will be highly related to other policies relevant to the national economy such as: fiscal matter, trade, infrastructure, industry, and investment (also criteria evaluation). Many such policies are targeted mainly to alleviate the economy and to reduce the pressure of recession and/or debt crisis. In addition, a new wave of global environmental concern, particularly relating to climate change and environmental protocols, drives sustainability forces in resource and environmental policies of countries. However, there had been withdrawal of countries from the global commitments, denial of ratification. The commitment of countries linked with such external forces determines the mix of policy sustainability.

7.9 MARKET LINKAGE

Most evaluation of public policies concentrates on economic analysis and occasionally to consequences of market failure. In the resource sector (e.g., forestry), market failure is incomplete but extensive and could be a common issue. Usually, government intervention faces market failure. As government’s intention is often motivated by politics, policies are developed from such a type of intervention. Rausser (1992) has referred them as “Political Economic Resource Transfers” (PERTs). In designing and implementing PERTs policies, markets are viewed as separate from the political process. Thereby, such linkages seem to be external, their influence work through market mechanism.

7.10 EVALUATION OF LINK TO THE PAST

Narratives about the past history of a policy produce a story line, which allows actors to draw upon various discursive categories to give meaning to specific physical or social phenomena. Drawing the past into the assessment plays a role in the positioning of subjects and structures. The key use of historical comprehension is to understand the different components of the problem at its time boundary. Policy changes may take place through the emergence of new story lines that reorder the understandings. Thus, finding an appropriate story line becomes an important form of agency for the sustainability assessment of policies.

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7.11 ACTORS AND STORY LINE

The construction of story line (knowledge) and actors involved in a policy are important for the evaluation of linkages of past activities or policies. Actors are often involved in transforming academic information into policy practices. Within the policy processes, there are policy brokers who translate the knowledge to policy information. For example, taking an early measure to abate the environmental degradation was not possible in the Netherlands because it failed to translate the scientific information of the study of acid deposition into a policy. However, the scientific information was brought to a “problem closure” by social repercussions that developed out of it (Hajer, 1995). This signifies that sustainability in a society cannot be assessed only on the basis of the present social system. On the contrary, society can be interpreted as a system of transformation drawn from the story line of the past and dilemmas of practices of actors in different arenas.

7.12 PRACTICES AND STORY LINE

Story lines of past policies can also be constructed by analyzing the activities, utterances, and practices of actors, but the relative independence of a story line from the actors opens up new ways of understanding the problem. Story lines maintain the structure of the controversy, but individual freedom to change discursive contributions in actual practices allows the analyst to safeguard the credibility of expression. For example, credibility may be changed with the changes of the chair (e.g., the CCF for forestry), or by the introduction of a new definition (e.g., scientific forestry). For this reason, story line and specific discursive interaction are better evaluated as tied to specific practices rather than actors. Thus, sustainability assessment of policy is not what is being said but essentially what is being practiced.

7.13 REFLECTION OF IMAGE OF CHANGE

In the resource sector, a particular role of policy can be fulfilled by the creation of an image of change. The image of change can be outlined by characterizing the status of conditions shown in Fig. 7.1. The figure shows the way of assessing the changes of environment in policy evaluation. It is an integration of environmental assessment and socioeconomic assessment.

Change assessment

Policy evaluation

Fig. 7.1 Policy evaluation through outlining image of change.

However, the discursive features in Fig. 7.1 may differ in different countries. Hence, although it is fair to say sustainability is an international policy discourse, one really has to allow for national particularities through the reflection of environmental and socioeconomic images as shown in Fig. 7.1. The unique particulars of discursive elements may be selectively generalized if the issues of a policy are processed and pursued through certain phenomena. The following sections attempt to present some steps of discursive phenomena.

7.14 INTEGRATING INFORMATION

Integration of information is one of the important factors for decision. If the information is scattered, rational decision is not possible where consideration of all the factors can be given. According to Osleeb and Kahn (1998), a policy decision deals with a large size of national and historical data which may be integrated by:

•Geographic Information System (GIS),

•Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS), and

•Spatial Models.

Organizing information helps in establishing linkages and selecting priorities in indecision. The use of modeling tools may help in generalizing discursive issues of policies; however, the precision in sustainability achievement largely depends on how the decisions are made.

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7.15 FORECASTING

Forecasting is a technique for laying down options. At the beginning, the options are identified and the list of options can be narrowed down initially by forecasting the future and then detailed assessment of options can be made. According to Armostrong (1998), forecasting may be based on:

•judgment,

•extrapolation,

•econometric models, and

•combined forecasts.

The most important aspect of forecasting is to communicate the assumptions made and degree of certainty behind the forecast.

7.16 ASSESSING OPTIONS

For achieving a certain goal, a policy may prescribe particular option from many on the basis of assessing the options for their risk and cost. Merkhofer (1998) says that the common tools for assessing options are:

•probabilistic risk assessment method,

•cost benefit analysis, and

•decision analysis.

Each analysis performs a specific function; therefore, more than one form of analysis may be needed for an assessment of option.

7.17 POST-DECISION ASSESSMENT

“Looking back and evaluating the outcomes of a decision, one may have a better basis for choosing the future action” is a wise saying in post-decision assessment of policy. According to Bergquist and Bergquist (1998), the common tools of post-decision assessment are:

•indicators and indicator system,

•goals and goal systems,

•budget-accountability system, and

•program evaluation system.

Post-decision assessment can be conducted focusing on whole or different components of a policy as well as different parts of an organization. The efficiency of different types of tools used for post-decision assessment depends on the components, purpose, and stage of assessment. For example, indicator systems are flexible tools that provide concrete, precise evidences, and focus on results. However, budgetaccountability systems allow reallocating resources to areas of need or higher priority. It uses the socioeconomic instruments.

Leeuw (1991) thought that the dimension of policy discourse is to consider where things are said, and in what specific ways the things can be structured or embedded in the society. Thus, discourse analysis can be used as a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorizations that are produced, reproduced, and transformed in a particular set of practices and through which a meaningful interpretation could be given to physical and social realities. There could be numerous practices that can exert influence on sustainability issues, but the assessment of policy issues with sustainability is mainly relevant to the image of damage, role of science, and the role of regulation. Thus, addressing sustainability issues will be more effective, perhaps, when both problem environment and economy are addressed together. The whole sum action of addressing sustainability in a policy emblem could be as follows:

•Internalization of problem; aiming at bringing changes within the target group.

•Determining priority from which problem-solving measures should be started.

•Defining the parameter within which a solution was to be found so that regulation of environmental management becomes more effective and at the same time revitalization of economy is affected.

Hajer (1995) explained that the internalization of problems and priority setting of the discursive order (like laws, organizational routines, or categorizations) requires a constant and wide reproduction to guarantee the continuity of its meaning structures. This implies that the institutions and argumentative actions are to be examined in their interrelationship. That means practices cannot be evaluated as fixed entities, because their meaning is likely to change over time. The coherent argument also implies that policy change can be materialized only if one succeeds in finding ways to overturn routinely reproduced cognitive commitments.