Rolf Lidskog

Scientised citizens and democratised science. Re‐assessing the expert‐lay divide

During the last decade there have been growing calls for increased public inclusion in risk regulation. This paper investigates three of these proposals for a new relationship between science and the public, namely New Production of Knowledge, Postnormal Science, and Scientific Citizenship. These all concern how science can be democratised and how new relations between expertise and citizens can be negotiated and designed. By critically discussing the similarities and differences between these proposals, this paper examines the implications of the call for public inclusion in risk regulation. By way of conclusion, some warnings are raised concerning the belief in public inclusion as a cure‐all for making knowledge production and risk regulation more publicly credible and socially robust. The space created for public inclusion may work as means for legitimating decisions, diluting accountability and persuading the public, with the consequence that the expert‐lay divide may be reproduced rather than transformed.

In science we trust ? On the relation between scientific knowledge, risk consciousness and public trust

Characteristic of present-day risks is their increasing remoteness from lay peoples perception and that scientific knowledge is required to gain knowledge of them. Science can thus be seen as the primary institution entrusted with knowledge claims about risks. However, contrary to this, people in many cases seem to ignore certain environmental risks despite the existence of scientific evidence that an activity or event constitutes a risk to human health. This article critically discusses the role of scientific knowledge and experts in trust-building, and investigates factors of importance for the creation of risk consciousness as well as trust. Attitudes of trust are usually incorporated in day-to-day activities, and in many cases trust is not caused by a conscious act of commitment. Thus when experts call for drastic changes in everyday life to avoid risk exposure, people may choose to ignore the recommendations to the advantage of their routine organizing and monitoring of everyday life.

The Role of Science in Environmental Regimes: The Case of LRTAP

The aim of this article is to analyse the role of science in environmental regimes. The focus is on through which conceptual lenses social scientists should judge the role of science in this area. In answering this question, the article takes as its point of departure the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). Three key findings of SSK are central to understanding the role of science in environmental regimes, namely that knowledge never moves freely, that the value of science is the result of negotiations and that science and policy are co-produced. The usefulness and explanatory power of this perspective is illustrated by a case study of one of the most science-based regimes that exist today, the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). By way of conclusion, it is stated that science has no strength in itself but is given strength by different institutions and actors, and this has to be explained by social scientists.

Science and policy in air pollution abatement strategies

Abstract In modern society, science is considered to have a pivotal role in defining environmental risks and problems as well as proposing relevant solutions to them. However, even political action is needed, which is not the least apparent when it comes to transboundary environmental problems. Today, there is an urgent need to create ways for science and policy to co-operate to find acceptable international solutions to transboundary environmental problems. This article focuses on the relationship between science and policy within the convention on long-range transboundary air pollution (CLRTAP). The LRTAP convention is seen as one of the most science-based regimes that exist, and is considered by researchers as well as politicians an exemplary form of co-operation between science and policy. Within this convention the concept of critical loads (CL) of ecosystem and the interactive computer model of the regional acidification information system (RAINS) have served as important tools for connecting scientific knowledge to policy-making. Through an empirical investigation, the article shows that CL and RAINS have different meanings for the involved actors, which include heterogeneous views on the boundary between science and policy. However, this has not constrained but rather enabled co-operation. Through a flexible understanding of CL and RAINS, actors from different fields have been able to find and agree upon successful solutions.

On the right track? Technology, geology and society in Swedish nuclear waste management

Although many countries with nuclear power have opted for geological disposal as the ultimate solution to the problem of nuclear waste, many of them face great problems in implementing their policies. However, at the same time as the responsible agencies in many countries ponder on how to find siting strategies that are politically and publicly acceptable, Sweden has to a large degree succeeded in implementing its policy for nuclear waste management (NWM). Facilities for the final storage for low‐ and intermediate‐level waste and the interim storage for high‐level waste have been located, constructed and put into operation without any strong opposition at either national or local level. Furthermore, the work during the last decade to find a place for the final disposal of high‐level waste has also been done without any great impediments. The aim of this paper is to analyse Swedens nuclear waste management, in particular why it seems to have been so easily implemented. By a historical analysis of some formative phases in its development, it is shown that even if the development of NWM has been carried out with explicit reference to scientific findings, it is better understood as an active adaptation to demands from different stakeholders. This adaptation, however, has basically been of a strategic kind, aiming to pilot an already formulated policy rather than open it up for negotiations and substantial changes. By way of conclusion, the question is raised whether this strategy will continue to pave the way for locating the final disposal for spent nuclear fuel, or whether it will turn out to be a cul‐de‐sac.

