Frame conflicts and the formulation of alternatives: Environmental assessment of an infrastructure plan

The environmental assessment of plans, programs, and policies should serve as an open policy forum where mutual learning among participants takes place. However, problems of communication may occur when the actors cannot agree which alternatives should be examined. It may be unclear what choices the assessment should shed light on. This article studies the conflicts related to the construction of policy alternatives by analyzing the environmental assessment of a transport infrastructure plan. The results indicate that not only the definition of the scope of the assessment task, but also the restrictions of decision-making, are key issues. It is sometimes harder to achieve agreement on freedom of action than to reach consensus about how to assess a particular set of alternatives.