THE USE OF THEORY, CONCEPTUALISATION AND PAST KNOWLEDGE

In the following section, I am going to discuss what counts as useful past knowledge, “theorisation” and conceptualisations within the tradition of problem-oriented phronetic research. The discussion will mainly build on the approach of progressive phronetic, as developed by Flyvbjerg (1999), combined with thoughts on inter- or transdisciplinary research as argued by Illeris, and will serve as a guiding framework for the research in this thesis.

My research interest (and also the focus of the participant municipalities) within the Carbon 20 project is related to the social science sphere as the focus is on the implementation of municipal strategies to influence companies to lower their emissions. While the aspect that is to be implemented – the reduction of GHG emissions – is a technical and natural science phenomenon, the main focus of the project still remains within the societal domain as it relates to municipality implementation of policies to lower the GHG emissions.

As mentioned above, Flyvbjerg seriously questions the appropriateness of using

“theory” in social and human research with the same significance it has within the natural science traditions. Flyvbjerg acknowledges that several more “soft” theories have been developed and can make valuable contributions to the specific field of

study¹⁷. He does however argue that such “soft theories” differ significantly from his notion of “ideal theory” especially in respect to relaxing on (either or both) the general applicability and/or their ability to predict. He thus finds it very misleading to call both such phenomenon “theories”. If the general applicable and predicative

“approaches” are to be called “theories”, he argues that other theorisations and conceptualisations should be called something else.

I basically agree with Flyvbjerg in his critique of claiming general and predicative theories (ideal theories) as valid and useful within social sciences and humanities.

Equally I also find that it is misleading to name every theorisation and conceptualisation a theory in the same way as those “ideal theory” of natural science approach. I will therefore in the following use the concept “ideal theory”, when talking about such natural science inspired theories, and attempt to use the concepts of “conceptualisation”, “theorisations” and “learning from past experiences” when referring to more soft theorisation within the social science and humanities.

What Flyvbjerg point out is, that the integration of context is actually a prerequisites for any conceptualisations about human actions (both of the object of study and the researcher). Contrary to the validity claims within the natural “normal science”, where researchers abstract from the context, human and social science research has to incorporate the context. The validity claims related to human and social science research therefore have to be very explicit, conscious and reflective of the context of the production of knowledge.

Following the guidelines for problem-oriented research based on a progressive phonetic approach and critical theory, it is however still important to build on past knowledge and experiences, as also claimed by Dewey in the qualification of the learner’s personal experiences. Following critical theory and progressive phronetic research, such knowledge needs critical judgement in respect of their valuable contributions to the study in focus, for example in relation to whether the context in which they have been developed allows for any useful (meaningful) applications of concepts and learning in a new contextual setting – historical period, different geographical place and/or level (global, national, local) etc.

Furthermore, instead of framing these as THE theories used to assess the field, I, inspired by Dewey, incorporate such as past knowledge, previous learning and conceptualisations of the field.

17 He himself, for example, looks into various contributions and attempts to provide insight into what constitutes power – also using Foucault with respect to his stand on this topic and not solely as inspiration for methodical questions.

By this I argue that such past knowledge and conceptualisation has a significant altered role for the research than the traditional science approaches. Science often starts out with more or less coherent (disciplinary) theories that direct the relevant research questions and the lenses for what is actually seen in the field of interest (e.g. formulating hypotheses that are analysed to either verify or falsify the theory).

Contrary to this (and along the same lines as Flyvbjerg’s argument for applying different methods depending on the problem of focus), the problem-based research formulated by Illeris’ concept of interdisciplinary studies implies that the societal problem under investigation is decisive for which knowledge; conceptualisations and previous leanings are relevant. The criteria of the relevance of past knowledge etc. in the problem-based interdisciplinary research is thus whether judged to have something valuable to add to the analysis and assessment of the specific problem of focus (similar to the US pragmatic doctrine of whatever works!). Following that, my ideal is to transcend the boundaries of the disciplines and let the specific framing of the problem be decisive regarding, which past knowledge is relevant.

