Governing Citizen Engagement: A discourse studies perspective

This chapter sets out to explore tensions between bottom-up and top-down processes from a governmentality perspective. Using a discourse studies approach, we investigate how forms of public participation in a local climate mitigation project can be viewed as an instance of governmentality in the sense of how the conduct of groups and individuals is influenced by other forces and how groups and individuals influence the conduct of others through participation and involvement. This implies that governmentality is analysed as emerging in concrete, situated practices. Simultaneously, we investigate how a governmentality approach may enrich our understanding of public participation, dialogue and involvement, especially on the complex issue of sustainability and climate change mitigation.