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BUILDING CONSENSUS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING IN SCOTLAND: A REVIEW OF BEST PRACTICE

CHAPTER NINE CONCLUSION

9.1 Consensus building is increasingly regarded as a useful participative approach when dealing with difficult conflicts, whether existing or anticipated. However, the conclusions from observation of practice and analysis of the wider literature suggest that power relations raise difficult challenges to the possibility of 'real' consensus, which have generally remained outside the gaze of researchers (see key findings summarised in table 8). Complex power relations are played out around the consensus building table, and this has been the focus of much analysis. This literature has, however, failed to resolve the problem of irreconcilable interests. But beyond this, questions must be asked about the way consensus is constructed: what are its conditions of possibility?

9.2 Consensus building is usually presented as the search for an ideal outcome, an agreement on a position - and often on action - subscribed to by all stakeholders and arrived at through an open, participative and non-coercive process. In many cases this will be a very difficult ideal to attain - even impossible from some perspectives. In practice it appears that this ideal is often diluted, and in order to reach consensus practices of exclusion occur - exclusion of certain (difficult) stakeholders, exclusion of certain (difficult) issues, or exclusion of substantive outcomes in favour of bland statements which can be agreed by all. These practices of exclusion involve the exercise of power.

9.3 The result is that consensus is often located in closed coalitions or partnerships, or in isolated 'bubbles', resulting in deliberate or accidental exclusion of interests. In the case of the Stanage Forum, the steering group was the arena within which explicit principles of consensus building were followed, though the wider forum itself was originally intended as the consensual arena. Within meetings of the entire forum the techniques used were drawn from recognised good practice in public participation, with principles such as listening and paying respect being stressed, but with less attention to questions of decision making and responsibility for outcomes and implementation.

9.4 Ultimately, consensus building is not usually integrated with decision making, which places heavy demands on the trust and commitment of participants, and may undermine long and difficult work at any moment. Critically, then, attention needs to be given to how (and whether) consensual principles and practices can be embedded in the structure and culture of organisations, rather than implemented in discrete ways which may fail to impact on the thinking or decisions of key actors.

9.5 Institutionalising consensus building may be one way of limiting some of these wider structural problems, but first researchers need to notice them! This raises further questions about how researchers and evaluators are handling issues of power and exclusion whilst observing, analysing and evaluating consensus building practice. Contrary to policy rhetoric, attempts to build consensus are frequently located within coalitions or partnerships rather than in open participative arenas. These coalitions then may enter into forms of public participation with a wider group of stakeholders or citizens. The entire process, or its product, may be ascribed consensual status, but the legitimacy of such claims is often hazy. This divergence between rhetoric and practice and the processes of exclusion by which it takes place are intimately connected with the power relations between actors in the process. So important questions for researchers to ask are, for example: 'how are power relations being examined?' 'What is meant when consensus is judged to have been achieved in a particular setting?' Avoidance of such questions means that researchers are not fully able to understand how and whether the core principles of consensus building are being achieved in practice, which hinders the ability of practitioners to be fully reflective in the way they approach consensus building.

Table 8. Key findings

9.6 In the evaluation of consensus building, it is clear that the practical solutions to many of the key issues discussed in previous chapters, and drawn together in Annex C, will be inherently difficult to evaluate, and will rely to a greater or lesser extent on value judgements. A key question therefore becomes who makes such judgements. In many cases the answer will be to involve participants directly in the evaluation process, in first refining and then applying the various criteria. This is likely to require a participative, ongoing approach to evaluation, which makes key choices explicit and accountable.

9.7 Overall this study has synthesised a wide range of difficult challenges which need to be addressed in consensus building. This should assist policy makers and others engaged in, or considering in engaging in such processes, to be appropriately reflective and critically aware, rather than idealistic, about the prospects for success, and therefore about what can be attempted and how.

9.8 In our brief analysis of three key areas for future policy development in rural Scotland, it has been possible to use the findings of this study to identify a number of opportunities for consensus building, each with its attendant difficulties. Building consensus within rural communities, and between the many interests in the planning and management of Scotland's national parks, and in the future sustainable management of its forests, will be a difficult challenge.

9.9 The findings of this study suggest several areas for further research. The first of these is to address the lack of evaluation or critical analysis of consensus building practice in rural Scotland, so that the issues discussed in this report can be better understood within specific contexts. This probably requires participative evaluation approaches which are appropriate within a participative arena, to provide the necessary legitimacy.

9.10 Additionally, further research is needed in relation to each of the applications of consensus building discussed in the previous section, and in relation to the more general need understand how to link consensus building methods with decision making, and integrate consensus building processes with other policy processes operating at different levels or focusing on different policy issues. The demands of consensus building suggest that a more integrated approach to participation is explored, which can make the most effective use of its intensive approach where necessary and appropriate, and subject to reasonable rather than ideal expectations.

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