That kind of pseudo-academic wankery always reminds me of this Eddie Izzard sketch...
Academia is today little more than a glorified establishment think tank, it's "methodology" being nothing more than extremely expensive self-justification.
It exists far apart from the rest of society, which has to pay for it.
Method:
1. Stick finger in air... See which way wind (funding priorities) is blowing.
2. Stick head up arse.
If you want the skinny version of my report, the IEA asked my to produce an overview.
(I am not now and never have been hired by the IEA in any capacity, and some of them will disagree with me about CAs).
The arguments as stated may not interest the 'academic' who cannot parse any prose without a statement of 'methodology'.
But they will in due course explain to many millions of people why they have been lumbered with vast, unpayable bills, lost their jobs and material freedoms.
This is one such 'academic'.
He claims to be interested in "the theory and practice of democracy, democratic innovation, public opinion, political communication, civil society and citizen participation ... through the lens of deliberative democracy".
The obvious presupposition of which is the public's competences not being sufficient for democracy, thus creating a role for 'academic' as supervisor.
Don't expect to get a grant to point out the problem with the presupposition, though
It is a historic development.
It is the dismantling of the principles of the democratic tradition, to suit the political needs of 'governance', not to better represent society's needs to society's decision-makers.
It is categorically 'post-democratic'. It is an idea born out of the paralysis caused by consensuses being developed across political institutions, by which the public is excluded from politics. It creates a huge gulf between the establishment and the public.
It is also necessarily therefore 'post-ideological'. It imagines itself to have transcended ideologies, such as those that dominated the early C20th, and that there remain no significant constituencies or tensions in society that need to or can be mediated by representation.
But it has not transcended 'ideology'.
It is as determined and ambitious to assert its designs for society as any early C20th ideological movement. And its designs are no less radical.
Citizens Assemblies are arguably merely 'soviets' by another name.
And that is why we can very easily see the functionaries involved in the Climate Assembly so easily taking such liberties with the Assembly's 'recommendations'.
Democracy without caveats would make this impossible.
Academics are not disinterested, objective, detached observers.
They are interested parties. They represent special interests and ideological movements. That is the basis of their employment contracts.
They have not eschewed ideology. They have embedded it.
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The Byline Times project seems to be an independent news/media project that is entirely and exclusively concerned with projecting anxieties about independent news/media projects -- i.e. the expression of unauthorised opinion.
For Cadwalladr's crew to bleat about unhinged and extreme conspiracy theories, propagated by people who are 'unqualified' to act as reporters, journalists & interviewers is of course a bit rich.
But the interesting thing is that they are too dense to understand it.
My attempt at a sociological explanation is that they are formed from a class of people that thrived -- for no good reason -- under the terms of Blair administration, which lingered long into the coalition era. The referendum was of course the terminal point for that class.
It must be a coincidence that relics of feudalism (such as a certain Charles) has a preference for feudal modes of production (for you) and feudal social relations.
But trees! Yay trees! Everybody loves trees!
TREEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!
"Things will stop going wrong when there are more trees."
"If only we can plant zillions more trees, all of our problems will go away."
"Trees will create jobs, grow the economy, reduce crime, and make the weather better."
There's an entire chapter on "Libertarians" in the green demonology.
But there is no evidence anywhere that Moniot et al have understood, let alone read an argument from a 'libertarian'.
"Libertarianism" is a position that exists only in the green imagination.
So it's all the more ironic (or moronic) that Monbiot tries to claim that it is libertarianism that is the developmental disorder, not his own failure to develop any ability to negotiate his will against others, or a sense of proportion.
I.e., if you disagree with Monbiot, it's the end of the world.
*Exactly* the same reaction produced when a toddler fails to assert their will on the world.
There is no nuance to the green understanding. It is wholly narcissistic.
But ignorance of this... erm... fact... is rife among those who claim to best represent 'dealing in facts'.
It gets worse than the notion of science being synonymous with 'facts'. Some even confuse science for its object.
Science is neither fact nor noumenon. It's the process by which we attempt to discover facts and to shorten the distance between noumena and explanation.
When all the industries that Greenpeace hates (i.e. all industry) are accused by Greenpeace of using the same "tactics" and "tricks", isn't it time to realise that what Greenpeace is against is democracy, debate, rule of law?