Abstract
The paper reflects on the conditions for a value-reflexive governance of water as a tool to contribute to Sustainable Development within the Anthropocene and to deal with the social and political challenges along the way. Its contribution consists in integrating value discourses in sustainable water governance. These value discourses are necessary and unavoidable. While integrating more stakeholders in problem solving and knowledge production leads to more value disputes, it will at the same time strengthen the legitimacy of water governance. A value-reflexive governance aims to make visible the values underlying scientific and political concepts, and to treat value conflicts in an ethically informed and structured way. The paper discusses conceptual considerations and critically assesses the Anthropocene concept and deals with challenges to sustainable water governance. It then argues that the approach of value-reflexive governance might be useful for water governance and shows what questions need to be considered conceptually: What are values? What is the contribution of ethics to a value-reflexive governance of water? What is the relationship between good and value-reflexive governance? As a result a pragmatically concept of values and a more value-reflexive stance to values in governance is suggested.
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Acknowledgements
The paper builds on previous work and results of the EU project “Value Isobars—The Landscape and Isobars of European Values in Relation to Science and New Technology” (FP7 31004480; http://www.value-isobars.eu/). I acknowledge the provision of important discussion points from project partners and especially thank Thomas Potthast, Matthias Kaiser and Helen Ingram. The full responsibility for the content, style, errors and inaccuracies is mine.
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Meisch, S. (2014). The Need for a Value-Reflexive Governance of Water in the Anthropocene. In: Bhaduri, A., Bogardi, J., Leentvaar, J., Marx, S. (eds) The Global Water System in the Anthropocene. Springer Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07548-8_28
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