Risk, communication and trust : towards an emotional understanding of trust

Current discussions on public trust, as well as on risk communication, have a restricted rationalistic bias in which the cognitive-reflexive aspect of trust is emphasized at the expense of its emotional aspect. This article contributes to a substantive theory of trust by exploring its emotional character. Drawing on recent discussions in science and technology studies, social psychology, and general social theory, it argues that trust is a modality of action that is relational, emotional, asymmetrical, and anticipatory. Hence, trust does not develop through information and the uptake of knowledge but through emotional involvement and sense-making. The implications of this conception of trust for public understandings of science and for risk communication are discussed.

Siting conflicts -- democratic perspectives and political implications

All citizens, irrespective of their geographical location, have a stake in the global environment. At the same time, they have different interests as well as unequal resources concerning the possibility of developing strategies and influencing environmental agendas and decisions. This forms the basis for the quest for an ecological citizenship, where people, wherever they are located in the world, have a voice in matters that concern their environment. This article takes the search for ecological citizenship as its point of departure in discussing democratic aspects of siting controversies. From a national perspective a certain plant may be seen as a necessity, whilst from a local perspective it is a disturbing nuisance. Thereby the question of spatial equity is in focus, not least to what extent and in what cases an individual person, a local community or a municipality should be subordinated to a national decision which implies local environmental consequences. The author argues that there is not only a need to create new forms of dialogue between stakeholders, but also to develop new institutions for collective decision making and mechanisms for public participation, democratic decision making and ecological responsibility.

Transboundary Risk Governance

Governing environmental risk, particularly large-scale transboundary risks associated with climate change and pollution, is one of the most pressing problems facing society.This book focuses on a set of key questions relating to environmental regulation: How are activities regulated in a fragmented world - a world of nation states, regulators, domestic and international law and political contests - and one in which a range of actors, such as governments, corporations and NGOs act in order to influence regulations in specific policy areas? How are complex and trans-boundary environmental issues managed? What role does expert knowledge play in regulating this kind of issues? What give rules authority? In short, how do actors try to render an issue governable?Drawing on regulation theory, discourse theory and science and technology studies, and employing original research, the authors analyse the regulation of four kinds of complex and trans-boundary environmental issues: oil protection in the Baltic Sea, mobile phones and radiation protection, climate change adaptation and genetically modified crops. The outcomes include insights for policymakers, regulators and researchers into how dominant frames are constructed, legitimate actors are configured and authority is established. This in turn exposes the conditions for, and possibility of, developing regulation, making authoritative rules and shaping relevant knowledge in order to govern complex environmental risks.

Representation, participation or deliberation? : Democratic responses to the environmental challenge

Abstract The environmental question poses four challenges to democracy: global justice, intergenerational justice, the value of non-human species and technocratic decision-making. This article discusses these challenges in the light of three values or dimensions of democratic theory: representativity, participation and deliberation. It is found that even, if participation and deliberation by a broad set of actors are crucial to integrate democratic decision-making and environmental concern, there is also a need for representative institutions at all levels of society. The democracy–environment relation is not just about values and ideas. It also requires global, international, regional, national and local institutions armed with power resources.

Making Transboundary Risks Governable: Reducing Complexity, Constructing Spatial Identity, and Ascribing Capabilities

Environmental problems that cross national borders are attracting increasing public and political attention; regulating them involves coordinating the goals and activities of various governments, which often presupposes simplifying and standardizing complex knowledge, and finding ways to manage uncertainty. This article explores how transboundary environmental problems are dealt with to render complex issues governable. By discussing oil pollution in the Baltic Sea and the gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, we elucidate how boundaries are negotiated to make issues governable. Three processes are found to be particularly relevant to how involved actors render complex issues governable: complexity reduction, construction of a spatial identity for an issue, and ascription of capabilities to new or old actor constellations. We conclude that such regulation is always provisional, implying that existing regulation is always open for negotiation and criticism.