Public participation in environmental policy: Considering scientific, counter-scientific and non-scientific contributions

Public Understanding of Science

Volumn 5, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 183-204

  Eden, Sally ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0000324932     PISSN: 09636625     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1088/0963-6625/5/3/001     Document Type: Article

References (149)

1. From UNCED Agenda 21, Chapter 36.
2. O'Riordan, T., 1991, Stability and transformation in environmental government. Political Quarterly, 62, 167.
3. Macnaghten, P., Grove-White, R., Jacobs, M. and Wynne, B., 1995, Public Perceptions and Sustainability in Lancashire: Indicators, Institutions, Participation (Preston: Lancaster University/Lancashire County Council), p.9.
4. Department of the Environment, 1990, This Common Inheritance: Britain's Environmental Strategy (London: HMSO); also subsequent updates with the same title in 1991, 1992, 1994.
5. Hope, C., and Owens, S., 1991, Common inheritance - collective responsibility? State, market and citizen in the White Paper on the Environment. Energy and Environment, 2(2), 120-129;
6. Eden, S. E., 1993, Individual environmental responsibility and its role in public environmentalism. Environment and Planning A, 25, 1743-1758.
7. Department of the Environment, 1994, Sustainable Development: the UK Strategy Summary Report (London: Department of the Environment), p.7.
8. Department of the Environment, 1994, Sustainable Development: the UK Strategy (London: HMSO), para 32.12.
9. Going for Green leaflet 1995.
10. Cited in Going for Green campaign launch conference transcript, 6 February 1995, p.1.
11. CPRE/Green Alliance, 1992, Putting Our Own House in Order: the UK's Responsibilities to the Earth's Summit (London: CPRE/Green Alliance), p.2.
12. Ball, S., and Bell, S., 1995, Environmental Law (3rd edn) (London: Blackstone Press), p.3.
13. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage).
14. 'Indeed, there is something unique about the manner in which ecology logically takes its place at the very centre of Beck's social theory' because it is so often ignored by other sociologists. Bronner, S. E., 1995, Ecology, politics, and risk: the social theory of Ulrich Beck. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 6(1), 67-86.
15. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p. 162.
16. Taylor, P. J., and Buttel, F. H., 1992, How do we know we have global environmental problems? Science and the globalization of environmental discourse. Geoforum, 23(3), 405-416.
17. See also Ross, A., 1991, Is global culture warming up? Social Text, 28, 3-30;
18. Buttel, F. H., Hawkins, A. P., and Power, A. G., 1990, From limits to growth to global change: constraints and contradictions in the evolution of environmental science and ideology. Global Environmental Change, 1(1), 57-66.
19. Yearley, S., 1991, The Green Case (London: Harper Collins), p.116.
20. Ross, A., 1991, Is global culture warming up? Social Text, 28, 18.
21. See later and especially Ross, A., 1991, Is global culture warming up? Social Text, 28, 3-30.
22. See Vogel, D., 1986, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp.172-175.
23. Ikwue, T., and Skea, J., 1994, Business and the genesis of the European Community carbon tax proposal. Business Strategy and the Environment, 3(2), 1-10.
24. Benedick, R. E., 1991, Ozone Diplomacy (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), pp.103-104.
25. Smart, B., 1992, Beyond Compliance: A New Industry View of the Environment (New York: World Resources Institute), p.186;
26. Doyle, J., 1992, Hold the applause: a case study of corporate environmentalism. The Ecologist, 22(3), 88.
27. It is also possible to argue that moral and ethical discourses also have a part to play in the development of policy, especially in areas like biotechnology and embryo research in the 1990s. However, the contribution of such discourses is more important in these latter fields than in environmental policy because environmental management frequently focuses on the large scale, moving away from individual experiences and raising the difficult questions of who 'speaks' for the environment and non-human species, and whether 'Nature' can have value and thus whether we have a moral obligation to protect it, regardless of its usefulness. Such ecocentric and holistic versions of environmental ethics are important in the academic literature (see, for example, Eckersley, R., 1992, Environmentalism and Political Theory (London: UCL Press);
28. Rolston, H. III, 1989, Philosophy Gone Wild (Buffalo: Prometheus Books);
29. Brennan, A., 1988, Thinking About Nature (London: Routledge);
30. Brennan, A., 1992, Moral pluralism and the environment. Environmental Values, 1(1), 15-33). but not (yet) significant in defining environmental policy in the face of the more dominant 'managerial' discourses of science and economics.
31. Boehmer-Christiansen, S., 1988, Black mist and acid rain: science as the fig-leaf of policy. Public Opinion Quarterly, 59(2), 145-160;
32. Yearley, S., 1991, The Green Case (London, Harper Collins). p.16;
33. Yearley, S., 1991, Greens and science: a doomed affair. New Scientist, 13 July, 38.
34. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.53.
35. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.72.
36. Barnes, B., 1985, About Science (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), p.83.
37. Also Taylor, P. J., and Buttel, F. H., 1992, How do we know we have global environmental problems? Science and the globalization of environmental discourse. Geoforum, 23(3), 405-416.
38. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.55.
39. Yearley, S., 1994, Understanding science from the perspective of sociology of scientific knowledge: an overview. Public Understanding of Science, 3, 252-253.
40. Ashworth, G., 1995, Going for Green launch conference transcript, 6 February, question and answer section 3.
41. Schwartz, M., and Thompson, M., 1990, Divided We Stand: Redefining Politics, Technology and Social Choice (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), p.26;
42. Boehmer-Christiansen, S., 1988, Black mist and acid rain - science as fig leaf of policy. Political Quarterly, 59(2), 145-160.
43. Ahuja, D., 1992, Estimating national contributions of greenhouse gas emissions: the CSE-WRI controversy. Global Environmental Change, 2(2), 83-87: 86;
44. also Thery, D., 1992, Should we drop or replace the WRI Global Index? Global Environmental Change, 2(2), 88-89.
45. McCully, P., 1991, Discord in the greenhouse: how WRI is attempting to shift the blame for global warming. The Ecologist, 21(4), 157.
46. Jasanoff, S., 1993, India at the crossroads in global environmental policy. Global Environmental Change, 3(1), 32-52.
47. However, other commentators have suggested that environmental science is in fact becoming depoliticized rather than politicized as Beck suggests. Indeed, Taylor and Buttel argue that politics has been excluded from global environmental issues since the 'Limits to Growth' debates began in the 1970s. What they see developing is an apolitical consideration of environmental problems, excluding social or political dimensions by concentrating on technical (objective) ones, e.g. reducing greenhouse gas contributions by developing pollution abatement technology rather than by restructuring energy consumption. They contend that this depoliticizes environmental science by removing the possibility of policy prescription or, indeed, any actionable or normative judgement. See Taylor, P. J., and Buttel, F. H., 1992, How do we know we have global environmental problems? Science and the globalization of environmental discourse. Geoforum, 23(3), 405-416.
48. Similar arguments are also made for the depoliticization of science generally by Fischer, F., 1990, Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise (Newbury Park: Sage), p.220;
49. and Barnes, B., 1985, About Science (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) for example. I think that two different senses of 'politicization' are being referred to. In Beck's case, the implication is clearly, and justifiably, that science is increasingly part of the political process because it processes information, selects key issues for more investigation, is used in justifying policy choices and, in the process, is examined by (non-scientist) others as part of 'reflexive modernization'. In these matters, it is hardly apolitical. However, it must sustain an objective image in order to retain any form of 'rational' authority in the face of other, possibly morally grounded, arguments. In this sense, it can be connected with more technical solutions to problems, with the weighing, again in technical terms, of a range of possible policy solutions. This would represent a seemingly apolitical methodology which is firmly located in and connected to the political process. Hence, it is possible to argue that science is politicized in terms of its role but apolitical in terms of how its advice is represented. However, I do not think this is helpful and prefer to see science as politicized, while noting that Beck's notion of subpolitics points to this ambiguous relationship.
50. Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), pp.80-81.
51. The three models are also discussed as abstract categories rather than national styles by Habermas, J., 1971, Toward a Rational Society (London: Heinemann), pp.62-70.
52. Ball, S., and Bell, S., 1995, Environmental Law (3rd edn) (London: Blackstone Press);
53. Vogel, D., 1986, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
54. Renn, O., 1992, The social arena concept of risk debates. Social Theories of Risk, edited by S. Krimsky and D. Golding (Westport, CT: Praeger), p.183;
55. Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p.72.
56. Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), pp.30-31;
57. Vogel, D., 1986, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), p.255.
58. Vogel, D., 1986, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), p.23.
59. Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), p.49.
60. The Royal Society, 1985, The Public Understanding of Science (London: The Royal Society);
61. Wynne talks of a 'cultural alienation' of the public from science in Wynne, B., 1992, Uncertainty and environmental learning: reconceiving science and policy in the preventive paradigm. Global Environmental Change, 2(2), 111-127;
62. Yearley depicts the public legitimacy of science as low, and both he and Wynne blame the public's unfamiliarity with the workings of science: see Yearley, S., 1994, Understanding science from the perspective of the sociology of scientific knowledge: an overview, Public Understanding of Science, 3, 245.
63. Also see Barnes, B., 1985, About Science (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
64. For example, the reports in Independent on Sunday, 17 July 1994, p.1;
65. Guardian, 15 July 1994, pp.14-15;
66. Independent, 3 July 1995, p.8.
67. Lash, S. and Wynne, B., in the Introduction to Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.6.
68. Michael, M., 1992, Lay discourses of science: science-in-general, science-in-particular, and self. Science, Technology and Human Values, 17(3), 330.
