Communicating emotions in conflicts over natural resource management in the Netherlands and Sweden: Constructive and destructive dynamics of social transformation

This chapter moves beyond the debate between deliberative and agonistic approaches to natural resource management (NRM) conflict to investigate the mostly hidden process of the de-legitimation of emotions in communication and decision-making. It explores how expressions of emotions were managed in two cases and discusses the consequences of this for the construction of community as well as for the opportunities for deliberation and participation. Research on environmental decision-making displays how difficult it is for decision-making-bodies to listen to and incorporate the values and emotions relative to nature that stakeholders express. Such a focus on the rationality and scientification of nature has been inherent in the Western world from the rise of modernity. The chapter draws from the experiences of two different cases; one from the Netherlands and one from Sweden. Deliberative democracy theory has been criticized for its focus on the forming of consensus and for neglecting the conflictual dimension of the political process.