or even divergent interests, but who come together around a shared project. By placing the democratic issue at the heart of restoration, political approaches make the river a tool for living together. In this sense, political action cannot be taken independently of the social and cultural contexts in which it takes place.
Figure 1.9 Lexicon specific to international scientific publications dealing with the political stakes of river restoration.
The form of the democratic debate is also at the center of considerations; representative democracy giving expert groups legitimacy to act is questioned. More and more authors are placing participatory approaches at the center of their work and considering the involvement of different stakeholders in the project; they approach the political dimension of river restoration from a governance perspective. According to Mansourian (2017, p. 402), “governance determines who takes decisions, and how these decisions are made and applied.” Some of these studies are interested in the satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, of stakeholders regarding the degree and manner in which they were involved in the project (Junker et al. 2007; Heldt et al. 2016). Others propose a monitoring of governance, and analyze, often in a critical manner, the way in which the interplay of actors within the loop has been able to influence decisions (Tanaka 2006; Lee and Choi 2012; Hong and Chun 2018). Thus, within the framework of the restoration of the Anyangcheon river in Seoul (South Korea), Hong and Chun (2018) were able to highlight power asymmetries between the different stakeholders of the project that contributed to prioritizing, in the choice of restoration objectives, scientific values to the detriment of nonscientific values, such as cultural, aesthetic, social, or educational ones. The importance of the leadership of certain stakeholders, endowed with varied influence and capacity, for driving the concretization and orientation of projects is often mentioned (Lee and Choi 2012; Barthélémy and Armani 2015).
1.4.2.2 River restoration at the heart of power relationships: between conflict analysis and critical approaches
Several policy researches in the field of restoration offer analyses of power relations and conflicts related to project implementation. In particular, they seek to highlight the hidden tensions that result from the sociopolitical processes that animate and define the social situation. The political ecology field of research (e.g. Doyle et al. 2015; Sneddon et al. 2017; Drouineau et al. 2018), whose ambition is to study power relations (Benjaminsen and Svarstad 2019, p. 392), has particularly invested in these critical approaches, “questioning of the role and status of powerful actors as well as of what is taken for granted in leading discourses on environment and development.” These approaches, politically committed to a fairer and more sustainable organization of society, bring a particular color to the thinking on river restoration, being rather driven by an environmentalist commitment. For example, a special place is given to local communities in the tradition of postcolonial studies (e.g. Fox et al. 2017; Woelfle‐Erskine 2017). These communities arouse a strong interest because of the original and ancestral links they have forged with rivers and, paradoxically, because of the small weight they are generally able to have in the decision‐making process in the face of more powerful institutional, political, or economic actors. Their involvement raises issues of cultural recognition and preservation of traditions and worldviews. Contributions in political economy have also made achievements in the field of river restoration (e.g. Lave et al. 2010; Lave 2016). They have shown, for example, how neoliberal logics have guided restoration practices in the United States by favoring the private sector in the production of expertise and promoting the creation of new markets related to ecosystem services (Lave et al. 2010).
Beyond the latent power balances, many publications also analyze restoration projects from the perspective of open conflicts, or at least the opposition they generate. These oppositions are particularly strong regarding certain restoration measures. Projects for restoring continuity, particularly dam removal, which generally result in major upheavals to landscapes and practices, appear to be the most controversial. These projects are therefore at the center of many political analyses (Figure 1.10) (e.g. Druschke et al. 2017; Sneddon et al. 2017; Drouineau et al. 2018).
While particular attention is paid to opposition to restoration, many of the works also focus on public support for the projects (Table 1.3). According to Junker et al. (2007), the primary objective of restoration – to increase the natural and ecological quality of rivers – would generally be a matter of consensus among the general public. Faced with the complexity of the socioeconomic issues generally raised by restoration projects, this positive view of restoration approaches deserves to be highlighted.
Figure 1.10 Restoration measures tackled in scientific publications on the social, political or economic issues of river restoration.
Table 1.3 How are the notions of “expectation,” “support,” and “acceptance” defined in the literature on societal issues in river restoration?
| Expectation | The notion of expectation is rarely discussed and often used in a generic sense as “the action of waiting for something or someone; expectant waiting” (Trumble and Stevenson 2002). In the context of restoration, this foresight often concerns the way a project is conducted or the results it should have. Expectations are a priori positive. They are based on what people, practitioners (e.g. Chen et al. 2017), or the public (e.g. Tunstall et al. 2000; Junker and Buchecker 2008) imagine and want in relation to the river. Contrary to the notions of perception or attitude that most often refer to existing objects or phenomena, the notion of expectation requires projection, and is mobilized in the pre‐restoration phase to nurture the restoration project (e.g. Åberg and Tapsell 2013). This does not prevent us from also looking at how the project has met these initial expectations, which is then more a matter of studying satisfaction. Satisfaction can be a criterion of success. Conversely, disappointment is a significant risk in the case of river restoration projects (e.g. Tunstall et al. 2000). This is all the more true since such a project can not only reveal latent expectations but can also generate new ones. Expectations can change over time and through the stages of a project. |
| Support | The notion of support is most often used in the scientific literature in a common sense. It is the support that certain categories of stakeholders bring to a restoration project. The perspective is political. It is generally the “public support” that is at the center of analyses (e.g. Connelly et al. 2002; Schläpfer and Witzig 2006; Buijs 2009). As with the notion of willingness, the intensity associated with the use of the notion of support can vary widely, from accepting an action to publicly encouraging and defending it. Beyond the evaluation of project support, the various studies in the field of restoration seek to understand its determinants. The notion of support is thus often backed up by notions of perception or attitude, to understand the reasons why certain stakeholders or certain categories of stakeholders support or oppose restoration (e.g. Tanaka 2006; Schläpfer and Witzig 2006; Buijs 2009). For some authors, this analysis can help target environmental education approaches and build public support (e.g. Chin et al. 2008; Chen and Cho 2019), whereas, for others, it is more the debating of different opinions in a participatory perspective that will help build support for restoration (e.g. Junker et al. 2007). |
| Acceptance |
According
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