The point is precisely the critical outset in terms of not reproducing the ideas, concepts and understandings of the established theories and assumptions, but opposite function as the basis for bringing them into question, elaborating on them through new context-bounded studies, and indicating where they fall short in providing proper explanations.

In that respect, I interpret interdisciplinary as going beyond solely bringing disciplines together. The aim is not that two or more researchers from different disciplines (e.g. an economist, sociologist and engineer) approach a research field from within each of their disciplines and cooperate to bring the different perspectives into a common discussion – or one researcher approaches the field from within different disciplines (for such interpretation see, for example, Wallerstein, 1998). The aim is opposite to step out of and/or transcending the established disciplinary boundaries and their contextual, theoretical and paradigmatic ballast in terms of bringing new insights that even might question common assumptions. The outset is as stated above the societal problem – not a specific disciplinarily defined problem. Several researchers have attempted to make distinctions between, for example, cross-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary as a gradual higher integration of different inputs from different disciplines (e.g.

Stember, 1991). Following such distinction, what I argue for and attempt to apply is a transdisciplinary focus (see Baastrup et al. (1999) for more on discussions of interdisciplinary).

The six sub-analyses of Figure 3 (Chapter 5 to 10) all take their specific framing and interest in respect of the overall research questions resulting in the five sub-research questions and a specific narrowly framing of the overall sub-research question.

They all thus have some distinct characteristic and the sphere of interest also differs in the six analyses. Following the pragmatic use of “theories” or

“conceptualisations and learning of the past” as closely related to the specific problem under research, I apply different (and not necessarily coherent)

“theoretical” input to the five analyses. These will build on concepts and previous learning that I find important in order to comprehend and understand the specific dynamics of the field of interest. In next Chapter I will term them as “discourses of the field”, covering the more or less coherent thoughts and ideas dominating the discussion of the particular field of study. Mortensen (2000) has specifically argued that such knowledge, conceptualisations and theorisations of relevance for the specific problem of study are to be viewed more as one of the elements to be analysed rather than actual theory in the conventional use of theory (Mortensen, 2000).

As argued above I am inspired by critical theory and progressive phonetic science, and as such prescribe myself into the critical science tradition – applying a change perspective towards existing societal structure and existing paradigmatic and discursive understandings. Following this – and the problem-oriented, pragmatic approach as well – I question the ideal of “objectivity” in the (social) sciences and humanities.

As researchers we have learned to set up certain criteria about the validity and not least repeatability of a specific assessment, however such criteria does not make the outcome “objective”. From a critical theory perspective, knowledge production is always based on some basic assumptions and approaches. What we can as researchers is attempt to make our assumptions and the theoretical and methodological choices conscious and explicit to the audience and to embed the context in the analysis, allowing the reader to judge the grounds on which the findings are made. This is exactly what this chapter attempts to do.

Between this outline of the basic critical theoretical (epistemological) standpoints and the specific “past conceptualisations of the field” (discourses) applied in the six sub-analyses analyses of the theories, concepts and understandings that dominate the context of interest in the fields, there is however a gap, as not all these concepts and theories of the field necessarily follow the above outline of my scientific standpoints, as they serve a different role.

Bridging this gap, in next chapter I will develop an overall conceptual framework for the research questions, that brings the six sub-analyses into a common overall coherent picture of how the assessments are also linked together in terms of theoretical and conceptual links. As already indicated this will depart from the discussions about governance.

As already argued, the conceptual framework presented in the next chapter is not to be understood as the theoretical outset for the empirical data collection; it is not to be considered as “ideal theory” of governing. Quite opposite, this governance

discussion is an attempt to iteratively bring relevant past contributions into the current overall analyses of the PhD thesis. The framework has been developed iteratively in interaction with the context of study. The framework is thus more the result of a dialectical process to comprehend the actual practical problems pointed at by the municipalities and my own further assessment of that in respect to past knowledge. It is more an ex-post attempt to make an overall coherent framework of the empirical data and various assessments of the discussions and problems addressed than the theoretical ex-ante basis for carrying out the analyses.