Kristin Asdal, Politikkens natur. Naturens politikk, Universitetsforlaget, 2011
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17065
application/pdf
2038-3460
17065
2
en
Håkon B. Stokland
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Kristin Asdal, The Nature of Politics. The Politics of Nature, Universitetsforlaget, 2011
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
3
Book Reviews
2013-01-06
2023-05-28
2013-01-06
2023-07-14
188-191
TS
Håkon B. Stokland
2012
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17065
188
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
2038-3460
2
en
191
Kristin Asdal, The Nature of Politics. The Politics of Nature, Universitetsforlaget, 2011
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17065/15953
3
188   BOOK REVIEWS




      because I think that Tecnoscienza          By assuming acritically that ICT are
      readers may find it relevant. The          good, we would miss to realize how
      introduction to this book states that      the digital divide is in the eye of the
      “authors of this book accepted the         beholder also.
      challenge of thinking in creative ways     In conclusion I invite to reconsider
      and of exploring novel strategies to       the ageing notion of ‘digital divide’
      help solving the problems that digital     (and a recent re-incarnation in
      poverty creates in Latin America and       ‘digital poverty’) without scrutinizing
      the Caribbean” (p. 10). I have done        general concepts which showed
      quite some work in Latin America           limits, already. The consequences of
      and the problem I pinpoint here is         a more open-ended approach can be
      that poor people are depicted -or          far-fetched, but at the end of the day,
      simply assumed- to be in lack of           this is what social studies of
      something. I do not deny it, but I         technologies are about.
      find this a narrow view. The
      consequences are that homogenizing         References
      the problems results in homogenizing
      solutions. The risk is of what I call      Déjean, F., Gond, J. P. and Leca, B. (2004)
      here “Engineering the other”. Are all         Measuring       the    unmeasured:    An
      poor the same? Not always, not                institutional entrepreneur strategy in an
      necessarily. ICT are not a panacea.           emerging industry. , in “Human
                                                    Relations”, 57(6), pp. 741-764.
      Therefore, ‘Where can ICT help?’           Saetnan, A. R.., Hammer, S., and Lomell,
      “in which sectors?”, “with what               H. M. (2010) The Mutual Construction
      applications?”, “in what kinds of             of Statistics and Society, Routledge.
      organizations?” are among the
      discriminatory questions to ask.
      I now take a different angle on the                           ***
      same problem. Is being connected
      via ICT good? It depends on who
      and what one connects to. For sure                       Kristin Asdal
      ICT allow novel organizational                 Politikkens natur. Naturens
      forms, but this does not mean that                         politikk
      they are all good. There are plenty of       (The Nature of Politics. The Politics of
      services that are failures or a waste of                    Nature)
      time and resource, at least. Brazilian
      ex-president Lula stated, about the          2011, Universitetsforlaget, 304 pp.
      still unfolding economic crisis that “it
      has blue eyes”, meaning that western                 Håkon B. Stokland
      experts had no idea of the risks of           (Norwegian University of Science and
      what they were doing promoting                           Technology)
      tight interconnections of markets. So,
      how to learn from mistakes? How to
      discriminate?
                                                          TECNOSCIENZA – 2 (2)        189




The title “Politikkens natur. Natu-        Norway, the book has gained much
rens politick” can be translated as        from Foucault’s argument that
“The Nature of Politics. The Politics      governmental practices creates new
of Nature”, and reflects the dual          realities that in turn shapes society.
ambition of the book. Kristin Asdal        Finally, Asdal mentions actor-
intends to say something about what        network theory as an important
politics is and how it gets done by        inspiration, mainly because of its
analyzing the origin and later             importance in making the fields of
development of environmental poli-         material technologies and the natural
tics in Norway. The book is in large       sciences relevant and accepted as
part based on her doctoral thesis          fields of inquiry for the humanities.
from 2004, which has been remolded         By drawing on these inspirations,
to match a somewhat broader but            Asdal examines how the politics of
still mainly academic Norwegian            nature has been done by making
audience. It consists in six main          what she has coined ‘the technologies
chapters,      which    traces       the   of politics’ the center of her analysis.
development of Norwegian environ-          Asdal defines this term as the
mental politics by analyzing six           different ways in which scientific
defining cases in its history after        knowledge partakes in politics, and
world war two. Simultaneously, each        the technical arrangements and
chapter investigates the nature of         procedures that enables and shapes
politics by examining one political        politics.
technology at the core of its analysis.    In tracing the history of environmen-
In developing her main approach for        tal politics in Norway, Asdal’s main
studying      politics   and      more     focus is to examine how nature has
specifically the politics of nature,       been made relevant for politics by
Asdal draws on Max Weber’s studies         different political technologies. The
of bureaucracy, Foucault’s lectures        origin of environmental politics it
on ‘gouvernementalité’, and actor-         often assumed to lie in the so-called
network theory. Weber treated              green revolution of the 1960s and
bureaucracy as a tool for politics, and    1970s, and the establishment of the
Asdal has found inspiration in his         Ministry of the environment in 1972.
emphasis on the importance of              However,       Asdal     shows     that
technical devices and material             controversy concerning pollution
arrangements in making the conduct         goes back to the early postwar years
of both bureaucracy and politics           and the establishment of an extensive
possible. Further, she has drawn on        aluminum industry in a number of
Foucault’s insistence on studying          rural communities. At this point of
government as practice, and his focus      time,     however,     the    pollution
on governmental technologies and           controversy was not a matter of
programs of government. In its             vulnerable nature or the environment
treatment of the origin and                – it was treated as a conflict between
development of a politics of nature in     the business interests of industry and
190   BOOK REVIEWS