69. Ross, A., 1991, Is global culture warming up? Social Text, 28, 12.
70. Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p. 118.
71. Burgess, J., Harrison, C., and Maiteny, P., 1991, Contested meanings: the consumption of news about nature conservation. Media, Culture and Society, 13, 499-519.
72. Beder, S., 1991, Controversy and closure: Sydney's beaches in crisis. Social Studies of Science, 21, 223-256.
73. As noted above, in the USA a more adversarial policy process has developed than in Europe. This has enabled public challenges of science, albeit within forums still strongly controlled by élites, in this case administrative élites: see Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), p.23;
74. Renn, O., 1992, The social arena concept of risk debates. Social Theories of Risk, edited by S. Krimsky and D. Golding (Westport: Praeger), p.183.
75. Even here, the success of this more publicly exposed policy formulation is dubious, because it militates against definitive and yet adaptable policy decisions through extending the process of contestation and 'producing paralysis in the decision-making process': see Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), p.66.
76. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.155.
77. For a case study see Yearley, S., 1989, Bog standards: science and conservation at a public inquiry. Social Studies of Science, 19, 421-438.
78. Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), p.80.
79. For media studies of environmental issues, see Hansen, A., 1993, The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press);
80. Mazur, A., and Lee, J., 1993, Sounding the global alarm: environmental issues and the US national news. Social Studies of Science, 23, 681-720;
81. Bell, A., 1994, Media (mis)communication and the science of climate change. Public Understanding of Science, 3, 259-275.
82. Shapiro, S., 1986. The social control of impersonal trust. American Journal of Sociology, 93(3), 623-658;
83. Fischer, F., 1990, Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise (Newbury Park, NJ: Sage).
84. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), pp.157-163.
85. Wynne, B., and Mayer, S., 1993, How science fails the environment. New Scientist, 5 June, 33.
86. Fischer, F., 1990, Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise (Newbury Park, NJ: Sage).
87. Tombs, S., 1993, The chemical industry and environmental issues. Business and the Environment, edited by D. Smith (London: Paul Chapman).
88. Also see Laird, F. N., 1993, Participatory analysis, democracy and technological decision-making. Science, Technology and Human Values, 18(3), 341-361.
89. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.59.
90. This is also found in the term 'trans-science' where problems such as global warming and deforestation can be formulated by science but not resolved by it, due to the uncertainties and magnitudes involved. See Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities);
91. Ravetz, J. R., 1990, The Merger of Knowledge with Power (London: Mansell);
92. Macgill, S. M., 1987, The Politics of Anxiety (London: Pion).
93. As Lash and Urry put it '[t]esting, in the risk society, has to occur after application; production must precede research.' See Lash, S., and Urry, J., 1994, Economies of Signs and Space (London: Sage), p.35.
94. Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities), p.20.
95. Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities), p.21.
96. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.161.
97. Wynne, B., 1992, Risk and social learning: reification to engagement. Social Theories of Risk, edited by S. Krimsky and D. Golding (Westport, CT: Praeger), p.294;
98. Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities), p.21.
99. Wynne, B., and Mayer, S., 1993, How science fails the environment. New Scientist, 5 June, 35.
100. Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p.107.
101. Rustin, M., 1994, Incomplete modernity: Ulrich Beck's Risk Society. Radical Philosophy, 67 (Summer), 3-12.
102. For a philosophical appreciation, see Passmore, J., 1978, Science and its Critics (London: Duckworth).
103. Eckersley, R., 1992, Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach (London: University College London Press), p.51.
104. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage);
105. Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities).
106. Yearley, S., 1991, The Green Case (London: Harper Collins);
107. Yearley, S., 1991, Greens and science: a doomed affair? New Scientist, 13 July, 37-40.
108. Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), pp.5, 52;
109. Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p.72;
110. Habermas argues that in such decision-making regimes, the public cannot fully participate but can only legitimate the decisions made for them by élites: see Habermas, J., 1971, Toward a Rational Society (London: Heinemann), p.67.
111. Bronner, S. E., 1995, Ecology, politics and risk: the social theory of Ulrich Beck. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 6(1), 67-86.
112. Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities).
113. Giddens, A., 1990, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity), p.44.
114. Rustin, M., 1994, Incomplete modernity: Ulrich Beck's Risk Society. Radical Philosophy, 67 (Summer), 9.
115. Wynne, B., 1992, Uncertainty and environmental learning: reconceiving science and policy in the preventive paradigm. Global Environmental Change, 2(2), 115.
116. It is interesting to compare this understanding of the importance of experience with Collins' model of the 'distance effect' where 'the further from the research front, the more do results look certain': see Collins, H. M., 1987, Certainty and public understanding of science: science on television. Social Studies of Science, 17, 692.
