The post-political nature of marine spatial planning and modalities for its re-politicisation

Abstract

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has become the most adopted approach for sustainable marine governance. While MSP has transformative capacity, evaluations of its implementation illustrate large gaps between how it is conceptualised and how it is practiced. We argue that these gaps arise from MSP being implemented through post-political processes. Although MSP has been explored through post-political lenses, these evaluations are incomplete and do not provide sufficient detail about the complex nature of the post-political condition. Drawing on seminal literature, we conceptualise the post-political as consisting of highly interconnected modalities of depoliticisation, including: neoliberalism; choreographed participation; path dependency; technocratic-managerialism; and the illusion of progressive change. Using these modalities as an analytical framework, we evaluate English MSP and find that it focuses on entrenching neoliberal logic through: tokenistic participation; wholescale adoption of path-dependent solutions; obstructionist deployment of inactive technological solutions; and promising progressive change. We do not, however, view the post-political condition as unresolvable and we develop a suite of suggestions for the repoliticisation of MSP which, collectively, could form the basis for more radical forms of MSP.

Theorizing Social Sustainability and Justice in Marine Spatial Planning: Democracy, Diversity, and Equity

“…Others nonetheless deal with different social sustainability issues, and there are calls for a more integrated analysis of social sustainability [9,20,21]. More precisely, in analyzing social sustainability (albeit, often implicitly), some authors view MSP as a form of "ocean grabbing" [22,23]; as exhibiting many symptoms of the post-political condition [5,6,9,24]. Others emphasize the exclusion of coastal communities' socio-cultural values and benefits [6,11,25], a failure to consider the rights, needs, knowledge, and livelihoods of small-scale fishers (SSFs) and the coastal communities that they are embedded in [6,10,12,26,27], and a narrow interpretation of Blue Economy geared to facilitating economic growth (with a lack of attention paid to social inequality implications) [12,27,28].…”

The territories of governance : unpacking the ontologies and geophilosophies of fixed to flexible ocean management, and beyond

“…Recent years have seen an increase in work that considers unequal power relations, exclusions and omissions in ocean governance processes and outcomes, and challenges in regimes of participation and decision-making (see [13][14][15][16][17][18] for just a few examples). Moreover, research has considered some of the underlying processes that shape the form and outcome of ocean governance techniques (see, for example, Clarke and Flannery [19] on the 'gaps' between how MSP is imagined and practiced as post-political; Gray's work [6] on how high seas conservation practices borrow state-based territorial logics; or recent interventions by Ntona and Schröder [20] on how MSP neglects royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rstb Phil. Trans.…”

Marine spatial planning in the UK: A review of the progress and effectiveness of the plans and their policies

“…Above n. 92. marine spatial planning and the modalities for its re-politicisation' by Clarke and Flannery in which they argue 'that the focus on reducing conflict in marine governance removes debate about the purpose of MSP' and that 'differences between actors must be brought into a public forum in which they can be explored and articulated'. 104 A further explanation is that the particular contribution that policy makes to marine decisions is not recorded explicitly, as there appears to be no explicit expectation in decision letters or committee reports for decision-makers, to assess marine policy conformity, although this is explicit in the 2009 Act. 105 This may be a product of culture (see below) or a product of the processing of applications.…”