Consensus and legitimacy in the legislative process of Cordoba’s territorial planning of native forests

Abstract

In August 2010, the Legislature of Córdoba sanctions law 9814, a regulation whose aim is to protect the provincial native forests through a territorial planning, based on a set of criteria and categories that define different conservation areas. The legislative discursive field that results in this regulation is highly controversial, according to the provincial political scenario that configures it and the treatment given to the law in the Legislature of Córdoba. In the parliamentary process that takes place between 2008 and 2010, at least two proposals coexist and a fairly long work is carried out in commissions. Once the time has come for treatment on the legislative chamber, discussions between competing alternatives are certainly controversial and the resolution of the conflict is given by the interposition, at the last moment, of an official project (Unión por Córdoba). The level of controversy that characterizes this legislation case is privileged ground to analyze the discursive tactics and strategies in conflict, and in this article we concentrate on those that refer to one of the controversial dimensions of the debate: the discursive confrontation around the notions of consensus, legitimacy and legality of the approved text. By means of a discourse analysis of the stenographic version of the session in which this law is voted, we offer a characterization of the parliamentary process and the problematic nodes, to reflect on whether or not we are actually facing a political deliberation and what defines it precisely. If we consider that law 9814 awaits an update with real challenges for the Cordoba Parliament, this article may offer valuable insights for the next stages in environmental protection of the native forests of Córdoba.