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How Governments and Corporations Buy Public Acceptance for Controversial Projects
By crooky | November 4, 2008
It was announced yesterday that Donald Trump managed to ram through his beloved super-deluxe golf course project in an environmentally sensitive area - Balmedie Beach in Aberdeenshire on Scotland’s East Coast overlooking the North Sea. [READ] This project has caught my attention over the past few years as Trump fought it out with locals in Aberdeenshire who have opposed the project. The only reason it’s going through is because local protests were overrulled by the Scottish Parliament who feel the project will have positive economic impacts for the region and the damage to this sensitive eco-system will be minimal. In my opinion, there is much blame to be slung for this travesty and as I hope I can show you with this article - this kind of thing happens all the time.
Photo credit: David Dawson
In my Masters thesis, I laid out the proper procedure for stakeholder engagement leading up to the development (or lack of development) of a major infrastructure project such as a hydroelectric dam. My conclusion was that these kinds of projects can only go ahead with the fully informed consent of the “host community” - the community most directly impacted by the development of a project. In the case of Trump’s monster golf course, the affected community is the people of Aberdeenshire who want to protect and enjoy this sensitive ecological site.
Before we completely villify the Scottish government and Trump, let’s take a look at Aberdeenshire:
According to the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, “Aberdeen and Grampian is one of Scotland’s biggest success stories. As the centre of Europe’s oil and gas industry, the region is a key driver in the Scottish and UK economies with an aspirational business agenda and major opportunities for growth.” [READ] This makes Aberdeenshire sound like the Fort Macmurray of Scotland and might make you less sympathetic to the protestations of the local community there. (As an aside, the communities around the tar sands in Fort Macmurray is starting to regret many of the environmental concessions they made in the name of economic prosperity.)
However, a study by North East Scotland Economic Research [READ] shows that employment in the oil and gas industry in the region is set to decline rapidly in the next decade. This will have significant impacts on that community and the well being of the people who live there and could be an influencer in the decision to let the golf course land at Balmedie Beach. International tourism could be a much-needed diversification of the economy in that area and there’s no doubt that a project like this would bring the tourists.
As easy as it would be to villify Trump in this situation, he is simply a business person that had waved enough money in the faces of this community that they caved. One cannot forget that without the express permission of the Scottish government, Trump couldn’t build in Aberdeenshire. Even Trump can’t trump the rule of law (usually). You could turn this into an argument about why the Scottish parliament overrulled local city officials in allowing this project but remember that the parliament is a representative of the people of Aberdeenshire just as much as the city council there is.
What’s really going on here is a shift in this community from “not in my backyard” NIMBY to “maybe in my backyard if you offer me enough money” MIMBY$ to “yes, in my backyard” YIMBY because the incentives became attractive enough.
The socio-economic status (SES) of the a proposed host community for a project like this is a major factor to public acceptance. While there are some ethical concerns about targeting low-SES communities (something that large corporations have been accused of doing for decades), the fact remains that these communities are more willing to accept major capital infrastructure projects if the mitigation and compensation measures outweigh the perceived risk.
In this case, Trump has to adhere to some strict environmental protection measures, build low-cost housing on an aggressive schedule for the locals and an elementary school. These incentives, thrown into a major project proposal in the face of local opposition is, in my opinion, a bribe. The punchline is that not matter how these communities convince themselves that they’ve somehow won something, they’ve been bought. If these projects were really good for their communities, they’d welcome them with open arms. To protest and then cave when the money gets good enough is akin to prostitution. It reminds me of an old joke:
A man goes up to a woman in a bar and whispers in her ear “would you sleep with me for one million dollars?” She looks him over, smiles and says “sure”. He smiles back and says “would you sleep with me for fifty bucks?” She looks horrified and says “God, no! What kind of a woman do you take me for?” He says “I think we’ve established what kind of woman you are - I’m just haggling on the price.”
The fact that this community is the UK’s hub for oil production hints that this community might not care about the environment as much as they claim. Communities, like developers, know how the game is played. No one wants to give away something for nothing. I’m not denying that there might be some genuine opponents to this project in Aberdeenshire but if the majority of the population was truly dead-set against it, the politicians would not have been able to push this project through.
Topics: Policy, social issues |
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November 5th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Sometimes, however, governments use force and just allow all kinds of projects to proceed even against vehement opposition from the population. I have seen this very recently happening in Italy, where the government is forcing the building of incinerators in communities without a garbage problem which currently survive on agriculture. And this is just one example.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
You’re right Gio,
This is something that we’ve done here in Canada in the past, especially in relation to our First Nations communities.