Evaluating Environmental Impact Statements as Communicative Action

David Dayton Southern Polytechnic State University

Abstract

An environmental impact statement (EIS) is supposed to ensure that a government agency thoroughly evaluates a project's impacts, studies feasible alternatives, and gives all stakeholders an active role in project-related decisions. Previous rhetorical studies of the EIS describe a failed or subversive genre routinely used to advance the strategic aims of an agency seeking to implement a project despite significant opposition. This article contends that an EIS motivated by a genuinely persuasive purpose can serve as the discursive focus of democratic decision making about major projects and substantially achieve Habermas's norms of communicative action. This may happen, for example, when a local transportation agency develops an EIS for a federal transportation agency. To illustrate this possibility, two EISs involving distinct federal-local relationships in Puerto Rico are evaluated using criteria proposed by John Forester for investigating the degree to which public decision-making processes fulfill Habermas's norms of communicative action.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2002-10-01
DOI
10.1177/105065102236524
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Cited by in this index (15)

  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
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  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  3. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  5. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  6. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  7. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  8. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  9. Technical Communication Quarterly
  10. Journal of Business and Technical Communication

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