      the local farmers whose domestic         This relation made evident the
      animals got fluoride poisoning from      damages the plant could cause in
      the smoke emissions. A national          Norwegian landscapes, and the
      board of smoke damage (røyk-             reinforced relation between pollution
      skaderådet) was established in the       and damage engaged a larger public
      aftermath of this controversy, and       in the issue. Hence, the pollution
      pollution was made an object of          issue as an industrial issue was
      national management and regulation.      challenged by an effort to make it an
      The board was, however, closely tied     environmental issue. The effort paid
      to     industry    interests.    This    off, as the plant was never built. The
      organization of the board quickly        issue of acid rain was, however, not
      turned the pollution issue into an       put to rest as the recently established
      industrial issue, and distanced the      Norwegian environment continued
      issue from the damages of pollution      to take damage from other countries’
      on livestock, woods and the              emissions of sulfur dioxides. Asdal
      agricultural landscape. The measu-       shows how a vulnerable Norwegian
      rement and control of smoke emis-        nature was created by the Ministry of
      sions, not smoke damage, became the      the environment and scientists in the
      main regulatory strategy of the          1980s and 1990s, in an effort to
      board. Emission numbers were easier      ensure the prominence of ecology
      to measure and control, but the          over economy and to make progress
      disengagement of the issue from the      in the acid rain issue. As in the case
      damages made the emission level          of smoke emissions, the political
      negotiable and hence the regulation      technology that was created to attain
      weak.                                    this     goal    consisted    in     the
      Asdal argues that nature and the         measurement and control of numbers
      environment as relevant objects of       and levels. However, this time it was
      government were created in the           the damage that got measured, and
      second half of the 20th century, and     the technology of the critical levels of
      that they were formed in relation to     nature was quite successful in
      industry and economic reasoning.         generating a vulnerable nature as an
      The environment as a political issue,    opposition to economic growth, and
      as well as an influential public         in persuading other countries to
      opinion speaking on its behalf,          commit to reducing emissions. The
      originated in a controversy concer-      downside of this political technology
      ning an application to establish an      of numbers was nevertheless that it
      oil-fueled power plant around 1970.      was compatible with the economic
      This was not a controversial matter at   reasoning of cost-efficiency, and soon
      first, but intense work by a few         economists were arguing that
      antagonists established relations        pollution levels should be raised
      between the potential power plant        enough to match the critical levels of
      and the ongoing international            nature as long as they did not exceed
      negotiations concerning acid rain.       them. Further, Asdal argues that the
                                                         TECNOSCIENZA – 2 (2)       191




environmental issue became a full         process, Asdal argues instead that it
economic issue as the controversy of      takes a great deal of effort to make
climate change replaced that of acid      nature a relevant object of
rain in the end of the 1980s. The         government. Further, she argues that
vulnerable nature at the heart of the     nature, once established as a political
issue was transformed from national       object, is rather unstable and that it
to global, and the political              might very well get ignored in favor
technology advocated by Norway in         of      for    example      economic
the international negotiations was a      considerations. Additionally, she
system of climate quotas based on         shows empirically how nature and
marked economy.                           science can open a political process
In examining the history of               to new actors and even democratize a
Norwegian environmental politics,         formerly closed process, rather than
the book represents a new way of          short-circuit it. Considering the
construing 20th century Norwegian         political technologies of numbers,
history. By employing the term of         Asdal nuances the weight put by
political technologies to trace the       Peter Miller and much of the
history of environmental politics,        governmentality literature on the
Asdal investigates into the more          power of numbers as a powerful tool
general history of Norwegian politics.    for     government.     She     shows
This relation to more traditional         empirically how it might take a great
historical literature is important for    deal of effort to establish such a
her approach in that it not only          political technology of numbers, and
involves the transportation of ideas      that it might not work as planned or
from science and technology studies       work at all.
and the field of governmentality
studies into the field of Norwegian
history – it brings something back as                      ***
well. Most importantly, and this is
one of the definite strengths of the
                                           Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes and
book, Asdal approaches the origin
                                                      Yannick Barthe
and development of environmental
politics by studying its history in       Acting in an Uncertain World: an
empirical detail. By doing this, she        Essay on Technical Democracy
nuances and criticizes some of the              2009, MIT Press, 301 pp.
more theorizing and philosophical
work on politics and its relations to
nature and science within both                         Maurizio Teli
science and technology studies and                  (Fondazione <ahref)
the field of governmentality studies.
By reference to Bruno Latour’s
argument that Nature by way of            When I started reading the book by
scientists short-circuits the political   Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes and
