanisms from Regional Planning – SPI/SPP
Does not seem to be utilising more deliberative methods
Government want “as much consensus and agreement as
possible ” (DEFRA, 2009)
Since: “This is an approach that is already very familiar on
land” (DEFRA, 2007, White Paper)
The problem with consensus
 Consensus comes with a caveat....
 Consensus in LUP is unrealistic & unachievable
 Utopian, naive, open to abuse by more powerful
stakeholders
 Watered down lowest common denominator effect
 Consensus often means losing out
 Consensus can leave Stakeholders antagonised &
frustrated
 Government use consensus to create less conflict & get
legislation passed more swiftly
Research on stakeholders’ perspectives
 Case Study Location – Irish Sea Region
 52 Stakeholders Perspectives gathered (via Q Methodology)
 Participants required to rank order a set of statements (no.50)
 Their responses (Q-sort) are correlated & subject to by-person
factor analysis
 Analysis revealed 5 statistically independent view points
(discourses) – patterns of attitudes
 Called....Neptune’s
Democratic Guardians, Leviathan’s
Rationalists, Cynical Sirens, Corporate Corsairs, Technocratic
Environmentalists
Thematic Findings
 Defining Characteristics of each discourse
 Process v. Outcome
 Views on Stakeholder Engagement
 Trust in Government
 Type of knowledge
Impact of the findings
 All stakeholders believe in MSP as essentially a “good
thing”
 Yet...there are many perspectives – diverse opinions subjective viewpoints – contentious – antagonism
 In practice: consensus is unrealistic & counterproductive
 Need different ways about thinking how we engage
stakeholders for MSP (mindset)
 Need an alternative, productive & appropriate process for
stakeholder engagement for effective MSP
 Informed by alternative experiences & alternative
theories
Belgian and Australian Experiences
 Offer different mindset for thinking about stakeholder
engagement
 Belgians – “sea orientated planning”
 Accepts sea is not extension of the land
 Unique structure / dynamics/ regulatory processes
 Real sense of a spatial vision based on the sea’s specific
characteristics
 Consideration MSP as innovative and imaginative visual
approach
 Illustrate key values and type of approach needed for a
sea driven approach and culture for MSP
Source: Adapted from GAUFRE (2006, p. 129)
Six Spatial Scenarios
The
Relaxed
Sea
The Playful
Sea
The
Sailing
Sea
The Natural
Sea
The Rich
Sea
The
Mobile
Sea
 Australian’s – Key Document for innovative stakeholder
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engagement: “Ocean’s Eleven”
Focused on stakeholder engagement &community education
“ Managing People – Not Ecosystems”
Promoting active protection of the sea not political regulation
Involvement of Indigenous Aboriginal people:
view land and sea as inseparable - “sea country”
Promoted “ambassadors of the sea”
Need to act on values of natural ecosystems, not sectoral or
political influences
An Alternative Theoretical Approach
 Collaborative Planning = consensus – potentially unrealistic
 Alternative theory
“Agonism” – adopting
“agonistic
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
approach”
Approaching stakeholder engagement differently – dealing
with complexity and pluralism face on
It values contest as a tool that can be used to effectively deal
with planning disputes
Creates productive outcomes - more tactical, more refined
solution
Stakeholders agree to disagree & set differences aside –
settlement
Stakeholders constantly uncovering each others’ interests –
expectations – critical viewpoints
Accepts that antagonism can not be eliminated
Example of Agonism in Practice
 Using agonistic approach - segregation in Northern
Ireland’s Protestant and Catholic Communities
 Agonism focuses attention on the understanding of
power
 Transform antagonism into agonism between
potential adversaries rather than as enemies
 How differences are understood and expressed in
multiple power relationships
 Lessons noted as not privileging one side over the
other,
 Looking for the historical and normative basis to each
others perspective and their associated knowledge
Reflections and moving forward
 New insights into the complexity of stakeholder
engagement in the marine environment
 Differentiated from stakeholder engagement on land
 Expectations of involving every stakeholder are unrealistic
 Empirical research showed a selective form of
stakeholder engagement was advocated
 Can lead to proper deliberation and decisive & productive
outcomes
 Selectivity in stakeholders can still be democratic
 Needs safeguards built in to ensure legitimacy