117. But for complications with this notion see Rüdig, W., 1993, Sources of technological controversy: proximity to or alienation from technology? The Politics of Expert Advice, edited by A. Barker and B. G. Peters (Edinburgh University Press).
118. These characteristics are particularly drawn from Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p.132.
119. For a case study, see the use made by NIREX of public criticism, in Kemp, R., 1990, Why not in my backyard? A radical interpretation of public opposition to the deep disposal of radioactive waste in the United Kingdom. Environment and Planning A, 22, 1239-1258.
120. Also Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p.120.
121. For example, Fischer notes that traditional scientists designate public beliefs as 'irrational' (i.e. not based in traditional science); see Fischer, F., 1993, The greening of risk assessment: towards a participatory approach. Business and the Environment, edited by D. Smith (London: Paul Chapman), p.101;
122. Tombs notes that chemical industry scientists see the public's worries about their operations as 'irrational (mis)conceptions', in Tombs, S., 1993, The chemical industry and the environment. Business and the Environment, edited by D. Smith (London: Paul Chapman), p.136;
123. Beder shows how local protests about beach water pollution in Sydney were dismissed as 'pseudoscientific' and non-expert by the authorities, in Beder, S., 1991, Controversy and closure Sydney's beaches in crisis. Social Studies of Science, 21, 249;
124. Wynne notes that objections to a oxide fuels reprocessing facility at Sellafield-Windscale were seen by the establishment as 'anti-scientific', in Wynne, B., 1992, Risk and social learning: reification to engagement. Social Theories of Risk, edited by S. Krimsky and D. Golding (Westport, CT: Praeger), pp.278-282.
125. This is also implied by Yearley, S., 1994, Understanding science from the perspective of the sociology of science: an overview. Public Understanding of Science, 3, 251, in claiming that science is often distrusted unnecessarily by its publics.
126. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p.58; emphasis in original.
127. Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p.131.
128. For example, poetry, art and living styles related to the road protests in the UK in 1994/5. Also see Welsh, I., 1995, Risk, Reflexivity and the Globalisation of Environmental Politics (Bristol: Centre for Social and Economic Research Publications, University of the West of England), p.11.
129. Michael, M., 1991, Discourses of danger and dangerous discourses: patrolling the borders of science, nature and society. Discourse and Society, 2(1), 23.
130. Barrett, S., 1991, Environmental regulation for competitive advantage. Business Strategy Review, Spring, 1-15.
131. Gummer, J., 1995, Environment Secretary, Going for Green campaign launch conference transcript, 6 February, pp.3-4.
132. Eden, S. E., 1993, Individual environmental responsibility and its role in public environmentalism. Environment and Planning A, 25, 1743-1768.
133. British Government Panel on Sustainable Development, 1995, First Report (London: Department of the Environment), p. 13.
134. O'Riordan, T., 1991, Stability and transformation in environmental government. The Political Quarterly, 62, 172, emphasis added.
135. Welsh, I, 1995, Risk, Reflexivity and the Globalisation of Environmental Politics (Bristol: Centre for Social and Economic Research, University of the West of England), p.2.
136. Further, all three elements are essential to the reconstitution of the policy regime. 'A scientized society could constitute itself as a rational one only to the extent that science and technology are mediated with the conduct of life through the minds of its citizens': see Habermas, J., 1971, Toward a Rational Society (London: Heinemann), pp.79-80.
137. Lash, S., and Wynne, B., 1992, Introduction, in Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage);
138. Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), p.56.
139. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), pp.172-173.
140. Welsh, I., 1995, Risk, Reflexivity and the Globalisation of Environmental Politics (Bristol: Centre for Social and Economic Research, University of the West of England);
141. Rustin, M., 1994, Incomplete modernity: Ulrich Beck's Risk Society. Radical Philosophy, 67 (Summer), 3-12.
142. Rustin, M., 1994, Incomplete modernity: Ulrich Beck's Risk Society. Radical Philosophy, 67 (Summer), 9-10.
143. Lash, S., and Urry, J., 1994, Economies of Signs and Space (London: Sage);
144. Lash, S., 1993, Reflexive modernization: the aesthetic dimension. Theory Culture and Society, 10, 1-23;
145. Rustin, M., 1994, Incomplete modernity: Ulrich Beck's Risk Society. Radical Philosophy, 67 (Summer), 3-12.
146. Wynne, B., 1992, Risk and social learning: reification to engagement. Social Theories of Risk, edited by S. Krimsky and D. Golding (Westport CT: Praeger), p.291.
147. This point is also made obliquely by Schwartz, M., and Thompson, M., 1990, Divided We Stand: Redefining Politics, Technology and Social Choice (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), p.29.
148. Ravetz, J. R., 1990, The Merger of Knowledge with Power (London: Mansell), p.21;
149. Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities), p.16.