Political decision making, governance shifts and Scottish animal reintroductions: are democratic principles at stake?

• Main Authors: Koen Arts, Anke Fischer, Ren� van der Wal
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: White-tailed eagle; Lynx
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09640568.2012.758627

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.