Participation has become a mantra in environmental governance. However, there are signs that the participatory agenda has started to lose its momentum and justification because of disappointments about actual achievements. Rather than focusing on improving participatory processes or articulating best practices, in this paper we seek to understand the more fundamental reasons why difficulties are encountered. In our interviews with professionals involved in participation in environmental governance we found varying and potentially conflicting rationales for participation, with instrumental and legalistic rationales dominating. We contend that the institutional and political context in which this participation takes place is an important explanation of this prevalence. This includes the provisions for participation in EU directives, failing policy integration, institutional and political barriers, and failing political uptake of results from participation. We conclude there is a need for more reflexive awareness of the different ways in which participation is defined and practised in contemporary environmental policy making and for a more realistic assessment of possibilities for changes towards more participatory and deliberative decision making.

In this study, we review the ways in which water has recently been conceptualized by both natural and social scientists as either hydro-social or sociohydrological. We do this in order to discuss whether and how they can be compatible, in order to enable dialogue across disciplines that seek to address the ecological and social challenges related to the complex human/ water interactions. Through our review, we document the emergence of these specific terminologies, identify how these terms-and the conceptualizations they represent-relate to each other, and suggest what opportunities there are for building further interdisciplinary approaches to understanding water and society. Specifically, we review the recent rise in socio-hydrology amongst natural scientists/hydrologists to put this in discussion with a much longer tradition in social sciences of seeing water as both natural and social. We identify what the paradigms are in both conceptualizations in order to assess what their respective focus is, and what they omit. Our purpose is not to judge competing claims. Rather we want to assess the knowledge claims made in both paradigms: what can we learn when we employ these different approaches, what different rationales for action do they suggest, and what scope exists for collaboration. We conclude that there is scope in combining both approaches without a need to antagonistically question their respective fundamental assumptions, and playing to the strengths of each: the rich case study narratives produced by hydrosocial research can be the basis for the conceptual and quantitative modeling of socio-hydrology.

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