Paper short abstract:

How did 'capntrade' become re-produced and circulated as a dominant policy blueprint for environmental governance. My focus is on how this was achieved as a result of materially inscribing and stabilising the cap and trade blueprint as authoritative governance knowledge in cross-referencing documents.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I look at how 'cap and trade' came to be re-produced and circulated as a dominant policy blueprint for environmental governance. My particular focus is on how this was achieved as a result of materially inscribing and stabilising the cap and trade blueprint as authoritative governance knowledge in cross-referencing documents. The document network under study is identified as a discursive infrastructure that allows for 'governing at a distance', in the sense that it provides a relatively stable reservoir of authoritative governing knowledge, which orients policymaking from outside the traditional boundaries of jurisdictions. Conceptually, this means elaborating the material dimension of governance knowledge and its relevance for a 'society made durable' as part of an understanding of reality-making as a discursive process relying on documentary communication.