Analysing Strategic Environmental Assessment

Recognizing the institutional dimension of strategic environmental assessment

“…These new definitions and approaches envisage SEA more as a tool of strategic and proactive interaction with the decision-making process rather than as a way to report on the process' generally negative environmental consequences (Bina, 2007(Bina, , 2008Caratti et al, 2004;Partidário, 2007;Kornov and Thissen, 2000).…”

“…As it was not possible any more to base the assessment on knowledge of the likely final material environmental consequences of decisions, it could not be assumed that SEA was founded on a strictly substantive, objective rationale. 2 Later SEA definitions have gradually stressed that the aim of SEA is neither exclusively nor primarily to incorporate the consequences of decisions into decision-making processes, but to improve those processes themselves, clearly from an environmental perspective (Brown and Therivel, 2000;Jiliberto, 2002Caratti et al, 2004, Bina, 2007UNDP, 2004). 3 The World Bank definition of SEA as a participative approach to place the environmental and social aspects in the centre of the decision-making process and to influence in the development planning, the decision-making and the implementation processes at a strategic level (Mercier, 2004;World Bank, 2005) is relevant in this regard.…”

Between Policy-Making and Planning

“…Vicente and Partidário, 2006;World Bank, 2005;Nitz and Brown, 2001), and with conceptualisations of SEA approaches (e.g. Sheate et al, 2003;Caratti et al, 2004). One of the challenges of SEA methodology in terms of decision-making is the "paradox of timing" (Nooteboom and Teisman, 2003) stating that impact assessments are either too late or too early: "It is too late because the relevant influential stakeholders already prefer a specific solution, and it is too early because the problem definition used in the assessment is always redefined during the decisionmaking process, resulting in an irrelevant assessment" (p. 288).…”

An Alternative Approach to Institutional Analysis in Strategic Environmental Assessment in China

“…While early publications in the 1980s and early 1990s mainly focused on the SEA process, impact prediction methods, and report review (Therivel et al, 1992;Wood, 1988), subsequently the context within which SEA was applied also became an important point of interest when discussing the effectiveness of SEA and when comparing SEA practices in different countries (Fischer, 2002(Fischer, , 2005(Fischer, , 2007Fischer and Gazzola, 2006;Hilding-Rydevik, 2003;Hilding-Rydevik and Bjarnadóttir, 2007;Jones et al, 2005;Wallington et al, Caratti et al (2004) was characterised by a shift from assessment of impacts of decision to the assessment of the decisionmaking process itself. Cherp et al (2007) suggested SEA contain institutional elements after reviewing theories of strategy formation.…”