Political decision making, governance shifts and Scottish animal reintroductions: are democratic principles at stake?
Contemporary governance systems have been characterised as ‘multi-actor’ and ‘multi-level’, but the consequences of such greater complexity for core principles of democracy remain uncertain. To investigate the effects of these late-modern governance shifts, we
used political decision making on Scottish reintroductions of charismatic animals as a case study. Based on interviews with key actors engaged in the reintroduction of the white-tailed eagle, beaver and (potentially) lynx, we analysed the impact of governance shifts against four selected democratic
principles. We found that new modes of governance can make decision-making processes look better than they actually are, and may even harm democratic principles.
Keywords: charismatic animals; decision making; democracy; governance; reintroduction
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability (ACES), School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK 2: Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Group, The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, UK
Publication date: 01 April 2014
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