Experts as Game Changers? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Climate Measures in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam

This article analyzes the acceptance of climate policy measures in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam to understand how policy and planning interrelate with private and public interests. While legitimizing climate policy and measures, values can also cause conflict when operationalized locally. By analyzing value conflicts in public discourse,...

A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of sustainability transitions in urban basic infrastructure services

Basic infrastructure services – water and sanitation, waste collection and management, transport, energy, and housing – form the foundation upon which cities are built. Sustainable and equitable provision of services is key to combating climate change, eradicating poverty and meeting targets set out in international sustainability agendas....

Conceptualising sound-driven design: An exploratory discourse analysis

Sound-driven design is an emerging, human-centered design practice informed by technology and listening in the multisensory dimension of interaction. In this paper we present a discourse analysis approach aimed at qualitatively understanding the constituent concepts of such a practice, by means of semi-structured interviews with sound...

A Critical Framework for Examining Sustainability Claims of the Sharing Economy: Exploring the Tensions Within Platform Brand Discourses

The sharing economy represents a market-driven response to the perceived inefficient resource use arising from materialism, and as such, offers the possibility of a more environmentally sustainable form of consumption. However, the sustainability benefits attributed to the sharing economy remain contentious and fraught with paradox. Drawing...

A Diagrammatic Cartography of Discourses on Architectures of Life and/or Death

The built environment exerts an essential effect on life. Over the past decades, it has been greatly reconceptualised through various posthuman, ecosystemic, new materialist, material-discursive approaches, which explored the socio-spatial, technological, cognitive, relational, and affective relations that material arrangements, such as...

Government Attitudes to the Central Asian Water Crisis and Third-Party Water Diplomacy: Crafting the message to the listener

Scarcity of water resources in Central Asia’s Amu Darya and Syr Darya river basins lies at the root of long-running tensions between Central Asian countries over the division of these resources. Water diplomacy by outside actors aimed at mediating this dispute has so far shown limited results. This thesis investigates what lessons for third...

Enterprise discourses in Dutch urban policies: a comparison between two cities in the Netherlands

Local governments make use of ‘enterprise language’ to encourage citizens to adopt entrepreneurial behaviour in managing their daily lives and solving problems that emerge in their neighbourhood. In this paper, we examine the use of enterprise language and the promotion of enterprise in Dutch urban policy focusing specifically on how Dutch...

Equitable and Reasonable Utilization: Reconstructing the Nile BasinWater Allocation Dialogue

Equitable and reasonable utilization is a core principle in the distribution of water resources. However, its practical application in the Nile Basin has been a significant challenge, leading to a water allocation deadlock. To address the deadlock, we used the van Eeten (1999) four-step process for defining new agendas. To reconstruct the debate...

Cybersecurity as a Politikum: Implications of Security Discourses for Infrastructures

In the cybersecurity community it is common to think of security as a design feature for systems and infrastructures that may be difficult to balance with other requirements. What is less studied is how security requirements come about, for which reasons, and what their influence is on the actions the system facilitates. Security is for example...

The dynamics in the societal debate on Shale gas in The Netherlands

An increasing number of studies show that societal debates might be the constraining factor for implementing new energy initiatives. Environmental awareness in The Netherlands is growing and society and politicians gradually change their stance on the necessity of oil and gas. This study is aimed at understanding the dynamics behind the...

Interpreting the influencing factors within the decision making process between two train safety systems at ProRail: An explorative study

This thesis explores the decision making process about the implementation of a new train safety system at ProRail. ProRail is responsible for the entire rail infrastructure of the Netherlands and faces tasks such as maintaining, optimising and replacing the infrastructure. One of ProRail’s current projects concerns aged train safety systems and...