School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemPlaying by the rules? How community actors use experts and evidence to oppose coal seam gas activity in Australia(Elsevier, 2021-09-01)Evidence-Based Policy Making advocates for greater attention to evidence, and particularly technical evidence and expertise, in developing policy. This pervasive paradigm presents community actors with a conundrum: how to engage in ways that are consistent with the norms and expectations of policy consultation, whilst also representing the nature and nuance of their lived experience? In this paper we explore one response to this conundrum, in which community actors adopt and adapt technical knowledge claims alongside their lived experience to pursue their case. Using the conflict over Coal Seam Gas development in New South Wales, Australia, we explored community actors’ interpretations and use of evidence and expertise in seeking to make their voices heard and their knowledge count. Analysis of qualitative interviews found community actors seemed compelled to conform with expectations of policy influence, producing and using technical knowledge and evidence, and drawing on scientific expertise and evidence, presenting these in a rational and objective way. This research also finds a complicated relationship between different forms of knowledge, with local knowledge enhancing technical expertise. Emotions, though deeply felt by the community actors in our research, were not seen as convincing to policy decision makers. The Evidence-Based Policy Making paradigm seems to be constraining what community actors feel they must contribute to be seen as legitimate actors, as well as how they contribute it.
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ItemCountering Corporate Power Through Social Control: What Does a Social Licence Offer?(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2022-01-01)This paper interrogates the capacity for social control to act as a complement and alternative to the law in controlling corporate harm. Social control can manifest as demands that businesses obtain a social, not just a legal, licence to operate which can provide an avenue for communities to reject or shape company operations. Drawing on parallels with the ambiguities that hinder the criminalization of business conduct, this paper shows how the social licence can also be used to silence critical voices or justify harmful practices. This ambiguity hinges on struggles around what is or is not socially desirable, which can engender significant conflict. Whilst this conflict might be inevitable, even productive in reducing corporate harm, it can leave a debilitating social legacy.