Ends, means, beginnings: environmental technocracy, ecological deliberation or embodied disagreement

Technocratic attitudes suggest that decisions about environmental policy should be led by scientific experts. Such decisions, it is expected, will be more rational than any arrived at by a democratic mediation between the narrow, short-term interests and uninformed preferences of the general public. Within green political theory, deliberative democracy has emerged as the dominant repost to technocracy, offering an account of how democratic polities can deal with complex scientific and technological decisions through the emergence of communicative rationality. This article argues that neither appeals to expert knowledge, nor communicative rationality, are likely to deliver the optimal green outcomes that proponents suggest, but rather will cover up the inevitable disagreements over environmental policy making. Instead the article suggests that more ecologically-sensitive and democratic decision making about complex scientific and technological issues can emerge if we acknowledge the differently embodied perspectives of decision-makers – from scientists to citizens. This prioritises democratic means over green ends, yet incorporates the environment at the beginning of the decision-making process. The article aims to sketch out the theoretical and practical implications of such an embodied turn for responding to the anti-democratic tendencies of environmental technocracy.

Consumer confidence indices and stock markets’ meltdowns

Consumer confidence indices (CCIs) are a closely monitored barometer of countries’ economic health and an informative forecasting tool. Using European and US data, we provide a case study of the two recent stock market meltdowns (the post-dotcom bubble correction of 2000–2002 and the 2007–2009 decline at the beginning of the financial crisis) to contribute to the discussion on their appropriateness as proxies for stock markets’ investor sentiment. Investor sentiment should positively covary with stock market movements (DeLong, Shleifer, Summers, and Waldmann 1990); however, we find that the CCI–stock market relationship is not universally positive.We also do not find support for the information effect documented in the previous literature, but identify a more subtle relationship between consumer expectations about future household finances and stock market fluctuations.